View Full Version : why is there still discrimination and prejudice in our modern society?
fishcatch22
06-26-2006, 3:07 PM
hi, all. I just can't believe there can still be so much discrimination in our society, after all the horror it has caused, all the lives it has ruined and destroyed, all the people denied basic rights just because of their skin, religion, and nationality. take for example, right across the hall of my quadroplex, there lives a guy who's the biggest racist on this planet earth, constantly ranting about how bad african americans are and using the word niger with an extra g. or my teacher, who blatantly loathes the french for no good reason I know of, or me, constantly harassed because my religion doen't believe in a god. SIGH... I guess it's just base human nature to fear people you don't understand...:(
labont865
06-26-2006, 3:13 PM
It is human nature to fear anything you dont understand, not just people you dont understand unfortunately.
Until mankind learns to not fear what we dont understand we will always have to live in fear.
msouth468
06-26-2006, 3:29 PM
Fearing what we don't understand is one of our strongest survival instincts. If early man walked up to explore and understand that giant cat with the big teeth, instead of running away or killing it. We wouldn't be here, discrimination is our own cause of so many people developing diffrent cultures and standards over generations. People are like animals and subject to behaviors that are in a sense trained into us over our lives. So the important thing is to go after the trainer instead of the animal...
Didn't we cover this in another topic?
fishcatch22
06-26-2006, 3:31 PM
hmm... true, I guess someone's life experiences do influence their beliefs in their later years...
There'll always be dicrimination of some form or another. Asking why is like asking why we have wars. They cause suffering, but they are inevitable because humans will conflict over resources and other stuff. In the end, a particular discrimination will fade away, but there'll always be more to take its place. It all has its roots somewhere. For example, imagine a European explorer 500 years ago who goes to Africa or asia or somewhere. he finds people who look different and speak differently and live differently. Back home he enjoys semi-industrial technology and science. the people he meets worship different gods which he has been taught is wrong, and they live in societies similar to what his own people lived in many hundreds of years before. so he naturally sees himself and his culture as superior. And once something like this gets ingrained it takes a hell of a lot to get rid of it. But as his society progresses and learns more about these people, he finds that actually, they are not really all that different.
But they'll always be the question of loyalty. To your family, your country, your faith, your gender, or whatever. And as people are all different, they will all have different views of this. so even if people of all races, religions and so forth are fully integrated in society, there's always going to be some bigot who refuses to believe that in the end everyone is pretty much equal as human beings.
fishcatch22
06-26-2006, 4:00 PM
SIGH... just natural human protestment, eh?
It would certainly seem so. Oh well, such is life...
Just be thankful you don't live in Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia or Mugabe's Zimbabwe or Apartheid South Africa or Medieval anywhere.
fishcatch22
06-26-2006, 4:06 PM
or under the rule of henry the 8th!
rosita
06-26-2006, 6:15 PM
Human Ego and outright Stupidity/Ignorance--that's my story and I'm stickin' to it. :sim:
Cheech
06-26-2006, 10:39 PM
great replies!!!
I agree, there will always be discrimination, whether we realize it or not. fear of the unknown....
Sad, but true. ..
DansMarineTank
06-27-2006, 11:52 AM
or under the rule of henry the 8th!
Strange choice
Shelby_Tempo_GT
06-27-2006, 12:36 PM
great replies!!!
I agree, there will always be discrimination, whether we realize it or not. fear of the unknown....
Sad, but true. ..
I don't believe that for a minute (the fear part)
Human nature is that people need to be better/superior over others. If they cant elevate themselves, they create the distance by pushing others down.
It is a premeditated plan. No fear at all.
It is fear to some extent. It's based on animal 'emotions' such as territoriality, and the desire to preserve one's own people before all others. But it isn't just fear, despite stemming from it in an evolutionary sense. However, if you look at all the major historical examples, eg the Nazis saw the Jews as a threat to the Aryan race, the Hutu population of Rwanda was led to fear the Tutsis, Stalin was paranoid about everything, the people of Medieval Europe feared witches, the Church feared any challenge to its authority, the list goes on and on. But then you get examples like the Boers, whose ultra-Calvinist interpretation of the Bible led them to believe that the purpose of black people was to serve whites, or the example I gave above of the European explorer. Interesting stuff.
