Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
> Lee Corbin wrote,
> > > Lee Corbin wrote:
> > > > No, I don't like diversity at all (except economic diversity).
> > > > It leads to group consciousness and divisiveness. Many people
> > > > thus just simply can't help but think of themselves as "this
> > > > Jew", or "this black woman", or "this gay person", etc.
>
> This has not been my experience at all. I find most people strongly dislike
> being pigeon-holed into a classification. Jews don't like being treated
> different because they're Jews. Blacks don't like being treated different
> because they're blacks. Women don't like being treated different because
> they're women. Gays don't like being treated different because they're gay.
> That's the whole point behind equal rights, to treat different groups the
> same. Religion, race, gender and orientation shouldn't matter.
I find that people will prefer to be treated different if that different
treatment is an improvement over how everybody else is treated. Seniors
will emphasize how old they are if there is a discount offered, while at
any other time they don't want to talk about how old they are. Women
don't want their sex or appearance to be a factor unless they happen to
know that it will give them an edge (government set-aside contracts, for
instance, or emphasizing one's cleavage to a male boss). Even elites are
not above this. A certain rock n' roll star I know always tells people
he does business with that 'he just wants to be treated like a regular
guy', except of course on those few occasions when he is trying to work
a deal to his advantage, he whips out the old star treatment for whoever
it is.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:20 MDT