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Rauch has stated many times in his essay that his intentions of protecting incendiary speech are

noble; the purpose of protecting prejudiced ideas is to foment intellectual pluralism in society. Through

a free means of expression, through the discussion and debate of ideas, prejudiced and bigoted thought

will be marginalized and sidelined. By letting racism, sexism, homophobia, etc., be expressed freely and

confronting these with rational thought the reach of these ideas will be diminished and although they

will not be completely eradicated their number of adherents will be so small that they will be a

negligible voice in a progressive society. However, no matter well intentioned Rauch's plans are I

believe they are wrong, prejudiced ideas are irrational in their essence and cannot lend themselves to

debate, the idea that there is a tribal aspect to "human nature" is flawed, and if prejudiced thought is

allowed to be expressed freely it will multiply, no matter how many arguments are presented

discrediting such notions.

There are many types of prejudiced thought, each with its own history, aspects, and belief

systems. That is why I have chosen to focus particularly on racial prejudice. Since racism is a social

construct it is important to divide it in to its components which are ethnic and cultural prejudices and

include them in our discussion.

First, let us examine one of Rauch's main arguments a little deeper, that serves as the basis for

the rest of his subsequent arguments: human beings are tribalistic in nature, in other words they will

identify with other individuals of similar beliefs and characteristics. Rauch adds that human beings not

only have a tendency to form tribes or groups, but that they naturally pit themselves against one

another; that the concept of "us vs. them" is engrained in to the very fabric of what it means to be

human. In essence it is human nature to hold others in ill regard. To examine this question further we

must first address the question of human nature. Human nature can be vulgarly defined as the

biological characteristics that drive human behavior that are shared among all humans regardless of

their societal conditions. Upon pondering on this question one must ask: does human nature evenexist? If so, does "tribalism", as defined by Rauch, form part of it?

The answer to these questions is more complex than a simple yes or no answer. According to

anthropologist Marshall Sahlins there are broad biological parameters in which human behavior can

operate, too broad to really say that a certain biological characteristic effects the way culture has

developed. Furthermore, he adds that culture is the main driving force behind most individual actions

and that cultural conditioning in most case supersedes our biological impulses (citation). In relation to

this question, what is our human nature? Is it to form separate and adversary groups? Of course not, if

so, mankind could have never built satellites, composed symphonies, or immersed itself in the joys of

quantum mechanics; not only would we be directing incendiary speech at each other, we would

probably in a perpetual state of warfare.

Our human nature, our "natural" behavioral state, is to be empathic towards one another.

According to evolutionary biologist Stephen J. Gould this is our preferred state of being:

To base daily stability on anything other than our natural geniality requires a perverted social

structure explicitly dedicated to breaking the human soul - the Auschwitz model, if you will. I am

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not, by the way, asserting that humans are either genial or aggressive by inborn biological

necessity. Obviously, both kindness and violence lie within the bounds of our nature because we

perpetuate both, in spades. I only advance a structural claim that social stability rules nearly all

the time and must be based on an overwhelmingly predominant (but tragically ignored)

frequency of genial acts, and that geniality is therefore our usual and preferred response nearly

all the time (citation).

It is this geniality that has allowed humankind to build society. By summarizing the points

made by both Sahlins and Gould one could say that it is cultural conditioning that really

determines the behavioral nature of human beings, and that our default nature is to genial not

adversarial. The statements made by these two experts in their field completely contradict

Rauch's point view regarding human nature.