Henry VIII is a slightly strange example; for his time he wasn't especially barbaric. However he did destroy the monasteries. But equally the Catholic church was discriminating against him (in a modern, subjective and clouded sense you might say that the Pope was violating his human rights).
fishcatch22
06-27-2006, 4:42 PM
well, I just heard he was a tyrant, is all. sorry if I offended any british folks.:o
Don't worry. He was. And he did his fair share of discriminating and persecuting. But so did everyone else back then. But he is nonetheless widely considered one of the 'great' historical British leaders, up there with Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria, but not so much that he compares with the likes of Winston Churchill. Without him, the history of the world would have been quite different.:)
fishcatch22
06-27-2006, 6:14 PM
Don't worry. He was. And he did his fair share of discriminating and persecuting. But so did everyone else back then. But he is nonetheless widely considered one of the 'great' historical British leaders, up there with Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria, but not so much that he compares with the likes of Winston Churchill. Without him, the history of the world would have been quite different.:)hmm... true, the UK probably would still just be a bunch of squabbiling litte provinces and city-states if it wasn't for the virgin queen.
labont865
06-27-2006, 10:26 PM
Okay to end all this debate and discussion.
The real reason that there is discrimination and prejudice in todays society is because I toush myself at night, and I didnt eat my broccoli as a child.
125gJoe
06-28-2006, 2:51 AM
Okay to end all this debate and discussion.
The real reason that there is discrimination and prejudice in todays society is because I toush myself at night, and I didnt eat my broccoli as a child.
I'm just guessing, but maybe you didn't have melted Velveeta cheese over your broccoli?
:huh:
:D
labont865
06-28-2006, 3:55 AM
I'm just guessing, but maybe you didn't have melted Velveeta cheese over your broccoli?
:huh:
:D
No I am a welfare child. We couldnt afford it. But sometimes when I stole it outta the garbage behind the restaurant it had many different types of sauce, but my brothers being older than me got first dibs and never left any for poor little me. hahaha
sorry if that offended anyone.
graphicdesign_r
06-28-2006, 6:00 AM
Racism and prejudice are stupid.
The are lots of stupid people.
I can draw up a Venn diagram for you...
DeputyChiefJR
06-28-2006, 6:07 AM
We often claim/hope to be more enlightened than we actually are.
DansMarineTank
06-28-2006, 7:30 AM
hmm... true, the UK probably would still just be a bunch of squabbiling litte provinces and city-states if it wasn't for the virgin queen.
As would the rest of the world without the british empire and industrial revolution
Shelby_Tempo_GT
06-28-2006, 11:05 AM
Okay to end all this debate and discussion.
The real reason that there is discrimination and prejudice in todays society is because I toush myself at night, and I didnt eat my broccoli as a child.
**** you for bringing this on us all.
I bet you don't rewind your videotapes either!
:devil:
Originally posted by graphicdesign_r:
Racism and prejudice are stupid.
The are lots of stupid people.
I can draw up a Venn diagram for you...
Graphic, I thought you left in a fit of frustration several weeks ago. :huh:
Racism and prejudice are WRONG. They are not stupid, although they do usually arise out of ignorance. It is foolish to equate ignorance with stupidity.. To carry prejudice to the lengths that humans do requires exceptional intelligence. Hitler was one of the most evil humans in history. But he was certainly not stupid.
Originally posted by DansMarineTank:
As would the rest of the world without the british empire and industrial revolution
Yep. Us Brits made the world. :D Think of the progress that humanity made under the British Empire. But then, look at the blind prejudice that often accompanied it. It's all part of being human and having that wonderful, deadly ability to think in abstract.
graphicdesign_r
06-28-2006, 4:01 PM
I missed the aggravation momar.
:laugh:
What this about British imperialism? I can't hear very well... bloody wogs are everywhere making a racket.
