| Chapter Introduction: | Introduction to the Handbook on Prejudice |
|
|
3. Prejudice
Stereotypes, as we have seen, represent a basic stratum of our mind/brain, an indispensable foundation because it lays the ground for later developments. Stereotypes have important cognitive functions and serve as elementary tools in the growth of a human mind. In the process of mental growth, however, they are automatically replaced or complemented by ever-finer distinctions, mental images, and refined stereotypes. Even though they are deeply ingrained, they are also elements of change supporting the adaptation to ever more complex environments. Piaget has made the important distinction between assimilation and accommodation which is relevant here. He used the term assimilation to describe the adaptation of the experience to a given schema, but spoke of accommodation to describe the reconstruction of the schema itself under the pressure of contradictory, unfitting, and unruly experiences (Piaget 1959). Mental growth happens through an open-ended interaction between stereotypes and experiences: the one confirms and consolidates the other, but the one challenges and unsettles the other as well. Stereotypes are formed because the mind has the creative capacity to ignore evidence. Ignoring evidence, however, can also develop into a dangerous mental habit.
We cross the shadow-line between stereotypes and prejudices when cognitive tools are turned into mental weapons. This happens when the stereotypes are charged with specific emotions raised to the status of faith. “Faith,” writes E. M. Forster, “is a stiffening process, a sort of mental starch, which ought to be applied as sparingly as possible” (1965, 75). The process of mental growth which depends on stereotypes is arrested by the mental starch of prejudices. Eternal mental progress, of course, is rather unrealistic and may not be a universal goal in many more practical domains of life. There are, therefore, various legitimate forms of abiding with stereotypes, values, and feelings and a body of knowledge, such as love, loyalty, commitment, veneration, and admiration. They must not automatically be identified as prejudices, which is why I have introduced the distinction between bias as an indispensable ingredient in the formation of identity and the pursuit of value commitments,