When you die, your prejudice dies along with you, unless you pass it on.

Is that really what we want to leave behind for those behind us? Are we that selfish that we want our solid ideas of exclusion to hamper our heirs’ ability to include?

 

That’s a formula for no growth and it’s incredibly selfish of us to make our way their way. That goal makes it about us rather than about them. When we pass on our prejudice, we weigh down the impressionable ones behind us with the weight of unwillingness to remove their blinders to see all the areas where the sun is factually shining.

 

Chances are, your prejudices are the same ones your parents and grandparents had - perhaps a bit watered down, but the same nevertheless.

 

What have you inherited that you argue for? In an attempt to pass off our judgement as fact, we look for statistics to support our prejudice, while ignoring all the ones that don’t fit our model. Just look at the postings of your fringe friends on Facebook. It doesn’t matter that they have opposing ideologies, their methods are the same. They are passing on their prejudice. That means they are excluding, and selfish enough to pass that poison on to you.

 

One way to stop the “passing on process” is to just stop. Recognize that real truth has no opposite. If your viewpoint has an equal number of factual arguments to the contrary, it’s not the truth and not worthy of passing on.  All you are doing is passing on half-truths that prevent people from including.

 

What good will it do a person you care about to be making the same exclusionary argument in the future that you are making today?

 

We all have opinions, but when we equate them to the “truth,” as we ignore evidence to the contrary, we are committing a supreme act of selfishness. That practice has to die before we do, otherwise there’s a great chance that our successors will be as isolated as we are.

 

All the best,

John