Past and Prejudice
CHANDER GUPTA
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The events of the past leave their imprint on the mind in the shape of memories that we can recall. Memories are a nebulous commodification of the past. We delve into memories to revisit our past. Besides creating evocative memories, our past also builds a legacy of provocative prejudices.The prejudices are sometimes so subtle that their impact on our behaviour is not recognised by us. Impulses that trigger reaction or even over-reaction are the offshoots of our prejudices. It is not as much the `provocation' from the other side as emanating from our own prejudices.
Worse than judging others is pre-judging them. Pre-judgment comes from that legacy of the past we aptly call `prejudices'. The more the potency of our prejudices, the less will be our objectivity . Pre-judging people or ideas is particularly dangerous because we are not even aware of our prejudices.So ingrained do prejudices become in our psyche that we can't differentiate wheat from chaff. Prejudices obliterate our objectivity .
Lack of and lapses in objectivity distort our true self, making us commit avoidable errors in our social discourse.Prejudices become an unconscious blemish on our conscious self. We have to identify and isolate prejudices for cleansing our psyche. The more objective we are in our day-today lives, the less strife will we encounter. To be completely prejudice-free may not be humanly possible. But we can and we should try to be as objective as practically is possible.
Worse than judging others is pre-judging them. Pre-judgment comes from that legacy of the past we aptly call `prejudices'. The more the potency of our prejudices, the less will be our objectivity . Pre-judging people or ideas is particularly dangerous because we are not even aware of our prejudices.So ingrained do prejudices become in our psyche that we can't differentiate wheat from chaff. Prejudices obliterate our objectivity .
Lack of and lapses in objectivity distort our true self, making us commit avoidable errors in our social discourse.Prejudices become an unconscious blemish on our conscious self. We have to identify and isolate prejudices for cleansing our psyche. The more objective we are in our day-today lives, the less strife will we encounter. To be completely prejudice-free may not be humanly possible. But we can and we should try to be as objective as practically is possible.
