Why we need to stereotype

boy, there's a subject that'll get people hot. But, it is true, to an extent. Wesley and I were discussing this as we were watching the Carolina/Villanova game Friday night. See, what got this started was I was talking about how few of my classmates really know me, or anything about me, for that matter, which is really sad, considering our class numbers only 38. They catagorize me as an oddball...a supremely intelligent oddball, but an oddity nonetheless. I don't really fit in. They are content to label me as "odd" and subsequently ignore me because of some unwritten social statute that says that they are not to associate with "odd" people. People in general stereotype all the time. I admit, some of it is bad, i.e. disliking or hating a specific racial group because of undesirable characteristics that one assumes that all members of the said group possess. However, the reason people stereotype others as "snob", "rich", "weirdo", "prep", "goth", "hick", etc., is that we cannot, practically, get to know every single person we meet. We are not capable, mentally, or emotionally, of processing all of that information. Stereotyping is our way of coping with this handicap. Our minds crave information, or at least, part of it does. We want knowledge of everything around us. It's a control issue. For instance: a person is standing behind you in line at a store, any store. Say, Wal-mart. Everyone goes there (or at least it seems like it, at least around here, lol...try parking on a Saturday afternoon). Immediately you evaluate them. You want to know about them so that you know what to expect from them. However, since you do not want to (or cannot) exert the time and effort it takes to get to know them well enough to predict they're actions (which, really, takes years), you substitute a stereotype. All this takes is a fraction of a second and your curiosity is usually abated. See? You just coped for the fact that you couldn't get to know them as a person, an individual. And, this may shock you, but in a general sense, your stereotype was probably correct. That's why stereotypes exist in the first place. They are general descriptions of people. They usually fit. If they didn't, people would stop using them, because they would know that it wasn't a reliable way to satisfy one's inate craving for knowledge and control of our environment. Sure, sometimes the stereotype is wrong. That's statistics. There's always a small possibility of a failure of the experiment (in this case, the stereotype), no matter how great the probability of success.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm all for getting to know people. But you have to pick and choose, because you'll never know all the people that you meet. People pick and choose through stereotypes and surface judgments. So, next time someone pegs you wrong, don't bite their head off for it. Just understand that the mistake was not meant to offend you. It was made unintentionally in an effort to cope with the mental and emotional strain of everyday life.

And now back to previously scheduled broadcasting....I'm hoping Carolina wins the NCAA. Going to Panama City, FL for Spring break this week, so I'm over and out.