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Within the first two hours of school this morning, I had the coincidental opportunity to let all my eager opinions from yesterday's post out on a class discussion about stereotyping. There were several words written on the board; we were asked to explain how we thought they operated in relation to each other. The words were:
* Identity
* Opportunity
* Status
* Stereotype
As my opinions on this had already started to simmer, it was considerably easier to spout ideas. It's rare, but sometimes class discussions like these actually do achieve their intended purpose: forcing us to dictate what we believe in such a way that our theories make sense. Yesterday was narration. Today, I'll give you my "sense" about a couple of these words, as they're formative for the other two.
Identity is neither inherent to an individual, nor a social construct. It is the conglomerative product of internal and external factors, the latter of which have countless sources and impacts. One of the greater external factors encountered by an individual is the stereotype, which is indeed a social construct. As I see it, there are two main meanings that might be given to this controversial word:
1. a set of simplistic generalizations about a certain class or type of people which allows that group to be categorized and understood as a member of that group;
2. a simplified or standardized conception about an individual which attributes characteristics to that individual that have not been stated outright; they are accepted as conjecture, but not embraced as the true or total nature of that individual.
* Identity
* Opportunity
* Status
* Stereotype
As my opinions on this had already started to simmer, it was considerably easier to spout ideas. It's rare, but sometimes class discussions like these actually do achieve their intended purpose: forcing us to dictate what we believe in such a way that our theories make sense. Yesterday was narration. Today, I'll give you my "sense" about a couple of these words, as they're formative for the other two.
Identity is neither inherent to an individual, nor a social construct. It is the conglomerative product of internal and external factors, the latter of which have countless sources and impacts. One of the greater external factors encountered by an individual is the stereotype, which is indeed a social construct. As I see it, there are two main meanings that might be given to this controversial word:
1. a set of simplistic generalizations about a certain class or type of people which allows that group to be categorized and understood as a member of that group;
2. a simplified or standardized conception about an individual which attributes characteristics to that individual that have not been stated outright; they are accepted as conjecture, but not embraced as the true or total nature of that individual.
(If the distinction seems like semantics, wait it out.)
Because we as people are finite, we must compare all we see to that which we have seen before. For example, I see an apple and categorize it as such in my mind. I expect it to taste a certain way, I expect a certain texture when I bite into it. I see an orange and do the same. I see a pie and conclude certain things about it, applying that which I know to be true of all the pies I've experienced to the pie I see in front of me. It only makes sense to do so. It's Francis Bacon, it all of science- despite what Michael Chang says, it's rarely heretical. It is a lie, though. Most things are, and I think they should be recognized as such.
All the pies I have ever eaten in my life are meat pies, cheese pies, veggie pies- delicious savory pies of every kind. To me, a "pie" is something eaten with gravy, salt and pepper as the main course of a meal. Positive though the association may be, you might see the issue I encounter with my first bite of cherry pie.
Stereotype 1 would play out this way: I would go into denial that it was sweet and sugary, insisting that it was indeed a savory pie and go on eating it believing it was so. (To each his own, I guess.)
Acting on Stereotype 2, I might be slightly shocked, but would realize at some point that it is almost definitely my definition and not my perception of the pie that must change to accomodate the paradox in my experience.
We all hold to stereotypes. It's completely inevitable if we're going to make any kind of sense of the world. The fact that we learn requires that we stereotype and categorize: as I've already mentioned, we compare and contrast things we already know about to those things we experience anew. By association and dissociation, we discover the world.
What sucks about this system is that the starker our associations and dissociations become, the faster our knowledge is set in stone. It's a tricky job to keep an open mind as one continues to learn: every time a stereotype needs to get broken down and reformed, other things need to be understood in new ways, too.
Because we as people are finite, we must compare all we see to that which we have seen before. For example, I see an apple and categorize it as such in my mind. I expect it to taste a certain way, I expect a certain texture when I bite into it. I see an orange and do the same. I see a pie and conclude certain things about it, applying that which I know to be true of all the pies I've experienced to the pie I see in front of me. It only makes sense to do so. It's Francis Bacon, it all of science- despite what Michael Chang says, it's rarely heretical. It is a lie, though. Most things are, and I think they should be recognized as such.
All the pies I have ever eaten in my life are meat pies, cheese pies, veggie pies- delicious savory pies of every kind. To me, a "pie" is something eaten with gravy, salt and pepper as the main course of a meal. Positive though the association may be, you might see the issue I encounter with my first bite of cherry pie.
Stereotype 1 would play out this way: I would go into denial that it was sweet and sugary, insisting that it was indeed a savory pie and go on eating it believing it was so. (To each his own, I guess.)
Acting on Stereotype 2, I might be slightly shocked, but would realize at some point that it is almost definitely my definition and not my perception of the pie that must change to accomodate the paradox in my experience.
We all hold to stereotypes. It's completely inevitable if we're going to make any kind of sense of the world. The fact that we learn requires that we stereotype and categorize: as I've already mentioned, we compare and contrast things we already know about to those things we experience anew. By association and dissociation, we discover the world.
What sucks about this system is that the starker our associations and dissociations become, the faster our knowledge is set in stone. It's a tricky job to keep an open mind as one continues to learn: every time a stereotype needs to get broken down and reformed, other things need to be understood in new ways, too.
There is no stereotype or system of classification that works completely. We're too finite, our minds are too puny. Though our perceptions might reflect some things in reality, by the nature of the fact that we are human, they will all be fuzzy, two-dimensional images, and we're trying to understand a 3-D world.
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