Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site rochester.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!drutx!houxe!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!hao!seismo!rochester!blenko From: blenko@rochester.UUCP Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Re: Generalizations Message-ID: <317@rochester.UUCP> Date: Fri, 20-Jul-84 17:10:18 EDT Article-I.D.: rocheste.317 Posted: Fri Jul 20 17:10:18 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 22-Jul-84 03:30:17 EDT References: <620@hplabs.UUCP> Organization: U. of Rochester, CS Dept. Lines: 116 >> nathanm > fremont me I think nathanm is on exactly the right track: >>There is nothing wrong with generalizations as long as >>everyone realizes what they are. >That's one problem with them: not everyone does realize what they >are. As a result, they are misapplied. This often results in >misunderstanding of people, racism and other prejudice. This is not >fair to the people or things being generalized. What it is is ignorance. By applying a generalization to an individual, one is tacitly admitting that one knows nothing more about them than what the generalization implies. This doesn't say that there is anything wrong with generalizations, but rather, as you say, that people sometimes misapply them. >>Generalizations are useful. A valid generalization helps >>one understand more about a group of which one is OR is not a >>member. It isn't always easy to pick out the valid ones, but PLEASE >>realise that some exceptions to a generalization do NOT make it >>invalid. >If thirty-five people on the network made the following >generalization: > > "XXXXXXX is a jerk", or > "People who submit articles to net.singles are idiots" > >and one had little or no experience with XXXXXX or net.singles >submitters, how would one decide whether the generalization was valid? >If the generalization helps one understand something about a group, >then presumably one doesn't have the benefit of the particular >experience with said group - therefore, it is almost, by definition, >impossible to judge its accuracy. I agree. Generalizations are useful. And we all use them, constantly. The second issue you raise is how generalizations are/should be formed. It seems that if I meet 20 Burmese (people from Burma), and they all refuse to drink milk, then I suppose that Burmese generally don't drink milk. If only 18 refuse to drink milk, then I still suppose generally that Burmese don't drink milk, but perhaps attribute the generalization to some different cause (than formerly). In any case, I do (naturally) make the generalization, and they only way to qualify it is by knowing more (by knowing that most, not all, Burmese refuse to drink milk, or by, for example, knowing what reason most or all give for refusing to drink milk). I don't think the question of assuming other's generalizations is particularly relevant here. If all your friends tell you that all Thai's beat their children, you can choose to accept that or not, based on what you know about your friends (i.e., their credibility in general and with respect to knowing things about Thai's), what you know about Thai's, and what you know about people in general (that is, generalizations about people, of whom Thai's are a subset). This does provide an example of how people necessarily use generalizations. >Even if one could (in one's own mind) judge whether the generalization >is accurate, my feeling is that one should always try to avoid using >generalizations that can potentially negatively affect people. Better >to be a little less efficient and give the benefit of not applying a >generalization. So, third is the issue of applying generalizations. I don't think this has much to do with generalizations at all. If one chooses to perform some harmful act (to an individual), what is the justification? If everyone I have met from Missouri is a liar, then I might well form the generalization that people from Missouri are liars. And, furthermore it could be very useful, because liars are harmful to me. The question then becomes whether I should then treat a person from Missouri as if she were a liar. Obviously not, if I knew more about her (that she wasn't a liar). In any case, some people would conclude, "No" your experience does not justify that." Or in other words, that my knowledge about Missourians, expressed by "Missourians tend to be liars", is not sufficient to perform adverse acts against Missourians. On the other hand, if my experience was that DEC service people were incompetent, many people would agree that it was reasonable to treat a DEC service person as if she were incompetent, because my generalization was reasonably good, given the consequences of the act, until proven otherwise. >If I met 99 net.singles submitters, knew them well, and thought they >were all idiots, it's still rather unfair for me to say > > "I think that most net.singles submitters are idiots". > >It might be true (for my definition of idiot; or even for the >non-existent global TRUTH defining idiots), but it is grossly unfair >for the 100,000 or even 1 net.singles submitter who is not an idiot. Yeah, but you might stop reading the newsgroup anyway, or assume in interpreting ambigous statements that the author was an idiot. And it might be a correct and useful assumption! I certainly agree that injustice exists. I'd say it is because of 1) ignorance, 2) the need or desire to act in the face of incomplete information, 3) lack of care in justifying one's actions, given one's knowledge. And generalization simply reflects ignorance. I don't think we can do away with 1) or 2). It should be apparent that we could make some progress on 3). And as long as we're uncovering some of the non-issues of evil deeds, I'm sure the following dictionary definition of "bigot" would be enlightening to the readership: "bigot - A person of strong convictions or prejudice, especially in matters of religion, race, or politics, who is intolerant of those who differ from him." Tom