this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2024
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Yes, sure people always like to think in a in- and out-group kind of way: people in your class, people in your city, people in your country, people of your race, of your age group, gender and so on. It's a social thing that helps us to categorize things and deal with the complexity of the world.
But what I don't get is how one can be against any kind of stereotype thinking when it comes to one thing but think in the most stereotypical kind of way when it comes to the next thing. It's weird.
Well, that's an interesting thought for sure and it's something linguistics and philosophy focuses on - the arbitrary nature of boundaries/categories and what's salient and why.
There's a good book called Neurolinguistics and Linguistic Aphasia that talks about salience to different people. It makes a soft argument that perhaps everyone has synesthesia, but we all repress it to some degree (unless diagnosed with the actual synesthia condition). And different people have different types of synesthesia. So we are all experiencing and categorizing differently.
Then we have life experiences and trauma on top of that. Many times people focus on particular groups because of systems, perceived or real, within those groups that affected them. Sometimes it's not even a real experience, but instead trauma from parenting that is triggered by the metaphor of these systems. They are mainly worried about safety and security, which is often why the group they hate is simultaneously weak and powerless while also being horrible and the worst and extremely deadly.
When you combine those two, you can see the drive for their stereotyping (desire for safety) and what they find salient to criticize. Ignoring the nonspecific value statements (eg bad, stupid), and focusing on more specific criticisms can help you suss out what's actually being disliked and if it's related to a sensory thing, trauma, and/or rational criticism.
The above person has gustatory-olfactory synethesia and that's how their brain triangulates their memories, along with sight and emotion. They may even KNOW not all soldiers will hurt them or burn down their new house. But they have these mental and emotional patterns that automatically get triggered. They've likely based a lot of their mental scaffolding on that. To suddenly change their mind isn't physically possible because it takes neurochemicals to change mental pathways and it takes time. Just like I can't deadlift 300lbs immediately because it takes time to grow those muscle cells enough to do that.
Some people don't have any energy, neurochemicals, or time to change their mind. Some people are living desperately and can only focus on so much. Being humble enough to self analyze and improve yourself, being brave enough to deal with the fear and pain of trauma, is a lot. We also all have blindspots and aren't all perfect.
As I've gotten older, I find most of the stereotypes I grew up believing were bullshit and not particularly useful for classifying the subjects of the stereotype—however I do find they help me categorize the people who believe them.
So you're a white dude who thinks black people like fried chicken and watermelon? They do. So do white people because that shit is cheap and delicious. But you're a racist.
All cops are bad? The last few years have been revelatory about a problem that has existed for decades. But you're a moral absolutist and not someone to discuss nuanced issues with.
Republicans are better with the economy/foreign policy? You liked Regan and never grew out of it.
The stereotypes themselves aren't really useful, but understanding the speaker is sometimes helpful.