I AM STRONGLY convinced that as long as children continue to be brought up to learn behaviours and imbibe ideas that certain groups of humans are inherently worth less than others, we can expect human civilisation to not be much more than an exercise in Damage Control.

I am also convinced that attitudes of superiority—if they did not stem from feelings of insecurity, which they often do—sooner or later cultivate fear vis-à-vis those one dismisses as beings not worth the respect of a peer and a fellow human being. This fear may guise itself as disgust and aversion, mainly because one is guilty of metaphorically throwing the first punch whenever one thinks of others as being inferior through no fault of their own.

After reading those first two paragraphs, you, dear reader, are probably thinking of people you meet or have to deal with who are of another ethnic background (this is of course deeply tied to class background where group biases are concerned). But let me hold you back a bit here. Let us look closer. You do not have to leave the four walls of your home to realise that your ideas and behaviours often follow received patterns of behaviour which are not based on equal treatment of the other.

What biases do we conserve and preserve in how we treat—or think of—a husband or wife, son, daughter, parent, brother or sister? These relationships are so close and immediate that it is hard for us to recognise them, let alone psychoanalyse them. But not recognising them means that we cannot re-cognate them; we cannot reflect on them.

Out in society, in interpersonal engagements in general, bias and prejudice are most easily recognised as bullying, as coercion, as harassment, as persecution—one could go on—as victimisation, as discrimination, as oppression. In all cases, they are hurtful behaviours, to say the least.

Now, within the home, at least two major dimensions open to bias are apparent. One is gender, and the other is age. How do men in your family treat women? And vice versa. How do members in your family treat the very young or the very old? And vice versa in any crisscross fashion.

It all gets rather complicated. And since these biases are common, culturally accepted and almost unconscious given that the role plays are ongoing, how is anyone supposed to be able to step off-stage and cry time-out? We are all deeply complicit to some extent or this issue wouldn’t be a problem.

Let me suggest three ways of effectuating a timeout, of stepping off-stage, or of slowing down the bullying behaviour we are prone to exercise on a daily basis. At the very least, they allow for some serious self-reflection.

Provide Mutual Aid

The first is Mutual Aid. I shall not in this present context go too much into the history of this term, which emanated mainly from Anarchist thought, and from Evolutionary theory, except to highlight the idea of cooperation and collaboration in human relations. This is more a matter of attitude and approach. Not thinking this way usually leaves us with the need to compete and to contest.

In sports, competition is arranged to be among equals. In life, that is far from always the case.

In collaboration and cooperation, empathy is needed. One should ask of oneself, when gaining some advantage over another: “In fairness, what do they get, what should they get when benefiting me?”

So a husband and wife, however long they may have been married, should each of them stop, reflect and recognise whether they have been collaborating all along, or whether they have been manipulating each other’s biases and benefiting from weaknesses, one over the other.

Apply The Golden Rule

The second is to exercise The Golden Rule. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Or less pretentiously, “Do not do unto others what you do not wish done unto you.” The attitude is clearly different, but that discussion is for another day.

What is salient to this present discussion is the time-out possibility. Before you act, stop to consider the impact on others. Does it hurt them? Does it hurt their soul? Does it perpetuate a bias that keeps them in their place? Is it a cheap shot on your part taken to gain an advantage offered by an established inequity? An injustice?

Don’t Conclude, Hypothesise Instead

The third is to think of prejudices as hypotheses. What makes a negative conclusion about some person or group a prejudice and not a hypothesis is the silent—or insidious—wish to exercise unfair advantage. We look no further once we have adopted a prejudice. But if we consider an idea about others to be a hypothesis lacking validation or further interrogation, then we realise that we still have some way yet to go. We become humble, instead of arrogant. We understand that any idea is forever tentative, prone to suffer from incomplete facts, unfinished thought or insufficient perspective.

As a final note, do not misunderstand me. I may be discussing biases and prejudices as daily events; that may make them sound almost harmless. Or just annoying. The truth is, biases and prejudices are the building blocks of hate, be that in the context of gender, race or class. Let’s make no mistake on that front. I am not talking only about the individual. Prejudices are collective creations. Like hate, they are a group phenomenon.

Conclusion? You hate because you are a lazy thinker.