I am a psychologist by training. Due to very bizarre circumstances, partially my fault, I never received my PhD, though I received all the formal training and clinical experience to earn that degree. One thing that really interested me in graduate school was the role of stereotypes in our thinking processes. Stereotypes, assumptions, prejudices. They all had a useful role in our survival at one time, or they would not have developed. Today they are not as useful, but also not totally without utility. We are limited in the information that we can process at any one time, and by using stereotypes and making assumptions we are able to make decisions. Maybe not the best, but the best we are capable of making at the time.
Back in prehistoric times is was a useful paranoia to believe that those who were different were bad. It was hard wired into us to be for our side and against the OTHER. The OTHER might be fine people, deserving of survival, maybe even more deserving than we are. But to think this way is not to give our all to our own society. And not giving our all could mean that we fail, and the OTHER survives on the resources that we need. In much of human prehistory the word for stranger was the same as that for enemy. And very true. OTHERS were competitors, and competitors were to be destroyed so that we could prosper. Now in more civilized times things changed a bit. Not by a whole lot, but a bit. Not every stranger was an enemy. Some were allies, trade partners, or even just curiousities. But there were still dangers. If we saw a large number of furred horsemen coming our way, bows across their backs, swords in hand, it was assumed that they were a threat. It was a safe assumption. To assume they were a threat and act accordingly was to survive, or at least have a chance to. To act as if they weren’t a threat was to risk being killed, or worse, captured and tortured for the information we might have. Now this is a stereotype, that all furred barbarian horsemen were a threat. Now Bob the barbarian might be a great guy, as signified by the way he wears his enemies’ fingers around his wrist instead of his neck. But in scanning the horde, even if we possess that bit of information, we really don’t have time to catagorize each and every rider. Same as when captains were plying the South Seas in the 18th and 19th centuries. If dark skinned people with bones through their noses were said to be canibals, it was a smart decision to treat all such people one met as someone who might wish to have one for dinner, and not as a guest. It might not be fair to all people with bones in their noses, but it is definitely safer. And safer equals survival.
Now where stereotypes and assumptions, and the prejudices they lead to, break down, is when we start looking at all people of a certain racial or ethnic group (which are two different things) as all the same. All black people are faster than white people. All Jewish people are doctors and lawyers. Now place groups on a bell curve and there may even be some truth to the stereotypes. The bell curve for Jewish people is heavily weighted toward the doctor/lawyer/scientist spectrum. But some of the most brilliant mathematicians come from India, even though the bell curve for the general population of the sub continent would not be that impressive. There are more black speedsters in the NFL, but there have also been some exceptionally fast white people. There is something to say for the notion that stereotypes are bad. But there is still something to say about their usefulness. We still don’t have any more mental resources than Cro Magnon man did thousands of years ago. When I have time to judge a person individually, I will try to do it. If I’m walking down a street and see a bunch of kids coming toward me, black, white or brown, with pants almost hanging around their ankles and wearing baggy shirts, the safe bet is to go with the stereotypes and be cautious. Maybe that isn’t fair to them, but my survival is more important to me than how I am perceived to be thinking about someone. If I see the same kids in suits and ties and carrying bibles, I will probably feel relieved. I might end up getting jacked by the bible toting gang, but the odds are in my favor that I will be safe letting them walk around me.
As an addition to this post, while I was in my car just a moment ago another thought occured to me. I was reading an article by another writer, who stated that one of the problems with fantasy today was that the authors tended to think in terms of today’s values, with a politically correct slant to them. There was no political correctness in Medieval times, or even the early to mid 20th century. Strangers were still people to be suspicious of, and life was a lot cheaper than the cost of keeping prisoners. People were killed for just about anything that the people in charge didn’t like, and there was no appeal. People were seen as Barbarians if they observed different customs than the society around them, and trying to worship in a way not endorsed by the public could be a death sentence. As far as the mid 20th century Chinese were considered Wogs by the British, and there were many other unsavory names for people with darker skins around the world, and even some perjoratves for people of the same general racial group as those casting the aspersions. I remember watching the movie, The Color Purple, and cracking up when Sophie hit the white lady, while my mom and aunt’s all took in a breath of horror. They understood those times as I didn’t. I had grown with some black people, and seen many black versus white fights on TV boxing, and thought nothing of it. To women raised in the south in the 1930s and 40s, that scene was one they knew would have grave consequences for Sophie. We can think differently today, at least I hope most of us can, but just remember, people didn’t always think like this.