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Natalie Angier and Jonathan Weiner

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John McCain's "Other" Problem

By Natalie Angier
Posted Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2000, at 10:22 AM ET

Jonathan,

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You talk about innate responses, and trying to figure out what's instinct and what's outstinct, if you will, so here's an interesting example in the news: xenophobia. John McCain is denounced by the Vietnamese ambassador for referring to the Vietnamese as "gooks." (What an ugly word; where did it come from?) Yesterday, McCain refused to apologize. Yes, he called them gooks, and he'll always call them gooks, he said. After all, the Vietnamese tortured him for years when he was a prisoner of war, kept him in one of those little hanging cages. So in a sense you can understand his bigotry; and if he hadn't been a prisoner of war, a war hero--our nation's most sacred profession--there would be a lot less public tolerance of his use of what is normally considered a highly offensive racial slur. So there are two interesting issues here, one political/social and one possibly evolutionary--the first, who is "entitled" to their bigotry? Can we ever blame a holocaust survivor for hating the Germans? What about the child of a survivor, or the grandchild? If McCain's wife called the Vietnamese "gooks," would that be OK? When do we see bigotry and xenophobia as justifiable?

Which brings me to my second point, our tribal legacy and the astonishing ease with which we schematize and categorize strangers, those who are not-us. A prejudice, like a bad habit, is very easy to adopt and, once absorbed, extraordinarily difficult to shake. And though we decry the bigotries of others, our own always strike us as entirely rational and evidence-based. "Isn't homophobia terrible? And aren't Chinese women terrible drivers?" etc. Art Spiegelman captured that brilliantly in Maus, in his portrayal of his father, who, persecuted though he'd been just for being a Jew, still called blacks "schvartzes." For most of prehistory, I imagine--and I say imagine because who knows what our mythic "environment of evolutionary adaptedness" or "environment of evolutionary relevance" looked like?--the second greatest threat to one's survival, after lack of food, was the Other, competing hominid groups, the stranger coming to town. Your safest bet: hate first, and ask questions later. The best way to stop hating the Other, of course, is to transform the Other into one of Us. So maybe McCain should adopt a Vietnamese kid.

Natalie