Hating it? FIU professor explains origin of intensely disliking
MIAMI - Hate is a word you hear a lot these days. There is hate mail, hate crimes, hate groups, hate in the Middle East.
So, where does hate come from? Comes right out of your head, the deepest and oldest part of your brain says, Dr Eugenio Rothe told us, "They say it all goes back to our Stone Age brain."
Dr. Rothe is an FIU professor and psychiatry specialist. He says hate is a wired in ancient Stone Age behavior.
"That's where the emotional brain developed at the time we were living in groups of 30-40 people. In those days, so long ago, group protection was paramount. The fear of rival groups vying for turf, food, women, was ongoing."
According to Dr. Rothe, "The human brain at this time in our history developed to be distrustful of anyone who looks different from us and automatically assumes they are our enemy."
So, our brains have been producing distrust and hate as far back as 150,000 years.
When you look at the human brain, there is the neocortex-the thinking brain, the limbic brain, the emotional brain and the reptilian brain (the instinctual brain).
Hate comes from, according to Dr. Rothe, the middle portion of the brain that can overpower the thinking brain. The feeling brain is a million years older than the thinking brain. Dr. Rothe says, "The emotional brain has much more power."
So, despite learned behavior like right from wrong, just or unjust, common courtesy, hate seeps through.
Dr. Rothe says, "Those primitive instincts that are hardwired into the older part of our brain may not make sense in today's world or circumstances."