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people of different origins. We cannot make all the religions and beliefs forget about their distinguishing creeds. We cannot perceive a society in which all individuals are seen as completely independent of their respective roots. But we can have the realistic vision of a society in which differences are accepted within the realm of universal human rights. We can imagine a society in which all people are respected irrespective of religion and ethnicity, of gender and sexual preference, of social status and lifestyle. We can conceive a society able to balance diversity and equality.
Prejudices do not exist only in a negative version. People are prejudiced in positive variations also, especially towards members of their own groups: their country or their political party, their religious denomination or their fan club, their profession or their peer group. The positive prejudice is just the other side of the coin—of the phenomenon that people are judged without deeper knowledge on account of the group they belong to. Prejudices are part of an identity-building process. Stable identities are usually built on positive stereotypes regarding the in-group. That implies the existence of negative stereotypes regarding those who are not us—the out-group.
We know what we are, because we know what we are not—or, better, we believe we know what we are not. We are us because we are not them. We know about us because we have a prejudiced attitude about others. The “imagined communities” are based on an understanding of difference that is never without a certain degree of prejudice (Anderson 2006). By helping us to define the differences between us and the others, prejudices play a significant role in the creation of nations, of movements, of communities.
It is especially the philosophical, the epistemological viewpoint that helps us to go beyond simplistic moralising. Prejudices, first and foremost, are not simply bad—they exist. They can be influenced, and in some cases, they may evaporate—but as a general phenomenon, they do not stop being part of society. As soon as perceptions of the other are developed, certain pictures are going to be consolidated, becoming stereotypes. As we have to come to terms with the complex realities of society,