Eclectic Memes

It  astonished me that people are so keen to pigeon hole everyone. I understand the evolutionary drive and psychological conditioning that makes in-group/out-group distinctions useful, but PLEASE! Have  we not progressed enough as a society to overcome this knee-jerk reaction, this compulsion to assign roles to people without actually knowing what their position on a matter is?

As an example, consider the atheist – theist head-to-head one can encounter pretty much anywhere today. There is a substantial element in both camps that insist on pigeon holing the other. From the atheist camp, “you’re a Christian therefore you must believe that evolution is bad ‘cos the Bible Genesis story contradicts it.” From the Christian camp, “you’re an atheist therefore you have no moral guide. That makes you a bad person.” Just grow the fuck up both of you.

People are immensely complex psychologically. We all have odd beliefs. We all behave irrationally (yes, even those of you who think you’re rational). We all hold all sorts of contradictory beliefs because, well because the world is a complicated place and our monkey brains are not really equipped to deal with complex social interaction. It’s all just a bit too new for monkey brains.

Give us some long grass and a shadowy movement and our trust monkey brain says, “get the hell out of dodge there’s a large predator in that grass”. Great for survival, but this visceral reaction to situation is what gets us into trouble when dealing with complex social interactions. Dealing with individuals by generalising form examples is good for avoiding lions in the long grass, but lousy for talking to an individual Christian and basing your opinion on some vague generalised model of what Christians believe.

Treat people as individuals. Start by assuming they are smart, well meaning and accommodating. Yes, you will be disappointed, probably regularly, but if we all started from this position at least we would have a chance of overcoming the monkey brained knee-jerk judgmental attitude that puts up barriers before we even start.