CSvax:Physics:els (09/06/82)
In reply to those who believe that freudian crap, wherein we all are
capable of such horrors, I wish to say two things:
1) As the father of a little girl, I can definitely say that such
a crime is completely beyond me(though perhaps murder to prevent it is not).
I think that any parent feels as I do, if not then they don't deserve to
be a parent.
2) ****FLAME ON**** If you think that you are capable of such a crime,
then you have already taken the first step in committing that crime. If you
think that it is normal for someone to be capable of performing this act, then
you must also think it is normal to actually go out and do it!! Certainly,
if you believe freud!! But perhaps the discussion of the dangers of true belief
in freud is best left for another time, after this stuff about JoJo has died
down. ****FLAME OFF****
I've also started to note an anti-New Jersey attitude creeping into the
discussion. Having been born and raised in N.J. I know the same attitude.
This attitude is best characterized as anti-urban N.J. Yes folks, there is
such a thing as rural N.J.!! I spent most of my life there. Perhaps someone
in the Defense Dept. can help us out in N.J. and nuke the urban areas! The
person who said that "only in Joisey ..." has hit the nail almost squarely
on the head. After all, most of the people live in the urban centers. I can
sympathize with western Canadians, who wonder at how hairbrained the central
government in the east is. In N.J., even if your nearest neighbor is a half
mile away, you can't burn your leaves in fall. The state ass embly is based
on population, and some clean air freaks canvassed the cities. Five rural
townships with power plants were recently ripped off to the tune about $20M.
The legislature decided that this money should be more evenly distributed
among the population. In my home township, this ripoff was about $3M. This
revenue had been used to make our elementary one of the best in the nation
around '65-'70. Now some lazy welfare bums are lining their pockets with our
money! Three million doesn't sound like much nowadays, but for a township of
about 30,000 or so, you can see the magnitude of the theft. So, instead of
joking about New Jersey, joke about the morons in Trenton or Newark.
els[Eric Strobel]
pur-ee!pur-phy!elsARPAVAX:UNKNOWN:upstill (09/11/82)
How does stereotyping begin? I'm convinced the answer is concerned with cognitive efficiency and statistics. The ideal, the unstereotyping, empirical ideal, is to deal with each individual (member of any class, not just subgroups of humanity), with perfect, deliberate ignorance about every aspect of them. This would imply that everything you knew about someone arose directly from interaction with them and from nowhere else. From the point of view of survival (since we are dealing with any class, not just people), this has two major drawbacks. First, it is an enormous cognitive effor to gather ANY information from the outside world at all, particularly information which is empirically pristine. In effect, you have to get your smarts where you can. Second, it is literally impossible to live without preconceptions, without some kind of "default value" for every aspect of reality which you evaluate. Once you realize that you have to believe SOMETHING, then you can only judge methods of acquiring knowledge as more or less effective i.e. reliable. The extent to which an individual can live and still minimize his dependence on "implied" information (which should include an ongoing effort to question, re-evaluate and update it, always with the qualifier "it seems to me that..." before an assertion), is the extent to which they can be considered broad- or open-minded. However, let's face it: perfect objectivity and empiricism is a chimerical ideal to which humans, who must scrap and scramble for every bit of information, can only aspire. Questioning the process of stereotyping is an attack on a special case of an assumption on which the whole field of statistics is based: that the behavior of individuals can be PROBABLISTICALLY predicted from the behavior of the group that contains them. The problem is not that stereotyping is a wrong way to get your "default" beliefs. The problem is that such beliefs become writ in stone and not subject to revision with new information. And THAT leads to the degradation and humiliation of the sterotypee. Steve Upstill
pdh (09/17/82)
Hmm... seems zeppo!mes misspelled 'preconceived'.... must be from New Jersey. .............................................................................
notes@zeppo.UUCP (10/17/83)
#R:pur-phy:-45500:zeppo:9300002:000:1941
zeppo!mes Sep 9 12:13:00 1982
Ah, Eric, you have hit upon one of my very, very sore spots. As a native
New Jerseyan myself, I have long wondered about the stereotyping that
goes on. I am from the north pine barrens (center of the state, to you
foreigners), and now live in the very, very rural northwest of the state.
Believe me, this is not the same as living in Newark or Hoboken...
However, the issue is a far larger one. What is it in people that forces them
to adopt stereotypical images? We all do it to one extent or another - i.e,
Im sure that not all Californian girls are 'valley girls', and they probably
aren't all blond, either! Do all people from Missouri walk around saying
'Show me?' ? I think not. But, we in our infinite perfection where we are,
come up with these global assumptions, and use them frequently, even though
we may "know" that they are impossible.
These stereotypes can hurt, as well. They bind communication, they force
misunderstandings, they prevent the growth of interpersonal relationships
of any kind because of these preconcieved natures. I myself was guilty of
considering any person living within a 40 mile radius of New York City as
slightly less than human - it took me until undergraduate school to realize
just how preconcieved I was! I think that I am past that stage now, but
I shudder to think of what I would have missed, had I not opened myself
up to other lifestyles, far different from my own.
So, the question is, what makes us do it? In the 'Information Age' (sorry)
why is so little information passed around, such that these stereotypes
develop and prosper? In fact, inherent in the last sentence is a
assumption that can be questioned - is the lack of information responsible
for these stereotypes? Some good discussion material here...
From Northwest New Joisey,
Mike Sajor, BTL-Whippany NJ, (201)386-4409
zeppo!mes