| Topic: |
Science > Philosophy |
| User: |
"turtoni" |
| Date: |
26 Oct 2007 01:14:08 AM |
| Object: |
Are people doomed to xenophobia and racism? |
"If categorization and bias come so easily, are people doomed to
xenophobia and racism? It's pretty clear that we are susceptible to
prejudice and that there is an unconscious desire to divide the world
into "us" and "them."
Fortunately, however, research also shows that prejudices are fluid
and that when we become conscious of our biases we can take active-and
successful-steps to combat them.
Researchers have long known that when observing racially mixed groups,
people are more likely to confuse the identity of two black
individuals or two white ones, rather than a white with a black. But
Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, of the Center for Evolutionary
Psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and
anthropologist Robert Kurzban, of the University of California at Los
Angeles, wanted to test whether this was innate or whether it was just
an artifact of how society groups individuals by race.
To do this, Cosmides and her colleagues made a video of two racially
integrated basketball teams locked in conversation, then they showed
it to study participants. As reported in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, the researchers discovered that subjects
were more likely to confuse two players on the same team, regardless
of race, rather than two players of the same race on opposite teams.
Cosmides says that this points to one way of attacking racism and
xenophobia: changing the way society imposes group labels. American
society divides people by race and by ethnicity; that's how lines of
prejudice form. But simple steps, such as integrating the basketball
teams, can reset mental divisions, rendering race and ethnicity less
important.
This finding supports earlier research by psychologists Samuel
Gaertner, of the University of Delaware in Newark, and John Dovidio,
of Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. Gaertner and Dovidio have
studied how bias changes when members of racially mixed groups must
cooperate to accomplish shared goals. In situations where team members
had to work together, bias could be reduced by significant amounts.
Monteith has also found that people who are concerned about their
prejudices have the power to correct them. In experiments, she told
subjects that they had performed poorly on tests that measured belief
in stereotypes. She discovered that the worse a subject felt about her
performance, the better she scored on subsequent tests. The guilt
behind learning about their own prejudices made the subjects try
harder not to be biased.
This suggests that the guilt of mistaking individuals for their group
stereotype-such as falsely believing an Arab is a terrorist-can lead
to the breakdown of the belief in that stereotype. Unfortunately, such
stereotypes are reinforced so often that they can become ingrained. It
is difficult to escape conventional wisdom and treat all people as
individuals, rather than members of a group. But that seems to be the
best way to avoid the trap of dividing the world in two-and
discriminating against one part of humanity."
http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20030501-000001.html
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| User: "tooly" |
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| Title: Re: Are people doomed to xenophobia and racism? |
26 Oct 2007 12:36:31 PM |
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"turtoni" <turtoni@fastmail.net> wrote in message
news:1193379248.364781.119270@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com...
"If categorization and bias come so easily, are people doomed to
xenophobia and racism? It's pretty clear that we are susceptible to
prejudice and that there is an unconscious desire to divide the world
into "us" and "them."
Fortunately, however, research also shows that prejudices are fluid
and that when we become conscious of our biases we can take active-and
successful-steps to combat them.
Researchers have long known that when observing racially mixed groups,
people are more likely to confuse the identity of two black
individuals or two white ones, rather than a white with a black. But
Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, of the Center for Evolutionary
Psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and
anthropologist Robert Kurzban, of the University of California at Los
Angeles, wanted to test whether this was innate or whether it was just
an artifact of how society groups individuals by race.
To do this, Cosmides and her colleagues made a video of two racially
integrated basketball teams locked in conversation, then they showed
it to study participants. As reported in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, the researchers discovered that subjects
were more likely to confuse two players on the same team, regardless
of race, rather than two players of the same race on opposite teams.
Cosmides says that this points to one way of attacking racism and
xenophobia: changing the way society imposes group labels. American
society divides people by race and by ethnicity; that's how lines of
prejudice form. But simple steps, such as integrating the basketball
teams, can reset mental divisions, rendering race and ethnicity less
important.
This finding supports earlier research by psychologists Samuel
Gaertner, of the University of Delaware in Newark, and John Dovidio,
of Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. Gaertner and Dovidio have
studied how bias changes when members of racially mixed groups must
cooperate to accomplish shared goals. In situations where team members
had to work together, bias could be reduced by significant amounts.
Monteith has also found that people who are concerned about their
prejudices have the power to correct them. In experiments, she told
subjects that they had performed poorly on tests that measured belief
in stereotypes. She discovered that the worse a subject felt about her
performance, the better she scored on subsequent tests. The guilt
behind learning about their own prejudices made the subjects try
harder not to be biased.
This suggests that the guilt of mistaking individuals for their group
stereotype-such as falsely believing an Arab is a terrorist-can lead
to the breakdown of the belief in that stereotype. Unfortunately, such
stereotypes are reinforced so often that they can become ingrained. It
is difficult to escape conventional wisdom and treat all people as
individuals, rather than members of a group. But that seems to be the
best way to avoid the trap of dividing the world in two-and
discriminating against one part of humanity."
http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20030501-000001.html
You're a good egg turtoni...just misguided is all. It's not easy seeing
through one's enculturation, especially one that has become so politically
"biased" with specific agenda such as what has 'taken over' now.
Intellectualism today is also a hard nut to crack; arguments seem
invincible. I'm sure one as you would deem those like me as pigheaded. I
think 'first and foremost' through my OWN senses, my own brain, my own
capacity to understand. And I tell you, I think the King is naked...and the
multicultural steamroller we have been clubbed with in the west is a
crock...rife with political activism, dimetrically opposed to western
ideaology, Christianity, traditional family, and everything that once made
us strong and whole. Can you say 'anti-American'?
Most people would agree when I say secular progressives have turned western
culture into a sewer hole [unless one is part of that sewer being turned out
of course].
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| User: "pico pico.digoliardi.net" |
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| Title: Re: Are people doomed to xenophobia and racism? |
26 Oct 2007 01:46:37 PM |
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"tooly" <rdh11@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:hApUi.6786$W9.2126@bignews6.bellsouth.net...
[...[ I'm sure one as you would deem those like me as pigheaded. I think
'first and foremost' through my OWN senses, my own brain, my own capacity
to understand. And I tell you, I think the King is naked...and the
multicultural steamroller we have been clubbed with in the west is a
crock...rife with political activism, dimetrically opposed to western
ideaology, Christianity, traditional family, and everything that once made
us strong and whole. Can you say 'anti-American'?
I like to put this idea forward to the intellectuals...
If a large group of people are planning to immigrate to the USA and among
there agenda and beliefs are: they will not speak English, they have a
religious principle which forbids monogamy, they believe that all property
should be public property, and they will work the very minimum to get by and
use public assistance to the extent they can. NOW, would you want them to
come here? The liberal would say, No. Then ask them why the hell they are
fostering such behavior in US citizens?
.
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| User: "Topaz" |
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| Title: Re: Are people doomed to xenophobia and racism? |
26 Oct 2007 05:41:59 PM |
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All liberals have is meaningless buzz words. They call people racists.
Whatever. They don't have anything meaningful to say.
by Thomas Jackson
There is surely no nation in the world that holds "racism" in greater
horror than does the United States. Compared to other kinds of
offenses, it is thought to be somehow more reprehensible. The press
and public have become so used to tales of murder, rape, robbery, and
arson, that any but the most spectacular crimes are shrugged off as
part of the inevitable texture of American life. "Racism" is never
shrugged off. For example, when a White Georgetown Law School student
reported earlier this year that black students are not as qualified as
White students, it set off a booming, national controversy about
"racism." If the student had merely murdered someone he would have
attracted far less attention and criticism.
