Prejudice, self-interest and self-display
What is freethinking? It's not so easy to say. But perhaps it's easier to ask the question the other way round: what is the opposite of freethiinking?
The most plausible answer, I think, is prejudice. which is why there has been so much traffic about prejudice on this blog recently.
But what is prejudice exactly? In the coming days and weeks I want to try to clarify and define it, and I would appreciate your help: facts and anecdotes about prejudices, your own and other peoples, and also ideas about the different classes they fall into, and the different kinds of threat they pose.
Here's my starter.
I suppose we all know that prejudice is a Bad Thing, and I guess we all know why. Prejudice is a kind of bias that deforms our capacity for good judgement. By definition, we are never really aware of our prejudices: we always like to imagine that we are freethinkers – that we consider every issue on its merits, even ‘objectively’, and that we reason about it with a fair and open mind; but to the extent that we harbour prejudices, we will in fact be enslaved by forces of which we know nothing, and whose very existence we may want to deny.
If I asked you to come up with a dozen examples of prejudices – other people’s prejudices, let’s say – I bet that nearly all of them would involve a kind of blind selfishness combined with compulsive hostility to those who are regarded as strangers or outsiders (racism or sexism for example). These are what I would call prejudices of self-interest: a combination of prejudice in favour of yourself and those you identify with, and prejudice against anything that you see as a threat or a challenge: Germans, for instance, or logic, or art students, or philosophers, or atheists.
Most people would agree that there is something inherently hateful about that kind of prejudice; they would probably denounce it as reactionary, even fascistic; and they would count themselves lucky to live in a liberal society (like ours perhaps) where mainstream politicians, on the whole, seek to expose, denounce and defuse it, or even to eliminate it through leadership and legislation.
But there is another kind of prejudice that may be just as pernicious, though as far as I can see no one pays it much heed: not the prejudice of self-interest but the prejudice of self-display (or perhaps vanity would be a better word, or self-love, or narcissism or amour-propre).
The prejudice of self-display is what happens when your judgments are deformed not so much by a desire to win measurable benefits for yourself and your kin, perhaps at the expense of others, but by a desire to make yourself and your kin seem superior to other people. You may think that you are simply seeking the most trenchant and truthful analysis of a problem, when in fact all you’re doing is adopting opinions that you think will make you look good to others and feel good to yourself.
The prejudices of self-display seem to come in several different varieties: there is moral self-display (‘look at me, so pure and incorruptible!’); intellectual self-display (‘look at me, so acute and ungullible!’); political self-display (‘look at me, so peace-loving and non-violent!’); academic self-display (‘look at me, so well-versed in the latest research’); personal self-display (‘look at me, standing firm and unflinching against the tides of fashion or convention’). And no doubt lots of others.
It seems to me that if the prejudice of self-interest is the peculiar vice of conservative-leaning democrats, then the prejudice of self-love is the peculiar vice of their progressive-leaning counterparts. Conservatives say: vote for me if you want to prosper more than others; progressives say: vote for me if you want to feel more virtuous than others. To me at least, it is not clear which of these approaches is more likely to make the world a better place.
I am trying to collect examples of the prejudices of self-display, and I must say the internet seems to be a pretty fertile seedbed for them. Even, if I may say so, the Freethinking blogs. Comments, examples and anecdotes please.
Am I demonstrating prejudice, self interest and self display when I quote the 'facts' below.
Jonathan you have been defined here as a 'free thinker' - indeed provocative. You have been advertised as "Read Jonathan Ree's blog on the history and meaning of the term."
and then you dodge the issue and tell us ""What is freethinking? It's not so easy to say. But perhaps it's easier to ask the question the other way round: what is the opposite of freethinking?"'
Come on for goodness sake Jonathan - if you are billed as a free thinker and advertised as being able to tell us the history and meaning of the term, then stop hedging your bets - stop treating us as imbeciles and trying to persuade us that all this time - none of us have really understood what 'free thinking' really is and so now we should start analyzing what it isn't.
It's a bit like saying - well let's define what an 'elephant is' - and then 'are well we didn't do to well at that - so let's tackle it from the tail end and define 'what it isn't' - well it isn't a tiger or lion or bear or beaver - so where does that get is Jonathan - not very far.
