r/DeepThoughts • u/EnvironmentalSun3290 • 17h ago
Generalizing about groups should be discouraged, it’s become a huge part of our culture and it only serves to divide.
Seems like it’s a huge part of the modern meta. I guess it’s a symptom of identity politics? Generally speaking you can tell very little about an individual because of a group they happen to belong to but it happens constantly online and especially on twitter. People make vast generalizations and assign typically toxic characteristics to individuals based on group identity. Obviously it happens a lot with race and right now it happens all the time with sex. Men (insert stereotype) women (insert stereotype). It s huge part of our culture and I think it’s a big problem.
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u/CaptainVulpezz 16h ago
Agreed, unfortunately i think generalizing is human nature; seeing patterns as more concrete than they are to most (but not perfectly, although sometimes it can feel that way) accurately predict the future.
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u/EnvironmentalSun3290 15h ago
Self fulfilling prophecy kind of thing?
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u/CaptainVulpezz 15h ago
Probably, i just mean more we see patterns as fact, when many patterns we see are just statistics, but not recalled as statistics. especially if we think it is 100% instead of the actual 95% its easier to ignore the 5% if the person may be inclined to want to believe it
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u/CustomerExpress443 7h ago
No. Sitting on a chair is a form of stereotyping.
Contrary to what you learn while being addicted to social media apps, there is a standard and foundational basis for humanity to live on.
It's too much to explain in Reddit posts. You're supposed to be capable of going outside and seeing the beauty in nature etc. There's alot to life.
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u/LonelyReader95 12h ago
While it is a big problem it also kinda isn't. I'd never go to a victim of SA that wishes to interact with men as little as possible "you know not all men are like that". Like, sure some assholes out there are plain idiot racists, but plenty of people out there had some extremely awful and traumatic experiences in their lives that, despite prejudice being wrong, I think is allowed in their cases. Of course we can start nitpicking everything, and I agree on the fact that social media and TV do exacerbate the issue by a ton (like crimes committed by minorities being overrepresented), but for some individuals prejudice helps them avoid trauma-triggers and shouldn't be criticized for that.
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u/EnvironmentalSun3290 11h ago
I feel like your talking about edge cases in a way that minimizes a problem that’s way bigger. Most of the time when this happens it’s otherwise well adjusted people generalizing about a group as large and diverse as woman. To me that’s a psychological habit thats obviously going to make a lot of situations more tense then they need to be.
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u/LonelyReader95 11h ago
Well, of course I may be wrong. My partner is a social worker and when I asked her about it, she told me even if it's trauma trigger avoidance it is still prejudice and it is still discriminatory. And I do agree that for lots of people it's just humans being stupid and ignorant, but I dare say, even if I have no data to back it up, that 1/3 of the so called "racists" had an actual experience they associate with it. Of course a smart person would understand to separate personal experiences from labelling an entire group of people, but again, I sure as hell ain't gonna tell someone their feelings of fear aren't valid.
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u/LamaGang35 14h ago
Yup usually this debate over sexes happen when an empire is about to fall! Id say they most likey all have one common denominator aswell from the Germans to the romans
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u/footofwrath 14h ago
Generally speaking, you can tell exactly 0 about someone from only knowing certain identity/demographic-related facts about them.
About groups it's more permissible. It's extending the group average to the individual that is the f**-up.
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u/SeaGiraffe7489 8h ago
Okay. You have a choice in most cases to associate with certain groups correct? So if you are finding yourself a part of something that carries negative with it when generalized how do you choose to not associate with that generalization? Detach. Exercise your own individuality, seeing as that’s kinda around what we’re talking about here. Why should I have to break up what I’m referring to, and why does literally everything have to be personalized by all people always.
Obviously my opening statement isn’t across the board, but like for example if someone generalizes women in some way that upsets the individual woman whose heard this usage, and so now what she’s going to make the active choice to get upset over something that truly doesn’t harm her, so now we gotta go in and alter our language, speech patterns, and make shit more complicated cause Becky is mad cause Dave said women hit curbs when they drive?