Racism is, indeed, the national obsession. Universities are on full
alert for it, newspapers and politicians denounce it, churches preach
against it, America is said to be racked with it, but just what is
racism?
Dictionaries are not much help in understanding what is meant by the
word. They usually define it as the belief that one's own ethnic stock
is superior to others, or as the belief that culture and behavior are
rooted in race. When Americans speak of racism they mean a great deal
more than this. Nevertheless, the dictionary definition of racism is a
clue to understanding what Americans do mean. A peculiarly American
meaning derives from the current dogma that all ethnic stocks are
equal. Despite clear evidence to the contrary, all races have been
declared to be equally talented and hard- working, and anyone who
questions the dogma is thought to be not merely wrong but evil.
The dogma has logical consequences that are profoundly important. If
blacks, for example, are equal to Whites in every way, what accounts
for their poverty, criminality, and dissipation? Since any theory of
racial differences has been outlawed, the only possible explanation
for black failure is White racism. And since blacks are markedly poor,
crime-prone, and dissipated, America must be racked with pervasive
racism. Nothing else could be keeping them in such an abject state.
All public discourse on race today is locked into this rigid logic.
Any explanation for black failure that does not depend on White
wickedness threatens to veer off into the forbidden territory of
racial differences. Thus, even if today's Whites can find in their
hearts no desire to oppress blacks, yesterday's Whites must have
oppressed them. If Whites do not consciously oppress blacks, they must
oppress them Unconsciously. If no obviously racist individuals can be
identified, then societal institutions must be racist. Or, since
blacks are failing so terribly in America, there simply must be
millions of White people we do not know about, who are working day and
night to keep blacks in misery. The dogma of racial equality leaves no
room for an explanation of black failure that is not, in some fashion,
an indictment of White people.
The logical consequences of this are clear. Since we are required to
believe that the only explanation for non-White failure is White
racism, every time a non-White is poor, commits a crime, goes on
welfare, or takes drugs, White society stands accused of yet another
act of racism. All failure or misbehavior by non-Whites is standing
proof that White society is riddled with hatred and bigotry. For
precisely so long as non-Whites fail to succeed in life at exactly the
same level as Whites, Whites will be, by definition, thwarting and
oppressing them. This obligatory pattern of thinking leads to strange
conclusions. First of all, racism is a sin that is thought to be
committed almost exclusively by White people. Indeed, a black
congressman from Chicago, Gus Savage, and Coleman Young, the black
mayor of Detroit, have argued that only White people can be racist.
Likewise, in 1987, the affirmative action officer of the State
Insurance Fund of New York issued a company pamphlet in which she
explained that all Whites are racist and that only Whites can be
racist. How else could the plight of blacks be explained without
flirting with the possibility of racial inequality?
Although some blacks and liberal Whites concede that non-Whites can,
perhaps, be racist, they invariably add that non-Whites have been
forced into it as self-defense because of centuries of White
oppression. What appears to be non-White racism is so understandable
and forgivable that it hardly deserves the name. Thus, whether or not
an act is called racism depends on the race of the racist. What would
surely be called racism when done by Whites is thought to be normal
when done by anyone else. The reverse is also true.
Examples of this sort of double standard are so common, it is almost
tedious to list them: When a White man kills a black man and uses the
word "*****" while doing so, there is an enormous media uproar and
the nation beats its collective breast; when members of the black
Yahweh cult carry out ritual murders of random Whites, the media are
silent (see AR of March, 1991). College campuses forbid pejorative
statements about non-Whites as "racist," but ignore scurrilous attacks
on Whites.
At election time, if 60 percent of the White voters vote for a White
candidate, and 95 percent of the black voters vote for the black
opponent, it is Whites who are accused of racial bias. There are 107
"historically black" colleges, whose fundamental blackness must be
preserved in the name of diversity, but all historically White
colleges must be forcibly integrated in the name of... the same thing.
To resist would be racist.
"Black pride" is said to be a wonderful and worthy thing, but anything
that could be construed as an expression of White pride is a form of
hatred. It is perfectly natural for third-world immigrants to expect
school instruction and driver's tests in their own languages, whereas
for native Americans to ask them to learn English is racist.
Blatant anti-White prejudice, in the form of affirmative action, is
now the law of the land. Anything remotely like affirmative action, if
practiced in favor of Whites, would be attacked as despicable
favoritism.
All across the country, black, Hispanic, and Asian clubs and caucuses
are thought to be fine expressions of ethnic solidarity, but any club
or association expressly for Whites is by definition racist. The
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
campaigns openly for black advantage but is a respected "civil rights"
organization. The National Association for the Advancement of White
People (NAAWP) campaigns merely for equal treatment of all races, but
is said to be viciously racist.
At a few college campuses, students opposed to affirmative action have
set up student unions for Whites, analogous to those for blacks,
Hispanics, etc, and have been roundly condemned as racists. Recently,
when the White students at Lowell High School in San Francisco found
themselves to be a minority, they asked for a racially exclusive club
like the ones that non-Whites have. They were turned down in horror.
Indeed, in America today, any club not specifically formed to be a
White enclave but whose members simply happen all to be White is
branded as racist.
Today, one of the favorite slogans that define the asymmetric quality
of American racism is "celebration of diversity." It has begun to dawn
on a few people that "diversity" is always achieved at the expense of
Whites (and sometimes men), and never the other way around. No one
proposes that Howard University be made more diverse by admitting
Whites, Hispanics, or Asians. No one ever suggests that National
Hispanic University in San Jose (CA) would benefit from the diversity
of having non-Hispanics on campus. No one suggests that the Black
Congressional Caucus or the executive ranks of the NAACP or the
Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund suffer from a lack
of diversity. Somehow, it is perfectly legitimate for them to
celebrate homogeneity. And yet any all-White group - a company, a
town, a school, a club, a neighborhood - is thought to suffer from a
crippling lack of diversity that must be remedied as quickly as
possible. Only when Whites have been reduced to a minority has
"diversity" been achieved.
Let us put it bluntly: To "celebrate" or "embrace" diversity, as we
are so often asked to do, is no different from deploring an excess of
Whites. In fact, the entire nation is thought to suffer from an excess
of Whites. Our current immigration policies are structured so that
approximately 90 percent of our annual 800,000 legal immigrants are
non-White. The several million illegal immigrants that enter the
country every year are virtually all non-White. It would be racist not
to be grateful for this laudable contribution to "diversity." It is,
of course, only White nations that are called upon to practice this
kind of "diversity." It is almost criminal to imagine a nation of any
other race countenancing blatant dispossession of this kind.
What if the United States were pouring its poorest, least educated
citizens across the border into Mexico? Could anyone be fooled into
thinking that Mexico was being "culturally enriched?" What if the
state of Chihuahua were losing its majority population to poor Whites
who demanded that schools be taught in English, who insisted on
celebrating the Fourth of July, who demanded the right to vote even if
they weren't citizens, who clamored for "affirmative action" in jobs
and schooling?
Would Mexico - or any other non-White nation - tolerate this kind of
cultural and demographic depredation? Of course not. Yet White
Americans are supposed to look upon the flood of Hispanics and Asians
entering their country as a priceless cultural gift. They are supposed
to "celebrate" their own loss of influence, their own dwindling
numbers, their own dispossession, for to do otherwise would be
hopelessly racist.
There is another curious asymmetry about American racism. When non-
Whites advance their own racial purposes, no one ever accuses them of
"hating" another group. Blacks can join "civil rights" groups and
Hispanics can be activists without fear of being branded as bigots and
hate mongers. They can agitate openly for racial preferences that can
come only at the expense of whites. They can demand preferential
treatment of all kinds without anyone ever suggesting that they are
"anti-white."
