Editorial | Hate is not inherent, it is taught

It shouldn’t have to be said that the default setting for a human being is anti-Nazi. 

It is anti-slavery, anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-homophobia, et cetera. 

No one is intrinsically hateful. It is a learned action. No one is born to look at another human being and feel intense vitriol and loathing, like you are better than them for some characteristic that neither you nor they have any control over.

The inherent human condition is to be kind.

And yet, in the 21st century, it seems as if we have to spell it out for people. Topics that should never be a debate suddenly have an awful lot of gray to them. Facts are ignored simply to fuel heinousness.

We are not just saying this from a biased perspective, as an editorial board whose beliefs in kindness and inclusivity trump hatred but also from one rooted in science and empirical research — the very same kind of research our own university seeks to instill the importance in. The same kind that is now up for defunding.

Psychological research overwhelmingly supports the idea that hatred is learned, not innate. Studies in developmental psychology show that infants as young as 13 months demonstrate a preference for fairness and cooperation over discrimination. The famous Robbers Cave Experiment illustrates how group-based prejudice is artificially created through competition and dismantled through cooperation. Implicit bias research reveals that societal conditioning shapes prejudice over time, reinforcing the idea that hate is not an instinct but a learned response to cultural and environmental influences. In Psychology 0010, a class that most students at the University of Pittsburgh take, you learn about the Bobo Doll Experiment where children learn aggressive, mean and hateful behavior only after watching someone else act in that way.

Science agrees, and we agree with it — hatred is not an instinct, it is a construction. 

It is a slow and deliberate breeding of prejudice reinforced by the environment, media and those in positions of power. It is the casual remarks of a parent, the online echo chambers of misinformation and the president of a country and those he surrounds himself with fearmongering and empowering hateful individuals time and time again.

We do not find it necessary or deserving to spare yet another headline on a loathsome man who decided to sell Nazi merch on the internet. Yet, we would not be doing our due diligence as journalists if we ignored the broader implications of his actions — the normalization of hate, the erosion of historical memory and the ever-growing comfort with bigotry in America.

If we fail to call out hatred for what it is — an insidious, learned disease rather than an inherent truth — we risk allowing it to fester unchecked, masquerading as just another perspective rather than the moral failure that it is.

The Pitt News editorial is a weekly article written by the opinions editors in collaboration with all other desk editors. It reflects the collective opinion of the current Pitt News editorial staff.