While reading The House of the Scorpion the reader sees that this book’s moral dilemma is being hated because he is different. The House of the Scorpion is about a boy clone named Matteo Alacran. In the book Matt faces numerous issues in his life do to the fact that he’s a clone. People have a hatred feeling because either cultural, religion, ignorance, skin color, uniqueness or reputation of others. Cultural can be for many reason such anti-Semitism in Europe. Religion can be seen in the Middle East; specifically, near Israel where the Jewish people are in danger everyday do to prejudice radical Islamic followers.
Ignorance is a major factor, by the lack of knowledge of something can cause fear or hate towards that person or thing. Skin tone is another big one, many people can relate to this around the world. Uniqueness is also another factor because if something is unique than its different puts fear in the mind. Reputation factors in people assuming something because what someone or something did in the past. Which pulls us back to the first factor cultural. Anti-Semitism in Europe is a great example because Jewish people have suffered in many ways on that continent. On history. om it says “Anti-Semitism in Europe did not begin with Adolf Hitler. ” (history. com).
Evidence of AntiSemitism in Europe can be seen during the Roman Empire. Roman authorities destroyed Jewish temples in Jerusalem and were forced out of Palestine. Things only got worse for the Jews when Christianity became the empires main religion. They were forced to practice their religion in secrecy. That brings up the next factor religion. This can be seen in the Middle East. In the Middle East today there is constant violence because two religions claim the same land to be a secrete place in their eligion. These two religions are Islam and Judaism.
There have been at constant violence and wars because of this. One was the Suez war in which resulted in Israel to take control of the Suez Canal, but didn’t last long because U. S. and U. S. S. R reasons. Now there are tons of this could’ve been avoided but not we go on to ignorance. Ignorance is big factor. Most people show fear or hatred towards something due to the fact that they just don’t understand it. Some examples are from the middle age. During the midd ddle age if people came across an intelligent woman they assumed she was a witch.
Now clearly that’s not true because witches aren’t real. This showing the lack of intelligent of people sometimes can cause fear. Skin tone is big because this has been around for all mankind. People have always showed a fear or hatred towards a person with a different skin color than them. For example, in New York University psychologist Elizabeth Phelps and her colleagues exposed “black subjects and white subjects to pictures of both black and white faces, first in conjunction with a mild electric shock and then without the shock.
And the results showed “Once the shock was gone, the volunteers’ fear reactions, as measured by electrical reactions in the skin, soon disappeared when exposed to pictures of their own race, but remained to a limited extent when exposed to pictures of the opposite race. ” (BalterApr. 12, 2010) This evidence shows that people pre judge someone based on skin color. This now sends us to uniqueness. Uniqueness means the only specimen of a given kind. When something gives a unique feeling people tend to hold it to higher value, except when it comes to people.
If someone is considered unique people tend to get jealous and view them as a nonentity. People get this feeling of jealousy because they’re not unique and there for feel no one should. Referring back to the book “You idiot! You need a vet for this little beast” (farmer 44) referring to matt as a beast and labels him less than a human. This evidence shows hatred because matt is a clone and isn’t thought of as a person. This now bring us to reputation. Reputation is big factor because people base thing on what people have done in the past.
For example, in America today people assume just because a few blacks have gone jail for selling drugs or being involved with gangs that people assume that most black people either come from or live in ghettos or slums. Evidence shows that people feel more comfortable with people of lighter complexion because of the world today and studies show it “The control group demonstrated racial stereotyping by assigning negative qualities to dark-skinned individuals on an average of 83% of their responses” (BalterApr. 2, 2010).
This evidence helps prove that people base people on racial stereotypes before even knowing them. If these 6 factors weren’t enough to convince you well think about these situations with family and friends. What if you best friend had a cultural back ground from you or they were darker than you or if their ethnic group has a notorious history? Would you just stop being friends with them because of these reason?
