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Entry tags:
Thinking Categorically
What makes genres useful is that they are recognizable patterns. Let's look at one specific (material) genre: books. If you've never handled a book before, you need only to play around with one for a few minutes to recognize how to use it. Even if you don't read the language, you still know how to flip the pages of a book. You've established that mental pattern.
Prejudice may take any forms, including sexism or racism. Like genres, they're learned categories which are played out in patterns of behaviour. Arbitrarily deciding someone's value based upon, for example, their gender or skin colour can result in oppression. If taken way too far, and it quite often is, can result in injury or death. But if feminism has taught us anything, it's that we work better, and can solve bigger problems, together.
Nonetheless, some generalizations appear to break this trend. For example, Canadians say "sorry" a lot. Most often they use it in the place of "excuse me." This merges both genre and prejudice, and it shows how recognizing patterns can be socially useful as when you hear either statement, you might want to respond by moving out of the way.
Navigating which patterns are useful and which create oppression is not an easy thing. We can all think of extreme situations, but life is filled with subtle, complex and tricky situations, like claiming the superiority of vegetarianism. Yes, vegetarianism has benefits, but, for cultural or monetary reasons, not everyone can do it.
To that end, I encourage everyone to display some forgiveness when mistakes like these occur. And I guarantee they will occur. That doesn't mean staying silent, but try to persuade the person rather than just saying they're wrong.
Prejudice may take any forms, including sexism or racism. Like genres, they're learned categories which are played out in patterns of behaviour. Arbitrarily deciding someone's value based upon, for example, their gender or skin colour can result in oppression. If taken way too far, and it quite often is, can result in injury or death. But if feminism has taught us anything, it's that we work better, and can solve bigger problems, together.
Nonetheless, some generalizations appear to break this trend. For example, Canadians say "sorry" a lot. Most often they use it in the place of "excuse me." This merges both genre and prejudice, and it shows how recognizing patterns can be socially useful as when you hear either statement, you might want to respond by moving out of the way.
Navigating which patterns are useful and which create oppression is not an easy thing. We can all think of extreme situations, but life is filled with subtle, complex and tricky situations, like claiming the superiority of vegetarianism. Yes, vegetarianism has benefits, but, for cultural or monetary reasons, not everyone can do it.
To that end, I encourage everyone to display some forgiveness when mistakes like these occur. And I guarantee they will occur. That doesn't mean staying silent, but try to persuade the person rather than just saying they're wrong.