Near the end of the 18th century a French printer by the name of Firmin Didot began mass-producing prints with metal plates he referred to as stereotypes. The prints that came from this process became known as clichés with the term arising from the clicking sound the prints made as the rolled through the press. Thus, long before we started using these words to refer to people or expressions we now find tired, stale, and hackneyed, these two words emerged from our human consciousness out of the impulse to create standard, identical duplicates.
The types half of stereotypes comes from the ancient Greek word that referred to the dents that show up when you bang one thing into another while trying to make its impression; the stereo comes from the Greek word for “stable,” thus a stereotype is pretty much something that makes a stable impression.
Today, of course, when we talk about stereotypes we’re referring to the common cultural assumptions we make about others who we identify as belonging to a particular subculture (which could be generated by a broad spectrum of identity characteristics including ethnic, religious, sexually-determined, class-based, age-related, regional, or ability-based markers). As is with pretty much everything else in the universe, whether stereotypes are detrimental or beneficial depends upon both our reason for noticing these cultural markers in the first place and then, subsequently, what we do with these social pointers once we’ve become aware of them.
Psychologically, stereotypes can help us organize how we cognitively map our everyday realities, and they can help us navigate the complexities we face in having to deal with the nearly 7 billion unique carbon units we recognize as other people. Having a sense of how others fit into our vast mental landscapes can be beneficial to both them and us if we use what we recognize as stereotypical about others as channels for demonstrating respect and understanding. This is to say that when we use what we recognize about others as opportunities to appreciate them as individuals, to accept what is different about them without worrying about having our own cultural orientations being somehow maligned or infected, then our attempts to classify others in order to respect them is both healthy and positive for us both.
On the other hand, when we use those cultural identity markers we recognize in others as a means to degrade or dehumanize others, there is probably nothing more toxic to the psyches of all involved. Self-mutilation is perhaps the most indicative sign of psychosis, and as horrible as the scars of self-inflicted damage may be on the surface of our skins, what we do to our insides by being hateful is even worse. Whenever we dehumanize others by reducing them to objects, we end up maiming our very souls.
If, despite the multitude of ways we can find to designate our differences from each other, we wanted to boil down the essence of our common humanity it must certainly be this: we need each other to survive. Not a single one of us is capable of making it through this life without relying upon others for our physical, emotional, and spiritual sustenance. Like it or not, we are dependent upon one another to survive and thrive. The beauty of human existence, however, is that while I absolutely need the rest of you to make it here, I can nonetheless follow my own path as long as I don’t stand in your way while I do it. This is to say that we can all go our own way without necessarily getting in each other’s way while we do it.
Trying to understand other people’s cultural beliefs and traditions does nothing to negate my own; in other words, I lose nothing by being respectful to the ideas or customs of others that I don’t subscribe to. What Christianity refers to as “The Golden Rule,” (Treat others as you, yourself, would wish to be treated) is also known as “The Ethic of Reciprocity”), and it is, as far as I know, the essential lesson of all authentic religious and spiritual traditions that have emerged throughout human history since the dawn of civilization. I find it amazing – despite its comprehensive ubiquitousness and its utter timelessness – how frequently this universal concept gets subordinated to our local desires for superiority and power.
The only way we can mistreat others is to blind ourselves to our mutual responsibility for each other. In order to hurt others, we must act as though they are not as fully human as we are and, thus, somehow, they are not as deserving of life’s endless satisfactions as we believe we are. This attitude, as far as I’m concerned, is nothing less than a form of cosmic self-injury and ultimately, the innermost meaning of sacrilege in that demeaning others denies the essence of God that lives within all of us.
We can only really take our own humanity seriously when we finally learn to fully take responsibility for accepting the humanity of everyone else. It seems to me where people often go wrong (and being human, I’m including myself here) is that we want to take “The Golden Rule” and water it down: instead of feeling obligated to treat others the way we want to be treated, we only feel it’s necessary to respond to others in the same way we are treated by them. But notice how that’s a complete misreading of The Rule: the commandment is not to respond to others in-kind, but to treat others (regardless of how they are behaving) in the manner we want to be treated by them. In other words, to truly live according to the tenets of The Golden Rule, we must model the behavior we want from others even when (perhaps especially when) we are not receiving the treatment we would like from them.
I know. I know. It’s hard. Perhaps it requires a level of sainthood that most of us can only aspire to. But, it is something we can aspire to while we’re tripping and stumbling along our way. Treating others the way we want to be treated (rather than the way we perceive we are being treated) is the North on our moral compass, and while each of us are free to follow our own paths, the ability to respect the others we meet who are also on their own journeys is the only way we are ever going to find the paths that will ultimately lead us home.
Olivia says:
Wait, so I always thought the "Golden Rule" was don't eat anything you find on the ground?
Jokes!
But seriously, you make so many valid points. What scares me is that there are so many people who would profit from those words.
I'm so grateful that I was raised in such a way that I was taught to love everyone around me. It really makes things better, I have discovered. Thanks for that.
Now that we've agreed that making judgements based on limitations is wrong, let's talk about our relatives!
