The Purple Dragon Blog

This post has been written for notbean’s Philosophy Blog War.

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All men are created equal.

This statement (ignoring, for the moment, the somewhat male-predisposed nature of its phrasing) is the basis on which our society is built. As a democracy - literally, ‘government of the people’ - we hold that everyone should have equal opportunities, equal rights, and be free from the effects of prejudice, bigotry, and racism.

Unfortunately, by the time we reach adulthood, many prejudices have wormed their way into our behaviour and thought processes. Sometimes they are so slight as to be undetectable, but they are there all the same. I include myself here. I am a fairly tolerant person. I don’t care about religion, as long as it’s not used as an excuse to hurt others. I don’t particularly care about race. Conflict based on skin color has always seemed singularly pointless to me. Being socially deficient in some aspects, I am often more tolerant of eccentrics than some. Differences do not bother me so much. One of my first friends, back when I was five, was a Chinese girl who didn’t speak a word of English. But all the same I, like everyone else, have my own set of prejudices.

The thing about discrimination is that it is vital to our survival. Our survival, throughout evolution, has depended on our ability to look at something and instantly make an appraisal of it. Is something a possible danger? Is there something wrong or off about it? In some ways this instant judgement is even more important when it comes to other people. Look at their appearance. Is it too different? Maybe they’re an outsider who will challenge the tribe or endanger it. Are they sick or disabled? They might be a burden that the tribe cannot afford, or have an illness that can be passed on to other members of the tribe. For thousands of years at least, and likely longer, our minds have been fine-tuned to pick up on the tiniest of hints and use them to form often-unconscious judgements. In primitive days, logical assessment of something was a liability; by the time you finished coming to a conclusion, whatever you were considering could already have taken your life.

Mind you, things are quite different these days, but all the same our brains continue to make judgements. Some of this is instinctive, or at least instinct-based, but a great deal of it is societal conditioning as well. Find yourself in New York, and if you’re a middle-class white person you’ll probably avoid groups of black teenagers, particularly if their clothing is scruffy or rocker. It is a public belief that black people are more likely to come from underprivileged backgrounds, and are more likely to commit a crime. Is this suspicion fair on the teenagers, who you know nothing about and who for all you know may be model students and an example to the community? Not at all. But is it understandable behaviour, taking into account the facts at your disposal and the possibilities? Of course.

That’s the problem. Discrimination – as opposed to outright bigotry and racism, which is discrimination gone overboard – is an important survival mechanism, but at the same time it is unfair to those who are the target. So what to do? Well, in my opinion a reasonable balance is the answer. Putting aside all discrimination is foolish, and dangerous. It can save you from injury and even death. But when a situation does not have the potential for danger, put all discrimination aside. Don’t pick on people because they are eccentric or behave oddly. Believe me, that hurts. Don’t assume that the teenager browsing your store is a thief. Lots of them might be, but just as many if not more are law-abiding citizens. Don’t assume that disabled people are unintelligent. You’d be surprised how many people act patronisingly enough towards the impaired that you want to beat the s*** out of them. Similarly, the innocent or socially-awkward are often very bright. As a socially-awkward but somewhat gifted child myself, I can assure you that it annoyed the hell out of me that people talked to me like I was five years old because of my difficulties with people.

In short, use reason. Apply discrimination sparingly, and only when you are at risk. And if you feel that discrimination is course of a cautious person, try to be polite to the subject of your wariness. In an ideal world, we could do away with discrimination altogether, but since people continue to get beaten up, murdered, and hurt, we must be satisfied with using it sparingly.