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tuco wrote:While the issue may indeed be more complex than usually presented, but I do not believe the conclusion is supported by data. The Jews had problems before Christians. Obviously those who converted were not racist, by definition.
igorfrankensteen wrote:The more that I have pondered and directly observed anti-WHATEVER prejudices, the more I have been frustrated by the very nature of them.
The main concern that I find, is that prejudiced people tend to be what I refer to as "Anti's."
"Anti's" are people who don't reason from concern---> opposition, they instead reason either that
* if someone is a member of group XXXXX, then they are "bad," by my definition of the "group XXXXX" designation. They are inherently guilty of whatever crimes and personal defects that I have assigned to all members of that group.
* if someone does something which I don't like, this proves that they are members of "group XXXXX," and this explains why they offended me.
In short, they have arranged the circuitry of their mind, such that EVERY fact, no matter what the fact is, proves that the person they are "anti" about, is what they thought they were. The common follow on, is that any "correct" acts the members of group XXXXX commit, isn't proof that they aren't that bad, it is proof that they are sneaky and duplicitous.
igorfrankensteen wrote:
The Exceptionalism in the thread title is linked to one of my own guesses as to why so many Christians in particular don't trust Jews. I have heard and read that Jews themselves believe that what makes someone a Jew or not, isn't their knowledge and fealty to their mutual Faith, it is the fact that their mom was Jewish. Add in the notion of the "chosen people," and I can easily imagine a Middle-School-style "clique" resentment situation, where non-Jews hate the Jews, because the Jews declare that "We are all members of a club which is naturally superior to all non-members, and you can't join, because your mom wasn't already a member."
I think this goes a long way toward explaining why people develop various -isms without much experience with the people in question. There is no contrasting need to form the associative category properly, so an inaccurate associative category forms pretty much automatically. This is depressing to me. It would mean that an -ism is the normal tendency of the brain, which has to be challenged. On the other hand, it explains a connection between mental effort and avoiding -isms.
igorfrankensteen wrote:I don't have the background you do, so I don't understand a lot of what you said. I looked up various things,
and if I understood what I read, you are depressed at the idea that a physiological reason may be behind why people are jerks, essentially.
I suggest something else entirely, from my own "softer" field of History. That is, that humans ALWAYS tend to seek the easiest answers first, and the logical ones second, if at all.
Note as well, how many prejudices develop: they don't spring into the minds of the anti-person all at once, they are built up a bit at a time. Catch an anti-person early enough, and their only explanation for why they are anti- someone else, will be "I feel oogy when I look at them." It's only later that they add in specifics.
The associations of neurons you refer to might indeed be the mechanism, but the reason that the mechanisms are engaged may be entirely different than you've listed, owing to being more complex, and to beginning much earlier in the individuals' development.
Zwaarddijk wrote:I have on this forum run across a few members - not going to name any names - who have maintained that the reason Jews did not convert to the majority religions was basically ethnic exceptionalism and racism against non-Jews. This has been held up basically as a mitigating factor regarding the excesses to which anti-Semites have gone - basically, the Jews brought it on themselves by not giving in to the demands of the (equally mistaken) majority religion.
Beatsong wrote:Without any quotes or context, it's hard to know what exactly you're arguing against, and whether it's real or straw.
Saim wrote:Beatsong wrote:Without any quotes or context, it's hard to know what exactly you're arguing against, and whether it's real or straw.
Take a look at some of the threads in the News and Politics section on the Israel-Palestine conflict. They all inevitably get derailed at some point by people claiming that the problem is Jewish identity itself.
igorfrankensteen wrote:The more that I have pondered and directly observed anti-WHATEVER prejudices, the more I have been frustrated by the very nature of them.
The main concern that I find, is that prejudiced people tend to be what I refer to as "Anti's."
"Anti's" are people who don't reason from concern---> opposition, they instead reason either that
* if someone is a member of group XXXXX, then they are "bad," by my definition of the "group XXXXX" designation. They are inherently guilty of whatever crimes and personal defects that I have assigned to all members of that group.
* if someone does something which I don't like, this proves that they are members of "group XXXXX," and this explains why they offended me.
In short, they have arranged the circuitry of their mind, such that EVERY fact, no matter what the fact is, proves that the person they are "anti" about, is what they thought they were. The common follow on, is that any "correct" acts the members of group XXXXX commit, isn't proof that they aren't that bad, it is proof that they are sneaky and duplicitous.
When seeking explanations of why they think that way, since they BEGIN from an assumption of guilt, their explanations will all be designed to prove they are right, rather than being the result of genuine investigation.
In this case, prejudice against Jews is explained by the "fact" that Jews are difficult to get along with. Or that the reason why lots of Christians don't trust Jews who convert, is that Christians don't trust Jews who convert. Perhaps because Jews can't be trusted, because they are so "Jewy."
The Exceptionalism in the thread title is linked to one of my own guesses as to why so many Christians in particular don't trust Jews. I have heard and read that Jews themselves believe that what makes someone a Jew or not, isn't their knowledge and fealty to their mutual Faith, it is the fact that their mom was Jewish. Add in the notion of the "chosen people," and I can easily imagine a Middle-School-style "clique" resentment situation, where non-Jews hate the Jews, because the Jews declare that "We are all members of a club which is naturally superior to all non-members, and you can't join, because your mom wasn't already a member."
But I have seen in other aspects of human life, that the phenomenon of holding that some group is exceptional, and simultaneously praising those who work to join it while at the same time distrusting and even despising them for doing so, is repeated in secular areas as well.
Historical precedents include the relatively modern idea of an Upper Class status. Even in the United States, where individual effort is supposedly praised and recognized, people who "make it big" are often still shunned by the upper classes they have managed to become members of, on the grounds that they are "new money," and therefore don't know what it actually takes to be Aristocrats. Many Upper Classes have much more respect for INHERITED wealth, than for EARNED wealth.
This suggests that the reason for actively creating prejudice-based conflicting groups has nothing to do with religion at all, per se, and instead is somehow inherent to being human.
The religious iterations of prejudice are merely one of the more common cover stories for the act of segregating and despising exercises which all humans are prone to, and is a favored cover story because religion is such a powerful subject area for humans to deal with.
Perhaps humans want to think of themselves as magically and inherently superior to other humans (out of laziness, or the desire to be classed as superior without having to work at it all the time?) , and since religious belief ALREADY has powerful magic associated with it, AND has the great advantage of allowing us to shift blame for our decision to hate our fellow beings irrationally to either an imaginary all powerful being, or to nature itself (inheritance), it is an ideal cover story.
This may be why, when any given group of XXXXX's go though a long period of general comfort, they are often seen to subdivide themselves into the "true believers" and the "wannabe's" .
Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Examples?
don't get me started wrote:Of course, the proximate cause was the oppression and murderous anti-semetism that Jewish people faced in Europe and elsewhere.
[...]
But this obscures (in my view) the more distal cause of the Jewish people of Europe somehow managing to keep themselves as a distinct and separate demographic group over the centuries, and not meld in, assimilate, marry out and gradually leave behind the Jewish identity. The history of Europe is replete with examples of in-mixing, marrying out, and endless change of groupings and cultures and religions and tribes. Wither away the Picts and the Dacians? Who are the pure Anglo-Saxons and have they betrayed their ancestors by sullying their blood with that of the Norman invaders, whoever they may be? Of course not.
Saim wrote:Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Examples?
Here's one:don't get me started wrote:Of course, the proximate cause was the oppression and murderous anti-semetism that Jewish people faced in Europe and elsewhere.
[...]
But this obscures (in my view) the more distal cause of the Jewish people of Europe somehow managing to keep themselves as a distinct and separate demographic group over the centuries, and not meld in, assimilate, marry out and gradually leave behind the Jewish identity. The history of Europe is replete with examples of in-mixing, marrying out, and endless change of groupings and cultures and religions and tribes. Wither away the Picts and the Dacians? Who are the pure Anglo-Saxons and have they betrayed their ancestors by sullying their blood with that of the Norman invaders, whoever they may be? Of course not.
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