the.com/disgust
the bodyguard of your gut, slamming the door before poison gets past your lips
means A strong feeling of revulsion or distaste toward something offensive, sickening, or morally repugnant.
from From French 'desgouster' — built from 'des-' (un-, away) plus 'gouster,' to taste, which traces back to Latin 'gustare,' to taste. So at its root, disgust is literally an 'un-tasting' — the tongue's hard no, later promoted to cover anything that turns the stomach, moral or otherwise. Same Latin 'gustare' gives us 'gusto' and 'gustatory.'
- face is universal
- Wrinkled nose, curled lip read across all cultures
- moral spillover
- Bad smells make people judge crimes more harshly
- contagious
- Just watching others gag can trigger your own
- evolutionary origin
- Likely evolved from rejecting rotten, toxic food
- slow to fade
- One contaminated touch ruins the whole object forever
the human gag reflex — triggers in ~99% of humans when exposed to feces, rotten food, or parasites
durian fruit — banned on public transit in singapore and malaysia due to overwhelming putrid smell
the uncanny valley effect — documented visceral disgust response when robots/cgi approach but don't match human appearance