I just feel like rambling on a bit...

[FreeThinker]

Hey all,

 

I went through a very rough time recently. Mostly becaouse of stereotyping and people spreading rumors. This was not a highschool scale problem, it could have had a huge impact on my life. However, justice came through, even if some people did not. So I feel like talking about opinions, stereotypes and their infliuence on sociaty. Please leave your 2c as I feel it is an important topic.

 

Forming an option about someone should be a careful and rational procedure. It is often too easy to assume or borrow opinions from others. However, assuming and stereotyping are rarely reflections of reality. How do you know that person said that? How do you know he did that? Answers to these questions, and others, should be answered carefully and thoroughly, as they can have a large impact on the person concerned. In most cases, and I would argue all cases, everyone is innocent until proven guilty. The problem with the previous statement is that the word innocent is followed by until. This “until” carries with it a lot of doubt. A person who isn’t getting the blame for something is always assumed to be more “innocent” than the person who is getting blamed, even though they haven’t been prosecuted. This is wrong, horribly wrong. Society consists of communities, who consist of individuals who are influenced by other individuals. For example, let’s assume person Y says something about person X. This opinion of Y spreads throughout the community like the plague. Soon enough, the whole society has formed an opinion about X, even though the original opinion could have just been a fragment of Y’s imagination. Are all opinions bound to have an influence in the society? Yes, but their survival value varies ( escuse the Dawkins talk). Some opinions will have a better survival rate than others. For example, if I told you “John was playing soccer today” you might pass it on to a few people but soon enough the rumor would die off. However, if I told you “John kissed Peters girlfriend Andréa” you would probably pass the rumor on to a lot more people (who would in turn spread it around further). Furthermore, "John hit Andrea " would even have a greater survival value. Eventually, a thought that was originally nothing more than a though, has spread its roots throughout the community. The effects can be disastrous. What can we do to stop this trend? As a society , nothing. Only as individuals can we change, and than the society will change as well. So how do we do it?

 

The answer is rationality. Every opinion should be backed up by facts. Opinions change, facts stay the same. Facts might be hard to obtain, but questions can be asked. “How do you know John kissed Andrea?”, “Did you see him hit his girlfriend”. These questions should be followed up by further questions. Nothing should ever be accepted at face value. Truth is important. When buying a car you don’t take the dealers advice that the car works fine ( well, I hope you don’t). You take the car for a test drive, have it looked at by a mechanic and ask numerous questions before paying the money for it. Opinions about people should be no different. They should never, ever, be accepted just because someone said so. If you don’t have evidence, you should not have an opinion.

 

Letting out some fustration,

 

FreeThinker

[blike]

That was a really good post, thank you.

[iglak]

drama is really annoying.

 

all of what you said centers around disrespect and dehumanization: seeing other people as human beings capable of their own thoughts and actions, capable of learning, and capable of having good reasons for everything they do and think.

 

 

 

i was recently involved in some drama on LiveJournal, in which i got in two debates with a friend's friends on an emotional topic (for them).

the topic was: the effectiveness of Prozac, and potential problems; and the effectiveness of western medicine and psychology practices on depression.

 

in the first debate, i realized that my bias against Prozac affected my ability to see the truth of the situation. whether i was right or wrong, my bias posed the problem of influencing my interpretation of evidence. i admitted that, and ended the dabate because i didn't have enough knowledge of the subject.

 

in the second debate, my oponent did not adress my arguments in any way, and continued to support his own argument through opinions, rather than reasoning.

in the end of the debate, i realized we were arguing about two slighly different things. thus the majority of the debate (if it can be called that) was based on misunderstandings.

 

 

the result is that the majority of my friend's friends became biased against me, and so did my friend.

 

one person became so biased that he said nothing towards me except very pitiful bully tactics.

 

when one person (anonymously, and emotionally) said he/she disapproved of how everyone has reacted, the people who became biased against me jumped to conclusions as to who the anonymous poster was, and started blaming eachother.

 

it was kind of frightening; the knowledge that i now had the power to completely destroy everyone's friendship at that moment. if i had said "thank you, [name of my chosing], for supporting me", the friendship they had would have fallen apart.

 

it was disappointing and depressing to see such a fragile situation. it's as if none of them had any integrity or compassion.

it's truly amazing to see lifelong friendships fall apart in an instant because of a bias.

 

 

 

so my answer is 2 things:

never be afraid of anything.

never dehumanize anyone.

[Aardvark]

The answer is rationality. Every opinion should be backed up by facts. Opinions change, facts stay the same. Facts might be hard to obtain, but questions can be asked. “How do you know John kissed Andrea?”, “Did you see him hit his girlfriend”. These questions should be followed up by further questions.

FreeThinker

 

Unfortunately, as you are no doubt aware, humans are not rational creatures. Most opinions are formed on the basis of emotion and reason is only then used to create false rationalisations.

 

Any good pyschologist or advertiser will be able to explain how most decisions people make are not made on the basis of any rational thought process at all.

 

To summarise. People are irrational and will normally only use reason in defence of preconceived prejudice. It's rotten but there's not much to be done.

 

Anyway, glad that the problems you eluded to have been dealt with, from personal experience i can sympathise and add that justice and reason don't always prevail.