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 Posted: Wed, 9th Jan 2019 22:59 Post subject: |
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@red_avatar
Polarizing how? And why just black people?
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| Posted: Thu, 10th Jan 2019 00:43 Post subject: |
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| Mr.Tinkles wrote: | @TheZor
We seem to be talking around each-other here.
I'm not talking about people being offended, I'm talking about stereotypes (even the 'positive' ones) being a seed for prejudice and racism if embraced.
And I'm not talking about comedy or jokes, I'm talking about the everyday stereotypes which some people actually believe (and in some cases are perpetuated by a whole nation as a 'tradition').
Take a 'positive' stereotype about Jews, which is that they're either good with money or have lots of it. Now that might sound harmless but that's how it starts. Racism doesn't spring up from nowhere, nobody is born racist, it comes out of the small things, the everyday things, the rumors, the stereotypes, the misconceptions, the jealousy, the fear. And if you let that grow, well...we all know how that ended the last time. |
Sorry if I seem to be ignoring your point about the inherent danger of stereotypes, it's that I've got conflicting feelings over that subject which makes me paint a very wide brush of that matter.
To be clearer, I do agree that stereotypes of any sort are nefarious and cloud your good ( = obtained by your own means in a quest for honest truth ) judgement with parasite information. That'd be something that the likes of Descartes or Spinoza defend with a radical mistrust towards stereotypes, superstition and to a certain extent tradition. I immensely respect such an intellectual stance and I do try to follow that route the best I can by avoiding bias and preconceived opinions for myself like the plague.
However, while those ideals are fundamentally just and healthy, they have the limit that is regular, typical human behaviour. Kind of the point where the at idealistic philosophy clashes with sociologal observation of human behavioural patterns.
It's completely pointless to think that stereotypes, positive or negative, can be disregarded in everyday's life - and that everyday's setting was the focus here. Humans, as a social being, does need pre-conceived judgements in order to approach situations that they have yet to acknowledge. You said that you didn't want to eradicate stereotypes earlier, but it seems to me that you would like that: did you rather mean that stereotypes can't be eradicated ? That's the impression I get, and that's a perfectly laudable point of view as I was stating earlier on.
When I was writing that stereotypes were natural earlier, it's in that sense that I meant it: how would a human being function according to what's expected of him without those pesky stereotypes ?
For instance, Japanese people are expected to be very polite and respectful of general manners: that stereotype actually holds some truth and you better behaved differently in Japan than you would in France - where behaving like in Japan would make you appear weird and out of tone.
Likewise, if you were to enter a biker's bar, you wouldn't ask them to put some Backstreet Boys on, would you ?
There's always that more or less faint possibility that the commonly accepted stereotype will be entirely false, but defying it comes with the risk of making a simple mistake that could have been avoided.
Moreover, there's the fact that humans do seem to naturally create stereotypes, most of which are negative if we have to be honest. Can we really suppress what appears to be a natural urge ?
That's why I'm so conflicted on this matter: I firmly believe in both parts of my statement, yet they're very conflicting.
Finally, there's the danger with constantly hunting for stereotypical prejudice everywhere, even when it's not really there or stopped being there long ago. This slippery slope I was talking about, I believe that's the line red_avatar is trying to draw here.
It's also what I was trying to touch upon with the danger of a normalized, completely neutered approach to everything: you end up trying to take anything that might be offensive or perceived as a stereotype ( it's the same really, one's offended to be stereotyped, that's all ) out. The problem being that such an intent to discriminate is not easily proven, that it's at times completely irrelevant and end up offending people that hadn't a single hint of malice.
Coming back to Zwart Piet, how do you think the people that hold the tradition dear for personal reasons they built over time are happy to be called closet racists when that didn't cross their mind ? This kind of confrontation does push relatively tolerant people back towards their more primal feelings.. towards... stereotypes. Hence why I think fighting stereotypes has to be done in a very clever way in order to create as little collateral damage as possible. That's why I find it very important not to assume the presence of a prejudice as a first step in trying to overcome it with knowledge and experience - and that doesn't seem to be the case of most of these recent outbursts. I find the questioning of stereotypes to be healthy, it's the way of judging them that is incomplete, partial and can end up being harmful.
All things considered, I think we've done a very fine job especially in the Occidental world. There's no mystery about it: it's all about education, access to good information, and most of all curiosity towards the other. But you can't always spark such a questioning, some people just won't care no matter what.
In the end, I hope that how multicultural our societies have gotten will eventually make stereotypes null and void: there's also the fact that globalisation and migrations dramatically increased, at a pace that is way too high for the human social fabric to incorporate in a healthy manner, which creates so much polarization exponentially amplified by social media. Tolerance and empathy ( the best enemies against stereotypes and prejudice ) is something that's slow to build up but dramatically easy to destroy, rising its levels up is a slow process that can't be forced solely thanks to some kind of moral high ground.
