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Old 04-08-2006, 06:49 PM   #18
xoxoxoBruce
The future is unwritten
 
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 71,105
Quote:
The act of categorizing humans into groups with defined characteristics is one of the uglier aspects of bigotry.
It's also a basic survival skill. Time dictates how far you sort, like walking down a street you scan the other people looking for clues. You see 2 people carrying baseball bats, so you put them into a category. One has a ball, glove and cleats over his shoulder and the other is dressed in scruffy leathers with a bandanna covering his lower face. so now you subdivide into probably benign and probably dangerous categories

OK, that's extreme but you see how we all do it, all the time. Speaking of time, if you have more of it, you further categorize and with enough time you get every person so sub-sub-sub categorized that everyone is unique and has to have their own category.

It's when you run out of time (or interest) that you leave people hanging in clumps and never get them into individuals.
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