4 ms·
I am not sure you can classify "prejudice" as biologically useful in such a general sense as to include both racism and not sticking your hand in the fire
by shadowfox 16y ago
I am not sure you can classify "prejudice" as biologically useful in such a general sense as to include both racism and not sticking your hand in the fire
- mcantor 16y agoI disagree! Prejudice is simply, "Any preconceived opinion or feeling, whether positive or negative." If we are brought up by our parents to believe that Jewish people have horns, we are prejudiced. If we stick our hand in the fire, and thus form the "cognitive shortcut" (to use kiba's extremely apt term) that fire is not something to put our extremities close to, we are prejudiced. I think I see what you are saying, and agree that it is necessary to draw distinctions between obviously biologically useful prejudices (fire hurts) and less obviously useful ones (purple people are stupid), but my point was that they are borne by the same mechanism of "educated" preconception.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- shadowfox 16y agoI am not sure you used a full definition of prejudice there. For example wikipedia defines it as : A prejudice is a prejudgement: i.e. a preconceived belief, opinion, or judgment made without ascertaining the facts of a case and wordnet as _ preconception (a partiality that prevents objective consideration of an issue or situation)* How is your definition of "prejudice" different from something simpler like "knowledge"?
- philwelch 16y agoRacism (well, tribalism) was the ancient's way of remembering to keep safe from potentially violent rival bands.