WHY ARE PEOPLE PREJUDICE???
Question answered by honorarykid in Scientology
QQANGEL asked this question on 10/1/2000:
I AM ONLY 15 YEARS OLD, BUT I WANT TO UNDERSTAND WHY
ARE PEOPLE PREJUDICE, AREN'T EVERYONE SOULD BE EQUAL????
PLEASE GIVE ME SOME EXAMPLE,AND YOUR OPINION TOWARD
THIS SUBJECT, I NEED TO WRITE A PAPER ON THIS TOPIC,
THANKS...
honorarykid gave this response on 10/1/2000:
I'm loathe to do your homework for you. Your question is an
interesting one, and because it ties in to the subject matter
at hand, Scientology, I'll give you my opinion.
Please, write your own paper, okay? Don't just copy down my
opinion and pretend it's yours. As an adult (which you will be
VERY shortly) you will need to be able to judge and
synthesize and form your own opinions. There's no time like
the present to begin practicing to think for yourself.
Also, before I answer, let me nitpick a bit. Turn off your
CAPSLOCK key. Type in combined upper and lower cases,
with proper capitalization of your sentences. That makes
your paper easier to read. Second, make an effort to spell
correctly, especially in the words you're exploring. Prejudice
is a noun, and prejudiced is an adjective. Don't mix up the
two forms, or you'll be proving to your teacher that you
aren't really grasping the topic.
I don't believe we are born with prejudices (noun). I think we
become prejudiced (adjective) because we are taught to be.
Prejudices are not a bad thing, a priori[1]. Prejudices help us
learn and thereby help us avoid the repetition of mistakes.
The word prejudice itself comes from the word "prejudge." To
prejudge something implies that you see a situation and you
already know something about it, because of it's similarities
to your past experiences and learning. Prejudices can help
you know (or think you know) how to respond to the new
situation, based on those similarities. And, for the most part,
that's a good thing.
In our hugely complex, highly specialized civilization, we
cannot each go out and verify every single scrap of
information and premise with which we're faced. We just
don't have the time. But luckily, the human mind has a very
slick and handy ability to recognize patterns, to equate new
situations with past experiences. In this way, we learn that
steam rising is hot, so don't touch the stove underneath the
kettle, and all manner of similar, helpful and useful things.
Where our pattern recognition isn't perhaps as helpful, or
where it even turns distructive, is when the pattern and the
thing being associated with it aren't actually connected.
Prejudice becomes harmful, when our beliefs and recognitions
are not in line with reality, or when our learning is based upon
false information.
For example, as a Caucasion person, if I learn that another
person's skin color causes them to be bad and violent, that's
simply a lie.
If I believe that, when I see people who don't look like me, I
live in fear, and I might seek to oppress such people. My
actions based on my own ignorant prejudices have the
potential to harm every person of color who does not fit the
false pattern I have been taught. This is prejudice at it's
most distructive.
When black people were owned and kept as slaves in the
U.S., all manner of lies were told to the whites in order to
promote false stereotypes and prejudices. Blacks were too
stupid to read, it was alleged. They were akin to dumb
animals and cattle. They had no souls. And this was all
taught, in spite of the fact most people understood that
Black people could learn to read just fine.
They also knew it was (conveniently, for slave owners) a
crime to teach a slave how to read.
Ironically, near the end of the American Civil War, in 1865,
the Commanding General of the Southern armies, Robert E.
Lee, requested that slaves be organized into combat units in
order to offset manpower shortages in the army. The
Southern Legislature agreed! This was a very shocking
development for many whites who had, up until that time,
been comfortable with their false sense of superiority.
One Southern politician rhetorically asked something to the
effect "if Negros make good soldiers, then aren't we just
proving that the cause we've been fighting for and shed so
much blood for, has been a lie?" That's a good question, don't
you think?
We learn our prejudices from our experiences, and from our
parents, churches, schools and even our governments. During
WWII, the U.S. government promoted horribly false and base
stereotyping of Japanese people. This was seen as justifiable,
because we were at war, and the military effort to defeat
Japan was aided by irrational fervency and hatred of the
"Japs." Many Germans were inculcated by their fascist
government with an irrational view of the Jews which led to
the slaughter of millions.
Sometimes we learn predujices from experiences which might
be accurate and true within an isolated locale, but which we
then scale up into generalizations. But those generalizations
are false, and promote policy which then creates a
self-fulfilling prophesy.
But to scale that fear up to indict all black people is
ridiculous.
Finally, because this forum is about Scientology, I will also
talk about a few of the inculcated and irrational prejudices of
Scientolgists.
To L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology,
enemies abounded. Psychiatrists, space aliens, English
bankers, secret conspiracist, so-called "suppressive persons",
and even Scientologists themselves, all were potential
threats to his paranoid way of thinking.
So, because Hubbard perceived so many as enemies,
Scientology evolved to include his bizarre world view, which
is formally inculcated into the minds of his followers. So now
Scientologists are irrationally prejudiced against many, many
groups of people, and even more amazing, they even distrust
each other. The have a system of tattling on each other, and
on themselves, call "knowledge reports" which are written up
and turned in to Church superiors. And every so often, the
members are forced to take a very coercive grilling session,
called a "security check" or "sec-check." This insures their
continued loyalty, and proves that since the last time, they
have not become a threat to the Church.
When this sort of reality exists, the members cannot really
rely on each other with trust and friendship. They continually
have to prove their loyalty. One of the ways they prove their
loyalty is to "strike a blow" against the churches enemies,
which ends up making people angry, and which can easily
generate real enemies.
Scientologists are taught to be this way, and they have
accepted that teaching. They have been taught to be
prejudiced, irrationally.
But it's important not to fall into the same trap as a political
opponent of such a system. I realize that we can all learn
irrational prejudices so very easily, simply by accepting things
on faith, by not demanding that claims be supported by
evidence, by extrapolating from inadequate date, from
repetition, from coercion, from emotional grasping, and
especially from accepting without question, the things our
parents teach us.
[1] - a priori is a latin phrase, which, in this sentence means
"assumed to be true, prior to any examining or testing"
honorarykid gave this follow-up answer on 10/1/2000:
I apologize for an editing error, above. My answer was over
the size limit, so I trimmed a few sections, leaving this
sentence alone, without it's context:
"But to scale that fear up to indict all black people is
ridiculous"
I was trying to explain the fallicy of scaling up of what, in a
limited locale, might be an appropriate generization.
If one were a white person, who found himself surrounded by
hostile "Bloods" and "Crips" gang members, it would be
rational and reasonable to fear these angry young black men.
But to scale that fear up and then indict all black people as
violent, is ridiculous."
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