Difficult Choices!

[AFK]

It certainly is a key.  I know I've found in some of my research a direct correlation between family factors and behavior.  Of course, it's tough to totally isolate it from other environmental factors, but it is clear is plays a vital role.  

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

A ton of useful clues can be found in any social psychology textbook, BMW, I recommend you check one out at your school and look up prejudice.

Here are some facts I've dug out of my old textbook for you to chew on:

,Ä¢ People more accurately recognize faces of their own race*.

,Ä¢ Outgroups are percieved as more similar to one another than ingroup members.

,Ä¢ Fundamental Attribution Error - the tendency for observers to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences on other's behavior. This is like, the theme of Social Psychology.

,Ä¢ Group-Serving Bias - Outgroup members' positive behaviors are explained away; outgroup members' negative behaviors are attributed to their dispositions while excusing such behavior by one's own group.

,Ä¢ Just World Phenomenon - Tendency of people to believe the world is just and that people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get.

,Ä¢ Stereotypes color how we interpret events and recall memories.

,Ä¢ Subtyping - Accommodating groups of individuals who deviate from one's stereotype by thinking of them as a special category of people with different properties. 

,Ä¢ Self-fulfilling prophecy - false beliefs that lead to their own fulfillment.

,Ä¢ People often evaluate individuals more positively than the groups they compose.

*Edit: though race is a social construct it still has unfortunate effects.

[B_M_W]

Thanks for the info Net. I need time to process this.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

Thanks for the info Net. I need time to process this.

Hey, no problem. 

I know you are already aware of this, but it bears repeating: Psychology "facts" are much looser than the conclusions of hard science.

Please to remember in your processing.

[B_M_W]

Thanks for the info Net. I need time to process this.

Hey, no problem. 

I know you are already aware of this, but it bears repeating: Psychology "facts" are much looser than the conclusions of hard science.

Please to remember in your processing.

Uh-huh. Because of the difficulty of objectivity, amirite?

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

Yurite.

Psychology = gonzo science.

[Cramulus]

um, no

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

um, no

Bitch please.

[Discord]

hmm you always come up with "good" and "bad" environment.
Whats that anyway? you are all aware of the fact how much of a "chewinggum" word good and bad is, good is what you think is good.
So what you think is a "good" environment might be a "bad" for someone else.
Lets say a "good" environment is one, where you either not get traumatized at all, or be able to overcome it.
Then again, someone might need fex parents who give them a negative role model others need parents to show them "how its done" right.
If we assume this is correct, than its a matter of the individuals personality.
And how the fuck is personality build? How is it created?
I think its to difficult to tell, to many factors  must be included and even if we knew all that stuff, how what influences whom etc there would still be one problem: whats the base?
Are you born with a set of charateristics, like the horoscop tells us? In that case it would be only a matter of time until we find out how humans (personality etc) evolve...
You can imagine where that leads to.

We're back at the start point, why is it that some are able to overcvome the trauma and others not?
I say its mostly luck.
Be it the luck that a "good" environment is around, or a close friend / family / therapist ist around who understands you and can provide the information / experience / environment you need to get stable.

[Cramulus]

Okay. Psychology uses the scientific method and rigid experimental methodology to get results (unlike, say, Sociology or the other social sciences). Yeah the facts are less "firm", but that's because you can't exactly look into a microscope and see how humans operate.

and the Stanford Prison Experiment ruled. It was that, Stanley Milgram's work, and Solomon Asch's work which made me into the mad scientist I am today.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Some examples of "overcoming bigotry" from my personal life. I grew up in southeast Ohio, where (in the words of a freind from New York) "they are still trying to figure out if the Civil War is over, and which side they were on". I recall being about 15 when the town I grew up removed a law which said that all black persons must be out of the town limits by dark. I can count on one hand the number of black families that lived in our little village. The first couple I remember, only lived there for a couple months, as the burning crosses etc were not to their licking (big surprise). So here are some examples of weird exits from Bigotry (at least in some sense).

1. My grandmother is an illiterate, poor and poorly educated person from Appalachia. She went to school (8th grade) but somehow never learned more than writing and reading her name.  She has exhibited actions that could only be considered bigotry, or racism throughout most of her life. In one instance my mother,as a child went on a study date with a guy from a nearby town. He was black. My grandmother sent my two uncles to beat him up.

About ten years ago, I was talking to my grandmother and she said "You know, Mrs. Volcano's daughter married a black man and he treats her really good." I said, "Oh, really?" and she finished with "Yep, you know your Uncle Larry (a drunk, violent, coke headed excuse of a man) hurts your aunt and cousins". I admitted that I did know about the issues in that household and then, after a pause, my grandma looked at me and though her lip was pouched with tobacco (as always), though her comments were broken by pauses for the spittoon, I wasn't sure it was my grandma, for she said "Yep, that black feller is about as good as any white man. I think I would rather have had your aunt marry someone like him, than your Uncle Larry".

Though she had spent 70 years hating a race, the calcification had broken... not due to a shock particularly, just the experience of life, perhaps...

2. As Jehovah's Witnesses are not permitted to be bigoted (ROFL), I made some very interesting observations while living in that reality tunnel. One nice old lady was very clear that she was not a bigot and loved her "Darkie" brothers and sisters, just as much as everyone else.. and she meant it. I never saw her say a bad thing about anyone because of the color of their sklin, yet to hear her speak one might presume that she was a bigot... instead I am of the opinion that she was not a bigot, but instead simply had a bad set of semantic programs, which no one in Podunk Ohio bothered to correct her on... mostly because the environment saw nothing bigoted about it.

