Stop thinking of groups...

[GTurck]

We have become used to dividing people into groups which we then judge according to our own understanding and experiences.

This has to stop.

There is no working class block that votes against its own interests. There are working class people who individually do so. I am not among them.

There is no white retiree block voting to frustrate needed change. There are some white retirees who are doing that. I am not among them, either.

There is no "people" that can be lumped together and spoken for by anyone. I have not given any permission to a Republican or a Democrat to speak for me other than in the limited sense of voting for them. I vote Democratic not as a member of a group but as an individual.

It is the triumph of the GOP propaganda to make it seem as though there are groups and not individuals. So as liberals can we just please stop using their memes and distortions as if they reflect some sort of reality?

It might make it easier to talk to our family and neighbors if we approach them as human beings rather than as cardboard cutouts we can dismiss and despise for the way they vote. They are hurting too but have been made so afraid of "elitism" and "socialism" they can't see how they are being used. If we have intelligence to see through the web of lies we should be able to find ways to help others do the same. We just can't do it if all we see is a repugnant group.

Old saying: "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar".

[DCKit]

1. "Divide and Conquer"

We should know better than to play that game. Especially against our own.

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. Is the Tea Party not a group? A self-selecting one, no less?

Is the Republican party not a group?

Groups form when like-minded people band together for more effective action. You know, like those 'union' groups.

Of course we want to talk to people as individuals, but the fact is people join in groups of other people because of shared beliefs. If you dismiss the power of collective action, you weaken yourself because then it is YOU against their GROUP.

Which is just what some of these groups want.

[damntexdem]

3. Thinking in groups is essential. We cannot understand society, politics, or anything else otherwise

We are not just atomistic individuals -- humans are a social animal.

[Igel]

4. There are groups.

But, like analogies, they're only useful in limited ways and with great caution.

It's not GOP propaganda that divides us into groups. The left divides people into groups at least as much: In high school I was Irish-American and not in the Polish or Italian contingents, but as far as modern liberal thought goes all that matters is that I'm "anglo". For civil rights purposes I'm in a group; I've been told that by definition I'm racist because I have privileges that Latinos or blacks don't have. I'm middle class, but my parents were working class; I've always thought class made little sense in the US where we haven't traditionally had an emergent class structure but instead a theoretically imposed one. I'm either a Democrat and share all the party's platform or I'm a knuckledragging "repuke"--all or nothing. In many ways I'm a fundamentalist Xian, so many would label me a hateful "fundie."

Society is composed of a multitude of overlapping groups. Every person is in a considerable number of them, and probably unique. I'm a 7th-day Xian who observes a Monday Pentecost (hardly a null set, but a small set) who plays classical guitar and esp. likes Russian 7-string guitar music (the union of those two sets in the US is probably just me); I'm a Slavist and technical translator (if the previous two traits didn't serve to uniquely ID me, adding those latter two allows me to be picked out of the population of the Western hemisphere). Yet I belong to lots of other groups, too. Still, I'm "middle class" or "anglo" or a "dem" or a "fundie" or something else altogether, each viewing me through the lens of a single attribute, with the lens out of focus.

That's fine--as long as the lens stays focused. What happens, though, is that people assume that since I'm "anglo" that I also share other specific attributes with other "anglos"--which may not be the dominate attribute among "anglos," but which also wouldn't describe me.

Then again, I've just defined "stereotype." When I was a kid we were taught that stereotyping people was wrong, and specifically racial stereotypes were wrong. Since then, it seems, "racial" has been dropped from the phrase and all stereotyping, or at least all wrong stereotyping, must be racial. Non-racial stereotyping is apparently a great thing--no less accurate, of course. But it makes us feel good. It makes thinking very easy; incorrect, inaccurate, simplistic, damaging, and hurtful, but nonetheless very easy.

[GTurck]

5. You said it better...

than I did. We all have no choice but to be in "groups" but that is not our whole definition nor should it be.

Thank you Igel for using stereotypes rather than groups; it is a much better word.

[Le Taz Hot]

6. THANK YOU!!!

A VIGOROUS K & R.

[Le Taz Hot]

7. I'm going to kick this again

as I think it's an extremely important topic. I seem to recall a very great man saying something about how we need to be judged on the content of our character and not by the color of our skin. The concept, of course, transcends race.