Prejudice a Natural Survival Skill
Everything in life is a matter of perception. Perception does not make things so, it is the filter by which you interpret what you see, hear and interact with the world around you. Prejudice is a prejudgment, or forming an opinion before becoming aware of the relevant facts of a case, a perception, or distrust of the unknown. Modern culture ignoring the facts regularly uses the word prejudice as a synonymous with racism. They are not the same. Webster's Dictionary defines racism as " a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race". Wikipedia has a surprisingly thorough piece on the racism and how modern culture and the UN have twisted the original meaning of the word in the second or third paragraph.
In the wild, animals have a natural defense mechanism; Prejudice. Prejudice is and healthy when tempered with experience. An example is when dog a encounters a person for the first time. The dog recognizes that the person is different, unknown and therefore poses a threat. The defense mechanism is to bark and growl. Based upon the person's reactions, movement and other behaviors the dog either calms down or if the person is aggressive it will bite them. Those behaviors based upon prejudices and distrust protects the dog from aggressors.
It is important to point out now that prejudice is in no way the same as racism. Racism has no basis in scientific fact. Being prejudice against someone because you are small and they are big, and the last encounter with someone big was being abused, then you are prejudice against them until proven otherwise worthy. The same goes for anyone or anything. Many people are prejudice against people in uniform; it begins with the Police as a result of their own misbehavior. It often continues on with disrespectful behavior with security guards, military, and even EMTs. The key is that we as intelligent humans with the ability to make complex decisions and rapid analysis we should temper the natural prejudices with a thoughtful and fair minded approach to them while standing off until you have judged their status.
The value of prejudice is in the first encounter, while dealing with the unknown. As with everything, situational awareness must evolve in order to move forward. You can't remain at the beginning. You must learn, develop facts and experiential data that allow you to refine your perceptions. You must learn to refine your perceptions with logic (not emotions) and facts in order to assure your direction is accurate and reliably balanced.
The critical point being the approach that Ronald Reagan asserted over and over to Mikhail Gorbachev "Trust Through Verification". Learn to avoid making reactionary or emotional decisions, in either direction. Never forget that at times of crisis there are many people with no integrity waiting to take advantage of or even worse rob or hurt people who are trying to help.
Consider the person living in a "rough area" who lives every day in fear of attack by lawless people in the area. The person purchases a gun (legally) and one day they hear a noise in the night, things falling. The person takes the gun, they slip into the room toward the noise. As they turn the corner they bump straight into the person. The flinch reaction (because they had their finger on the trigger) causes them to pull the trigger and before they know it the person who emerged from the dark is on the floor. The lights go on, the smoke clears and it turns out to be the person's son who had his ear buds in listening to the iPod lying dead on the floor.
The point of this article is to help you understand the value and useful nature of the natural tendency toward prejudice as well as to spark you to develop the skills to rapidly verify input and move from reaction to enlightened response should be an important goal.
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