I've got this hunch that neither you nor any of the subscribers so far know or understand what 'freethinking' is and so in desperating you have decided in the dying weeks of the debate to ask "what it isn't'
Well OK - free thinking isn't Judiasm, Christianity; Islam; Hinduism etc etc -
we could just keep adding to this list for ever more - and where would that get us pray?
Nah - let's just get back to the easy way and define 'freethinking'
You start Jonathan - your classified as an 'expert' here!
Given that freethinking is the opposite of prejudice (i.e. not simply in the sense that 'freethinking is not prejudice' but that 'freethinking is exactly not prejudice'), how do we define prejudice? What examples do we have?
My participation on this blog is rather a rare thing.
I have a prejudice against weblogs, messageboards, chatrooms etc, and the cretinous internetters that flap their intellectual mucous on them. This is to say that I assume, from forming an association through experience, that those on the internet are singularly not interested in ideas and discussion, but in the endless self-gratification that the internet allows by offering such disguises.
For some reason, I have witheld this prejudice from my participation in this blog, though to be perfectly honest I realy don't think any progress will be made, either by Jonathan, myself or others. Am I freeing my thinking by not allowing myself to be guided by these beliefs? Another question might be - am I actually extending a gesture of genuine liberal sentiment in assuming for now that my thoughts will be taken in good faith, or is this just a posture?
In my example there are several beliefs working at once, but since belief is different from what we call prejudice, which of them are prejudices? I certainly introduced my feeling that the internet is full of horrid people as a prejudice, and in terms of a dictionary definition, it does what it says on the tin and judges prior to the evidence. But this is precisely what any induction does - we use a universal to express only particular instances. In a very tangible sense we are always prejudging the future.
My opinion is that what we label 'prejudices' are beliefs that we already hold, and have reflected on just enough to be sure that they are wrong - perhaps we are not sure how to express how they are wrong, or how to reexamine the evidence, but we certainly do believe them to be wrong. I should make it clear that what I previously labelled my 'prejudice' about internetters really is a belief I have, and not a prejudice. I think to admit that you have prejudices is just dishonest. This is not to say that we can't have bad habits that are difficult to shake, but with anything more than the physical meaning of habit I really don't have much truck.
So, prejudice is in my view a retrospective term that is a place marker for some intellectual action to be performed on a false belief (or a thing once believed now believed false), and if freethinking is the opposite of this then freethinking is the forward-facing action of new intellectual exploration. (or something similar. Any logicians able to help me out here? ;) )
On this account what we call the 'prejudice' of others are simply beliefs 1) they hold that we describe as false; 2) that are in need of rethinking; and probably, since prejudice is a very political word, 3) harmful enough relative to our social norms.
""I have a prejudice against weblogs, messageboards, chatrooms etc, and the cretinous internetters that flap their intellectual mucous on them. This is to say that I assume, from forming an association through experience, that those on the internet are singularly not interested in ideas and discussion, but in the endless self-gratification that the internet allows by offering such disguises.""
hold onto ya wellie boots, and umberella - I think we are fast sinking into the mire here!
HI Matt, whilst I found the rest of your dialogue amusing, the above example was in my humble opinion, needless, thoughtless, uncessary and in the greater scheme of things a poor example from someone who I assume has some interlectual prowess. It slightly hints at not so much a prejudice as 'pure malice or loathing' masquerading as a prejudice or belief.
A sort of emotional 'the emporer has no clothes on today' syndrome.
On behalf of all us humble internetters - I accept you apology without reservation!
Now to prejudice - and it's supposed connection with free thinking, which you have at least attempted to define - thanks for that.
MY definition of prejudice states: an unreasonable and unfair dislike of, or preference for, a particular type of person or thing.
YES - that's definitely you alright - you do have an unreasonable and unfair dislike of internetters - or most anyway, right?
but what has all this to do with freethinking I ask
Matt you say ""forward-facing action of new intellectual exploration. ""
Wow - there's a abstract thought if ever I saw one - so I take it that a backward-facing action is the opposite of a forward one and therefore could be defined as a prejudice?
