Prometheus 6   

Racism

or

Why they don't understand us

There's an experiment you should do before reading this. If you do, no further proof of anything I say here will be needed. If you don't, you'll have to take my word for it.

During the course of a day, ask any ten people you know to give you one noun. A person, place or thing, proper or general, makes no difference. Don't tell them why you want the word. Write the ten nouns on a piece of paper. Then approach any number of people you wish and ask them to divide the words into two categories such that all the words in one group have some quality that none of the words in the other group has. They can decide on, or invent, any category they wish.

Go ahead. I'll still be here.

If you did the experiment, you'll find that every person you approached was able to make two groups out of your list. This may surprise you if you keep in mind that your word selection could not possibly have been more random. But it shouldn't. This is what intelligence does… it finds or creates patterns in events and memories.

When a series of events happens, we humans tend to assume that the things we see first cause the things we see next. Intellectually we know that things may be caused by other things we never see. In fact, we know that we never see everything and rarely see all of the things we do see. But that sort of consideration rarely comes up day to day.

Now suppose something happens that affects you and I. Suppose each of us tries to figure out why that thing happened. We will definitely be able to come up with an explanation… it's like finding a pattern in those random words. Because the pattern you see is partly in your mind… the pattern exists between things you know about the things you're thinking about. If you know more or less about things you'll come to a different conclusion about the chain of cause and effect that you're trying to figure out. But you will come to some conclusion.

With that in mind, consider this: what if you and I, the people who are trying to figure out why something that affected both of us happened, had no significant experiences in common? We'll both come up with an explanation… but what are the chances we'll agree? And if our explanation is used to determine our response to the event, what are the chances that we'll find ourselves at odds?

We will always find a reason for things that fits into our knowledge. If we want the truth, rather than just an explanation, our knowledge must be as broad as possible and as deep as necessary. And if our knowledge is to serve justice we can't be satisfied with just our own perspective… justice requires the recognition of absolute values and relative knowledge, with the most relative knowledge being that which we claim for our own.

LATER: 6/17: 9:20 am - Subtitle added for marketing purposes.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 6/16/2003 12:40:52 AM |