The Capacity to Hate

In fact, the capacity to hate is hard-wired into all of us. It comes from a genetic throwback to ancient times when the human brain had to quickly identify threats, but we have never learned how to switch it off.

Williams says researchers have been able to trigger the same response that kept our ancestors alive when they saw a sabre-toothed tiger in some modern volunteers simply by playing NWA’s “Straight Outta Compton” to white subjects looking at black faces.