Why Predudices are so dangerous?

[Shantanu]

Sorry to butt in here. I do think that God loves you, in my way of thinking In fact He tells me that His love for you is the reason He created you, but if you don’t get any comfort from that, I won’t blame you. There have been plenty of times when I didn’t get any comfort from it either, and I won’t try to make excuses for His ways of doing things, which don’t always make any more sense to me than they do to anyone else.

So we should worship God (pay devotional reverences) and pray to Him for good things to happen to us. What if we do not get good things? Do we still sing songs of praises to God for creating us?

 

[Vinayaka]

It sounds to me like you're using an uncommon definition of the word. Several governments had anti-Hitler opinions but those opinions were based on evidence.

(oxford)
prejudice....Preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.

Just a strong example to make a point that it's not all that simple. A much more common prejudice is gender prejudice. The 'old boys club' will be defended as rational by many, in religion, in politics, in corporations. Others would see no reason for it.

 

[Jim]

@Tony Bristow-Stagg As I understand it, your intentions for the topic of this thread were for it to be about people feeling alienated from each other, and with their hearts hardened against each other, over lines they draw between themselves and others, and what to do about that. Am I understanding that right?

 

[wellwisher]

Prejudice uses a semi-logical thought procedure that is similar to the statistical and empirical methods used by science. For example, in NYC, super sized soft drinks were banned because these increased the risk of obesity.

Although the correlation of large soft drinks and obesity does occur for some people, this correlation does not apply to all. We can also find thin people who drank those drinks. Nevertheless, everyone is treated, by the ban, as though this correlation applies to all. This is how prejudice works.

The reason this form of prejudice occurs is due to applying logic to data points; statistical conclusions, that are not really points, but rather are more like large fuzzy statistical balls.

If we a draw a curve through two tiny points, we will get a very distinct line with a very specific slope. If we draw a curve through 2 large fuzzy balls, we can draw a more than one curve with different angles, since the large fuzzy balls are not points, but rather have statistical volume. This statistical volume, allows one to use logic, with odd angles, since even those curves can still touch two large fuzzy dice.

Prejudice against race, starts with certain stereotypes, that are based on some individual data. The stereotype does not treated this isolated data a distinct data points; specific to a few bad apples, but as statistical data balls with greater volume; applies to all. This allows us to use a biased curve, that touches the large data balls, in ways that it could not touch distinct data points.

Cigarettes cause cancer. This is true in many cases, but not in all cases. One can find exceptions. Yet, we will use the fuzzy dice prejudice data strategy, until a stereotype is assumed and is applied to all. It is hard to get rid of prejudice, when culture creates mixed signals in terms of the procedure.

The second half of the prejudice affect is connected to emotional thinking. This is where emotions become the fuel for thought. Fear and/or hate are the most common fuel for thought behind prejudice. When memory is created, emotional tags are added to the sensory content, when the memory is written to the cerebral matter. Our memories have both sensory content, as well as an emotional valance.

Since there are a limited number of emotions, used in the tagging and writing process, the emotional tags are recycled and will be used again and again for similar situations. For example, if you feel hungry, images of food will appear in the imagination based on your memory. Each data was tagged with the hunger tag. The hunger feeling narrows down our entire memory, to just those memories with the hunger tag. Our memory is written in layers, with each layer associated with a specific emotional tag. This layering of memory, allows us to focus on a narrow data layer, while being able to use the entire brain.

As an analogy, say our entire memory is like a white piece of paper with red and blue dots. The operating emotion is like putting in red sunglasses and looking at the paper with the dots. The red dots will disappear because of the red filter, and only the blue dots will be seen, but they will appear purple due to the red colored glasses. This layer is active.

In terms of prejudice, emotional thinking, by starting with an emotion, narrows down our the memory to a layer; red sunglasses affect. This makes the large fuzzy balls, appear sharper and/or come to focus, so the correlation seems valid based on that memory layer. The colored glasses, by narrowing down our entire memory to a layer eliminates much of the large fuzzy ball. Now the logic seems sound.

In culture, science tries to keep the fuzzy balls in play, in their entirety, by eliminating emotions from the analysis; dry logic. They then try to draw a line through the middle of the fuzzy ball. The correlation that reaches the masses, is usually provided by media, politics and business, all of which will add emotional inductions, such as fear, outrage, desire, since this sells soap or attracts votes. Emotional thinking takes over and the large science fuzzy data ball, appears to come to a focus. Now they seem applicable to illogical correlations; prejudice.

 

[charlie sc]

The post is about why prejudices are dangerous and identifying what are,

I don't disagree, but you seem to want to give some prejudices a get out of jail free card or think some of less serious than others, which is why I replied.

