MikeBGene@aol.com writes
in message <fb.3017e40.25f7c02e@aol.com>:
<snip>
> Now, until we being to explore homophobia without the
> filters of preconceived political agendas, we have no way
> of knowing if such education would be universally effective.
> It may be effective against the least dangerous of homophobics
> and have no effect on the hard-core homophobics. My feeling
> is that education would be effective only to a certain extent
> (as is the case with all education and human behavior).
>
> Let's bring this all back to the topic of this board. You
> mentioned I was engaged in parody, and bascically, you are right.
> But it's not pure parody. A Darwinian explanation for homophobia
> makes about as much sense as any other Darwinian explanation
> for human behavior. In fact, homophobia seems to make more
> sense in light of natural selection than homosexuality. Now
> that some darwinists have broken through to explore the biological
> basis for rape, perhaps soon homophobia will be explored. Then,
> maybe that education will have to include some science and teach
> young boys that many of them were born to be homophobes. But
> the notion that education is going to erase millions of years
> of programming by natural selection is stretching it. Or, on
> the other hand, it assumes there is something quite special
> about the human mind.
Given that we can already observe that biological tendencies
such as xenophobia are successfully treated by education (note
declines in racism, for example) we can conclude that, indeed,
the human mind is often capable of overriding certain biological
programming.
I agree, though, with Cliff's observation that there is probably
more to homophobia than xenophobia. However, what ties all of
this in to education is the fact that homophobia is fundamentally
irrational. Every fear that defines homophobia is ungrounded.
Education is usually highly effective in treating irrational fears.
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