Chapter 27 The priest and the brothel

For others, we often make interpretations that go beyond the facts based on the stereotypes we already have in our minds. There is a joke that a Puritan and a Catholic were walking when they saw a priest walk into a brothel.The Puritan shrugged his shoulders and smiled wryly, thinking that at last he had caught the fox-tail of the Catholic hypocrisy.But the Catholic saw this scene, and couldn't help showing a solemn expression on his face. He proudly thought that when one of their church members was dying, even in a brothel, the priest would go in without hesitation to serve him (she )pray.

Not long after Mr. Li first arrived in the United States, he passed a park at ten o'clock on a Wednesday morning and saw a white man sitting leisurely on a bench basking in the sun. He thought to himself: Although the United States is a busy country, it is rich and free. There are so many people.Not long after he left, he saw a black man sitting leisurely on another bench basking in the sun. Mr. Li couldn't help thinking: Is the problem of black unemployment really that serious?Is it probably as difficult for black people to live in the United States as for yellow people? In fact, we don't have enough data to know what the priest who entered the brothel and the white and black people sitting on the park benches were doing.They are all in an ambiguous situation, but bystanders will interpret their behavior beyond the facts based on the stereotypes they have in mind.

For people we don't know, we often classify them according to their race, gender, class, and occupation, and attach group attributes to them.For example, we all have a stereotype in our hearts about what the Jews are like, what the bar girls are like, and what the Japanese are like. These stereotypes are usually deeply imprinted in our hearts by hearing before we have actually come into contact with such people. , When we really come into contact with this kind of person, we will unconsciously put the image in our mind on the other person as a coordinate to explain the other person's behavior, resulting in a self-righteous prejudice.