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Some thoughts on prejudice  [message #70049] Fri, 31 July 2015 14:17 Go to previous message
Kitzyma is currently offline  Kitzyma

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Registered: March 2012
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As far as I can tell, it is generally agreed that prejudice is mostly learned, and most of that learning takes place in early childhood. Other things learned in early childhood are language and sources of disgust. For some reason, there seems to be an assumption that prejudice can be unlearned. However, it seems to me that it probably can't. Certainly, despite my best efforts I've not been able to unlearn my own prejudices.

We can't unlearn a language we absorbed in childhood, though we can learn a new language and choose to use only that new language. If we do that, the original language might get rusty and it may be less easy to use, but we can't unlearn it, and the basics will remain for the rest of our lives.

I believe that a similar situation exists with prejudices. Trying to unlearn prejudices is as futile, though not so dangerous, as pretending that there is no prejudice at all.

Now, I'm not trying to say that if we can't unlearn prejudice then it's okay to carry on acting out our prejudices. On the contrary, by recognising our prejudice we can see them as illogical and takes steps to try to ensure that our actions and words are not the result of that prejudice. Even more importantly, by acknowledging our prejudices we can try to prevent our prejudices from being passed on to the next generation.

[Updated on: Fri, 31 July 2015 14:18]
 
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