Yes

by Scott Hysell

Created on: September 29, 2010

This is a question that comes up quite often in everyday life.  It most often manifests in a distinct unwillingness on the part of self-styled high minded individuals to acknowledge the possibility that stereotyping has any value at all.  More often than not, the mere mention of the idea that one can make a judgment based on only superficial information is enough to send the modern thinker into a fit of self-righteous indignation.  This is completely disingenuous on their part because in order to function safely and confidently in a society,  we each must use stereotyping on a nearly daily basis.   To put it simply, everyone does it whether they admit it or not.   Stereotyping is not only a fact of life, but a necessary part of it.

Before discussing why stereotyping is often justifiable, we need to clearly define what we it is.  Stereotyping is the pre-judgment of a person or people based on a perceived group identity.  This perception is often based on external characteristics such as race, weight, hair color, or gender.  It can also be based on a declared identity such as religious affiliation, sexual preference, profession, or nationality.  

But where do these pre-judgments come from?  It doesn't really stand to reason that they come out of the clear blue air.  The truth is that stereotypes are nearly always rooted in some sort of reality or at least some sort of historical context.   This doesn't always make them true, but they are by their nature a generalization.  As such they don't necessarily apply to each individual within any particular group, but they can be applied as a starting point when meeting a stranger for the first time. 

And that is the crux of the whole thing.   The cold hard facts are that when you are part of a group, you are necessarily going to be judged by your connection to that group.  Many times your outward appearance will advertise who you are.  Sometimes that is by design on your part and other times it is something over which you have no control.  Even so, it is rightfully in our nature to make our best guess as to who a person is based on all the information we have available at the time.  Oftentimes the only information we have is your group identity.  You may be white, black, gay, male, female, or a lawyer.  And without a doubt each of these groups has a universally agreed upon set of characteristics that go along with it. We all know what they are. Even so, we all know that not all "white men can't jump".  We all know that not all blonds are ditsy.  We all know that not all politicians are crooked.  But we do know that there is a root of truth behind each of these stereotypes.  The prudent and wise thing to do when faced with these and any other stereotypes is to take them in and file them away as just one tiny bit of information about a stranger.  This is all we'll have until we get to know them.  Once that happens, the information will inevitably become less and less important until finally we can dump it.  Unless of course, the original stereotype matches the individual.  At that point we have even more information to go on the next time we meet a stranger.  And we'll start the whole cycle over again.

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