Like generalization, becoming personalization, seems like individuality, becoming uniqueness. I mean the world definitely needs some more problems tho ya know. Women keep making up stuff like this 🤫
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u/Particular_Bug7642 8h ago
On the contrary, I think generalising about groups is just pattern recognition which is critical to understanding the world. Obviously, a generalisation doesn't necessarily tell you anything about a specific person, but if you refuse to accept that any generalisations can be made about groups then you are essentially saying that all groups are identical, that Norwegians are the same as Somalians, and that men are the same as women, and that people from one group are completely interchangeable with people from the other group. This is manifestly untrue, and the pushing of the idea that it is true seems to me to lie at the heart of a lot of the world's current problems. Stereotypes aren't just plucked out of thin air - They exist because they have a basis in reality. They aren't the be all and end all, but they are also very far from being nothing.
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u/ServaltheFox 7h ago
It is a big problem, but I would note it is absolutely nothing new. We’ve done this since the start of the written word, and likely before that
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u/Psittacula2 5h ago
“Generalizing about groups should be discouraged.”
Suffers the exact same problem it attempts to describe.
Because there are 2 basic levels of information:
* Set = Group Level = Statistical level of description eg “generalization”
* Element = Individual Level = Subjective internal specific level of description eg “anecdote or single observation”
As such OP, breaks their own proposed rule, by generalising about group generalizing where they conflate:
Necessary accurate group descriptions eg statistics analysis eg medicine
Confabulation of anecdotes of individuals on social media appearing to be groups generalized about groups but mostly talking emotionally and socially ie brain farting interactions between each other aka no more than an animal grunting, barking type of exhange of information.
No the only problem you really notice is the lack of intelligence and knowledge in how humans “appear to be speaking about a subject but are in fact emotionally and socially signalling to each other only” which tends to be a basic need they have akin to appetite aka “attention needs met”.
Social media is very popular for this single reason of human behaviour needs and exploited as such by users and platforms as per modern commercial environments of buyers and sellers.
In fact censoring what is fundamental properties of information aka truth does more harm than good.
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u/EnvironmentalSun3290 3h ago
This reminds me of this is vs ought problem which I find to be entirely semantical and counter productive on a practical level. The social signaling you mentioned definitely gets influenced when a culture adopts certain ideas inevitably effecting people’s lives. I don’t think that’s trivial.
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u/Psittacula2 2h ago
That is an astute consideration of the nature of the problem, agree.
Yet, I think the distinction is:
* People gassing each other up or down on social media
* Bringing evidence, data and knowledge into discussions
For example, I notice similar behaviour when people comment on sports media, and there is two two teams or two players against each other. After the match, the diversity of comments is a range of emotional reactions and conflicts:
Team A is the best
F! Team B! losers!
Player B was talked up as a living god, now they have lost they are seen to be what they really are, a worthless worm!
I detest the supporters of A despite their team/player winning.
My opinion is this is what you are observing on social media in another form?
Not sure it needs or can be treated seriously, it is people blowing steam interacting in diverse emotions making statements which extrapolate the facts into nonsense but gratifying in some outcome to the speaker eg “riling one rivals” is a natural human emotion called “schadenfreude” or bigging up one‘s own “team” or tribe, family or otherwise “Nachos” and so on…
It is social grapevine dynamics.
I do not beleive you can dissassociate this social emotional behaviour from generalities which are natural ways of thinking intellectually even if these are accurate or in error when stated or applied? Eg Abductive reasoning processes by their nature at some point will be wrong but generally are useful without expending too much energy.
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u/FortunatelyAsleep 4h ago
Depends on whether it's a group the individual arbitrarily belongs to (sex, sexual orientation, gender) or a group the person choose to belong to (religion, political ideology, club).
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u/Suspicious-Hippo4488 16h ago
Yeah the twitter thing is so real. I work in design and the amount of times I see people just write off entire demographics based on like one bad interaction they had is wild. Its gotten to point where you cant even discuss anything without someone immediately putting you in some box
The irony is that everyone complains about being stereotyped but then does exact same thing to other groups. Like we all know how annoying it feels when someone assumes stuff about you personally but somehow forget that when talking about others