Prejudice, by Doug Wilson
Whenever you have an identifiable subgroup, the larger society outside that subgroup starts generalizing and making assumptions about any new member of that class that they happen to meet. They believe they have discovered a short-hand way of learning about the person before having exchanged one word with that person.
“You can always tell a Harvard man, but you can’t tell him much.” “Jews are good with money.” “Vermont farmers are taciturn.” “Cretans are evil beasts, lazy gluttons, and liars.”
All of this, of course, is what we now call prejudice, and according to our ruling etiquette overlords, prejudice is almost the original sin. You just don’t do that, not anymore. But pre-judgments are actually inescapable. Before your first visit to the UK, you are going to have certain conceptions in your mind about the Brits, assumptions you have garnered from your movie-watching habits. And when you go over there, some of those assumptions are going to be blown to smithereens, and others of them are going to be radically reinforced. It really is true, for example, that for Americans, a hundred years is a long time, and for the Brits, a hundred miles is a long way.
From, In Praise of Prejudice, by Doug Wilson
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Links
Poems
Posting and analysing some important poems.
Rudyard Kipling
The Gods of the Copybook Headings
The Benefactors
The Female of the Species
The Benefactors
The Glory of the Garden // Podcast Version
Edgar Guest
Keep Going
One More Turn // Podcast Version
The Glory of the Garden
It Takes a Heap O’Livin // Podcast Version
Sue’s Got a Baby
Only a Dad
Is Anybody Happier?
Can’t
On Quitting
Hard Luck
Courage // Podcast Version
Thomas J. Williams
Once to Every Man or Nation
JRR Tolkien
I Sit Beside the Fire and Think
Doug Wilson
The Vineyard of En Gedi
Quotes
A bunch of fun and significant quotes:
Prejudice (or stereotype) is part of the human survial mechanism; all animals, likely. Certain things, patterns, people are immediately deemed threatening, or not threatening, because of previous experience with a similar thing or because of acquired community wisdom. This instant threat identification will cause you to react defensively, even if only momentarily as the threat is further analyzed and found benign.
In the case of people, these stereotypes are true for the group but tell us nothing about the individual. As humans, we are bound to consider the individual while we deal with the group stereotype because of the obligation we owe individuals created in the image of God.