Primo Levi's book on Survival in Auschwitz talks about several things, "are all concentration camp survivors, noble". "what did they do and did not do, to survive the camp", "how many stole their fellow inmates food, clothing and killed in order to survive" etc and talks about how easily it became a passport for being known as a "good" person .
Many people may find this quite controversial and not palatable (oh my God they have suffered so much and how can you call them as evil or bad - kind of reaction).
The other thought that has been nagging me is, how easily we marginalize people by stereotyping them.
1. Rich people are not kind, whereas poor people are always kind
2. People who wear fashionable clothes are show offs
3. People (Indians) who speak with American or European accents are show offs
4. People who wear ManU jersey or paint their faces in Indian tricolor don't know much about the sport
5. Simple people are nice people and are knowledgeable
6.Poor people are unhappy people
The bottom line is every individual is different and not to judge anyone.
Why can't we accept individual differences and accept people the way they are.
4 comments:
Hard, but it is true! Not even with people, even with things and animals, human mind tends to associate everything with a past experience. That shud be the reason.
I agree with TJ. We tend to associate people with past experiences. Sometimes, the mind even tends to stereotype people by their names...if one has had a bad history with another person by the same name..
It is a difficult thing to do not to stereotype, as Tj & Vinesh have said it is all to do with the past experiences. I try my best not to stereotype people, but I know subconsciously one does at times.
That is the point of the post - it is difficult but not impossible. What we call as experience, when we actually take a close look at it, is limited to a couple of experiences with a particular group of people and many a times these stereotypes are formed with no real experience at all
Thank you all for your comments though ...
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