PEOPLE WHO COMPLAIN TOO MUCH ABOUT STEREOTYPES

PEOPLE WHO COMPLAIN TOO MUCH ABOUT STEREOTYPES

Written Sat. Sept. 17th, 2016; posted to my blog Sun. July 1st, 2018

My patience is thin with people who spend too much time complaining about other people's preconceptions, misconceptions, and stereotypes.  That's because I'm an elitist when it comes to attitudes.  In addition to the elite of money, there is also an elite of attitudes.  People who belong to the elite of attitudes never weary of Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan; they never complain saying that the Good Samaritan is a cliché.  People who belong to the elite of attitudes listen with respect to their poorer neighbors, because listening with respect to the poor is one of the correct answers to the question What would Jesus do?  People who belong to the elite of attitudes keep an open mind about groups of people they haven't had much experience with.  People who belong to the crème de la crème within the elite of attitudes have a near-miraculous ability to discuss politics with people of the opposite political party.

Paying too much attention to the opinions of people who DON'T belong to the elite of attitudes is a whole lot like paying too much attention to the opinions of stupid people.  "Consider the source," my mother and grandmother used to say.

If you are writing a paper about the people of Appalachia, you should spend almost your entire time seeking out sources which -- or who -- DON'T have stupid attitudes towards the Appalachian people.  You should seek out sources with well-informed ideas about the Appalachian people, and then you should spend almost all the rest of your research time reading or interviewing those good sources, and writing about what they have to say, interjecting your own good-attitude thoughts into your writing whenever you can.

I don't aim to imply that you should despair of communicating with people who have preconceptions, misconceptions, and stereotypes.  I guess I might say "Let me see what I can find out about that and get back to you."  Then seek out what well-informed people have said on the subject, and the next time you run into the person burdened with stereotypes, do your best to repeat what you have read or heard from well-informed sources.  Then -- depending on what the other person says back to you -- might be a reasonable time to give up on communicating with that person.

The idea of an elite of attitudes is close to what E. M. Forster said about "an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky."  (Pluck being a British word for bravery; but E. M. Forster clearly meant to include bravery in everyday living -- he didn't mean to limit pluck to military bravery.)

Frank Newton