You’re Programmed to Hate

The capacity to hate, like the capacity to love, is hard-wired into our brain. Instructions on how to structure neurons into specialized clusters  tasked with various functions necessary to the survival of each and every individual human being, are provided by our DNA.  Anger and affection are an expression of a programme, universal in its tendency to develop anger into hate, and affection into love.

But DNA does far more than simply determine the intensity and way that we feel. From controlling our reaction to stimuli such as aggression and reward, it also determines the way we look, and smell, the height we achieve in full adulthood, and the color and complexion of our skin. Contrary to what many wish – deoxyribonucleic acid – is the dominant factor in human intelligence. Your capacity to remember, to crunch numbers, to speak and understand, is in no small part determined by this acid.

If professor Watson’s observations on the unequal distribution of such intelligence across the races deserved an official reprimand from the scientific community – far worst is the simple fact that DNA is central to the experience of what we humans know as ethnicity and race.

Taken together, what we inherit from our ancestors is important to what we are today. It is no accident that we break down into groups based on skin-tone, facial features, anatomy, and intellectual output; rather, it is contingent, on what groups our predecessors belonged to. Where we fall today, depends in large part, where those who preceded us – fell.

If this sounds deterministic – it shouldn’t. For part of the same DNA which dictates what we look like and how we use such looks, also dictates that man be a creature of intense adaptability and neuroplasticity. This creates what philosophically may be termed as “free will”.

If there is something paradoxical about being programmed to be free – so be it. At heart, as much as we are predisposed to hating and loving, to murdering and birthing, we are also predisposed to choosing whether or not we do so, and when, how, and why.

DNA is at the heart of the human experience.  In our attempt to understand, and come to terms with the present global situation of a Crash of Races, it is the heart where we should always begin, and end.