Not just race - mechanics of prejudice

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paigetheoracle
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Joined: Thu Jun 24, 2021 12:16 pm

Not just race - mechanics of prejudice

Post by paigetheoracle »

Prejudice (hate) in action is about finding and exploiting someone's weakness, be it class, education, culture, religious or political beliefs etc. It is not just race, sex, sexual orientation, even though these are the main and obvious contenders. It is divide and conquer tactics.

It is clothing you put on as you advance through life. It's a straight jacket of limitation, meanness and fear - a complexity of control, that when thrown off, returns us to simplicity and innocence. In this world we encounter the new, the strange, the different through openness and generosity of spirit (first or second childhood).

It’s repulsion away from someone or something as love is attraction, its opposite. Indifference is lack of interest in the subject altogether (being unmoved / neutral). Fear of contagion / risk to mortality, drives prejudice. It is a defence mechanism in other words.

Prejudice is what creates the rules and regulations that exist in every country, every household and in every person's life you meet. It decides whether you are allowed into that country, that house or that person's space or even are allowed to communicate with them. You see it even within families, where parents 'apparently' ask their children what they want but steer them in the direction that they want them to go ("This is nicer!" "You don't want that one surely?"). You also see it in pet owners, who say "good boy" when what they are really mean is "Thank you for being obedient." Children inherit the dogma (ignorance / limits) of their parents, the society they are brought up in, be it political or religious.

Prejudice is not always about colour but sometimes culture, including class and beliefs. After the war Bed and Breakfast proprietors used to display signs that said No dogs, No Irish. Prejudice (hate) in action is about finding and exploiting someone's weakness, be it class, education, culture, religious or political beliefs etc. It is not just race, sex, sexual orientation, even though these are the main and obvious contenders. It is divide and conquer tactics and can be used to push for action on both sides. True justice should be neutral and act on the facts, not bias. Some hide behind religion or politics as criminals hide behind the law but the just stand proudly in front of it, displaying the truth, instead of hiding behind lies and self-justification. The courageous in other words just get on with living their lives – proudly being an example to others by simply being themselves.

Belief is another name for prejudice. It is a fixed idea that leads to force ("It must work!"). Doubt, its opposite, leads to exploration ("What does work?").

Violence is knocking someone back into line (denial of possibility). The thing is that you can't bully the truth into submission because reality doesn't work like that. It is what you accept and deal with, rather than reject as an idea or suppress as an impulse.

The irony of this situation is that the ignorant are fearful because they lack the knowledge that would remove that fear. On top of this they violently defend their limits, eternally trapped in a circuit, based upon fear of the unknown. This is the beginners (naive) mind problem (you only experience what is there in the here and now, not see and understand the history that led up to how things have developed into what they are at this stage in their existence).

Only a breakdown of this false self can release us from the conscious prison we set up for ourselves as a defence against the rest of reality - hence the sense separation and the anxiety that goes with it. This is why letting go in any form, mentally or physically is casting off the ballast that holds us down and holds us back from floating free (a leap of faith into a newly created future ).



Ghosts are those who refuse to let go and move on, trapped forever by their ignorance. Emotionally dead but physically alive, like hypnotised zombies they live an empty life of endless repetition, endless habit, feeling nothing. Left behind in a past that used to exist, wallowing in previous glories, now gone, they simply exist, not live.

In my opinion there is too much crying wolf nowadays and hiding behind the idea that it is some kind of prejudicial attack, if you yourself defend yourself when attacked but what do I know?
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