4 ms·

True... are we not taught to NOT judge based on prejudices? There are so many stereotypes not just about women and men that is. There are also stereotypes abou

True... are we not taught to NOT judge based on prejudices? There are so many stereotypes not just about women and men that is. There are also stereotypes about Black, Latino, Asian communities etc. Sometimes they are spread by the people of these communities itself. However, its unprofessional or wrong(? for the lack of a better word) on anybody to judge them based on these stereotypes however tempting it might be, and that is what I think our education should teach us? I must admit they do make good late night comedies and hopefully nothing more!

einhverfr 15y ago
The thing is, though, we think in patterns. Patterns mean prejudices. I.e. This person like this treated me like that. This other person is also like this so he will probably treat me similarly. When you look at how people in oral cultures think (see "Orality and Literacy" by Walter Ong and "Myth and Reality" by Mircea Eliade), it is entirely in this pattern-centric approach. This means I meet you and I assess you based on how you conform to everyone else I have ever met. Maybe that's not the same as judging you, but if it isn't the difference is quite narrow. I don't think there is an easy way out of this, nor do I think that would be productive. Instead I think the correct approach is to be aware of limitations and simply allow people room to break out of one's pre-conceived assessments (prejudices). I don't think you can wave away hundreds of thousands of years of human development just because for a few centuries here and there we've had widespread literacy with a largely phonetic writing system (note that excludes Arabic and Hebrew from consideration because of a lack of vowels in how the languages are usually written).