Whites, on the other hand, need only express their opposition to
affirmative action to be called haters. They need only subject racial
policies that are clearly prejudicial to themselves to be called
racists. Should they actually go so far as to say that they prefer the
company of their own kind, that they wish to be left alone to enjoy
the fruits of their European heritage, they are irredeemably wicked
and hateful.
Here, then is the final, baffling inconsistency about American race
relations. All non-whites are allowed to prefer the company of their
own kind, to think of themselves as groups with interests distinct
from those of the whole, and to work openly for group advantage. None
of this is thought to be racist. At the same time, whites must also
champion the racial interests of non-whites. They must sacrifice their
own future on the altar of "diversity" and cooperate in their own
dispossession. They are to encourage, even to subsidize, the
displacement of a European people and culture by alien peoples and
cultures. To put it in the simplest possible terms, White people are
cheerfully to slaughter their own society, to commit racial and
cultural suicide. To refuse to do so would be racism.
Of course, the entire non-white enterprise in the United States is
perfectly natural and healthy. Nothing could be more natural than to
love one's people and to hope that it should flourish. Filipinos and
El Salvadorans are doubtless astonished to discover that simply by
setting foot in the United States they are entitled to affirmative
action preferences over native-born whites, but can they be blamed for
accepting them? Is it surprising that they should want their
languages, their cultures, their brothers and sisters to take
possession and put their mark indelibly on the land? If the once-great
people of a once-great nation is bent upon self-destruction and is
prepared to hand over land and power to whomever shows up and asks for
it, why should Mexicans and Cambodians complain?
No, it is the White enterprise in the United States that is unnatural,
unhealthy, and without historical precedent. Whites have let
themselves be convinced that it is racist merely to object to
dispossession, much less to work for their own interests. Never in the
history of the world has a dominant people thrown open the gates to
strangers, and poured out its wealth to aliens. Never before has a
people been fooled into thinking that there was virtue or nobility in
surrendering its heritage, and giving away to others its place in
history. Of all the races in America, only whites have been tricked
into thinking that a preference for one's own kind is racism. Only
whites are ever told that a love for their own people is somehow
"hatred" of others. All healthy people prefer the company of their own
kind, and it has nothing to do with hatred. All men love their
families more than their neighbors, but this does not mean that they
hate their neighbors. Whites who love their racial family need bear no
ill will towards non-whites. They only wish to be left alone to
participate in the unfolding of their racial and cultural destinies.
What whites in America are being asked to do is therefore utterly
unnatural. They are being asked to devote themselves to the interests
of other races and to ignore the interests of their own. This is like
asking a man to forsake his own children and love the children of his
neighbors, since to do otherwise would be "racist."
What then, is "racism?" It is considerably more than any dictionary is
likely to say. It is any opposition by whites to official policies of
racial preference for non-whites. It is any preference by whites for
their own people and culture. It is any resistance by whites to the
idea of becoming a minority people. It is any unwillingness to be
pushed aside. It is, in short, any of the normal aspirations of
people-hood that have defined nations since the beginning of history -
but only so long as the aspirations are those of whites.
http://www.ihr.org/ http://www.natvan.com
http://www.thebirdman.org http://www.nsm88.com/
http://wsi.matriots.com/jews.html
.
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| User: "tooly" |
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| Title: Re: Are people doomed to xenophobia and racism? |
26 Oct 2007 07:25:12 PM |
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"Topaz" <mars1933@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:98r4i3douhoedqcvnq5ptuf5ka9asatmbo@4ax.com...
All liberals have is meaningless buzz words. They call people racists.
Whatever. They don't have anything meaningful to say.
by Thomas Jackson
There is surely no nation in the world that holds "racism" in greater
horror than does the United States. Compared to other kinds of
offenses, it is thought to be somehow more reprehensible. The press
and public have become so used to tales of murder, rape, robbery, and
arson, that any but the most spectacular crimes are shrugged off as
part of the inevitable texture of American life. "Racism" is never
shrugged off. For example, when a White Georgetown Law School student
reported earlier this year that black students are not as qualified as
White students, it set off a booming, national controversy about
"racism." If the student had merely murdered someone he would have
attracted far less attention and criticism.
You know Topaz, I think there is a reason for this obsession too. I think
everyone, DEEP down, understands a certain 'reality' exists, and that this
new world 'misguided' hegemony is trying to 'force' unreality. They don't
want to face the truth. What's that term...cognizant dissonance or
whatever? It's a psychological repression going on, perhaps much like old
Victorian hegemony tried to suppress our sexuality. There was a time in
this world when the mere mention of the word 'sex' would make women faint
from 'shock'. It's that kind of 'rabid dog' exposure these kooks [most of
today's polite society] have been raised to think under...only now the
flagword is 'Race'. They want so much a 'certain kind' of world where
strife and struggle is no longer a conflict, at least when it comes to
people. They FORCE things.
I contend that FORCING creates repressed psychological and sociological harm
far worse than a free nature being allowed to seek its own end. It has
certainly destroyed my spirit, that much I know.
.
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| User: "Topaz" |
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| Title: Re: Re: Are people doomed to xenophobia and racism? |
27 Oct 2007 12:51:50 PM |
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On Fri, 26 Oct 2007 20:25:12 -0400, "tooly" <rdh11@bellsouth.net>
wrote:
You know Topaz, I think there is a reason for this obsession too. I think
everyone, DEEP down, understands a certain 'reality' exists, and that this
new world 'misguided' hegemony is trying to 'force' unreality. They don't
want to face the truth. What's that term...cognizant dissonance or
whatever? It's a psychological repression going on, perhaps much like old
Victorian hegemony tried to suppress our sexuality. There was a time in
this world when the mere mention of the word 'sex' would make women faint
from 'shock'. It's that kind of 'rabid dog' exposure these kooks [most of
today's polite society] have been raised to think under...only now the
flagword is 'Race'. They want so much a 'certain kind' of world where
strife and struggle is no longer a conflict, at least when it comes to
people. They FORCE things.
I contend that FORCING creates repressed psychological and sociological harm
far worse than a free nature being allowed to seek its own end. It has
certainly destroyed my spirit, that much I know.
Great post. Certainly they have a strong wish for the races to be the
same. They don't want to be confused by any facts.
http://www.ihr.org/ http://www.natvan.com
http://www.thebirdman.org http://www.nsm88.com/
http://wsi.matriots.com/jews.html
.
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| User: "ZerkonX" |
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| Title: Re: Are people doomed to xenophobia and racism? |
27 Oct 2007 09:21:05 AM |
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On Fri, 26 Oct 2007 06:14:08 +0000, turtoni wrote:
Fortunately, however, research also shows that prejudices are fluid
and that when we become conscious of our biases we can take active-and
successful-steps to combat them.
Becoming conscience of a thing then 'combating' it is abstract and a
fantasy.
'Us' vs 'them' deteriorates with personal contact and mutual goals.
Too much celebration or condemnation of difference under the name of
'understanding' and not enough recognition of sameness is central to
keeping divisions alive and sick. It is a deception.
The proof of this is the profound amount of integration that has taken
place over the course of human history. What hard wired group should we
start with? Anglo-Saxons? It is popular to think that groups seen today
have always been separate because of some niffy convenient label.
Where does it end, really? Race is a determinate but so too is religion,
so too is nationality, so too is environment, so too is income, music
preferences, occupations, working hours, generational divides, body size,
clothing, language, hair cuts and cars. We can make huge difference out of
any dang thing. If left to brooding incubation, the difference can seem
irreconcilable until a new one shows up of course.
