The Unbearable illogic of Being

The broad notion of this random reference is humans, including me, have a self vision that is rational,
 thought out, and above all clearly logical. I have more reference on this, but today I am noting an essay by Chuck Klosterman called...Things We Think We Know from the February 27, 2007 issue of Esquire

The gist of it is that people will decry the act of stereotyping when they feel it is directed at them, but be oblivious when they stereotype others. Sometimes the stereotyping is actually central to their “argument”. But it is by sterotyping that an individual understands the world and Klosterman points out they are a useful intellectual shortcut to to talk about what we believe.

We all hate stereotypes. Stereotypes are killing us, and they are killing our children, and they are putting LSD into the water supply. Stereotypes are like rogue elephants with AIDS that have been set on fire by terrorists, except worse. We all hate stereotypes. Seriously. Dude, we fucking hate them.
Except that we don't. 

We adore stereotypes, and we desperately need them to fabricate who we are (or who we are not). People need to be able to say things like, "All stereotypes are based on ignorance," because expressing such a sentiment makes them enlightened, open-minded, and incredibly unpleasant. Meanwhile, their adversaries need the ability to say things such as, "Like it or not, all stereotypes are ultimately based in some sort of reality," because that kind of semi-logic can justify their feelings about virtually anything. 

Nobody really cares what specific stereotype they happen to be debating; what matters more is how that label was spawned, because that defines its consequence.


Stereotypes are not really based on fact, and they are not really based on fiction. They are based on arbitrary human qualities no one cares about at all. Whenever a given stereotype seems right (or wrong), it's inevitably a coincidence; the world is a prejudiced place, but it's prejudiced for the weirdest, least-meaningful reasons imaginable.

He is saying we gather our stereotypes from extremely anecdotal experiences. You have one or two observations of some thing, person, race, nationality and you form a, or accept an existing, stereotype and then on it reinforces a world view

The point I want to remember is “We say we don't like stereotypes, but actually we freakin' LOVE them!”

This adds to a broader realization that our ideals, opinions, worldview or whatever are not developed by thoughtful analysis where different views are entertained. But more of that in future random references I want to save.

Ref#2 - Things We Think We Know from the February 27, 2007 issue of Esquire by Chuck Klosterman