Wandering through a disjointed, rambling discussion with the voices in my head this A.M….
It’s a good thing I was under-caffeinated this morning. Too many “driving while brain dead” people on the road. Had I been properly caffeinated (thus, awake), I’d probably have stroked out at the number of folks who let a little dampness (after a night full of heavy rain) turn them into Aunt Tillies on the road… But enough of that.
Ever think about the differences between stereotypes and archetypes? They have common roots in real world relationships and usefulness. Archetypes as theoretical models actually have less usefulness in our quotidian experiences, IMO. Stereotypes though…
Ever notice that stereotypes get a bum rap in the talk of Academia Nut Fruitcakes, Mass Media Podpeople, et al, and yet Academia Nut Fruitcakes almost universally stereotype stereotypes as “bad” and Mass Media Podpeople cannot utter two sentences in a row without using stereotypes.
Why is that?
Well, on the one hand, Academia Nut Fruitcakes despise anything that simplifies models to the point of actual usefulness, while at the same time unconsiously making sweeping generalizations (oversimplified assumptions) about the unusefulness of simple models, AKA, stereotypes, which they have come to characterize as oversimplifications of some observed or imagined trait of behaviour or appearance.
(Mass Media Podpeople, OTOH, are unable to think in complex terms at all, and so have nothing BUT genuine oversimplifications to offer. In their case, stereotypes really are a bad, bad thing.)
Why do stereotypes exist to begin with? Because humans are generalization machines and Occam’s Razor is one of the most powerful tools (I almost typed “forces”) of reason. Face it: most “jocks” are intellectually stunted boors. Yes, it’s true. Nerds are, by definition, socially inept. Latino men are almost universally dominated by machismo (natural public reaction to their basically matriarchal home life–*heh*), and American society is becoming ever more feminized day by day.
Sidebar: I don’t have to defend any of the statements above, because to any person who has more functioning brain cells than a head of cabbage they are self-evident. Stereotype-driven, because they are generalizations from the real world that are testable hypotheses that can stand against exceptional tests: they work.
Example: the feminization of America. 99%+ of America’s future is brainwashed in our society’s prisons for kids (disingenuously referred to by Academia Nut Fruitcakes, Mass media Podpeople and politicians *spit* as “public schools”). More and more kids are being drugged out of their minds because, being boys, they act like boys, and our prisons for kids are dominated by female teachers for whom boyish behavior is anathema. Take a typical playground event: bully picks on victim. If the victim does the female teacher-acceptable thing and “goes crying to surrogate mommy” all is well in the eye of the prison for kids. If the victim does the right thing and plasters the bully, he gets in trouble. OK, maybe both get in trouble, but the point is that to satisfy a feminine culture, a forceful personal response results in injustice: punishment for self-defense.
And this trait is, of course, permeating our society. Self-defense is equated with aggression at an increasing rate. By all meeans, lets talk with the crazy guy with the atom bomb…
And that is but one of many examples of the feminization of America.
And so it goes with many things slurred as stereotypes: they are reflections of a reality the politically correct simply want to deny, as they embrace instead their reality-based fantasies and tyrannical utopian/dystopian views.
As someone once said (something like :-)), “In much of [their] talk, thinking is half-murdered.”
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