You need to look at it in historical context. Think of what we owe to the Roman Empire. But they were savage barbarians whose idea of a good time was watching foreign slaves get eaten by lions. The important point, though, is that the Romans didn't consider that to be savage. Because values change over time too.
Perhaps slightly off-topic, but suffering such as war doesn't just have negative consequences. If the Nazis hadn't invented the V2 rocket to bomb London, we wouldn't have got to the moon. And so on. A rather disturbing issue (separate from the V2 point) is that there'd be a whole lot we wouldn't know about medical science if the Nazis hadn't performed horrific experiments on people. But was that knowledge really worth the atrocities it entailed? Makes you think.
msouth468
06-29-2006, 8:37 AM
No, it wasn't worth it. And the V2 rocket was nothing more than a device used to kill people. Connecting it to the space program is nothing more than a way to validate the atrocities of war. If it was never created someone else in the world would have invented a way to get to the moon. Hell, maybe if it wasn't created someone who was killed by the bomb would be alive today and just found a way to create nuclear Fission in a pop bottle. Or one of the people who were killed in the medical experiments could have invented a working teleporter.
DansMarineTank
06-29-2006, 9:07 AM
Von braun or brown invented the V2 he was then shipped off to the US to get them into space, I agree US may have made it to space enventually but by then they would have been so far behind the russians who would have had an extreme advantage in the cold war.
msouth468
06-29-2006, 9:19 AM
Von braun or brown invented the V2 he was then shipped off to the US to get them into space, I agree US may have made it to space enventually but by then they would have been so far behind the russians who would have had an extreme advantage in the cold war.
I don't agree with that. Given he did help, but the importance of beating the Russians was so great that someone else would have come about. The concept of space travel and rocket design in pretty universal. Have someone with an expertise is nice. But I honestly think we still would have made it without the V2 guy.
DansMarineTank
06-29-2006, 10:19 AM
We shall never know
msouth468
06-29-2006, 12:20 PM
That is the real brain teaser.
loaches r cool
06-30-2006, 1:40 PM
why is there still discrimination and prejudice in our modern society?
I havent read through all the postings, but upon reading the title I have to ask do you really expect anyhting different? Sure, in modern times things have headed that way, like the removal of slavery. People have more equal rights now than ever, but there will most likely always be descrimination and prejudice. I cant really say for sure but I dont think descrimination and prejudice have significantly changed in thousands of years, so I doubt it will ever change. Not that I dont want it to change but I realize there are several aspects of human nature that are not positive.
Other than equal rights and slavery, I cant see how 'modern society' is any different from society hundreds of years ago. To say our society is better than say society back in the Renesiance era, some may even disagree.
Whether it's better or not takes a subjective view which is always dangerous in looking at historical events. But society now is very different, and this reflects on what is considered right or wrong. Modern society is different from that hundreds of years ago due to the establishment of democracy, developmnet of technology and improved medicine. This affects how people regard discrimination. Democracy allows all people to hear the views of all other groups. Improved technology allows for global travel and information systems, which allow people to learn about others in a way never before thought possible. Improved medicine means there are loads more people. Countries consist of tens or even hundreds of millions, rather than just one or two million. With more people comes more conflict and thus a greater need to get along.
fishcatch22
06-30-2006, 6:24 PM
.
With more people comes more conflict and thus a greater need to get along.true! I think eventually we will get over such behaviors. even now, the number of discriminators is waining. the KKK as all but disbanded, and people like my neighbor are truly a dying breed. and no one will ever want another hitler, at least not enough people. and as our modern technology grows ever closer to abolishing general ignorance about other people and societes. discrimination, at least for the most part, shall die with the growing connectivity of the world, and everyone can do a part in helping this to happen. like, for example, forgetting some stereotypes one may have about anoter country or people. for example, america is probably the most heavily stereotyped country in the world, which I find quite funny, as america is a hodge-podge of every culture in the world, and by far the least generalizable country in existence. even with many european countries, it becomes impossible to generalize as more and more people come to live there. why, countries like germany, france, the UK are almost, if nost just, as diverse as america now.