Abdul'baha has given us a list we need to address;

"..The causes of dispute among different nations are always due to one of the following classes of prejudice: racial, lingual, theological, personal, and prejudices of custom and tradition. It requires a universal active force to overcome these differences. A small disease needs a small remedy, but a disease which pervades the whole body needs a very strong remedy...." (Abdu'l-Baha in London)

Yeah, what about gender? Your list is lacking, nor does it seem to look at the reason, just the symptom. These are symptoms of prejudice, which require more than just saying it needs a remedy, as if you or this person knows what they are.

What was forgotten here is superiority. Nearly all prejudices, that I know about, is somehow grounded in a thought of superiority. I find your reply astoundingly arrogant; as if your religion, among thousands are the answer to all prayers. You're doing exactly what other religions have been doing from the beginning of time. I think you should consider, but you wont, you are actually contributing to the prejudice, because you are asserting answers, without evidence, in the most arrogant way possible. In other words, you are acting superior.

It is worth considering, that if you have Faith in God, that you may also not be free of prejudice and what it will take to rid us of them;

"..For thousands of years the world of humanity has been agitated and disturbed by prejudices. As long as it prevails, warfare, animosity and hatred will continue. Therefore if we seek to establish peace we must cast aside this obstacle, for otherwise agreement and composure are not to be attained....(Baha'i World Faith - Abdu'l-Baha Section)

I never thought or claim to think any faith whatsoever is an answer, if an answer exist. Nor do I think you're helping your cause linking scripture. I don't know why faith would be a component of this in the first place other than circular reasoning.

Prejudice may very well become humanities downfall;

""And the breeding-ground of all these tragedies is prejudice: prejudice of race and nation, of religion, of political opinion; and the root cause of prejudice is blind imitation of the past -- imitation in religion, in racial attitudes, in national bias, in politics. So long as this aping of the past persisteth, just so long will the foundations of the social order be blown to the four winds, just so long will humanity be continually exposed to direst peril..." (Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha)

While I am glad you want to stop prejudice, perhaps you are being prejudice yourself doing this. Consider that people live the life they want to and you telling them how to think and their interpretation of their text is wrong, will only upset them and you are imposing your will upon them. Consider that your arrogance on the topic is potentially dangerous if you were some dictator madman and does not create any equal footing in the conversation either way. All you'll do is quote scripture as a reply and not rely on empirical evidence. To me, you're one of the most prejudiced person here. The superiority you show is astounding and the knowledge of this subject is limited to religious text. This is equivalent to a zealot. I urge you to study an empirical subject like psychology and sociology to understand human behaviour rather than go around asking/telling people to stop being prejudice, as if that helps. What's worse, you have an ulterior motive: your religion.

 

[Jim]

Prejudice uses a semi-logical thought procedure etc. etc.

((Do you have any ideas about what any of us following this discussion might be able to do about it, in our everyday lives?))

 

[Jim]

So we should worship God (pay devotional reverences) and pray to Him for good things to happen to us. What if we do not get good things? Do we still sing songs of praises to God for creating us?

I’m not saying anything about what we should do. I just had an impulse to tell you my answer to the question you asked Tony, if he was saying that God loves you. I decided to take a chance in following that impulse. That’s all. If it doesn’t do anything for you, that’s okay.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

((Do you have any ideas about what any of us following this discussion might be able to do about it, in our everyday lives?))

Here is what science/philosophy/religion have to say about discovering prejudices.
You have to learn it in most cases. You have to want it and then train.
The process is as follows. You have a thought, don't just act on it. Learn to notice it. Then learn to hold it for so long that you can examine it. How to examine it, we can debate. But the trick is that in scientific terms you have to achieve mentalization and meta-cognition. A lot of humans, if not most go through their life on auto-pilot when it comes to thoughts and more importantly emotions. To examine thoughts and emotions, you have to learn to notice, catch and hold them and then learn to examine them. A study made on university trained humans in western culture said that only 35% of those had abstract meta-cognition, i.e. the ability to catch abstract reasoning, logic and so on. It gets worse for emotions. How is that? Because all humans learn the basic emotions and culture as children and unless they learn to check them, they (emotions and culture) work in everyday lives. There is no need to learn mentalization and meta-cognition, because what they learned as children works.

 

[Jim]

@mikkel_the_dane Thanks!

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

@mikkel_the_dane Thanks!

You are welcome.

 

[Shantanu]

I’m not saying anything about what we should do. I just had an impulse to tell you my answer to the question you asked Tony, if he was saying that God loves you. I decided to take a chance in following that impulse. That’s all. If it doesn’t do anything for you, that’s okay.

