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I think the point is how much does the behavior of one American tell us about how a second, separate American, will behave? On an individual level, not a lot.
by welanes 10y ago
I think the point is how much does the behavior of one American tell us about how a second, separate American, will behave?
On an individual level, not a lot. So it would be lazy to bake-in prejudice based on a single bad experience.
At the same time, prejudices (pre-judgements) of particular populations is common sense and statistically logical. For example, from a random pool of 1000 Swedes and 1000 Saudis you could guess with a fair deal of confidence which group has the more enlightened view on women's rights.
An interesting topic that tends to result in well reasoned, respectful, and enlightened points of view. /s
- ralfd 10y agoBut you don't go around and think "this is an American" and "oh, here is another American, she will act the same as the guy before". Instead your internal heuristics notice more markers like age, gender, clothing, dialect, socio-economic status and class. An older person in a suit will be approached differently by you than a drunk redneck/ghettokid/punk/hells angels, even when they are the same ethnicity.