Quote:
Quote by: lsbskins1  The point Flip is trying to make is that stereotyping
is born of a need to provide stability in a
chaotic landscape of constantly shifting and changing information.
If you walked out of your front door every morning
having to re-learn what was safe, what was dangerous,
what was hot, what was cold, what was poisonous, it
would lead to a level of sense overload that our
minds would be unable to process. |
But Flip is directing us away from the original question:
"Does stereotyping
a group of people really create a false image of that group?"
Technically, that is different from fearing snakes or an oven that's hot. People may change, snakes are far more likely to stay poisonous.
Particularly when it comes to social questions (which again, is what this thread was started with), stereotypes need not be absolute. I know from experience. Because I live in a redneck-ish area, I sometimes have to get racist ideas out of my head. The general point is, social attitudes are sort of like mental habits, and habits can be hard to break -- meaning they can be passed on, subtly or overtly. It's certainly not always for our safety that we develop a certain thought process, though not all stereotypes have been in vain.
Grandpa h.