Thinking Is Painful

I used to think people responded from their biases, and that their biases were created from prejudices. I was wrong. It is their knowledge base, that is first restricted then secured under lock and key in which people form an opinion that creates the bias.

People will permit a certain level of knowledge to creep into their brains on any given subject. Once that indeterminate amount of knowledge has been reached, and it’s usually minimal, that person will then shut off the learning stream, throw up the castle walls of their mind, form an opinion off of the available data, and then create their personal biases in which to live by. It’s a method of simplification through identification. People will learn until they think they have enough information on that person, place, or thing to be able to categorize them and label it. Thinking and reasoning can now stop. That thing has been identified and a like/dislike assigned to it based off of their preset biases and will respond to that thing in the appropriate manner.

I’m not speaking of racism necessarily when I mention biases. For example, a Republican is going to have opinions and biases about Democrats and vice versa. Each will judge the other and have their minds already made up before the other even speaks. Why? Because both have predetermined biases about the other and think they know what the other knows and is going to say.  

People who have shut down thinking, learning, and reasoning because of their predetermined biases appear to be condescending because they are.

Speaking to a person with predetermined biases, or heaven forbid trying to educate or re-orient that person is for the most part useless. The castle walls reach high in their minds, prohibiting anything from interfering, comingling, or changing their knowledge base. And that’s really where folks screw up. They try to address the persons prejudices and biases. That’s not where the problem lies. It’s in their knowledge base. They’ve locked it up and won’t let any additional knowledge in.

In short, most people do not think or reason when confronted with something. They simply react automatically according to what category they have assigned that person, place, or thing to be in. Calling someone a racist when they don’t agree with your assessment of the situation is a defense mechanism on their part used to shut down the opposition.  Otherwise they would have to lower the castle walls to think, reason, and substantiate their categorizations and biases.

Thinking is painful and they don’t want to do that.

Bill Hitchcock