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Thanks! Will make those changes now.

The next sin on our list is Prejudice. This is something we should all be familiar with. We grew up being taught about the Civil Rights movement, about racism or sexism, or whatever -ism is the bad thing of the day. Prejudice is hating someone because they're different in some way, whether the difference is physical or ideological. Prejudice is when you care more about what someone's demographic is then what they're saying.

   For a good example, let's take a look at America today. America has had a long and sordid past when it comes to prejudice, what with segregation, the Red Scare, etc. Even today, there are plenty of things I could use as examples (the treatment of Muslims and Latinos comes to mind). But I want to focus on another kind of prejudice, another kind of mindless division and hate. Party politics.

   Our country has two major parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, the Right and the Left, the Elephant and the Donkey. The Republicans believe in small government, national security, and sucking up to large corporations and WASPS. The Democrats believe in large government, civil rights, and sucking up to large corporations and everyone who isn't a WASP. But in this modern age, the beliefs that these two parties espouse have become less important than the parties themselves. Both parties care more about sticking it to each other than they do about their ideology. They care more about being right than actually doing they're jobs.

   Take a look at the news and at yourselves.  How often do you see politicians blaming the opposing party for a problem rather than trying to fix the problem, and how often do attempts to compromise for the greater good fall through because neither party was willing to act like adults?

   And you bastards do it too. You don't bother seeing what the other side has to say, you just write it off because you can't stand to be wrong or to have your narrow worldviews challenged. You read the news that agrees with your beliefs, you don't research or fact check, you just swallow the rhetoric. You let the politicians and media lie to you because they happen to share similar beliefs. But guess what, the reason they have those beliefs is so they can lie to you and get away with it.

Hell yes!

Read 'opening skinners box' for some good research regarding the genovese case/diffusion of responsibility etc and ways to combat that inclination

Hmm. Interesting. Added to Amazon wish list.

Okay, fixed the Kitty Genovese thing. Going to right up Prejudice and hopefully a couple other sins tonight.

 

Wonderful.

I hate to say this, but find a different representative.

Goddamit. I checked that one. Guess I should have double checked. It's not that big a deal, there's another case I can use.

Thanks for the save, LMNO. Can't afford to have any mistakes on this one.

Well, I know I'm in the minority on this one.  Everyone "knows" the Kitty Genovese case was an example of "diffusion of responsibility", so they use that as a shorthand.

Because it's used as shorthand, everyone knows what it's referring to.

What bugs me is that the actual Kitty Genovese case, not the one that everyone uses as shorthand, was not an instance of diffusion of responsibility.


So, we end up with two Kitty Genoveses.  One where 38 people watched or listened to her being murdered, and one where someone noticed and said something, another was drunk, and where Kitty's lungs were punctured so she couldn't scream.

I don't doubt that the diffusion of responsibility effect is real.  I've seen it in action.  What bugs me is that people are ossifying a lie to explain a truth.

I'm going to scrap it anyway.I want facts to support my conclusions, not shorthand.

I'm very interested in having a set of sins that are actually, you know, deadly.  Apathy kills.  Therefore, deadly.

I'm going more for, damaging on both a societal and personal level, kind of thing. Kind of pointing out what I consider the things that hold us back as a species, though with an admittedly America-centric tone.

Why limit yourself?  Smarmy fucking liberals can be every bit as apathetic.  They just wring their hands a bit more and moan about how awful it all is, while they sidle away.

There's only one in my town. He's my American Government teacher. And don't worry, he's probably going to get it worst of all.

Um..."Villain".

Someone is going to pay tomorrow. Someone as in rednecks.

Check my new thread down in politics.  It will cure some of this disillusionment.

That didn't help at all! You bastard!

...GRAAAAAAAAAAGH! 

Goddammit, man! That's it! Need something squishy to direct hate at.

Good thing I have American Government tomorrow! 

Ah, well, I think Rog says something like: Shit your hate before it shits on you...or something to that effect...but it's a good thing to vent it out before it comes out sideways wielding a machete and chops up shit you'd rather not sacrifice to the cause.

Heh. Yeah. Well, that's what I plan on doing. The Hugo-Alfredo Tale-Yax story is what really did it for me. Last paragraph was a direct result of the resulting rage spasm.

Go to bed mad, wake up madder, that's what I say.

THIS. Exhausted and temporarily spent. I'll post more tomorrow though. I've got six more sins to go over...

...I remember that case.  So sad, and such a clear example of public apathy.

GREAT piece, Semaj.

Thanks. Lately I've been getting angrier and angrier. Woke up today with a strong  desire to hurt things.

I like it.

Thanks. Anything I can improve on? I'm going to be distributing this, so it needs to be as close to perfect as I can make it.

This is part of an essay I'm working on. It's part of a project I've got in mind, which I'll elaborate on when it gets closer to completion. The other parts will come as I write them.