The Nature of Prejudice



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The Nature of Prejudice

GORDON ALLPORT


Before I attempt to define prejudice, let us have in mind four in­stances that I think we all would agree are prejudice.

The first is the case of the Cambridge University student who said, "I despise all Americans. But," he added, a bit puzzled, "I've never met one that I didn't like."

The second is the case of another Englishman, who said to an American, "I think you're awfully unfair in your treatment to Ne­groes. How do Americans feel about Negroes?" The American replied, "Well, I suppose some Americans feel about Negroes just the way you feel about the Irish." The Englishman said, "Oh, come now. The Negroes are human beings."

Then there's the incident that occasionally takes place in vari­ous parts of the world (in the West Indies, for example, I'm told). When an American walks down the street the natives conspicuously hold their noses till the American goes by. The case of odor is al­ways interesting. Odor gets mixed up with prejudice because odor has great associative power. We know that some Chinese deplore the odor of Americans. Some white people think Negroes have a dis­tinctive smell and vice versa. An intrepid psychologist recently did an experiment; it went as follows. He brought to a gymnasium an equal number of white and colored students and had them take shower baths. When they were nice and clean he had them exercise vigorously for fifteen minutes. Then he brought his judges in, and each went to the sheeted figures and sniffed. They were to say "white" or "black," guessing at the identity of the subject. The exper­iment seemed to prove that when we are sweaty we all smell the same way. It's good to have experimental demonstration of the fact. The fourth example I'd like to bring before you is a piece of writ­ing that I quote. Please ask yourselves who, in your judgment, wrote it. It's a passage about the Jews.

The synagogue is worse than a brothel. It's a den of scoundrels. It's a criminal assembly of Jews, a place of meeting for the assassins of Christ, a den of thieves, a house of ill fame, a dwelling of iniquity. What­ever name more horrible to be found, it could never be worse than the synagogue deserves.

I would say the same things about their souls. Debauchery and drunkenness have brought them to the level of lusty goat and pig. They know only one thing: to satisfy their stomachs and get drunk, kill, and beat each other up. Why should we salute them? We should not even have the slightest converse with them. They are lustful, rapacious, greedy, perfidious robbers.

Now who wrote that? Perhaps you say Hitler, or Goebbels, or one of our local anti-Semites? No, it was written by Saint John Chrysostom, in the fourth century A.D. Saint John Chrysostom, as you know, gave us the first liturgy in the Christian church, still used in the Orthodox churches today. From it all services of the Holy Communion derive. Episcopalians will recognize him also as the au­thor of that exalted prayer that closes the offices of both matins and evensong in the Book of Common Prayer. I include this incident to show how complex the problem is. Religious people are by no means necessarily free from prejudice. In this regard be patient even with our saints.

What do these four instances have in common? You notice that all of them indicate that somebody is "down" on somebody else — a feeling of rejection, or hostility. But also, in all these four instances, there is indication that the person is not "up" on his subject — not really informed about Americans, Irish, Jews, or bodily odors.

So I would offer, first a slang definition of prejudice: Prejudice is being down on somebody you're not up on. If you dislike slang, let me offer the same thought in the style of St. Thomas Aquinas. Thomists have defined prejudice as thinking ill of others without sufficient war­rant.

You notice that both definitions, as well as the examples I gave, specify two ingredients of prejudice. First there is some sort of faulty generalization in thinking about a group. I'll call this the process of categorization. Then there is the negative, rejective, or hostile ingredient, a feeling tone. "Being down on something" is the hostile ingredient; "that you're not up on" is the categorization in­gredient; "thinking ill of others" is the hostile ingredient; "without sufficient warrant" is the faulty categorization.



Parenthetically I should say that of course there is such a thing as positive prejudice. We can be just as prejudiced in favor of as we are against. We can be biased in favor of our children, our neighbor­hood, or our college. Spinoza makes the distinction neatly. He says that love prejudice is "thinking well of others, through love, more than is right." Hate prejudice, he says, is "thinking ill of others, through hate, more than is right."
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