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January 24, 2005
philo-cafe on stereotypes
We had a lively discussion on the use or misuse of stereotypes to characterize groups of people, especially in racial or ethnic categories at Philo-cafe this Sunday. Although no one advocated the banishment of all use of "types," we did distinguish some that could be limiting due to their simplistic nature. It was generally agreed that it is denegrating to reduce a person to a type who can then be dismissed as, "oh yeah, one of them..." But we also saw that national and ethnic characteristics can open up possibilites of new identies for the person, like in my case of embracing my Irish heritage and finding many meaningful links to the culture, the people (both normal size and the wee ones), and the land. One of the most useful books for me in my psych-training was by Carter and Magoldrick entitled, "Ethnicity in Family Therapy." It helped me understand the possible meanings associated with life events which I would not have dreamed of by only considering "normal" American families. Though I liked very much the freedom of self-creation advocated by Henry and Jerry, I do ascribe to the notion that we carry ethnic structures that may go back many generations. Any comments on this claim?
Posted by lyceum at January 24, 2005 05:16 PM
Comments
I feel like I'm free in self-identification, yes, being (in principle) able to identify however I like. But then I feel like the first thing I want to do with that freedom is root myself. I mentioned in the discussion how the city & culture of New Orleans is a soil I desire to root myself in, even though I'm not from here.
As for having some automatic roots deriving from my ethnic (or familial?) heritage: My last name is Chastain and one thing we Chastains identify with is being cynical or at least sarcastic. I'm actually proud of this sort of quality, believe it or not, and I like being a part of an interesting group of individuals who share this trait among other traits. But I stop short of wanting to say: "Welp, there you go, I'm a Chastain - sarcastic as always. I guess I'm just a Chastain when you get down to it." Why the reluctance to say this? Because it would lead me to suppress my real potential (as a conscious human being) to be other than sarcastic. It also doesn't seem like the deepest explanation for my behavior to say: "I am sarcastic because I am a Chastain." It seems there are more profound explanations of human psychology than those which simply refer to my familial or ethnic origins. "Chastains are sarcastic, therefore Drew is sarcastic." I'm left wanting more explanation. Like: How did Chastains become this way?
Sorry, one more thing (I really like this topic). I'd been thinking out loud in the discussion about the harm to *myself* which I detect in judging *others* based on simplistic stereotypes. We ran out of time before I could express this new thought (new to me anyway): I am not an atomistic being. My self-identification is inextricably linked with the way I identify others. So, oversimplifying others is automatically oversimplifying myself. The danger in oversimplification is, I think, losing touch with what is meaningful about humanity: human potential & human freedom. - Drew
Posted by: Drew at January 25, 2005 10:55 PM