One of the most powerful emotions is disgust. Best exemplified by the words "Eww" and "Yuck". Paul Ekman calls it one of the universal emotions, an emotion he has found in every culture. Even babies, pre-language, have a "yuck" look on their face.
So, in a sense, having the yuck emotion is unavoidable. If we are human, we will meet with situations that are yuck.
And yuck is closely related to aversion. Aversion, being the situation of "I don't want it" and "get away from it" and "go away". Yuck fits all these things.
But, there's then a paradox. The Buddha said there was a way to end greed, aversion/anger, and delusion (GAD).
It turns out that it is possible to get rid of the feeding of aversion and anger. And that is the most essential part of the trick. When we are being stung by bees, it is a normal human reaction to want it to stop. Go away! But we don't have to make a big story about it.
Eww and Yuck are more dangerous than just feeding on it. It creates dangerous patterns, both interpersonally and in ourselves. It perpetuates patterns of harm to ourselves and to others.
Yuck and Other People
When we say "yuck" when around other people, we are making a very bold statement. We are saying, "I do not like this at all." And, in social situations, we are often also saying, "And nobody should like this. An interesting situation is when we say yuck to someone else's clothing. This is very common for teens and pre-teens. This is when we start policing each other. We try to establish norms of cool. And then create hierarchies. At least, this is the typical way things happen in US schools. If you have an ugly sweater or an unfashionable haircut, that is when some bullying person will say yuck, either to your fae or behind your back. And, all around, it creates a sense of "othering", i.e. dismissing people as not belonging to the group. If this is said to your face, it is meant to hurt you directly. And, if you care, and most kids and adults do care, the hurt lands and lingers. Deep. Because we all know that fundamental feeling of disgust. Like when we taste something that is bitter or rotten. So, when other people say yuck to our face, it's like they are equating us with rotten food. Yuck. Disgusting. How could anyone like that.
When it isn't said to our face, it creates this complicated dance. We don't know this person has it out for us. And we don't know who else has it out for us. And, when our friends are told "yuck", there is a danger that they will be persuaded and torn. They may like us and want to hang with us. But they may also want to hang with the person who "yucked" us. And, that person, often a cooler bully, is trying to draw lines in the sand. And there are many many lines in the sand. In a rational world, people might realize the destructiveness of the bully and try to have a new way without yuck. But this usually doesn't work. The yuck-meister spreads these mines all over the place, and they, for some reason, hold some great power over other people. Other people want this person's approval. They want to not be "yucked" by the yuck-meister.
It is possible that the bully is so toxic that they get removed from their place of power. But, in most situations I've seen, there is just another form of yuck-bullying that appears. So, the emotional content and the minefields are still there, just the content differs. So, if we overthrow the yuck-meister who likes to be mean, that's often replaced by a "yuck" reaction to meanness. This can be helpful, as people stop being mean. But then the meanness police gets very zealous, and they start overapplying their yuck reaction. There is a way to discourage meanness without using a public-yucking reaction. The buddha seems to me to have pointed it out. Look. Reflect. See the drawbacks and dangers. And, in your own heart, use yuck to get away from that unskillful yuck reaction. Yes, we can skillfully use the yuck on yuck itself. But, at some point, there is still stress there. We have to realize that we have to find something besides yucking on yuck. That something is the release from yucking entirely, the release from needing to feed that yuck.
Importantly, there is almost no usefulness to public declarations of yuck. That public shaming usually just digs some people in or takes them into a shame spiral. An exception is if someone is very advanced but has a blind spot. In that case, some public yucking can help snap them out of it. But this is VERY rare, because most people are too defensive. Also, most of us can't "yuck" with helpful intent. We do it incredibly quickly, as quickly as a knee-jerking reaction. And then it travels out our mouths, creating an intent which is to make the other person GO THE FUCK AWAY!!!!!
Ewww and Ourselves
We can say Ewww, quietly to ourselves. Importantly, it's not only the words we need to keep silent. We need to also keep quiet the facial expressions and nonverbal communications. We have to really keep it to ourselves. We usually can't stop the facial expressions (see Ekman), but we can separate ourselves from others, or cover our face, or turn away.
When we are able to do that, we have made a big step. We've chosen to be harmless to others.
But what about harmlessness to ourselves?
Well, the Ewww reaction is tricky in that there is a lot of feeding. "Ewww" demands to be right. It seems to proclaim, "I know what is disgusting. And THIS. IS. DISGUSTING." It's the internal bully. And when it comes out, we can become the bully, taking it as our primary perspective. It is a very powerful perspective. When someone is really captured by the Ewww response, it's usually not useful at all to try to communicate with them. It's usually impossible to get them to see something besides their Ewww.
But, it can be done. Importantly, it can only be done with the cooperation of the person (or the person's "control tower" to use Gil Fronsdal/Thanissaro Bhikkhu terminology). If the person really wants to, and often it's because they are curious or willing to investigate the possibility that it is unskillful, then they can start to see it. Importantly, again, they can't skip the initial step which is just to be aware of the Ewww and get to really know it. That is, they can't go straight to smash/squashing it. Because, that doesn't work in the long run. The trouble is that it can work in the short run, via sheer force of will. But, doing so just papers over it. It doesn't address the underlying cause.
So, Ewww is something to be worked with. Something not to be fed. Something we can watch arise and pass away. And then something we can watch for the causes of the Ewww. I'm not talking about the disgusting fashion/haircut/food. I'm talking about our worldview and the ignorance at the heart. The part of us that feels there is a big self to protect. Who picks a fight with the fashion/haircut/food. Who then feeds the Ewww. And feeds the identity of Ewww. And the identifying with Ewww.
Examples
My sister is very good at "Ewww". She said it once with regards to camping. She has said it regards to my life choices. We have a famous fight about cheese. I find it very unskillful how quickly she could make it personal. And, as I wrote above, it's impossible to get someone to reflect on the Ewww unless they really want to.
I see it often with teenagers in high school.
I see it often with adults who think they are right. There is an "Yuck" or "Ewww" applied to poor people. Or people who are different. To kimchi (which is delicious IMHO). Or to people who dislike kimchi (who are obviously idiots, yuck!).
What's the instead/opposite of Ewww/Yuck? It's silly in how simple it is. It's the ability to say "I don't like this" without investing in it. In particular, one might say, "Look! There is a me that doesn't like this. How interesting." As Ruth King says it, don't take your feelings/preferences personally. As Gil Fronsdal says it, get curious about the negative emotions, rather than pushing them away.
NOTE: Yuck and Ewww aren't different feelings in the mind. When I'm alone, they can both appear. When I'm with others, Ewww can be just as othering. I just chose them as words so I could easily distinguish between an interpersonal disgust (Yuck) and an intrapersonal disgust (Ewww). By all means, pick your own words.
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