Usual disclaimer : these are fresh thoughts, so they might not be fully formed yet.

Here’s my thesis : in essence, all bigotry boils down to a simple definition : denying individuality via labels. Sexism, racism, homophobia, religious intolerance, ageism, sizeism, and every other form of bigotry in the world shares that singular characteristic of reducing enormous groups of people to a simple label.

That is why, somewhere in the anatomy of all large bodies of prejudice, you find these words : “They’re all the same!”

This is, of course, blatantly untrue. Human beings are far too complex and variegated to be reduced to any sort of label. You can create labels that describe certain aspects that groups of humans have in common, like diabetes, Catholicism, or Archer fandom, and you might even be able to make a few generalizations about other characteristics these people maybe have in common. But to say “they are all the same” is patently absurd.

Hence the denial of individuality. To treat a group of any size as though they are a single individual is anathema to the very concept of individuality.

That’s why it’s the individualist societies of the world who have made to most progress against all forms of prejudice. Every member of an individualistic society values their own individuality, and fears/resists the loss of it. They can therefore identify with the loss of individuality of another.

The basic truth of individualism, that we are all unique, works against all forms of prejudice, over time. Individuality is the sea wearing away at the foundation of prejudice with every wave.

There is one particular label that is the most deadly form of de-individualization, whether it is applied consciously or not. That label underwrites all more specific forms of prejudice, and without it, no prejudice would even be possible.

And that label is : The Enemy.

There is no hate without fear. And The Enemy cannot exist without hate. There has to be some sense that the target group is a threat to oneself or one’s group before the deadly machinery of conflict can be activated in the service of hate.

That’s when the prejudice really gets started. Once the oppositional binary is activated – us versus them, or worse, it’s us OR them – then the target group is not only no longer a set of individuals, but an enemy tribe, and all enemies must die.

And once that point is reached, prejudice’s main appeal can kick in, which is scapegoating.

All it takes is a little taste of the appeal of having a target for all the anger and frustrations of life and people get hooked. The more you can blame on the target group, the bigger the cathartic high.

This is why the prejudices which incorporate some grand conspiracy theory are so appealing. They give you so much justification for your hate, and the greater the justification, the more hate you can pour on the target without feeling like a bad person.

After all, you’re just defending yourself.

And all it takes is denying the individuality of people who confuse and scare you already. All you have to do is believe whatever you have to believe in order to justify how you already feel about them.

And then there’s the other “gift” of prejudice : simplification.

By reducing entire groups of people to a cartoonish caricature, you vastly simplify your world. This is highly appealing to people who feel like the world is more complicated than they can understand. That’s why you rarely find someone with just a single form of bigotry. Once they have accepted one simplification, the others come far more easily, and instead of a vast complicated world full of individuals, you have The Good People (people just like the bigot, who therefore do no scare or confuse them) and The Bad People (everyone else).

It’s the perfect system for your active moron.

One of the basic fears in all humans is fear of strangers^[1]. You can see that very clearly with toddlers. Even the very social and extroverted ones will instinctively hide when they see a stranger. And in a more primitive state, before the modern megapolis, this worked quite well.

After all, during those days, you spent all day with your family except for the times when you went into town and dealt with the exact same people you have dealt with for your entire life. Strangers were a rare event and stood out sharply from the social sameness you had known all your life. And that stranger might pose a threat, if not physically, then a threat to the social order as currently established.

But then the world began to urbanize. And that meant constant exposure to strangers. There are far, far too many people in a big city (or even a small town like the one I grew up in) to know everybody personally, or even at all, and so a simple walk down the street means passing dozens of total strangers, all of whom could potentially mean you harm.

As civilized humans, we have invented (then overcome) things like conformity and group identity in order to overcome the feeling of fear from being amongst strangers. Sure, you might not know the person passing you on the street, but they look enough like you to reassure your inherent xenophobia that this person is of your tribe and thus “safe”.

And this works well enough as a temporary measure. Like I said before, individualism pushes inevitably towards tolerance, and so conformity can’t last.

But this march of civilization leaves in its wake a deep undercurrent of unexpressed xenophobia looking for an excuse. It is this undercurrent that finds its expression in bigotry, prejudice, scapegoating, and hate.

Just as in the old days it was convenient to blame the current drought on a passing stranger (or if there were none around, whoever is at the bottom of the social pecking order) and then punish them for it, today’s subcivilized cretins blame whoever it is that frightens their xenophobic little hearts anyhow, and assume that target group must be responsible for all their problems.

I leave you with a clip from Canadian comedy duo Bowser and Blue that illustrates that kind of thinking.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.