The fact is no human difference has ever been forever absolute. Anyone out
there who happens to be Irish should know this. Two generations ago the
Irish were thought of as being as lowly in intelligence, culture and
genetic makeup as any group who is seen as so today. The label 'Chinaman'
had a sting only until very recently. The label "Communist".. seems like
it was just yesterday....
This article does not want to address the political aspects of this. I
suppose it sees such messiness as being outside it's scope so I will not
open it up here except to say to leave this out is a great mistake.
.
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| User: "tooly" |
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| Title: Re: Are people doomed to xenophobia and racism? |
27 Oct 2007 10:19:05 AM |
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"ZerkonX" <ZERKON@zerkonx.net> wrote in message
news:pan.2007.10.27.14.21.04.576580@zerkonx.net...
On Fri, 26 Oct 2007 06:14:08 +0000, turtoni wrote:
Fortunately, however, research also shows that prejudices are fluid
and that when we become conscious of our biases we can take active-and
successful-steps to combat them.
Becoming conscience of a thing then 'combating' it is abstract and a
fantasy.
'Us' vs 'them' deteriorates with personal contact and mutual goals.
Too much celebration or condemnation of difference under the name of
'understanding' and not enough recognition of sameness is central to
keeping divisions alive and sick. It is a deception.
The proof of this is the profound amount of integration that has taken
place over the course of human history. What hard wired group should we
start with? Anglo-Saxons? It is popular to think that groups seen today
have always been separate because of some niffy convenient label.
Where does it end, really? Race is a determinate but so too is religion,
so too is nationality, so too is environment, so too is income, music
preferences, occupations, working hours, generational divides, body size,
clothing, language, hair cuts and cars. We can make huge difference out of
any dang thing. If left to brooding incubation, the difference can seem
irreconcilable until a new one shows up of course.
The fact is no human difference has ever been forever absolute. Anyone out
there who happens to be Irish should know this. Two generations ago the
Irish were thought of as being as lowly in intelligence, culture and
genetic makeup as any group who is seen as so today. The label 'Chinaman'
had a sting only until very recently. The label "Communist".. seems like
it was just yesterday....
This article does not want to address the political aspects of this. I
suppose it sees such messiness as being outside it's scope so I will not
open it up here except to say to leave this out is a great mistake.
Two things.
First, blacks have problems assimlating wherever they are. This has been
shown throughout history. In east Africa during colonization years, even
blacks themselves did not identify themselves as African or black, but
preferred to call themselves Porteguese.
It is not just about skin color, but a marked difference of temperment as
found on that far spectrum of the human equation. Asians assimilate
readily. European descended hispanics [I bet pico is such] have no problem.
But hispanics of Mayan or Incan descent have a harder time of it etc. This
off the cuff and not a studied analysis of course and full of holes, but the
point made is that not all peoples readily integrate smoothly IF AT ALL.
Blacks are integrating now only through sheer political force...but ARE
THEY? I see our own white [and even hispanic] kids taking on the
expressions of the blacks. I don't think we are integrating even now...but
we are slowly being consumed. I go to our high schools and see the
sensibilities of the kids alien and far more black than white. The two
cultures are just too disparate and when integrated, there can only be
dominant and recessive outcomes.
Again, we are being consumed I argue.
Our prisons are one last bastion of unfetered tinkering by human idealogues.
When humans are allowed to freely associate, hispanics congregate with
hispanics, whites with whites, and blacks with blacks. There might be some
tolerance gained through interaction, friendships, even comraderie...but not
true integration. In prisons, the races appear to be completely and utterly
banded together against one another.
This is eye opening...but intellectuals with political agenda will argue
every which way to disprove what the eye can plainly see.
And here's a question. What if today's racial hegemony is wrong? Has anyone
stopped to think of the harm that is being committed under ideas that needed
the national guard to enforce [in Alabama at the time]? There must have
been a reason whites and blacks did not naturally combine without political
force.
Again, what if you are wrong? And I say secular progressives today ARE
wrong. And have all but destroyed any real hope for this world in the long
term. [unless a miracle comes along or something].
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| User: "ZerkonX" |
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| Title: Re: Are people doomed to xenophobia and racism? |
28 Oct 2007 11:08:47 AM |
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On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 11:19:05 -0400, tooly wrote:
Two things.
First, blacks have problems assimlating wherever they are. This has
been shown throughout history. In east Africa during colonization
years, even blacks themselves did not identify themselves as African or
black, but preferred to call themselves Porteguese.
Not really true. Spain? Also, your example seem to contradict your
position. Blacks (?) in America not assimilated? You are using
assimilation as a substitute for conformity. Not the same thing as I see
it.
I see assimilation as having two or more set of differences which product
yet another set of differences through combination not elimination.
Blacks are integrating now only through sheer political force...but ARE
THEY?
Not true. First blacks are as much a part of American culture as Europeans
by the sheer weight of their history here. You can not take a group that
have ancestral roots since the 16-1700's and say they are somehow not
integrated into the culture. They ARE the culture as much as anyone else.
How can this not be fact?
I see our own white [and even hispanic] kids taking on the
expressions of the blacks.
Do you remember the Beatniks? On the other hand, I find the commercial
hip-hop pseudo-culture loathsome. It's has all to do with hyper
consumption while feigning some shallow social face of a vengeful victim.
I see this more as a corporate doing. It has stupefied music and has done
the same to most of it's audience.
Again, we are being consumed I argue.
Our prisons are one last bastion of unfetered tinkering by human
idealogues. When humans are allowed to freely associate, hispanics
congregate with hispanics, whites with whites, and blacks with blacks.
There might be some tolerance gained through interaction, friendships,
even comraderie...but not true integration. In prisons, the races
appear to be completely and utterly banded together against one another.
This is eye opening...but intellectuals with political agenda will argue
every which way to disprove what the eye can plainly see.
If you were in Romania, would you feel more kinship to a black American or
a Romanian? Would you feel more kinship to one who spoke your own language
or to one who did not, even though your racial makeup might be closer to
the person speaking a foreign language?
And here's a question. What if today's racial hegemony is wrong?
I do not see, or at least do not agree with 'racial hegemony'. On the one
hand race is made too polarized on the other it is pretended that
difference does not exits. Another example of binary failure. I think the
overwhelming evidence from history and from my own personal life is that
it is neither.
Has anyone stopped to think of the harm that is being committed under
ideas that needed the national guard to enforce [in Alabama at the
time]? There must have been a reason whites and blacks did not
naturally combine without political force.
Without even considering the element of slavery, the entire Armed Force of
the United States Federal Government was needed to 'force' the union to
stay together. Indeed, if the use of force is the determinate to what is
and is not the natural scheme of things, Alabama is a very small potato.
Again, what if you are wrong?
I do not see this as a matter of right or wrong but as what is and what
not is not. What is is that humans move in groupings that are relative not
absolute. Here we differ. I would say the harm in me being wrong is near
negligible compared to the 'what if' you are.
The only alternative, and maybe you should offer one, you seem to leave is
first and foremost an imposition on if not oppression of others. I can
only see it as being natural that, if done, this would not stop with the
initial target group. Your presumption in all of this is that you
and yours are on one absolute side of an absolute fence that has always
existed and that will never change. But is this true? Already you using
terms like "secular progressives" in an absolute grouping sense, so maybe
race isn't the only determinant here. Thought becomes a suspect.
Another fence? See where this goes?
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| User: "tooly" |
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| Title: Re: Are people doomed to xenophobia and racism? |
28 Oct 2007 03:19:17 PM |
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If you were in Romania, would you feel more kinship to a black American or
a Romanian? Would you feel more kinship to one who spoke your own language
or to one who did not, even though your racial makeup might be closer to
the person speaking a foreign language?
