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by leopld
3769 days ago
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Interesting article! I'm a little skeptic to the final paragraph, though, specifically the notion that this research prompted the birth of stereotypes. Stereotypes might not have existed in their modern form previously, but they're akin to the notion that people have an essence, assigned to them by nature. Platon's ideas about comparing an individual's essence to a metal is a good example (bronze people are good at this, iron people good at that). And I definitely think we'd fool ourselves thinking that the individual held a stronger position in society prior to the early 19th century... |
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It's this kind of thinking that starts to give rise to so-called scientific explanations of why certain races are "inferior". The average man concept lets you compare races and genders and all sorts in a way that can appear scientific - in method at least - whilst ignoring the fact that there are so many variables to account for in the human condition, that any result must be taken with a lot of skepticism.
But people in general, particularly around the time, were astounded by the leaps and bounds that science had been making. So anything "proven" in a scientific enough manner, must be true. No skepticism to be found.