However I think you are still being unreasonable when you suggest that people who are prejudice are not by your definition freethinkers.
Surely anyone who engages in a "forward-facing action of new intellectual exploration" can still do it with some prejudice attached.
I know of many interllectuals who would consider themselves free thinkers ; forward -facing (what ever that really means) and explorers and who wear their prejudices proudly for all to see on the lapels
No can't agree with you on this one mucous or no mucous. Free thinking, forward facing and intellectuality do not come necessarily without prejudice.
In fact dare I say that it isprobably impossible to find anyone on this planet earth who is without prejudice - some indeed have large amounts of it and others small amounts - but no one is absolutely free from it - in my humble opinion.
However there are millions who would announce that they were free thinkers and interlects and forward facing people. (that truly is an amazing phrase - forward facing - what does it mean Matt?)
I have just fallen into an awareness of this discussion and offer a comment with some trepidation. As I read through the attempt to get at free thinking via its presumed opposite of prejudice, I had some trouble following the logic of the discussion of prejudice.
It first occured to me that using the word prejudice evokes if not produces that quality, a prejudice against prejudice so to speak--so there's a problem here with language, with the fact that our words come to us with histories and associations. Only a certain kind of philosopher would dream of a language somehow stripped of the historical and cultural accretions. Pure symbolic logic maybe, but sooner or later you have to step back into the stream. Put somewhat differently, to alter the Ishmael's line in Moby-Dick, "who ain't a prejudiced"? I guess what I'm suspicious of is the purity of the oppostion between free thinking on the one hand and prejudice on the other. Surely we ought to be a tiny bit skeptical of something so comforting to our (you know it was coming) prejudice. At least I am. Maybe we need the concept of prejudice to have that of free thinking.
My second thought is considerably less global and addresses a connection that Jonathan Ree makes, one which I don't follow. He's quite right to note that there exist other forms of prejudice besides the usual object of scorn--self-interest. His suggestion that we think about the prejudice of self-display is well taken, all the more so in this age of self-display. Nonetheless, it isn't clear to me that feeling good about myself and looking good to others necessarily imply a sense of superiority or that superiority is necessarily invidious. Nor is it clear to me that, even if a sense of superiority is the effect (purposeful or otherwise) of that feeling good/looking good, how it therefore disables or vitiates the particular view expressed or action urged. To offer some specifics: in the 18th century, one could argue that this kind feeling good/looking good is central and germane to some of the best impulses. A philosopher such as Adam Smith, who argued strongly for the place of imitation in the formation of character seems to have depended upon exactly what Professor Ree disqualifies as prejudice. A military and political figure like Washington was admirable to others because he sought the approval of self and others. Washington's superiority (which he sought and which others granted him) is not a bad thing; rather it guaranteed his greatness by in fact disassociating his public performance from the selfish desires he assuredly possessed.
My small additional point may be that it is content (so to speak) of what is being presented as admirable ought to be taken into account.
Let’s get back to basics – we all seem to be caught up in a melee of words here.
Thinkers – yes we can safely say that all of us are thinkers – the only examples I can think of humans who are not thinkers would be say an unconscious person (and even they have been demonstrated to think at their own level), or a severely handicapped child with a malformed brain perhaps – but tongue in cheek I wouldn’t mind betting that there perhaps are really no examples of non-thinkers on the planet. We know for example that many mammals have an advanced thinking process also.
But as soon as we use adjectives that seems to be the problem. The nouns are OK it’s those elusive adjectives that confound us all.
In my more relaxing moments I sit in the garden puffing on my pipe, listening to the birds and have a ‘day dreaming’ experience. I regard this as an example of ‘free thinking’. My mind is wandering around ‘like the chattering of the monkeys’ as the Buddhists say, and as far as I am concerned I am ‘free thinking’. For me that’s my definition. However although we may all agree that we are all thinkers of sorts we will I am sure all have different definitions and ideas what our own ‘free thinking’ is all about. And there is the crux of the matter. Jonathan describe the historic definition of ‘free thinkers’ in his opening gambit, but we don’t have to agree or accept that, that is now our own definition today.
