We sometimes desire to be in a natural disaster, such as a tsunami or tornado, just for the experience. We look at the edge of the highway when an accident has happened, with just a sliver of hope to see a dead body covered by a tarp. More rarely, we ponder what would happen if we killed someone. Are these thoughts innate? A feeling we are born with? Feelings like these are acquired by experience; how we're raised and what we see in the world.
From an early age, we are taught that death and/or topics surrounding death are basically a taboo. Death is hidden in closed-casket funerals, and the van carrying a recently deceased body is unmarked. This, in my experience, has taught me to be morbidly curious about death. When I entered a hospital, the idea of death scared me, but in a macabre way drew me in. This shows that this feeling of morbid curiosity is not innate.
On the other hand, cultures that are taught to embrace death view it in a different way. In Laos, cremations occur on open-air funeral pyres, not hidden from view. Children raised over there are raised around the idea of death, as they pick up the bones of their recently deceased family member. This contrasts with the American-taught notion of death in which it is hidden and almost taboo.
Some people, however, believe morbid curiosity and other ideas such as evil are innate. But, as children, people cannot grasp the concept of race; therefore prejudgment against other races does not occur. It is in the hands of the environment and people around them that racism is taught.
Ideas such as morbid curiosity and evil are, in my and others' experiences, not innate. We are taught how to think this way. If people in the United States raised their children in a way that celebrated death, or maybe did not have a racially prejudged environment, perhaps children will not see death and race in the way that Americans do today.
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