An older brother from the deep south moved to our congregation and also seemed to struggle with his early programming. He would never say anything derogatory toward people of other races, but he called them niggers... sometimes while shaking their hands.... sometimes in sentences like "I just love you brothers from Columbus, there's something refreshing when niggers speak about the Lord." Was he a bigot? I never figured it out.

Bigotry seems like a complex series of programs, some of which might calcify, some of which might be mutable and much of it may depend on environment, experiences and what the society around you considers acceptable.

Thoughts?

[LMNO]

I dunno... Is it bigotry when you're too self-absorbed to understand when you're saying something offensive, even if you don't mean it that way?

I mean, I find it hard to believe that a person living in America doesn't know that black people don't like it when whites call them "nigger". 

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I dunno... Is it bigotry when you're too self-absorbed to understand when you're saying something offensive, even if you don't mean it that way?

I mean, I find it hard to believe that a person living in America doesn't know that black people don't like it when whites call them "nigger". 

Ah, but that's because you didn't live in the town I lived in. In most cases, these people never had dealings with anyone other than random white hillbillies. Darkie, Blackfolks, Coloreds... all appear as common references to a group of people that they rarely see and when they do see them its in a religious context where those that may be offended, don't speak... for fear of hurting the old person's feelings.

The old man that used Nigger though... I am of the opinion that he was quite self-absorbed and while he was always publicly friendly and never said anything derogatory (with the exception of the N word) about other races... I often wonder what existed in his head on the subject. Even so, I never saw anyone express offense or outrage toward his smiling southern drawl. If no one showed outrage, how was he to know?

Remember, many of these people don't have television (or they just have an antenna and pick up the Zanesville TV station). Many of the people are either illiterate, functionally illiterate or have poor reading comprehension skills. Some of them still sleep in cornshuck beds and have dirt floors. My grandmother still uses an outhouse. I'm not sure if it is self-absorption or ignorance that caused these artifacts. It's certainly not common among the younger generations that my parents or I were in... but then most of them are literate, have running water and a floor.

[B_M_W]

hmm you always come up with "good" and "bad" environment.
Whats that anyway? you are all aware of the fact how much of a "chewinggum" word good and bad is, good is what you think is good.
So what you think is a "good" environment might be a "bad" for someone else.
Lets say a "good" environment is one, where you either not get traumatized at all, or be able to overcome it.
Then again, someone might need fex parents who give them a negative role model others need parents to show them "how its done" right.
If we assume this is correct, than its a matter of the individuals personality.
And how the fuck is personality build? How is it created?
I think its to difficult to tell, to many factors  must be included and even if we knew all that stuff, how what influences whom etc there would still be one problem: whats the base?
Are you born with a set of charateristics, like the horoscop tells us? In that case it would be only a matter of time until we find out how humans (personality etc) evolve...
You can imagine where that leads to.

We're back at the start point, why is it that some are able to overcvome the trauma and others not?
I say its mostly luck.
Be it the luck that a "good" environment is around, or a close friend / family / therapist ist around who understands you and can provide the information / experience / environment you need to get stable.

goddamn.

Can we get away from semantics for a moment and just fucking agree that bigotry is bad? And that finding ways to keep people from becoming bigots is a good thing? Because this semantic bullshit is just a returning loop and it seems that ever damn discussion around here gets down to "Oh, the universe is too complex and difficult to describe that we can't put any words on anything and so lets just sit here dumbfounded".

Maybe I should cross post the thread which all this came out of, for contex.

[B_M_W]

Bolded parts for emphasis

RE: Something that sounds waaaay too familiar. - Buddhist_Monk_Wannabe - 07-22-2007 04:10 PM



The Good Reverend Roger Wrote:

Buddhist_Monk_Wannabe Wrote:
Prolly some sort of recognition. I guess they think they can get it made a medical condition, they can remove the stigma. No matter how many people they hurt in the process.

Well, it's either a case of "pity me", or they are stating that their behavior is a sickness, or both.


Well, you know how we've talked about the way oppressed groups tend to oppress others? I think its one of those things. Inferiority complex and delusion joined with the possibility of "moving up in the world" seems to lead to oppressing other groups till that inferiority complex turns into a superiority complex, like what you just posted a while ago, or what the pagannazis do. Makes me think alot of these people are damaged goods, psychologically.



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RE: Something that sounds waaaay too familiar. - Cain - 07-22-2007 04:13 PM

Alot of people are damaged goods in one sense or another, full stop.

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RE: Something that sounds waaaay too familiar. - Buddhist_Monk_Wannabe - 07-22-2007 04:16 PM



Cain Wrote:
Alot of people are damaged goods in one sense or another, full stop.

Agreed. But what is it about one person who has psychological trauma and survives and becomes a stable person, and another becomes a bigot? Their environment? The people who they surround themselves with?



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RE: Something that sounds waaaay too familiar. - The Good Reverend Roger - 07-22-2007 04:16 PM



Cain Wrote:
Alot

You just made the Queen cry.




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RE: Something that sounds waaaay too familiar. - Cain - 07-22-2007 04:27 PM



The Good Reverend Roger Wrote:

Cain Wrote:
Alot

You just made the Queen cry.


Bitch deserves it for storming off a photo shoot.

And BMW, if I knew that, I wouldn't be here right now.




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RE: Something that sounds waaaay too familiar. - Buddhist_Monk_Wannabe - 07-22-2007 04:30 PM



Cain Wrote:

The Good Reverend Roger Wrote:

Cain Wrote:
Alot

You just made the Queen cry.


Bitch deserves it for storming off a photo shoot.

And BMW, if I knew that, I wouldn't be here right now.


Seems that it would be grounds for some good discussion then.