Klarinet Archive - Posting 000115.txt from 2005/06

From: Tony Pay <tony.p@-----.org>
Subj: Re: [kl] Personal prejudice
Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 09:00:47 -0400

On 5 Jun, "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net> wrote:

[snip]

> Tony wrote,
>
> > > I didn't ever suggest it was illiterate, Lelia. I said I found it
> > > *irritating for no good reason*, and that therefore it was a
> > > prejudice.
>
> I know you didn't use the term "illiterate" per se, but I was referring to
> this exchange between you and Dan Leeson, when Dan wrote,
>
> > > > This is a personal prejudice and I mean no disrespect, but whenever
> > > > I hear people refer to the E-flat clarinet as an "eefer" I throw up.
> > > > They sound like shit-kicking country western singers.
>
> and you replied,
>
> > > I feel the same way about people who talk about 'horns' -- and even
> > > 'pinkies' get up my nose;-)
>
> For all I know, these particular shit-kicking country western singers might
> be putting on the same act that Mick Jagger puts on (does he sound like
> someone who earned a degree from the London School of Economics?), but in
> the USA, calling someone a shit-kicker implies both illiteracy and
> stupidity. (Shit-kicker and hayseed share the same underlying metaphor:
> farming is dirty work and people who get dirty for a living must not be
> very bright.) I can't stand country-western music, and I don't care deeply
> about a prejudice against saying "horn" to mean clarinet, but when that
> prejudice seems connected to a prejudice against farmers (my mother's
> family), it gets my fur up a little bit (though please understand that I'm
> not seriously offended, and that I understand that no offense was
> intended).

Well, perhaps I don't really need to clear this up, but when I said 'I feel
the same way' I was referring to the first part of what Dan said, namely that
I experience nausea (hyperbolically, of course). I don't have the 'country
western' context, and especially not the 'farmer' context, because the few
farmers I know personally are actually highly intelligent and cultured.

> > > As a matter of fact, on a much more serious note than is justified by
> > > this thread, I think the world might be a better place if it were more
> > > possible to be open about our prejudices, whilst at the same time
> > > insisting they are not in fact taken seriously by us.
> > >
> > > Instead, the world compels us to hide our prejudices lest they be used
> > > against us -- which tends to keep those prejudices active, because we
> > > hide them also from ourselves.
>
> I notice that people go through the motions of acknowledging prejudices in
> such a way as to imply that we're only being modest when we use the
> pejorative term, prejudices, when we really think they're well-thought-out
> opinions.

Mm, but that wasn't what I meant. That, and the situation you go on to
describe, would amount to a 'postjudice' rather than a prejudice.

This is a very big subject, and I can't really do it justice now, as I'm off
to Spain...

But I sometimes feel that being righteous about condemning what we see
initially as a prejudice can amount to a prejudice itself. That's because
prejudice amounts to generalisation plus condemnation -- and we are all
subject to that to some degree, because we're built to have tribal instincts
that divide the world into 'us' and 'them'. For me it comes down to what we
do about our (and their) prejudices.

I'd say that what we want to do is to find out more about the particular
situation.

Later...

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd tony.p@-----.org
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE http://classicalplus.gmn.com/artists
tel/fax 01865 553339

... Misspelled? Impossible. Error correcting modem!

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