Haidt,+Week+8

Haidt, et. al.

[Sidse] forgot to sign in and so marked my comments with my name. Oops!

7 categories of disgust elicitors: food, animals, body products, sexual deviance, body-envelope violations, poor hygiene, contact with deat.

So, basically this article is saying that disgust about social issues is a cultural extension of disgust about physical issues, but there is a common theme, even if not identical, across cultures. Right? What else is to be said?

"A mechanism is suggested whereby disgust elicitors are viewed as a prototypically defined category involving many of the embodied schemata of disgust. It is argued that each culture draw upon these schemata and its social and moral life is based on them." Okay... so, maybe. But there are endless possibilities of what the social and moral aspects of culture come from. It's all just another possibility.

Based on the "omnivore's dilemma" and the need to avoid potentially toxic food, and to avoid foods that have potentially been contaminated by something disgusting. Could be based on the potential transmittance of parasites from coming in contact with animals or "their residues". Disgust may have more social implications than simply biological survival- children do not display disgust until around age 5.
 * Core Disgust**

"one of the most widely shared features of disgusting events is that they remind us of our animal nature" - this backs up what it said in the previous section about disgust being more for social reasons... Is disgust a buffer to protect our pride as a "superior" species? "We fear recognizing our animality because we fear that, like animals, we are mortal." What I want to know is where this fear came from? If death is inevitable for everyone and we KNOW that, why are we so afraid to accept that? I (Sidse) think that while everyone dies and we know that, Haidt et al. made a comment that speaks to the issue. "In the West, meaninglessness is perhaps the greatest threat to the self." I've personally heard many people say that they are ready to go because they feel their lives had have meaning. Of course, that is simple anecdotal and from a very narrow sample, but the statement holds some water in my limited experience.
 * Elaborated disgust in the United States**

Ok, I am disgusted having to chew on this material. Honestly, I can think of far better use of my brain space & time. For the most part I try and remove prior conditioning on what is considered by others to be disgusting. It was difficult to not "take on" these concepts as my own. It can be challenging to read something and not have it permeate our consciousness. The section on Nazi literature was rather disturbing. I have never read those brain washing techniques before and I could go my whole life without knowing what god awful things they said. Do I really need that information "downloaded" into my brain; no. It is a clear choice not to have unkind thoughts spread into my brain. Words can be used as weapons and those particular words are like a virus. (note: the Nazi jargon I am referring to was from the book reading) In Blooms book, he said it is hard to read about disgust and not feel it; he's right.

[Sidse] With the narrow version of disgust as used for "core disgust" meaning to arouse nausea, the word disgust seems to be used too pervasively. If, however, the idea of disgust "as a rejection system, easily harnessed to other kinds of rejection" (p. 124) then it is easy to see how disgust goes from food to animals, body products, sexual deviance, body-envelope violations, poor hygiene, and contact with death. Disgust can serve as a protective reaction to something, it "makes us step back, push away, or otherwise draw a protective line between the self and the threat." (p. 127)

[Sidse] Also of note is the views on how disgust is developed. Lakoff's embodiment involving metaphors and pattern matching more than propositions and reasoning seemed like an argument that could have easily been made during last week's discussion on morals. (Of course it fits with both well if we are talking socio-moral disgust, but what about core disgust?)

Quotes I found most interesting ( in chapter 6 of the book): -Children are really born disgust free, and around the age of three begin to find things that are "gross" and show disgust around 5 years old. (165) One theory suggests that children develop disgust through social learning (162). -Disgust focuses on the body, not the soul (185) - Freud lumped disgust with shame and mortality which he called, "reaction formations."The reactions occur to "block out the consummation of unconscious urges." Bloom explains, "There has to be some grain of truth, because if these actions were inconceivable, there would be no need for the emotion to evolve to block them" (161) ^ I like these quotes as well, esp. the one about disgust focusing on the body and not the soul. If we assume a thing to have a soul, somehow it has more value.

Are all emotions developed socially? Disgust can't be the only emotion that is developed. And are there some that are innate: fear, happiness, frustration, maybe confusion...? Another thing I find particularly interesting is the way that we talk about our emotions: "I am so scared!" We talk about it like the emotion is permanent, at least in English. We are not the emotion, we are experiencing the emotion, but in that moment that feeling seems to be the only thing that matters. So to calm ourselves down we should say, I feel so scared. It's just a small detail about emotions I've always wondered and thought I would share! But for now, I'm definitely disgusted.