But I'm rambling again, how surprising ! Gotta stop at some point  Hope this addresses your point better ! 
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| Posted: Thu, 10th Jan 2019 03:19 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | did you rather mean that stereotypes can't be eradicated |
Yup. But they can be minimized, in my humble opinion.
| Quote: | | Can we really suppress what appears to be a natural urge ? |
No, but we don't have to encourage it either.
| Quote: | | it's the same really, one's offended to be stereotyped, that's all |
I would disagree. Even though that is the case with some. Personally I'm thinking of the actual ramifications of those stereotypes being normalized (again to use Jews and money as an example, which have spawned a fuckton of current day conspiracy theories).
| Quote: | | The problem being that such an intent to discriminate is not easily proven, that it's at times completely irrelevant and end up offending people that hadn't a single hint of malice. |
Does intent matter if the result is that someone(s) getting hurt or worse? "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" comes to mind.
| Quote: | | Coming back to Zwart Piet, how do you think the people that hold the tradition dear for personal reasons they built over time are happy to be called closet racists when that didn't cross their mind ? |
This reminds me of people being upset of being called racist here in Sweden because they insist on using the word "negerboll" (negroball in English) instead of chockladboll (chocolate-ball). Personally, I don't give a shit about the word negerboll, I used it as a child without malice and was just raised to call it that but as an adult I do understand how it can upset and offend someone which is one of the reasons I don't use it anymore. That and personally I find it odd that people would cling so hard to putting negroballs in their mouth, but that's just me.
| Quote: | | This kind of confrontation does push relatively tolerant people back towards their more primal feelings.. towards... stereotypes. Hence why I think fighting stereotypes has to be done in a very clever way in order to create as little collateral damage as possible. That's why I find it very important not to assume the presence of a prejudice as a first step in trying to overcome it with knowledge and experience - and that doesn't seem to be the case of most of these recent outbursts. I find the questioning of stereotypes to be healthy, it's the way of judging them that is incomplete, partial and can end up being harmful. |
Fair enough. But I doubt very much that knowledge and experience will have the impact you're hoping for.
Edit:
The reason I chopped it up like this is to specifically respond to those parts. The rest I either partially or totally agree with (hence the chopshop response). |
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| Posted: Thu, 10th Jan 2019 09:03 Post subject: |
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| Mr.Tinkles wrote: | | Quote: | | did you rather mean that stereotypes can't be eradicated |
Yup. But they can be minimized, in my humble opinion.
| Quote: | | Can we really suppress what appears to be a natural urge ? |
No, but we don't have to encourage it either.
| Quote: | | it's the same really, one's offended to be stereotyped, that's all |
I would disagree. Even though that is the case with some. Personally I'm thinking of the actual ramifications of those stereotypes being normalized (again to use Jews and money as an example, which have spawned a fuckton of current day conspiracy theories).
| Quote: | | The problem being that such an intent to discriminate is not easily proven, that it's at times completely irrelevant and end up offending people that hadn't a single hint of malice. |
Does intent matter if the result is that someone(s) getting hurt or worse? "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" comes to mind.
| Quote: | | Coming back to Zwart Piet, how do you think the people that hold the tradition dear for personal reasons they built over time are happy to be called closet racists when that didn't cross their mind ? |
This reminds me of people being upset of being called racist here in Sweden because they insist on using the word "negerboll" (negroball in English) instead of chockladboll (chocolate-ball). Personally, I don't give a shit about the word negerboll, I used it as a child without malice and was just raised to call it that but as an adult I do understand how it can upset and offend someone which is one of the reasons I don't use it anymore. That and personally I find it odd that people would cling so hard to putting negroballs in their mouth, but that's just me.
| Quote: | | This kind of confrontation does push relatively tolerant people back towards their more primal feelings.. towards... stereotypes. Hence why I think fighting stereotypes has to be done in a very clever way in order to create as little collateral damage as possible. That's why I find it very important not to assume the presence of a prejudice as a first step in trying to overcome it with knowledge and experience - and that doesn't seem to be the case of most of these recent outbursts. I find the questioning of stereotypes to be healthy, it's the way of judging them that is incomplete, partial and can end up being harmful. |
Fair enough. But I doubt very much that knowledge and experience will have the impact you're hoping for.
Edit:
The reason I chopped it up like this is to specifically respond to those parts. The rest I either partially or totally agree with (hence the chopshop response). |
I agree with the points you raised, thanks for the thorough answer I really appreciate it
And yeah, while I was playing devil's advocate by considering people's intentions to be pure by default for the sake of the argument, there is some completely inappropriate attachment to borderline racist behaviours, for which people will pull the "but it's a tradition !" card when they full know what indefensible undertones it has.
Really interesting talk, thanks again
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