Steve Bannon is out

I agree, sort of.

The human brain will (without extensive training) always find someone to be the enemy. There’s an “us vs. them” mentality hardwired in that needs to be intentionally bypassed. Bigotry piggy-backs onto that.

So, it is an impairment/defect in the sense that it’s an irrational cognitive shortcut that probably helped our distant ancestors survive in a hunter/gatherer lifestyle but does more harm than good in modern times.

However, it’s not a defect, if you consider a defect to be something that is in the final product that wasn’t on the blueprints. The overwhelming majority of humanity has the “us vs. them” defect that serves as the basis for bigotry; if there are any exceptional people who don’t, they’re few and far-between.

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I agree, 100%, BUT the same could be said of other things, such as (the over-used analogy for many societal ills) cancer. It is built into us that our cells can copy only so many times, and that if we live long enough, that will cause us to fall apart on our own. Yet the fact that this problem is nearly universal to people does not cause it to be accepted as a necessary evil. Probably trillions of dollars worth of research into repairs and therapies is done. Probably because it is recognized as a medical, rather than purely social problem.

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