Stereotyping Has a Twin Brother of Evil
That man was rude! Why is such a jerk allowed to exist?
You are terribly angry.
Of course! Why can I not be?
What happened?
When I was riding a bicycle along a street, a car came out of a parking lot beside the road and blocked my way.
Such things happen. . . . You shouldn't be angry about such a thing.
I wasn't. That was OK. I thought, "He just didn't see me; I would forgive him; I'm a magnanimous man." So I tried to circumvent the car without complaining, and go ahead, but . . . he didn't like it.
What do you mean by "he didn't like it"?
He said, I had to wait behind the car until he took out his car into the street and drove away.
Huh? Are traffic rules on the Earth like that? Isn't the one who joins a street who has to take care not to disturb the traffic on the street?
I was just riding straight along the street. The street was empty except me as far as I could see. The car just could wait until I passed along, and then join the street. On the contrary, he claims, "As I go into the street at whatever moment I want to, the others shouldn't ever disturb me."
Was he an emperor or something?
I don't know whether he was really an emperor, but I'm sure he didn't thought he was lower than Alexander the Great.
Anyway, as far as we stay on the Earth, we have to expect such incidents.
He was a jerk!
Usually, such anger harms only you. Rather, we should recognize a typical pattern of our own biases and try to remedy them.
A typical pattern of our own biases?
You encountered a jerky act of someone, but if you assume that you understand the nature of someone because you saw a single act of him or her, that's a baseless assertion.
Hmm, . . . I can't help but admit that. Logically speaking, that one act might have been the only jerky act of his in his life. Nevertheless, such an act strongly suggests his underlying troublesome beliefs system, and I can guess that such acts would be repeated as long as he preserve the beliefs system.
It's certain that one's beliefs system influences the general tendency of his or her behaviors. But his or her mood also fluctuates his or her behaviors. And his or her knowledge or lack thereof influences his or her behaviors, too. You can't correctly estimate someone's beliefs system by witnessing his or her single act.
. . . That's true.
And his or her beliefs system may change. You have to honestly reflect on your assertion on his nature whether you didn't preclude that possibility.
Ah, . . . I admit that I regarded him as an eternal evil.
Ossification Is Another Typical Pattern of Biases
Usually, individuals fluctuate and change, and to regard a state of an individual at a moment as a fixed nature of the individual is a typical pattern of biases.
Hmm, certainly. Stereotyping is to ignore differences among the members of a group, and make a typical model member or even an outlier represent the whole of the group; this is to ignore fluctuations and changes of an individual, and make a state of the individual at a time represent the individual at all time. It's an ossification, I would say.
I guess, ossification also comes from our desire for simplicity. It's simple because we don't need to take changes along time into account.
This type of biases is as detrimental as stereotyping is. Watching one mistake of his or her, we deem him or her as an incorrigible fool; witnessing one bad act of his or her, we regard him or her as a born demon. Such a judgment discourages people from trying things and refuses giving people second chances. And worst of all, that makes our admitting our own mistakes quite difficult.
Ah, as our one mistake determines our foolishness as a perpetual nature, we can't admit that one mistake: we have to insist that we have never made mistakes.
As everybody makes mistakes now and then, it's OK if we admit mistakes and improve things. The existence of ossification makes it quite difficult. As a result, not admitting our mistakes makes us really a fool.
Certainly, assuming individuals to be constants cause harms. . . . Still, there may be some constants in the universe?
There may. I don't say a frivolous thing like, "Everything changes" without proofs. However, at least, most of things around us change. Besides, being constant is a special kind of changes: we don't lose anything by starting from supposing something to change. If we start from supposing something to be constant, we are very likely to be stuck in the fixed view.
That's because the intuition loves such simplified views?
Yes, once we put ourselves in that place, we won't want to move from the cozy place.
Accurate Understandings Are Good for Dealings with Our Angers
Still, my anger doesn't go away. How should I deal with this anger? I know that my anger just hurts me, but that knowledge doesn't distinguish the anger.
I don't have an answer that can immediately distinguish your anger, but didn't the remedying the ossification quell your anger at least in a degree?
Well, it did, in a degree. I understand that ossifying my understandings ossifies my anger, but . . .
Then, refine your understandings more. Don't forget that humans dictated by their intuitions aren't much different from monkeys; don't expect too much from them. Do you get so angry because a monkey made an immoral conduct?
I may get angry, but, I admit, not so much.
Every animal has its intuition; what makes a human special is he or she can check his or her intuition. However, most Earthians haven't developed the habit of checking their intuitions enough. Understand the reality accurately, and expect things based on the understanding.
I see.
