You could certainly make an argument that every major ‘ism’ and religion is just a trapped prior. Racism, sexism, ageism—all of them, a person generates a conclusion, perhaps supplied by others, that negative traits about members of a particular class are true.
And it could be that these negative traits are more prevalent in the class. But they then generalize where they interpret during any meeting of a member of that class that the negative trait is in fact true. It’s also because the real world evidence is complicated. If you believe a member of a class is dumb as a rule, you can always pick some dumb behaviors or dismiss something smart they say as “too intellectual” or “is just reading the material he memorized”.
As an example, early in Obama’s term he gave a town hall where at least on video, the man on the fly appeared to answer each question with answers that were generally correctanswers for each subject. Yet conservative relatives of mine somehow saw this as evidence as to how incompetent/too academic whatever this politician was. If you believe that poor people are lazy it’s a similar thing. Or that homeless beggars are all faking it—oh look they have new shoes, must be lying.
You could certainly make an argument that every major ‘ism’ and religion is just a trapped prior. Racism, sexism, ageism—all of them, a person generates a conclusion, perhaps supplied by others, that negative traits about members of a particular class are true.
And it could be that these negative traits are more prevalent in the class. But they then generalize where they interpret during any meeting of a member of that class that the negative trait is in fact true. It’s also because the real world evidence is complicated. If you believe a member of a class is dumb as a rule, you can always pick some dumb behaviors or dismiss something smart they say as “too intellectual” or “is just reading the material he memorized”.
As an example, early in Obama’s term he gave a town hall where at least on video, the man on the fly appeared to answer each question with answers that were generally correct answers for each subject. Yet conservative relatives of mine somehow saw this as evidence as to how incompetent/too academic whatever this politician was. If you believe that poor people are lazy it’s a similar thing. Or that homeless beggars are all faking it—oh look they have new shoes, must be lying.