Do you think it is fine to generalise people?

Do you think people that get annoyed by people that generalise have the right to be or do you think they need to just accept generalising is part of life?

Yes, even without experience of types of people. 5
Yes, but only with experience of types of people. 7
No, never for any reason. 8
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Comments ( 7 )
  • donteatstuffoffthesidewalk

    spoken like a typical gay malaysian firefighter

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  • bubsy

    I'm generalizing you as European or Australian based on how you spell 'generalise'. If you're annoyed by that, then you're in for a harsh life.

    The reality is that we humans operate on far less than complete information, because we have to. And in fact, we don't have the capacity to learn everything there is about another person. We generalize subconsciously and constantly.

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    • No I am not annoyed by that. I was not meaning to that level.

      I am a New Zealander.

      Your comment is true to some extent that we can't learn everything about everyone but we should not generalise say all people with this hair colour like this and every time we see someone with that hair colour decide that is what they are like or all people from this or that country are like this or all men and women are like this etc.

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      • bubsy

        We make judgments all the time, and because we never have complete information, that means making a decision based off a bunch of generalizations.

        You can think of it as a survival mechanism: our ancestors had to make life-or-death judgments every day. If they heard a snake's rattle, they didn't have to know the snake's personality to know it was going to bite them.

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  • wigz

    Generalizing is limiting and hurtful to every side. It's not worth it.

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    • BlackCatsAreAwesome

      All Americans write generalising with a Z. There I said it :P

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  • _Mehhhh_

    Depends how and why

    Don't act on it in practice with people. It's not fair to judge an individual person before they've had the chance to show you their colours.

    But when speaking generally then yes, some generalisations/stereotypes are true and have basis to them, and fuck your feelings on that. And I'm principled on that, I can concede it applies to groups I belong to and to humanity as a whole.

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