Basing A Group On One Instance

[John McCass]

With "Group", I mean a caste, a religion, a race, a nation or any kind of group. Some people portray the entire group just with the help of an instance, which I find wrong.

Few Examples, I'd mention. One being the IWC thing. You could come across slogans like "IWC ruined wrestling." and something like that about 20 times a day. Do all the members of IWC share same type of mindset? IWC wants this, IWC wants that and yadda yadda. Different people in the IWC have different opinions. Not everybody is the same. Just like, non-IWC fans, variation also lies in IWC fans. No, I'm not saying this is only in wrestling.

Some people from the Europe, America (Again I'd not say all Europeans, all Americans) make fun of people who speak broken English. I've seen many examples of this. I come across these kind of this on Facebook. Generally, they say "Indians are bad at English." There're qualified people in India who can speak and write English flawlessly. I've even seen some Britishers erring in English. So, what's the problem if someone not knows the secondary language? It is not our first language. Even, those Americans and Europeans will face problems if they try to speak another language which does not belong to their accent.

I'll give another example. Our country is sub-divided into 28 states and I come from Bihar, one of those 28. Bihar is criticized the most in our country. People (a vast majority) from out of Bihar make fun of Bihar's citizens. Sure, my part is backwards in the field of education and sports but, that doesn't make the entire population a fool. We are treated very violently in other parts of the country.

There are more instances but these are off the top of my head. What I'm trying to clarify was that not everybody from a group is same. Everybody has a different mindset. Am I right? If no, then how? If yes, then how can it be abated? Throw in your instances on this.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

One of the defining aspects of humans as a species is diversity; at the same time, that diversity is also one of the root causes for conflict. I don't mean that as a way of suggesting that everyone should be the same, we shouldn't after all and it's pretty much impossible. However, it doesn't change the fact that our diversity is one of the causes of our problems as a species.

Throughout history, humanity has kept making the same mistakes time after time and it's mostly because of different points of view. While religion is often labeled as the cause of most of the strife, which is an argument with weight when you consider how many wars have been fought over religious interpretations and beliefs, strife would still exist in nearly as great amounts even if religion was out of the picture. The Persian Empire once stretched from India all the way to Greece and one of the primary reasons why is because the Persians thought themselves, their beliefs, their lifestyle, their method & systems of doing things, etc. as superior to those of everyone else. It wasn't just about attaining land, resources, material wealth, etc. it was about establishing superiority over their neighbors and beyond; it boiled down to good old fashioned self aggrandizement. It was much the same when Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire in the 330s B.C. as he saw himself as superior to others; he believed himself the son of a god, Zeus to be exact, and felt that he had not only the right but the vision to make the world as he saw fit. History books are chock full of numerous other examples and we keep getting into it for really the same reasons we always have: racial prejudice, religious intolerance, classism, elitism, political leaders with massive egos that have equally grand ambitions, etc. I guess what I'm trying to say is that human beings have never been short for reasons for conflict.

Chucking everyone from who's from a certain part of the world, has certain religious or philosophical beliefs, has a certain skin tone into categories is another age old tradition. In ancient Rome, if you weren't a Roman citizen, then you were viewed as a barbarian regardless of your own customs, traditions, languages, arts & crafts, etc. We do the same thing today and we often see it applied everyday. For instance, being from Kentucky, I'm well aware of the various stereotypes assigned to me and to much of the southern states in general; we're ALL supposed to be illiterate, ignorant, inbred trash with nothing positive to bring to the world. I've actually shocked people upon telling them where I'm from as I don't fit the stereotypes. I can't count the number of times I've seen movies or episodes of TV shows exploit those stereotypes, often for the purpose of generating cheap laughs.

Putting EVERYONE of a certain skin color, country of origin, religious belief, etc. into one group isn't anything new and is among the oldest stories in the book: If you're a Christian, then you must be an intolerant, closed minded hatemonger. If you're Muslim, you're a terrorist who believes that all who don't share your faith are enemies to be exterminated. If you're an Atheist, then you're a cold hearted and hateful person. If you're British, you're an arrogant, uptight, foppish asshole. If you're French, you're an effeminate, cowardly weakling. If you're Asian, then you must be prejudice against other Asian countries, etc.

As I said, it's nothing new and it's often insulting, ignorant and just blatantly untrue.