In our class Wednesday, we discussed the philosophy of race,
and how we employ faulty logic to discriminate or differentiate between
individuals. What I find fascinating is
the possibility of understanding the principles behind our logic in
discrimination to be applied almost universally in judgments of other people. I
mentioned in class the negative effects of not only racial judgments, but also
class and gender discrimination. While we use observations to distinguish
between people every day (if we could not, we couldn’t tell anyone apart), certain
physical or behavioral markers are categorized in such a manner to the benefits
of some and the advantage of others. Yet what makes these markers unjust is
that they are not based in reality, or perpetuate a reality already in place( for
example, because of perceptions of race, proportionally, minorities are over represented
in impoverished and imprisoned populations, reinforcing original racial and
class perceptions). What I find interesting in our ideas of humans is the idea
of the ideal human being against which we judge everyone. In every
characteristic, society has one that is beneficial and one that is negative,
i.e. black vs. white, rich vs. poor, male vs. female, tall vs. short. In analyzing a person’s worth, we often use this
calculus to determine a person’s worth- a sort of utilitarian calculus of worth.
Yet in performing such discrimination, we set up individuals for failure, as
man is not infallible- upon further analysis, we all have faults, and many “faults”
or “negative” characteristics are not in fact based in reality, or even
negatives at all. Also, would like to
ponder the possibility that although systems of privilege often help one
population at the expense of another, any system is inherently negative to not
only the population as a whole, but also to the privileged society. While the benefits of the system may outweigh the
negatives for individuals, the weight of obligation on a community can be
passed down generationally, and even creates a communally imprisoned society
that has to buy into a system in order to establish an identity. I am not
trying to suggest that systems of inequality are unfair in their negative
effects to both populations, but I think that in order to understand amending wrongs
of the past, or the present, we have to realize the internalized ideology of
the systems we participate in, and how these systems can isolate or manipulate
us in ways that stifle individuality and creativity.
No comments:
Post a Comment