The statement - fear being with a child from birth - might need further clarification - because it is fear that keeps a child from putting its life at risk - but the fear of people not like us - the us and them mentality - which leads to racism - this fear has to be taught. You see many examples of children of different races playing together and even children of different class structures befriending each other - until their elders teach them to fear a different race or fear a different class. Children can love each other - but their parents can hate each other due to various things (the Romeo and Juliet syndrome). And the children only come to fear others, once they are taught to do so. So there are different kinds of fear - and the fear that leads to hating other races or other class structures - is a fear that needs to be taught. Where the fear that keeps us alive/physically safe is primary. So to say fear is primary, is an over simplified statement and you really need to see that there are a variety of fear types and levels. And the primary fear doesn't necessarily, by nature, lead to the more complex fears - which need to be taught. Because if you don't teach children to fear/hate other races, then they won't. Also I would say, that love for each other, can reverse fears that were taught. Through education, travel, living long term in a foreign country, volunteering and doing cultural exchange - you can teach yourself to fear less and unteach the fear of others. Take Dick Cheney as an example - he was against same sex marriage - hated the gays - saw it as a sin - then his daughter came out as a lesbian and he reversed his stance on same sex marriage. Fear of homosexualality - is taught - and love can reverse that. I don't like Dick Cheney - but even he could change - and it was the power of love that helped, that change to come about. The taught fear - is not primary and I believe/think/know that love for each other, is another primary emotion and this love for humanity (in general) can be a great teaching tool - to unteach the taught fears. And realise - if someone comes at you from a position of hate - there is a taught fear behind that hate. And you can unteach that hate. So don't see the hate as the person - the person is humanity - the hate is taught and the hate/fear is not humanity. Jihad - suicide bombers - sometimes they back out of doing the attack - because the primary fear - that wants to keep them alive - is stronger than the taught fear - the fear of the infidel. And some Jihadist have become moderates and now campaign to unteach the jihad thinking. Yet again, another example of the difference between primary fear and taught fear.
I fear the good Doctor is too into glittering generalities the first half -- but her intentions are decent enough, I suppose. I second that emotion does shape the discourse (somewhat tautological) but she is fairly one-sided in seeing irrationality. To take one of several examples... In this speech she never considers immigration as a policy question qua policy, but only as an emotional instrument that could be abused by a demagogue. It is surely not Dr. Nussbaum's opinion that there should be no limit to immigration.... right? But once you grant that, there is a simple question of what is the effectively acceptable yearly rate, and the citation of emotions on either side answers very little.
I am disappointed. I respect MN's technical work in philosophy and was expecting something good from this, but this is just a useless regurgitation of the banal, a commercial use of the current political moment for selfish gain, without showing a deep understanding of it. The discourse is both harmless and toothless. Boo.
Narcissistic drivel. "Do you want to hear my fictional dialogue, where I enlighten my interlocutor with tired cliches?" Yeah, and he's so impressed. An adolescent fantasy. But I'm only fifteen minutes in.