I certainly believe that He loves me and tells me what to do when I am stuck with the persecution that the UK State continues to perpetrate against me. I follow His guidance because I trust Him with my welfare. I also believe that He does not love the evil UK State persecutors or He would not get me to resist their cowardly persecution. So I would not suggest that the Queen of the United Kingdom should pray to God to save the Queen, as the national anthem goes.

 

[joe1776]

Just a strong example to make a point that it's not all that simple. A much more common prejudice is gender prejudice. The 'old boys club' will be defended as rational by many, in religion, in politics, in corporations. Others would see no reason for it.

You're right. The word prejudice is often used when bigotry or discrimination would be a better choice to imply unfairness. But negative opinions of people when they have earned them ( like Hitler) shouldn't be labeled prejudice otherwise the word loses its most useful meaning.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

You're right. The word prejudice is often used when bigotry or discrimination would be a better choice to imply unfairness. But negative opinions of people when they have earned them shouldn't be labeled prejudice otherwise the word loses its most useful meaning.

But they have never earned them for themselves, they have always earned them according to somebody else. You are judging them according to a standard in you and not something in them. If it was in them, it would be a case of empirical evidence, but it is not.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Your post sounds like neo-Nazi recruitment BS intended for males, under 30, and lacking in self-confidence.

The Nazi ideology has a real religious bent to it? Are you referring to the extermination of Jews?

I'm just trying to provide a more objective viewpoint of the matter. You came at me with some biased knights in shining armor spiel and I corrected that. Not my fault you don't understand things and don't know much about the subject. The Axis did believe their cause was righteous.

 

[joe1776]

But they have never earned them for themselves, they have always earned them according to somebody else. You are judging them according to a standard in you and not something in them. If it was in them, it would be a case of empirical evidence, but it is not.

In Post 68, Vinayaka wrote: Good thing, I suppose, that several governments had an anti-Hitler prejudice.

In the opinion of most reasonable minds, Hitler had earned the negative opinions of him by his actions. Those opinions weren't formed without evidence, therefore they were not prejudice. They were simply negative opinions.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

In Post 68, Vinayaka wrote: Good thing, I suppose, that several governments had an anti-Hitler prejudice.

In the opinion of most reasonable minds, Hitler had earned the negative opinions of him by his actions. Those opinions weren't formed without evidence, therefore they were not prejudice. They were simply negative opinions.

And it ends with what words mean; prejudice: preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.
So state your case. Here is mine: Reason is not an emotion or you can't use reason to justify an opinion as you use it. As for evidence or empirical evidence as actual evidence there is none. Any version for negative as you use it, is not able to be backed up by evidence.
You can't see, hear, manhandle, touch by feel, smell or taste a negative opinion nor is there any scientific measurement standard for it. You are doing morality and you seem to think that it be unbiased. It can't. All morality is biased, including mine. I just admit it.

 

[joe1776]

...You are doing morality and you seem to think that it be unbiased. It can't. All morality is biased, including mine. I just admit it.

Let me be sure I understand you. You are asked to be a juror in a criminal case where the facts clearly support guilt and a judgment of cold-blooded murder. You don't know the defendant and didn't know the victim. Are you saying that you couldn't give an unbiased verdict?

 

[Vinayaka]

In Post 68, Vinayaka wrote: Good thing, I suppose, that several governments had an anti-Hitler prejudice.

In the opinion of most reasonable minds, Hitler had earned the negative opinions of him by his actions. Those opinions weren't formed without evidence, therefore they were not prejudice. They were simply negative opinions.

But Germans living outside of Germany, immigrants to other countries, were definitely discriminated against, much like Japanese. I maintain that it's complicated, and often each side in a dispute will argue that the other side is the one that discriminates, or is prejudiced. I take exception to folks who claim other world views are biased but theirs isn't.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Let me be sure I understand you. You are asked to be a juror in a criminal case where the facts clearly support guilt and a judgment of cold-blooded murder. You don't know the defendant and didn't know the victim. Are you saying that you couldn't give an unbiased verdict?

All judicial law is human and thus a bias. Some people can't see their own cultural bias, but it is there. E.g. cold-blooded murder as for cold-blooded is a bias. Now it is one that I share, but it is still a bias.

 

[joe1776]

But Germans living outside of Germany, immigrants to other countries, were definitely discriminated against, much like Japanese. I maintain that it's complicated, and often each side in a dispute will argue that the other side is the one that discriminates, or is prejudiced. I take exception to folks who claim other world views are biased but theirs isn't.

Yes, of course, I agree with your point. However, when unbiased minds conclude that A. Hitler's regime was morally corrupt, they are doing it on the basis of the evidence. If we call their negative opinion prejudice, the word loses its power to imply unfairness.