This one is easy to answer. When the Olympics come around, I cheer for the
Scandanavians in track and field...sprinting for instance. When I see
blacks sporting the USA uniforms, I grimace. I have no sense of kinship or
representation 'whatsoever'. They are alien.
I no longer watch professional sports events as they've become inundated
with blacks. In essence, my world has been obliterated...taken from me.
I'm not just marginalized now...but I have been essentially thrown out of my
own land, my own 'house' as it were [that my forebears created]. I can only
wonder how many may have similar feelings as myself...but for sake of
survival, have gone underground, cacooned or something.
No, I'm quite sure that what we see as 'integrated' socialization today
between whites and blacks is only a 'functional convenience' and not true
assimilation. In time, this will be proved correct when blacks eventually
gain the political majority over this next century. I am quite sure we will
see only a rising perjorative influence in the US to oppress white culture
while pushing ahead black sensibilities. Everyone will lose for this, even
blacks.
I thought a clear insight into how large a divide this truely is came on the
verdict of the OJ Simpson trial. Throughout the land almost to the man,
blacks stood and cheered. We are not coming together but whites have only
been politically tethered down while they are allowed to be raped socially
and culturally. Well...we ARE coming together if you regard white cultural
annihilation as a solution.
And here's a question. What if today's racial hegemony is wrong?
I do not see, or at least do not agree with 'racial hegemony'. On the one
hand race is made too polarized on the other it is pretended that
difference does not exits. Another example of binary failure. I think the
overwhelming evidence from history and from my own personal life is that
it is neither.
Has anyone stopped to think of the harm that is being committed under
ideas that needed the national guard to enforce [in Alabama at the
time]? There must have been a reason whites and blacks did not
naturally combine without political force.
Without even considering the element of slavery, the entire Armed Force of
the United States Federal Government was needed to 'force' the union to
stay together. Indeed, if the use of force is the determinate to what is
and is not the natural scheme of things, Alabama is a very small potato.
Hmm...this is an interesting response considering that it is the secular
liberal's oft argument to throw around words like 'fascist'.
Some political force is always needed to cement together a society. When we
stray too far from natural order however, we pay for it down the way in
upheavals for correction. The USSR is a good example perhaps..but for
ecnomic reasons, an experiment too far off course from natural cause.
Today's 'social experiment' of integrating black culture into white is a
fiasco much more aggregious.
Again, what if you are wrong?
I do not see this as a matter of right or wrong but as what is and what
not is not. What is is that humans move in groupings that are relative not
absolute. Here we differ. I would say the harm in me being wrong is near
negligible compared to the 'what if' you are.
Neglibible? Life to me is no longer worthwhile and believe I am only a
precursor to sensibilities that will in time, affect all caucasians. Fear
of death is the only thing keeping me here. I'm extreme perhaps, granted.
But in the long term [not so long], We have most definitely committed
cultural suicide if not genetic. Beethoven traded for Ludicris. Not a good
bargain for anyone.
No, this is the most impacting thing ever done in this world. It has
altered the entire scope of human civilization...even to threaten it's very
continued existence in time. I'm convinced of this.
I'm convinced that because of black integration, this world is losing all
redemptive worth. Misery and cruelty have only begun to rise. Redemptive
worth may seem like a religious concept, but I think it works subliminally
on sentient life, where deep demoralization begins to shift certain gestalt
energies away from vital healthy mindsets, to a more declining 'self
destructiveness'...even perhaps, as a subversive sub-consciousness to
continued life itself.
Take a gander at the latest SAW or HOSTEL movies to see where I'm going on
this. Can you even imagine movies such as these being made just 20 years
ago with so much following, much less 50 years ago when white culture was
still intact. Such artistic expressions are totally devoided of 'redemptive
value' to life. Can you see that? Even subversive...with an essential
demoralizing message that devalues life altogether as little more than
'meat'.
I realize it may not be easy to see the connection, but rest assured, the
great demoralization that allows such things to exist in our midst is
DIRECTLY tied to black integration.
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| User: "ZerkonX" |
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| Title: Re: Are people doomed to xenophobia and racism? |
29 Oct 2007 06:49:48 AM |
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On Sun, 28 Oct 2007 16:19:17 -0400, tooly wrote:
This one is easy to answer. When the Olympics come around, I cheer for the
Scandanavians in track and field...sprinting for instance. When I see
blacks sporting the USA uniforms, I grimace. I have no sense of kinship or
representation 'whatsoever'. They are alien.
In the above situation you have answered my question concerning a face to
face encounter interaction (ie if you were in Romania..) with a TV
encounter or, at best, as a member of an audience making the a face to
face equal to watching TV. I will leave it there, it speaks volumes for
itself. Wonder if you would feel the same if you were an actual member
of the US team.
Who makes the better case here is for another to decide. I think we have
made our positions clear enough for now.
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| User: "tooly" |
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| Title: Re: Are people doomed to xenophobia and racism? |
29 Oct 2007 08:07:46 AM |
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"ZerkonX" <ZERKON@zerkonx.net> wrote in message
news:pan.2007.10.29.11.49.47.767014@zerkonx.net...
On Sun, 28 Oct 2007 16:19:17 -0400, tooly wrote:
This one is easy to answer. When the Olympics come around, I cheer for
the
Scandanavians in track and field...sprinting for instance. When I see
blacks sporting the USA uniforms, I grimace. I have no sense of kinship
or
representation 'whatsoever'. They are alien.
In the above situation you have answered my question concerning a face to
face encounter interaction (ie if you were in Romania..) with a TV
encounter or, at best, as a member of an audience making the a face to
face equal to watching TV. I will leave it there, it speaks volumes for
itself. Wonder if you would feel the same if you were an actual member
of the US team.
Who makes the better case here is for another to decide. I think we have
made our positions clear enough for now.
Case? I'm here really only to report of my annihilation and torture.
There is a cost to anything we do...and integration has had it's cost.
I think what we have destroyed in our midst is the son of Abraham, and his
ghost put asunder, leaves us devoided of our tether to God.
Oh...superstitions will probably continue...mind ploys for imaginative
brains, mostly primitive [Turner was not far off when he called fundies
losers]. But I once saw something 'real' in our emobdied ideal...a state
from which all virtue poured. I argue that love itself 'dies' in us...or at
least declines to new world materialism.
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| User: "Immortalist" |
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| Title: Re: Are people doomed to xenophobia and racism? |
26 Oct 2007 04:43:39 PM |
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On Oct 25, 11:14 pm, turtoni <turt...@fastmail.net> wrote:
"If categorization and bias come so easily, are people doomed to
xenophobia and racism? It's pretty clear that we are susceptible to
prejudice and that there is an unconscious desire to divide the world
into "us" and "them."
Fortunately, however, research also shows that prejudices are fluid
and that when we become conscious of our biases we can take active-and
successful-steps to combat them.
Researchers have long known that when observing racially mixed groups,
people are more likely to confuse the identity of two black
individuals or two white ones, rather than a white with a black. But
Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, of the Center for Evolutionary
Psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and
anthropologist Robert Kurzban, of the University of California at Los
Angeles, wanted to test whether this was innate or whether it was just
an artifact of how society groups individuals by race.
To do this, Cosmides and her colleagues made a video of two racially
integrated basketball teams locked in conversation, then they showed
it to study participants. As reported in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, the researchers discovered that subjects
were more likely to confuse two players on the same team, regardless
of race, rather than two players of the same race on opposite teams.
Cosmides says that this points to one way of attacking racism and
xenophobia: changing the way society imposes group labels. American
society divides people by race and by ethnicity; that's how lines of
prejudice form. But simple steps, such as integrating the basketball
teams, can reset mental divisions, rendering race and ethnicity less
important.
