Let's all be careful with each other...

[WHAT]

I was replying to distantearlywarning and I spent so loong on my post that the thread was locked in the meantime. Maybe the moderator was exhausted...I'm exhausted, too, (after that long reply to. And since I don't post very often I didn't want to throw-away this notion. I also want to recognize differences.

To distantearlywarning:

The "Painted Bird" sanctuary; the "different" group...


that's what I thought of when reading your post.

"The Painted Bird" refers to a book where the experiences of a child are related to the outcome of differentiating a subject (a bird) by exceptionalizing them (painting them) and releasing them into a group that now targets them because of their difference and kills them. This whole phenomena stuck with me. Do all groups act like this? is it innate within a species? If all the "painted birds" were brought together, would they then attack each other (and how do birds differentiate colour)? It could be anything that differentiates. I've been afraid of retarded people because of personal experience: I used to live close-by a small community store that was used by developmentally disabled people that lived in a group home in close proximity to it. The boy that worked there was kind and accommodating to them but they would gang-up on him and harass him and angrily accuse him of cheating them even though he didn't. They could have hurt that boy. I wouldn't go in there if they were there because it disturbed and scared me. Later, I met a wonderful woman with a twenty something year old daughter who had downs syndrome. Her daughter wasn't scary, at all. I really admired the mother and I could tell she put her heart on the line for the best she could do for her daughter whose behaviour reflected the caring environment of her home life. Still, I'm afraid of retarded people.

I think group hostility is scary no matter where it comes from, yet, is it a slice of human nature that can't be suppressed?Also, I've had mixed thoughts reading these threads. My first thought was "sure, let's discuss intelligence rather than have intelligent discussions". Then, following on the heels of that, was the thought that it would be a good plan to aggregate and marginalize "intelligence" not corralled by status and standing. (I figured there must be a good reason for targeting academia in coups per history: I also thought, maybe present academia was not reflective of intelligence, which would be a bonus for oligarchy, so maybe wild intelligence should be targeted since the status quo intelligence was comfortably domesticated.

At the same time I was thinking the above, I was thinking that this would really help the parents (especially) and relatives of gifted children so when they out-smart you at fifteen you can kinda get a glimpse of a karate move on it in order to buy time for maturity to shade impulse...and you can exhale.

Anyway, this all comes back to class difference. If Harvard is ultimately shielding plagiarism in order to promote class (skanky plagiarism, embarrassing plagiarism), what use is it? There is a benefit to a sheltered and nurtured upbringing that is disciplined while simultaneously promoting expression, critical thinking, and leadership. Think of it this way, most people don't have the advantage of nurturing their children in such an environment, maybe most don't have the inclination owing to how they must prioritize according to need rather than inclination. The fruit of privileged upbring can indeed be sweet, but, if the fruit of privileged upbring is poisonous it will be spat out.

Another thing, the bell curve...if gender or race or culture skew the results is it really a bell curve, is it accurate to use such a device that has all these standing wave imperfections (high-loaded and peaked on the right and trailing-off on the left)? If bell curves don't work why use them? maybe they work for somebody, like tax returns, maybe

My only excuse for the above is an attraction to twisted plots, complicated plots, and the possibilities of science-fiction. Also, maybe painted birds come in stripes or maybe everyone is coloured in their own particular way so the whole world is a flock of painted birds...

Let's be careful with each other

[WHAT]

1. kick...

what? No groomed response? no other?

[distantearlywarning]

2. Sorry I missed your post.

I went to go work out tonight and didn't come back to DU until just now.

At this point, I'm not sure which post of mine from the previous thread you were responding to.

I'm also leery of getting back into this. Every thread on this topic in the past week has been locked because of hostile posters. I think I agree with the mods at this point that everything that could be said probably has been said already, and has been taken out of context with prejudice by the other side. I doubt anything else I would have to contribute would change anyone's mind, and vice-versa.

I would like to have a discussion about the nature of intelligence and/or the tendency for humans to attack and ostracize different others, but I really don't think that people could be civil about it right now. Maybe we could all try this again another time after people calm down a litte.

[WHAT]

3. to heck with changing anybody's mind...I just like to argue,

however, I was responding to this post:

snip...

Maybe that's the group we need. The different group. People who were bullied and harassed by others because of something they couldn't control, be that something like high intelligence, which is supposed to have social status attached to it (and thus makes people angry when you talk about it and makes it socially ok for others to be mean to you about it), or something that is less "desirable" in the eyes of society (which makes one ashamed and feel deficient).

Well, it was the last paragraph of your post, anyway.

I'm really interested in how people deal with differences, however. Is it innate, is it learned?

Do you have any hope for a different discussion of this? Is it just too convenient to not understand?

on edit, I really do care what you have to say and I was being facetious. "Mistaken" communication really bothers me because I think it's really common and leads to a lot of heartache. That being said, I think this discussion will sink like a stone and ideology will subsequently be wrapped-up in defensible positons.

Thanks that you cared to communicate your hesitancy...

[distantearlywarning]

4. Well, it's late, but...

In my real life, away from the internet, I'm actually a social psychologist. More specifically, I conduct human subject research on small group dynamics, in particular reaction to deviance within groups. The topic you asked about, how people deal with differences, happens to be my primary area of research.

This is just my opinion (and others in my field might disagree), but I personally think, after having read innumerable studies on bullying, prejudice, intergroup conflict, intragroup conflict, etc., that we have an innate drive to attack and reject those who don't conform to a narrow set of group normative behaviors. This is true even when the non-conformity comes in a form that would seem to be on the surface a sort of "super" conformity to whatever the group thinks is good, such as high intelligence or extreme physical beauty. I should say, though, in partial (very partial, mind you) support of the "anti-gifted" people, that one's treatment will generally be worse if one fails to live up to group standards than if one supercedes them.

One reason why I think it is an innate drive is because of the astounding amount of research in various different cultures showing the same effect over and over again with skin color, different value standards, religious beliefs, pretty much anything you can think of that might constitute deviance or membership in a different outgroup - people hate it. They've even done studies where they divided people into groups based on something as silly and meaningless as how people count dots or what color t-shirt they were randomly assigned to wear and found that people supported their own group members and denigrated the other group members.

Can this behavior also be affected by the environment (or learned)? IMO, yes. People try hard to conform to group norms, and if one group norm is that one is not supposed to exhibit prejudicial attitudes toward members of certain outgroups (African-Americans, for instance, or the handicapped), people will generally suppress those instincts. But they won't hesitate to attack and reject members of other groups when it is not considered to be socially unacceptable to criticize them (gifted people, to give a recent example, or in some places in America, homosexuals, for instance). There's also research to suggest that when people suppress their natural instinct to blatantly reject different others, they begin engaging in something called "aversive racism", where they indicate disapproval in very subtle ways, such as sitting farther away or failing to make eye contact. Aversive racism in some ways is worse than blatant bigotry - it seems to cause more long-term tension, confusion, and mistrust between members of different groups than actively racist behavior does.

So, what is to be done about all of this? There are some answers, I think, but I'm too tired to write any more right now. I'll leave this alone for right now, and if this thread hasn't turned into a total hate-fest and been locked by morning, I'll come back. I would love to hear your thoughts also...

[Moderator]

5. Locking.....

Please don't start threads in order to continue
arguments in locked threads. This is a DU
rule violation.