"When one day the brain develops sufficiently to overcome this survival technique we will be able to act towards others without prejudice and judge them for what they really are. In the meantime I guess we'll have to settle for believing that we are already doing it. We're not."

you know, some of us do. And it's really, really fucking lonely.
Also - very thoughtful and well-written. Also preachy and not enough swears. I want to give you a chinese-burn.
(Gritty, yet fluffy. kipperpillock is obsessed with me =), Tue 1 Nov 2011, 0:00, 1 reply)

Ha! No swearies in your post either.
Yes it is preachy, that's a debating style I'm striving to perfect lol. Think I may have a small insight into your feelings. When I was seven I was the first kid from our street to attend a brand new school. The next street was much larger and held six kids from the same school. They spotted me on the way home and immediately scapegoated me and from then on threw stones at me every afternoon all the way home. As a seven year old I couldn't possibly work out what was happening so I assumed they hated me for good reason and started to doubt myself. Luckily I ended up going to a different secondary school from the other lads so the bullying stopped. This part of my young life was bad enough for me but mercifully it only lasted around three years. Had it been a lifetime thing I wonder if I would have coped. On the upside hopefully it helps me see where other people are coming from.
It seems to me it's possible to victimise people for any reason you care to invent; race, colour, sexuality, handicap, height, ginger hair, living in a different street, ad infinitum. The common criterion being "There are more than us than of you and we can find a difference to put a label on."
Also I agree with you that "some of us do". My "survival instinct" spiel refers to prejudice in general and that it is more powerful than conscious thought. Sometimes prejudice is still useful for example in safety issues or we would keep running with scissors until we got stabbed. When we personally overcome isms I think we may still have the prejudices subconsciously but we counteract them using the conscious brain. After all to prejudge only means to act on existing knowledge although it may of course be faulty knowledge.
Oh and I do enough swearing on /board but I wanted to treat this subject with respect. Ta for your valuable comments.
( edjogs Collared doves are shit., Tue 1 Nov 2011, 9:31, closed)

I'm reliably informed that "handicap" is an offensive term,
you insensitive cunt.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Tue 1 Nov 2011, 9:37, closed)

Now here's a whole other wagon and I can already hear the music playing.
A friend at school had severe polio. He ended up with both legs in calipers. He, his doctors and the rest of us described his condition as a handicap. For some reason handicapped became a derogotary term (who decides these things?) and we now talk of things like "learning difficulties" or whatever is the flavour this month. Well Tony Macrae didn't have learning difficulties, he was brilliant academically but had a great deal of trouble walking and tragically died in his thirties. Spastic is a medical term referring to muscle spasm caused by cerebal palsy. This is a good example of a condition's name being used to insult the patient and then extended to include anyone else you want to insult. So here's another complication. It's not the word/s but the intention behind it/them. If I come from a time when handicapped meant nothing more than finding certain activities difficult or impossible owing to a medical condition why do I have to change my word because of political correctness?
( edjogs Collared doves are shit., Tue 1 Nov 2011, 11:44, closed)

I dunno. Can they shoot you for crimes against political correctness yet?

(Gritty, yet fluffy. kipperpillock is obsessed with me =), Tue 1 Nov 2011, 14:22, closed)

.Depending on who you mean by "they"
the short answer is yes
( edjogs Collared doves are shit., Tue 1 Nov 2011, 15:22, closed)

/*gulps nervously*

(Gritty, yet fluffy. kipperpillock is obsessed with me =), Thu 3 Nov 2011, 4:30, closed)