This was an excellent article, which comes down on the side of
Evolutionary Psychology, but not without giving the blank slate old
school sociological theories a clear hearing. With this kind of
approach one can really decide which way to go next to study further
since most contrary views were explained.
The part about confusing identity while the distinction is to be made
in one's ingroup, it is further complicated by the ties of
relationships on that team. When the responsibilities are distributed
properly the individuals become associted with their task and become
less assocoated with non-cooperative stereotypes.
The Jigsaw Technique:An example will clarify: In our initial
experiment, we entered a fifth grade classroom of a newly desegregated
school. In this classroom, the children were studying biographies of
famous Americans. The upcoming lesson happened to be a biography of
Joseph Pulitzer, the famous journalist.
First, we constructed a biography of Joseph Pulitzer consisting of six
paragraphs. Paragraph one was about Pulitzer's ancestors and how they
came to this country; paragraph two was about Pulitzer as a little boy
and how he grew up; paragraph three was about Pulitzer as a young man,
his education, and his early employment; paragraph four was about his
middle age and how he founded his newspaper; and so forth.
Each major aspect of Pulitzer's life was contained in a seperate
paragraph. We mimeiographed our biography of Pulitzer, cut each copy
of the biography into six one paragraph sections, and gave every child
in each of the six person learning groups one paragraph about
Pultzer's life. Thus, each learning group had within it the entire
biography but each individual child had no more than one sixth of the
story. Like a jigsaw puzzle, each child had one piece of the puzzle,
and each child was dependent on the other children in the group for
the completion of the big picture.
In order to learn about Pulitzer, each child had to master a paragraph
and teach it to the others.
Students took their paragraphs and went off by themselves where they
could learn them. In learning the paragraph, the children were free to
consult with their counterparts in one of the other learning groups.
That is, if Johnnie had been dealt Pulitzer as a young man, he might
have consulted with Christina, who was in a different learning group
and had also been dealt Pulitzer as a young man. They could use each
other to rehearse and clarify for themselves the important aspects of
that phase of Pulitzer's life.
A short time later, the students came back into session with their six
person groups. They were informed that they had a certain amount of
time to communicate their knowledge to one another. They were also
informed that, at the end of the time (or soon thereafter), they were
going to be tested on their knowledge.
When thrown on their own resources, the children eventually learned to
teaach and to listen to one another. The children gradually learned
that none of them could do well without the aid of each person in the
group -- and that each member had a unique and essential contribution
to make.
Suppose you and I are children in the same group. You've been dealt
Pulitzer as a young man; I've been dealt Pulitzer as an old man. The
only way I can learn about Pulitzer as a young man is to pay close
attention to what you are saying. You a very important resource for
me. The teacher is no longer the sole resource -- he or she isn't even
in the group. Insetead, every kid in the circle becomes important to
me. I do well if I pay attention to other kids; I do poorly if I
don't. I no longer get rewarded for trying to please the teacher at
your expense. It's a whole new ball game.
But cooperative behavior doesn't happen all at once. Typically, it
requires several days before children use this technique effectively.
Old habits are difficult to break. The students in our experiemental
group had grown accustomed to competing during all of their years in
school. For the first few days, most of the youngsters tried to
compete -- even though competitiveness was dysfunctional.
Let me illustrate with an actual example, typical of the way the
children stumbled toward the learning of the cooperative process. In
one of our groups there was a Mexican American boy, whom we will call
Carlos. Carlos was not very articulate in English, his second
language. He had learned over the years how to keep quiet in class
because frequently, when he had spoken up in the past, he was
ridiculed.
In this instance, he had a great deal of trouble communicating his
paragraph to the other children; he was very uncomfortable about it.
He liked the traditional way better. This is not surprising, because,
in the system we introduced, Carlos was forced to speak, whereas
before he could always deindividuate himself and keep a low profile in
the classroom. But the situation was even more complex than that --
it might even be said that the teacher and Carlos had entered into a
conspiracy (prison experiment), that they were in collusion. Carlos
was perfectly willing to be quiet. In the past, the teacher called on
him occaisionally; he would stumble, stammer, and fall into an
embarrassed silence. Several of his peers would make fun of him. The
teacher had learned not to call on him anymore.
The decision probably came from the purest of intentions -- the
teacher simply did not want to humiliate him. But by ignoring him, she
had written him off. The implication was that he was not worth
bothering with -- at least the other kids in the classroom got that
message. they believed there was one good reason why the teacher
wasn't calling on Carlos -- he was stupid. Indeed, even Carlos began
to draw this conclusion.
This is part of the dynamic of how desegregation, when coupled with a
competitive process, can produce unequal status contact and can result
in even greater enmity between ethnic groups and a loss of self esteem
for members of disadvantaged ethnic minorites.
Let us go back to our six person group. Carlos, who had to report on
Pultzer's young manhood, was having a very hard time. He stammered,
hesitated, and fidgeted. The other kids in the circle were not very
helpful. They had grown accustomed to a competitive process and
responded out of this old, overlearned habit. They knew what to do
when a kid stumbles -- especially a kid whom they believed to be
stupid. They ridiculed him, put him down, and teased him. During our
experiment, it was Mary who was observed to say: "Aw, you don't know
it; your dumb, you're stupid. You don't know what you're doing."
In our initial experiment, the groups were being loosely monitered by
a research assistant who was floating from group to group. When this
incident occurred, our assistant made one brief intervention: "OK, you
can do that if you want to. It might be fun for you, but it's not
going to help you learn about Pultzer's young manhood. The exam will
take place in an hour." Notice how the reinforcement contingencies
have shifted. No longer does Mary gain much from putting Carlos down
-- in fact, she now stands to lose a great deal.
After a few days and several similar experiences, it began to dawn on
the students in Carlos's group that the only way they could learn
about Pultzer's young manhood was by paying attention to what Carlos
had to say. Gradually, they began to develop into pretty good
interviewers. Instead of ignoring or ridiculing Carlos when he was
having a little trouble communicating what he knew, they began asking
probing questions -- the kind of questions that made it easier for
Carlos to communicate what was in his head.
Carlos began to respond to this treatment by becoming more relaxed;
with increased relaxation came an improvement in his ability to
communicate. After a couple of weeks, the other children concluded
Carlos was a lot smarter than they had thought he was. They began to
see things in him they had never seen before. They began to like him.
Carlos began to enjoy school more and began to see the Anglo students
in his group not as tormentors but as helpful and responsible people.
Moreover, as he began to feel increasingly comfortable in class and
started to gain more confidence in himself, his academic performance
began to improve. The vicious cycle had been reversed; the elements
that had been causing a downward spiral were changed -- the spiral now
began to move upward.
The Social Animal - Elliot Aronson - 8th Edition 1999
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0716733129/
This link goes to some recent data and maybe a methodology for
generalizing
this technic to society in general.
http://www.jigsaw.org/steps.htm
This finding supports earlier research by psychologists Samuel
Gaertner, of the University of Delaware in Newark, and John Dovidio,
of Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. Gaertner and Dovidio have
studied how bias changes when members of racially mixed groups must
cooperate to accomplish shared goals. In situations where team members
had to work together, bias could be reduced by significant amounts.
Monteith has also found that people who are concerned about their
prejudices have the power to correct them. In experiments, she told
subjects that they had performed poorly on tests that measured belief
in stereotypes. She discovered that the worse a subject felt about her
performance, the better she scored on subsequent tests. The guilt
behind learning about their own prejudices made the subjects try
harder not to be biased.
