Prejudice? We Need More Of It.

Prejudice is a good thing.  Prejudice, bias, discrimination, predisposition—by whatever name you choose to call it—is valuable and necessary adjunct to clear, rational thought.  In our new series, On Logical Thinking, we continue to offer readers tools to empower their innate rational skills.  An unemotional exposition of the need for prejudice is, we submit, central to such empowerment.

The pseudo-scientific disciplines of Sociology and Psychology have done much to muddy the intellectual waters around the notion of prejudice as a tool of cognitive rationality.  Psychologist Ralph L. Rosnow, writing in Psychology Today (March, 1972, p. 53), defines prejudice as “…any unreasonable attitude that is unusually resistant to rational influence.”  Dictionary definitions of the term—the last refuge of the undereducated—routinely include descriptions such as “preconceived judgment or opinion,” “an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge,” and even “an irrational attitude of hostility.”

In the second half of the Twentieth Century, an entire industry was developed, to battle the natural and useful intellectual process of discriminatory thinking.  Prior to this triumph of anti-intellectualism, educated persons considered it a complement to be referred to as being of “discriminating judgment” or taste.  When, in the Sixteenth Century, Sir Francis Bacon developed what he called the “scientific method,” he suggested that it was counter-productive to use the deductive syllogism to interpret nature.  A better understanding of the extra-mental world would more likely proceed through inductive reasoning from fact to axiom to law.  This, he termed “inductive reasoning.” 

Logicians are fond of the classical deductive syllogism to describe cognitive rigor:

                All men are mortal.

                Socrates is a man.

                Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

But the scientific method understands that the truth (or absence thereof) is contained in the major premise:  once you define all men as mortal, you have included Socrates and all his enemies and pals in that definition.  The syllogism proves nothing.

Using inductive reasoning, a scientist will start with an hypothesis that men eventually die, and will then devise a way to measure this occurrence.  He will conclude, after watching a representative sample of men kick the bucket, that, extrapolating from observed data, it is reasonable to conclude that all men will eventually slip from this mortal coil.  (Please, no silly feminist comments about women being excluded from this discussion.  Men, in this context, means humans.)

Of course, the scientist can never be absolutely certain—with mathematical certainty—that all men die; unless and until all men actually die.  And, since the scientist himself is probably a man….  Well, you see the attendant technical problems.

Most likely, all men will eventually die.  Scientists, when they talk among themselves, call this sort of conclusion a SWAG (Sophisticated, Wild-Assed Guess), but will agree that it’s “close enough for government work.”  They will pretend, when addressing the uninitiated lumpen proletariat, or when writing a grant proposal, that they reach their conclusions to a mathematical certainty; but this is not really the scientist’s fault:  we expect, nay, demand that level of certitude from these priests in white coats.

But only mathematics yields this degree of certitude.  The square root of 9 will always be 3, and in every right triangle, the square of the hypotenuse will be equal to the sum of the squares of the two sides.  The world of nature, unfortunately, ain’t this exact or predictable.  And more so, when human behavior is involved.

In 1939, while receiving an honorary degree, the famous American jurist, Billings Learned Hand (1872 –1961) remarked:  “...life is made up of a series of judgments on insufficient data, and if we waited to run down all our doubts, it would flow past us.”  We’ve always thought this to be a most concise statement of the dilemma.  Every Hershey Bar we’ve ever tasted was delicious, but this does not guarantee that the next one will not taste like a lemon.  Past performance is no indicator of future performance.  Ask any horserace handicapper. 

While conclusions can be wrong if observations are faulty or are drawn from an unrepresentative sample, if properly used, inductive reasoning can be an incredibly powerful tool. Indeed, it lies at the root of the scientific method that has done so much to advance humanity in the last 500 years. Properly applied scientific method is inductive reasoning in its purest form.  At the core of inductive reasoning is the ability to look at outcomes, events, ideas and observations, and draw these together to reach a unified conclusion. Considering this, an experienced business person can use his or her own experiences to draw conclusions about current situations and solve problems based on what he or she has known to work in the past in similar situations.

Dr. Anthony Daniels, a retired English psychiatrist who writes under the nom de plume of Theodore Dalrymple, wrote a marvelous little book in 2007, titled “In Praise of Prejudice”  (New York:  Encounter Books).  Subtitled, “The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas,” Dalrymple’s exposition on inductive reasoning suggests that much of the moral chaos in our modern world can be directly traced to the failure of parents and teachers to pass on their prejudices from one generation to the next, for fear of being labeled intolerant. 

Lamenting what he calls this “prejudice against prejudice,” Dalrymple concludes that our pretense that we are not prejudiced “…is harmful because we shall then deceive not only others, but ourselves, and disregard the still small voice within us.  Shrillness and aggression will result.  The more we reject prejudice qua prejudice, the harder it will be for us to retreat from the positions we have taken up in order to prove that we are not prejudiced.”

“Prejudices,” Dalrymple advises, “are like friendships:  they should be kept in good repair.  They are what give men character and hold them together.  We cannot do without them.”

People never complain of positive prejudice.  When you are wearing a clerical collar, you rightly expect that the people you meet will treat you with a certain deference.  Physicians, policemen, teachers, judges, and a whole host of professional occupations expect to benefit from this positive prejudice.  We call it respect.  Old people are not automatically imbued with wisdom and insight, but we pretend they are; out of respect.  But, when the slouching hip-hop teenager, in gangsta garb, strolls in the crosswalk in front of your stopped car, he is close enough to hear the audible click of your door locks being engaged.  He immediately gets the impression that you have disrespected him.  In reality, you have just used inductive reasoning to protect your safety, based upon insufficient information.  You have reacted prejudicially.

There is a certain ridiculous theory gaining currency, to the effect that we should not sit in judgment of our fellow man.  Even atheists are fond of misquoting the Sermon on the Mount:  “Judge ye not,” etc.  Of course, the clear message of the Sermon (an extensive litany of judgments) is that we should judge others, as well as ourselves; but using the same standard.  (By the way, isn’t a quitclaim deed to the planet Earth a rather paltry reward for a lifetime of meekness?)

We make thousands of snap judgments each and every day we live—many of which involve people we hardly know or haven’t even met.  And, as Judge Hand observed, we make these judgments upon insufficient information.  Is that foreign-looking cabdriver going to murder me and drop my corpse by the side of the road?  Is that food-worker going to feed me tainted food?  Will that waiter spit in my salad?  Is it safe to get on the elevator with that little old lady?  Might she be armed?  Without prejudice, we couldn’t function.

There was a letter to the editor in our local newspaper recently, from a woman who complained that her boyfriend, recently released from prison, was unable to find employment.  She felt that her lover had “paid his debt to society,” and that prospective employers were being prejudicial.  “It seems like discrimination to me,” she complained.  Well, that’s exactly what it is, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it.

Maybe it’s not a good idea to express a judgment about another, “until you’ve walked a mile in his moccasins,” as the old Indian proverb allegedly advises.  Sure.  Then you can call him a S.O.B., and he’ll never catch you, because he’ll be a mile away.  And barefoot.