Prejudice

Celebrated and famous psychologist Sigmund Freud once said that the greatest motivator of humankind and human behavior is fear. And it never ceases to amaze me how society embraces this concept, albeit somewhat unconsciously.

Everyday, we pass judgment on someone, even if we don't even know whom he or she is actually like. You know the feeling. You may not even have to be actually seeing the person. Possibly you heard a story from a friend or a rumor that is spreading widely. Maybe even when you see what they have written.

Now, of course, many people will say here that they aren't prejudiced at all. And that is a load of crap. We are naturally born to judge what we like and don't like. It is something that we gain through the experiences in our lives and what we are exposed to. We cannot help it, since it is ingrained in us somewhat instinctively to discriminate. One such case is the classic fire example. When you were a small child, and your guardian told you not to touch the fire, whether it is the flame on the stove or somewhere else, what was the first thing you did? You touched it. And you got burned. What happened? You learned not to touch fire again. Why? You'd get hurt. And you don't want to get hurt. So? Don't touch the fire.

These experiences Ð'- experiences that are essentially traced back to the concept of fear Ð'- shape us. No doubt we all have had similar experiences other than the example I used to make this point. I myself happen to be prejudiced against grapefruit. Greatly against grapefruit. And maybe that is because of that silly diet I tried a few years ago that I was, forcibly, enforced to follow. What have I learned? Eating grapefruit everyday with a bit of cottage cheese and celery isn't a very nourishing meal every single day. Fear of starvation (yes, starvation, for I was young and my portions small) influenced my dislike. Also, that diet didn't work. I can't speak any ill of that, since I had occasionally snuck a candy bar. And I won't deny that I would have died without those cookies my friend's mother sent me.

But I think we can all agree that those prejudices are otherwise harmless, even essential to the basic knowledge of an individual. If not, then we would probably be wondering why putting our hands in the fire burns all the time and continue to it all the time.

However, it is when prejudice is used to purposely hurt or damage when it is harmful. It has been done over the centuries and millennia of human consciousness. Let's imagine a small child falls down in the typical mind-numbingly normal park and begins to cry, but their mother isn't paying attention. A teenager goes to help the child up, possibly stop its bawling, having only good intentions in mind. But this teenager has a bad reputation, due to family, in the neighborhood, isn't very well-known outside rumor, whose clothing isn't in very good shape and is seen as more than a little odd. What happens? The child's mother immediately comes into the situation and starts on the teenager, as if they were the cause. Thus, the teenager is left being falsely blamed for something he didn't do. All because he was immediately judged on stories about him and his appearance. Happened to me on at least three occasions. I never figured out how I was always seen as the troublemaker, when my father is off toeing the line of the law. The irony of it all.

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