This suggests that the guilt of mistaking individuals for their group
stereotype-such as falsely believing an Arab is a terrorist-can lead
to the breakdown of the belief in that stereotype. Unfortunately, such
stereotypes are reinforced so often that they can become ingrained. It
is difficult to escape conventional wisdom and treat all people as
individuals, rather than members of a group. But that seems to be the
best way to avoid the trap of dividing the world in two-and
discriminating against one part of humanity."
I think it would be easier to somehow fool the xenophobically driven
human to view humankind as "the in-group."
http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20030501-000001.html
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| User: "zinnic" |
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| Title: Re: Are people doomed to xenophobia and racism? |
26 Oct 2007 10:49:05 AM |
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On Oct 26, 1:14 am, turtoni <turt...@fastmail.net> wrote:
"If categorization and bias come so easily, are people doomed to
xenophobia and racism? It's pretty clear that we are susceptible to
prejudice and that there is an unconscious desire to divide the world
into "us" and "them."
Fortunately, however, research also shows that prejudices are fluid
and that when we become conscious of our biases we can take active-and
successful-steps to combat them.
Researchers have long known that when observing racially mixed groups,
people are more likely to confuse the identity of two black
individuals or two white ones, rather than a white with a black. But
Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, of the Center for Evolutionary
Psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and
anthropologist Robert Kurzban, of the University of California at Los
Angeles, wanted to test whether this was innate or whether it was just
an artifact of how society groups individuals by race.
To do this, Cosmides and her colleagues made a video of two racially
integrated basketball teams locked in conversation, then they showed
it to study participants. As reported in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, the researchers discovered that subjects
were more likely to confuse two players on the same team, regardless
of race, rather than two players of the same race on opposite teams.
Cosmides says that this points to one way of attacking racism and
xenophobia: changing the way society imposes group labels. American
society divides people by race and by ethnicity; that's how lines of
prejudice form. But simple steps, such as integrating the basketball
teams, can reset mental divisions, rendering race and ethnicity less
important.
This finding supports earlier research by psychologists Samuel
Gaertner, of the University of Delaware in Newark, and John Dovidio,
of Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. Gaertner and Dovidio have
studied how bias changes when members of racially mixed groups must
cooperate to accomplish shared goals. In situations where team members
had to work together, bias could be reduced by significant amounts.
Monteith has also found that people who are concerned about their
prejudices have the power to correct them. In experiments, she told
subjects that they had performed poorly on tests that measured belief
in stereotypes. She discovered that the worse a subject felt about her
performance, the better she scored on subsequent tests. The guilt
behind learning about their own prejudices made the subjects try
harder not to be biased.
This suggests that the guilt of mistaking individuals for their group
stereotype-such as falsely believing an Arab is a terrorist-can lead
to the breakdown of the belief in that stereotype. Unfortunately, such
stereotypes are reinforced so often that they can become ingrained. It
is difficult to escape conventional wisdom and treat all people as
individuals, rather than members of a group. But that seems to be the
best way to avoid the trap of dividing the world in two-and
discriminating against one part of humanity."
http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20030501-000001.html
In a nutshell. If you are for me then I am for you! Simple as
"depends whose ox is being gored".
Zinnic
Zinnic
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| User: "Robert Cohen" |
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| Title: Re: Are people doomed to xenophobia and racism? |
26 Oct 2007 04:14:17 PM |
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On Oct 26, 2:14 am, turtoni <turt...@fastmail.net> wrote:
"If categorization and bias come so easily, are people doomed to
xenophobia and racism? It's pretty clear that we are susceptible to
prejudice and that there is an unconscious desire to divide the world
into "us" and "them."
Fortunately, however, research also shows that prejudices are fluid
and that when we become conscious of our biases we can take active-and
successful-steps to combat them.
Researchers have long known that when observing racially mixed groups,
people are more likely to confuse the identity of two black
individuals or two white ones, rather than a white with a black. But
Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, of the Center for Evolutionary
Psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and
anthropologist Robert Kurzban, of the University of California at Los
Angeles, wanted to test whether this was innate or whether it was just
an artifact of how society groups individuals by race.
To do this, Cosmides and her colleagues made a video of two racially
integrated basketball teams locked in conversation, then they showed
it to study participants. As reported in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, the researchers discovered that subjects
were more likely to confuse two players on the same team, regardless
of race, rather than two players of the same race on opposite teams.
Cosmides says that this points to one way of attacking racism and
xenophobia: changing the way society imposes group labels. American
society divides people by race and by ethnicity; that's how lines of
prejudice form. But simple steps, such as integrating the basketball
teams, can reset mental divisions, rendering race and ethnicity less
important.
This finding supports earlier research by psychologists Samuel
Gaertner, of the University of Delaware in Newark, and John Dovidio,
of Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. Gaertner and Dovidio have
studied how bias changes when members of racially mixed groups must
cooperate to accomplish shared goals. In situations where team members
had to work together, bias could be reduced by significant amounts.
Monteith has also found that people who are concerned about their
prejudices have the power to correct them. In experiments, she told
subjects that they had performed poorly on tests that measured belief
in stereotypes. She discovered that the worse a subject felt about her
performance, the better she scored on subsequent tests. The guilt
behind learning about their own prejudices made the subjects try
harder not to be biased.
This suggests that the guilt of mistaking individuals for their group
stereotype-such as falsely believing an Arab is a terrorist-can lead
to the breakdown of the belief in that stereotype. Unfortunately, such
stereotypes are reinforced so often that they can become ingrained. It
is difficult to escape conventional wisdom and treat all people as
individuals, rather than members of a group. But that seems to be the
best way to avoid the trap of dividing the world in two-and
discriminating against one part of humanity."
http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20030501-000001.html
The answer to the inquiry is generally yes.
Imho, we the human beings do hold all sorts of bias & prejudice
based on race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, and the
usual stuff.
politically incorrect stuff.
This is harsh, and I do not like it, though I concede its ugly
banality as our common or ordinary actual realism or reality or human
condition.
I do not know exactly what Arendt means, while I mean our tragic-comic-
absurd plight.
.
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| User: "turtoni" |
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| Title: Re: Are people doomed to xenophobia and racism? |
27 Oct 2007 12:48:42 AM |
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On Oct 26, 5:14 pm, Robert Cohen <robtco...@msn.com> wrote:
On Oct 26, 2:14 am, turtoni <turt...@fastmail.net> wrote:
"If categorization and bias come so easily, are people doomed to
xenophobia and racism? It's pretty clear that we are susceptible to
prejudice and that there is an unconscious desire to divide the world
into "us" and "them."
Fortunately, however, research also shows that prejudices are fluid
and that when we become conscious of our biases we can take active-and
successful-steps to combat them.
Researchers have long known that when observing racially mixed groups,
people are more likely to confuse the identity of two black
individuals or two white ones, rather than a white with a black. But
Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, of the Center for Evolutionary
Psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and
anthropologist Robert Kurzban, of the University of California at Los
Angeles, wanted to test whether this was innate or whether it was just
an artifact of how society groups individuals by race.
To do this, Cosmides and her colleagues made a video of two racially
integrated basketball teams locked in conversation, then they showed
it to study participants. As reported in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, the researchers discovered that subjects
were more likely to confuse two players on the same team, regardless
of race, rather than two players of the same race on opposite teams.
Cosmides says that this points to one way of attacking racism and
xenophobia: changing the way society imposes group labels. American
society divides people by race and by ethnicity; that's how lines of
prejudice form. But simple steps, such as integrating the basketball
teams, can reset mental divisions, rendering race and ethnicity less
important.
