Neither any vice nor any virtue is the domain of any specific group. To describe any specific category of people as all having a particular vice can be tempting and is a temptation often errantly indulged in. This is not to say that statistically described tendencies cannot exist as that can often be demonstrated but must be done with a great deal of humility and consideration of the difference between population descriptions and descriptions of individuals.
The problem of generalization; populations and individuals.
Scientifically speaking, we must be careful making translations of the knowledge of trends of observation in populations to presumptions about individuals as well as vice versa. For example, if Golden Labradors tend to be wary of thunderstorms this does not mean that any one particular such dog is wary of thunderstorms. As well if my friend’s Golden Labrador likes to eat brussels sprouts, we should not presume that as a rule this breed tends to like brussels sprouts. Similarly, we should be careful to understand the implications of statistical models describing populations and not only what they do say, but also what they do not.
So, if we observe that on average boys score higher in testing for mathematics aptitude, this should not imply that if I am a girl that I’m not going to be good at math or that if I am a boy that I necessarily will be good at math. Conversely if we notice that as a population, girls score higher than boys on tests of language skill that a particular boy does not have exceptional linguistic aptitude or a particular girl can be expected to have superior skills when compared to her male counterparts. The phenomenon of individual variance can be missed by over-generalizing trends seen in populations.
Then we must also consider the illusion of presumed inclusiveness. For example, all oranges are fruit but not all fruits are oranges. We would believe this quite easily. But we are often tempted to believe that because some members of a group have a trait that we can generalize the assumption. For example, if all the convicted criminals in a particular county jail are New York Mets fans we cannot then conversely assume that all New York Mets fans are convicted criminals. That may sound silly (unless you’re really steeped in the Mets, Yankees rivalry but that’s another matter) but we encounter these errors every day. We think that everyone who votes for a particular politician necessarily shares all of that politician’s views or even all of the views of either some of his or her supporters or even of the stereotypical supporter. We may wrongly assume that because the majority of those jailed for violent crimes in America are men that all American men are either violent criminals or either potential violent criminals who haven’t either acted yet or just didn’t get caught. In truth, this category of violent criminal only represents a small portion of the American male population not to mention the countless members of this group who contribute selflessly to the society at large as well as considering the folly of using population statistics to generalize to the individual.
The advantages and temptations of tribalism.
We as a human species are inherently social animals. Jonathan Haidt (Professor of Ethical Leadership ay New York University) in his book The Righteous Mind, described that we humans are essentially 90 percent chimpanzee and 10 percent bee. While we are social and although creative and often fiercely independent and even hierarchical like the chimps, we also have a “hive” tendency. We as humans have tended to organize into tribes for our betterment and even survival. This has had its advantages over time and can still, contributing a certain sense of definition and depth to our sense of group identity. Where we can go wrong however, is when we generalize not only about those outside our tribe but even those within. We recognize these errors when we see words describing behaviors of group members in absolutes such as “all”, “none”, “always” or “never” especially in the pejorative. Phrases like “All men will eventually break your heart” or “All women are crazy” or “You can never trust an Italian.”
When we talk about ideas, these absolutes can at times play a role as ideas are fixed entities whereas people have the variables of deep complexity and free will. For example, we can talk about how “continued playing at the roulette table will always result in losing your money over time” is a description of a mathematically defined observation about the probabilities of roulette, not a generalization about the character of the players themselves such as “all roulette players are fools.”
The line between good and evil.
So then comes the temptation to generalize about the entirety of a particular group based on the experience of some. We know for example that almost all WWII Nazis were ethnic Germans, but we would be errant to presume all ethnic Germans to have been Nazis. History has shown acts of heroism and horror from every human civilization. We are tempted to label our own tribe as virtuous and those we perceive as “other” to hold a corner on vice. We are then likely to miss the wisdom we can gain from those labelled as “other” and explain away the vices of our own tribe, often crestfallen and confounded when our sense of integrity does no longer allow us to do so. So where then does the line between good and evil fall? Between nations? Between tribes? Between individuals. Or does is fall through the very core of each of us as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn stated in his 1973 classic, The Gulag Archipelago:
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
Interesting reading:
