November 1, 2005

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  Topic 6 : If we were not equipped with sight, would we still have prejudice?

  
  

  

  
  

  Topic 6: If we were not equipped with sight, would we still have prejudice?

  
  

  (A topic discussion of The Socrates Cafe. More essays about this topic, and also the topic: “What makes a hero?” are published HERE.)

  
  

  Can we ever be “blind” to prejudice? Sadly, the quick and correct answer is “no”. Irrational thoughts and attitudes are ingrained in mankind’s makeup, and if one “sense” were obliterated from mankind’s perception, that wouldn’t obliterate the “non-sense” of prejudicial opinions.

  
  

  In every high school there are “cliques” composed of either like minded, dressed, or informed individuals. These cliques exist alongside and apart from other cliques, sometimes interacting with, and sometimes injurious to other cliques within the system. Cliques are derived from tribal beginnings in society, much like society itself sprang from tribal roots. In the beginning of man’s “knowledgeable” existence, his immediate “families” bonded into tribes, and these tribes hunted, gathered, and made sustenance for themselves, apart and unknowing of other similar tribes. When tribes were brought together in prehistory, seldom would they sit down and divide lands and food. More often they would fight for the right to stay and eat. To the victor go the spoils.

  
  

  Originally, all of mankind was spread out a bit, and as tribes begat civilizations, centers of “learning” and “civility” were created, and slivers of tribal leanings were quashed through “civilized” dogmas and directions. Mankind “learned” to coexist, and soon developed trade and warfare. In the back of early man’s mind, however, was a memory of his old tribal collections. Prejudice grew out of a sense that those who are “different”, or who possess what one tribe desires and doesn’t have, are basically fit to be destroyed. Tribal quibbles and squabbles persisted for many many years, and no amount of “civilization” could squash the idea that each “tribe” or “clique” was somehow more special than all the others.

  
  

  Early religions would identify and eradicate anyone who was considered “different” from the status quo. In Tribal Earth, those who were born with disease or defection were silently smothered before they even had a chance to breathe a dozen breaths. This kind of behavior might certainly be labelled prejudicial in today’s “enlightened” times, but any “difference” was thought to be “evil” and anyone “different” even at birth was thought to be inhabited by devils or demons, and these “anamolies” of life were soon put to death.

  
  

  Today, a very “visual” idea of prejudice is the seeming hatred one “race” might have for another, but prejudice has roots in different modes of thought and behavior as well as in “visual” clues. One “race” might be blind to the fact that the other is different. In the Rwandan massacres in the early 1990′s, each “race” had “visual” differences that were sometimes not that readlily acknowledged. To a “white” man, the differences between Tutsis and Hutus (two “tribes” that had warred for many years) were slight if even recognizable. Since in any society there is a mixing of races through intermarriage no matter how strictly society tries to stop such practices, the “differences” get muddied through succeeding generations. This doesn’t stop prejudice from rearing it’s ugly head, and this didn’t stop mindless radical thinking Hutus from murdering anyone they “perceived” to be Tutsi, or friendly to Tutsis. Hatred doesn’t have eyes. So no matter how blind a person is to such visual “clues” to his hatred, he will hate just the same.

  
  

  The idea of prejudice is rooted in attitude, and not sight. We could have four senses instead of five and still be filled with hatred and prejudice, because this is ingrained, sadly, in our “tribal” makeup. Tolerance has never been practiced when one one tribe is seen to be overbearing on the other. The one who denigrates the other does not need to “see” a difference in order to manufacture one. Prejudice has nothing to do with “sight”, but it would certainly be a better world if more people were “blind” to the practice.
  

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  DISCLAIMER: The image accompanying this essay is not one of my own as usual. I “borrowed” it from a websearch for an article I wrote last year and was taken from the website Seamus McKinlay.

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