So there I am sitting in my garden doing my free thinking and still full of prejudices. Am I a free thinker – of course – am I totally non-prejudice – never. So being prejudice is NOT the opposite of free thinking – it can exist alongside it – it is however the opposite of non-prejudice – a condition that I don’t believe exists in any human being.
What is my definition of the opposite of free thinking – focused thinking – directed thinking – can it exist with prejudice – most certainly, and without non-prejudice – hardly.
So Jonathan and everyone else around are of course entitled to their own definitions of free thinking as long as they don’t try to impose them – no matter how subtlety they may try on anyone in the guise of being a scientist, or philosopher or a priest or any other definition of a public and professional personas.
The internet is open to all free thinkers and even those non-free thinkers all around the globe and needs to be really flexible and open to a myriad of ideas and thoughts and opinions and views and prejudices from all thinkers!
Your article on prejudice was interesting. I have seen and received various prejudices because people have a fear of the unknown.
Prejudice of Self Display is inherent in our society. In English Speaking USA, there is Paris Hilton, Britney Speers, Jessica Simpson. In the Spanish Speaking World, people like Luis Miguel, Niurka Marcos, Paulina Rubio adds to the narcisistic bunch. The Republicans and Democrats are also examples of Prejudice of Self Display because they cannot stand competition from Independents, Libertarians, and Greens.
If there can be more than one kind of prejudice then perhaps there can be more than one kind of freethinking ... or perhaps none..
just a thought.
I agree ifox! - or maybe I don't agree - but I am sure that there are different forms of prejudice and free thinking.
There is a notion, or theory, or concept that all of our feelings and thoughts and desire really can be reduced to two - that is FEAR and LOVE. If you look at your and our prejudices they are of course FEAR based, our dislike of others, is FEAR based, our shyness is FEAR based etc etc
And alternatively our willingness to share and care regardless of the odds is LOVE based and our openess to others and willingness to listen to new ideas that may challenge our own is LOVE based.
It is an interesting exercise, always, as we experience those rushes of emotion and those slowly creeping emotions that we experience at each turn of our waking day to ask ourselves is this coming from LOVE or FEAR. If the answer is FEAR then it is useful to explore the whys further and further until you realize there is really no need to FEAR and if we can just get past that hurdle each time we will be making quantum leaps in personal development
14 million years of natural selection for survival and reproduction, not rational thought, that is a by product
something to always keep in mind, i think, in a rational thought kind of way
Does free thinking involve getting rid of prejudices?
Is prejudice a negative concept?
What about free-form Jazz musicians?
They experiment with subverting formal structure-in that moment- in order to create something more 'free'.
What do they do with their prejudices then?
What about the prejudices they may have about other musical forms? Which can - in a free-form way - inform the 'free form'.
Following on from Ross Pudaloff's point - when he talks about Adam Smith & George Washington....
....What about prejudice & vanity when creating art?
Isn't art, by it's nature, prejudice? Advocating something particular?
Don't artists positively embrace a specific prejudice in order to dissect/explore/exploit or just present - an idea or a concept.
Self-display? Isn't that what I'm doing now?
Haven't we all been doing this?
What's the difference between waving one's intellect about using exclusive references and posting a web-blog about what your favourite group/song/food/pet name/icon is?
What's the difference between a prejudice and a belief?
Jonathan.
I just wanted to say thank you for some very thought provoking stuff. the question
- How do I know that my beliefs are not, in fact, my prejudices? -
for the people's choice debate was entirely inspired by your blog/comments.
Cheers. You've sent me on a scary journey of exploration. Not pleasant at every turn!
I also find the internet fertile ground when looking for evidence of 'prejudice, self-interest and self-display.' (well, people being people but the vanity-pills seem more freely availabe to us here)
You are looking for comments and anecdotes?
Trawl through myspace. (had to do that for something recently) People live out minute details of their lives - telling the world how happy they are so regularly, its painful.
Self-display? The following example is common.
'This myspace page is set to private. It can only be viewed by friends.' (or words to that effect)
A couple of days later and once again the page is open to comments from anyone who cares to give them.
That, to me, seems worse, somehow.
Esther