This finding supports earlier research by psychologists Samuel
Gaertner, of the University of Delaware in Newark, and John Dovidio,
of Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. Gaertner and Dovidio have
studied how bias changes when members of racially mixed groups must
cooperate to accomplish shared goals. In situations where team members
had to work together, bias could be reduced by significant amounts.
Monteith has also found that people who are concerned about their
prejudices have the power to correct them. In experiments, she told
subjects that they had performed poorly on tests that measured belief
in stereotypes. She discovered that the worse a subject felt about her
performance, the better she scored on subsequent tests. The guilt
behind learning about their own prejudices made the subjects try
harder not to be biased.
This suggests that the guilt of mistaking individuals for their group
stereotype-such as falsely believing an Arab is a terrorist-can lead
to the breakdown of the belief in that stereotype. Unfortunately, such
stereotypes are reinforced so often that they can become ingrained. It
is difficult to escape conventional wisdom and treat all people as
individuals, rather than members of a group. But that seems to be the
best way to avoid the trap of dividing the world in two-and
discriminating against one part of humanity."
http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20030501-000001.html
The answer to the inquiry is generally yes.
Imho, we the human beings do hold all sorts of bias & prejudice
based on race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, and the
usual stuff.
politically incorrect stuff.
This is harsh, and I do not like it, though I concede its ugly
banality as our common or ordinary actual realism or reality or human
condition.
Likely the "ordinary actual realism". Since the "bias & prejudice" is
inherient, running through *all* our acts.
I do not know exactly what Arendt means,
I don't know why you don't know what she means.
while I mean our tragic-comic- absurd plight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism
.
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| User: "Robert Cohen" |
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| Title: Re: Are people doomed to xenophobia and racism? |
27 Oct 2007 12:04:13 PM |
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|
On Oct 27, 1:48 am, turtoni <turt...@fastmail.net> wrote:
On Oct 26, 5:14 pm, Robert Cohen <robtco...@msn.com> wrote:
On Oct 26, 2:14 am, turtoni <turt...@fastmail.net> wrote:
"If categorization and bias come so easily, are people doomed to
xenophobia and racism? It's pretty clear that we are susceptible to
prejudice and that there is an unconscious desire to divide the world
into "us" and "them."
Fortunately, however, research also shows that prejudices are fluid
and that when we become conscious of our biases we can take active-and
successful-steps to combat them.
Researchers have long known that when observing racially mixed groups,
people are more likely to confuse the identity of two black
individuals or two white ones, rather than a white with a black. But
Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, of the Center for Evolutionary
Psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and
anthropologist Robert Kurzban, of the University of California at Los
Angeles, wanted to test whether this was innate or whether it was just
an artifact of how society groups individuals by race.
To do this, Cosmides and her colleagues made a video of two racially
integrated basketball teams locked in conversation, then they showed
it to study participants. As reported in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, the researchers discovered that subjects
were more likely to confuse two players on the same team, regardless
of race, rather than two players of the same race on opposite teams.
Cosmides says that this points to one way of attacking racism and
xenophobia: changing the way society imposes group labels. American
society divides people by race and by ethnicity; that's how lines of
prejudice form. But simple steps, such as integrating the basketball
teams, can reset mental divisions, rendering race and ethnicity less
important.
This finding supports earlier research by psychologists Samuel
Gaertner, of the University of Delaware in Newark, and John Dovidio,
of Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. Gaertner and Dovidio have
studied how bias changes when members of racially mixed groups must
cooperate to accomplish shared goals. In situations where team members
had to work together, bias could be reduced by significant amounts.
Monteith has also found that people who are concerned about their
prejudices have the power to correct them. In experiments, she told
subjects that they had performed poorly on tests that measured belief
in stereotypes. She discovered that the worse a subject felt about her
performance, the better she scored on subsequent tests. The guilt
behind learning about their own prejudices made the subjects try
harder not to be biased.
This suggests that the guilt of mistaking individuals for their group
stereotype-such as falsely believing an Arab is a terrorist-can lead
to the breakdown of the belief in that stereotype. Unfortunately, such
stereotypes are reinforced so often that they can become ingrained. It
is difficult to escape conventional wisdom and treat all people as
individuals, rather than members of a group. But that seems to be the
best way to avoid the trap of dividing the world in two-and
discriminating against one part of humanity."
http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20030501-000001.html
The answer to the inquiry is generally yes.
Imho, we the human beings do hold all sorts of bias & prejudice
based on race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, and the
usual stuff.
politically incorrect stuff.
This is harsh, and I do not like it, though I concede its ugly
banality as our common or ordinary actual realism or reality or human
condition.
Likely the "ordinary actual realism". Since the "bias & prejudice" is
inherient, running through *all* our acts.
I do not know exactly what Arendt means,
I don't know why you don't know what she means.
while I mean our tragic-comic- absurd plight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
I've previously noted Arendt, while what I perceive or take is a
composite of ideas in my brain which can be analogized with oat meal
Though it coud be worse as cream of wheat
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.philosophy/search?group=alt.philosophy&q=robtcohen+arendt&qt_g=Search+this+group
.
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| User: "tg" |
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| Title: Re: Are people doomed to xenophobia and racism? |
26 Oct 2007 07:31:16 AM |
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On Oct 26, 2:14 am, turtoni <turt...@fastmail.net> wrote:
Excellent post. Scientific confirmation of what is evident in
general---when times are good, people tend to forget this stuff unless
it is reinforced by the government for its own interests. As in the
last 7 years.
-tg
"If categorization and bias come so easily, are people doomed to
xenophobia and racism? It's pretty clear that we are susceptible to
prejudice and that there is an unconscious desire to divide the world
into "us" and "them."
Fortunately, however, research also shows that prejudices are fluid
and that when we become conscious of our biases we can take active-and
successful-steps to combat them.
Researchers have long known that when observing racially mixed groups,
people are more likely to confuse the identity of two black
individuals or two white ones, rather than a white with a black. But
Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, of the Center for Evolutionary
Psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and
anthropologist Robert Kurzban, of the University of California at Los
Angeles, wanted to test whether this was innate or whether it was just
an artifact of how society groups individuals by race.
To do this, Cosmides and her colleagues made a video of two racially
integrated basketball teams locked in conversation, then they showed
it to study participants. As reported in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, the researchers discovered that subjects
were more likely to confuse two players on the same team, regardless
of race, rather than two players of the same race on opposite teams.
Cosmides says that this points to one way of attacking racism and
xenophobia: changing the way society imposes group labels. American
society divides people by race and by ethnicity; that's how lines of
prejudice form. But simple steps, such as integrating the basketball
teams, can reset mental divisions, rendering race and ethnicity less
important.
This finding supports earlier research by psychologists Samuel
Gaertner, of the University of Delaware in Newark, and John Dovidio,
of Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. Gaertner and Dovidio have
studied how bias changes when members of racially mixed groups must
cooperate to accomplish shared goals. In situations where team members
had to work together, bias could be reduced by significant amounts.
Monteith has also found that people who are concerned about their
prejudices have the power to correct them. In experiments, she told
subjects that they had performed poorly on tests that measured belief
in stereotypes. She discovered that the worse a subject felt about her
performance, the better she scored on subsequent tests. The guilt
behind learning about their own prejudices made the subjects try
harder not to be biased.
This suggests that the guilt of mistaking individuals for their group
stereotype-such as falsely believing an Arab is a terrorist-can lead
to the breakdown of the belief in that stereotype. Unfortunately, such
stereotypes are reinforced so often that they can become ingrained. It
is difficult to escape conventional wisdom and treat all people as
individuals, rather than members of a group. But that seems to be the
best way to avoid the trap of dividing the world in two-and
discriminating against one part of humanity."
http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20030501-000001.html
.
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