Nestor_Kelebay
Emperor Penguin
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2009
- Messages
- 1,844
- Reaction score
- 5
I've always believed in evolution, and it seems obvious to me that direct personal experience is Mother Nature's best teacher. When a calf gets a shock from an electric fence, it remembers never to go near any fence that looks like that again.
Prejudice is one of the strongest personal opinions we have. But, it's not possible to become prejudice against a recognizable group without direct personal experience. No matter how many negative things we hear or read about a certain group of people, we always temper our opinion with the knowledge that we don't have any direct personal experience to go by, and so we never actually formulate strong personal opinions until we have that direct personal experience.
So, (and I know people are prolly gonna bark at me for saying this), I believe that there is always some degree of truth in a stereotype. That is, if a large group of people are prejudice, then I say the only way they could have gotten that way is if each one had direct personal experience that made him/her that way. And, I say that because the alternative is to say that thousands of otherwise sane and responsible people are behaving totally irrationally.
So, I'm not saying I'm prejudice myself. But what I am saying is that if I know that there is a large percentage of the population that is prejudice against a particular group, I don't dismiss it because to do so is to say that these otherwise normal level headed people are all behaving irrationally on only one subject, and that just doesn't happen. I find that it's more probable that each of those people had sufficient personal experience with that group to have formed a negative opinion on their own.
So, let people bark at me. I simply find that the above makes far more sense than to claim that "prejudice" people behave perfectly rationally in every other aspects of their lives, but suddenly behave irrationally when it comes to his one particular group. That doesn't make as much sense to me as believing that those people all became prejudice because of their personal experiences.
And, I guess that's because I believe that studying the differences between the various human races is a legitimate scientific endeavor. Unless and until we do that, we're gonna keep saying that we're all born equal and that we are made into who we become by the environment we grow up in. Environment may play a role, but unless and until we look at this scientifically, we don't know how much of a role.
I refuse to believe that a chihuahua dog will grow into a great dane if raised in a sufficiently nurturing environment. I find it more sensible to believe that there are important differences in the DNA of the chihuahua and the great dane that account for their different growth cycles. However, as soon as we start looking at people through the same lens, then the crys of "Racism" start. I feel that unless and until we study people scientifically, then to say we're all the same is just playing the ostrich. We don't want to know the truth. And, so my response to the cry of "You're a Racist!" is "You're an Ostrich!. Keep your head in the sand!"
Prejudice is one of the strongest personal opinions we have. But, it's not possible to become prejudice against a recognizable group without direct personal experience. No matter how many negative things we hear or read about a certain group of people, we always temper our opinion with the knowledge that we don't have any direct personal experience to go by, and so we never actually formulate strong personal opinions until we have that direct personal experience.
So, (and I know people are prolly gonna bark at me for saying this), I believe that there is always some degree of truth in a stereotype. That is, if a large group of people are prejudice, then I say the only way they could have gotten that way is if each one had direct personal experience that made him/her that way. And, I say that because the alternative is to say that thousands of otherwise sane and responsible people are behaving totally irrationally.
So, I'm not saying I'm prejudice myself. But what I am saying is that if I know that there is a large percentage of the population that is prejudice against a particular group, I don't dismiss it because to do so is to say that these otherwise normal level headed people are all behaving irrationally on only one subject, and that just doesn't happen. I find that it's more probable that each of those people had sufficient personal experience with that group to have formed a negative opinion on their own.
So, let people bark at me. I simply find that the above makes far more sense than to claim that "prejudice" people behave perfectly rationally in every other aspects of their lives, but suddenly behave irrationally when it comes to his one particular group. That doesn't make as much sense to me as believing that those people all became prejudice because of their personal experiences.
And, I guess that's because I believe that studying the differences between the various human races is a legitimate scientific endeavor. Unless and until we do that, we're gonna keep saying that we're all born equal and that we are made into who we become by the environment we grow up in. Environment may play a role, but unless and until we look at this scientifically, we don't know how much of a role.
I refuse to believe that a chihuahua dog will grow into a great dane if raised in a sufficiently nurturing environment. I find it more sensible to believe that there are important differences in the DNA of the chihuahua and the great dane that account for their different growth cycles. However, as soon as we start looking at people through the same lens, then the crys of "Racism" start. I feel that unless and until we study people scientifically, then to say we're all the same is just playing the ostrich. We don't want to know the truth. And, so my response to the cry of "You're a Racist!" is "You're an Ostrich!. Keep your head in the sand!"