Changing Lenses

I was on the train back home today when I started doing a quick tally of some things around me. There were 23 people on the train with me. 16 of them had iPhones which they pulled out during the ride, and 4 others had Apple headphones which could mean either they also had iPhones or they had iPods. 8 people had Beats over-the-ear headphones, and another 3 had Beats earbud headphones. Two people were sleeping, and then there was the gentleman reciting lyrics to himself near the train door; I was unable to see what these people had. As I thought about how amazing it was that in a train car of 23 people, 20 of them had Apple products and almost half had Beats products, I remembered a conversation I had some time ago with a friend.

I had made a statement similar to "It's sort of crazy that people will really spend over $100 for a product they don't even really put to full use," when talking about Beats headphone; to which she responded "You don't know if they're musicians or something. Maybe they do put it to full use." Now, that is true, there is always uncertainty when making a generalized statement, but can I really believe that on a train with 23 people, 10 of them are musicians who decided that Beats headphones are the right product for their musical endeavors? I guess I have to accept the incredibly minute possibility of this being true, but I don't have to make it my generalized conclusion. I make a fair amount of generalized conclusions, most people do. Do we always abide by our generalized conclusion? I don't. I might believe something about somebody based on a few observations I have made, but I still give that person the benefit of the doubt when we interact.

I see the plethora of Apple products people collect, scoff at the consumers before me, then realize, though reluctant, I am also a consumer. This in turn makes me realize that even though I can fall into the pits of consumerism, I tend to like myself as a person, so maybe I could end up liking the people I am looking at. I still feel the need to comment on it though, and converse about it. I do so not only as a criticism of others, but of myself, and I do it to see if I can change something; maybe in myself, maybe in someone else.

I attempt to see through the eyes of an observer and a participant. So while I may criticize the fellow wearing a pair of Beats headphones connected to his iPhone, I think about them looking at me and making assumptions about who I am. We all do it, but some of us also remind ourselves we might be wrong.

I believe that without these assumptions, without generalizations, there is little progress in the ways we can attempt to change society. If we start to think "Some people who live in poverty might not be that upset, hey people like that can exist..." how can we expect to address the issue? Whenever someone begins to attempt to think of ways of improving society, they have to make assumptions about the way society is functioning, make generalizations about the population and attempt to find ways to right what they see as wrong. This does not mean that that person believes these generalizations apply to everyone, it simply means that they believe it is something that applies to the majority.

Another point of view I enjoy taking is the point of view of someone with certain prejudices or stereotypes. Now I don't do this to agree with them, I do it to understand the dynamics at play in human interaction. Stereotypes can sometimes be true, but this only happens because most stereotypes are perpetuated by a society that invents stereotypes. An example of this is a person from a certain race and a lower class background being seen as a criminal. If an employer is prejudiced against the person's race, and believes lower class people aren't good employees they will not hire this person, which in turn may leave that person in poverty, forcing them to commit a crime to survive. That is a very superficial example, but it serves its purpose I believe. Acknowledging that these stereotypes exist, and have powerful effects is the first step to truly eliminating them. Trying to avoid them or act as though they don't exist doesn't solve much. I can understand trying to better yourself by not considering stereotypes, and it is something I also try and do, but to completely avoid them seems like trying to close a wound by acting like there is no wound.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that by viewing things from various angles, and discussing all those angles as possible truths we can really break down subjects to reveal things about them, which in turn can help develop new ideas to deal with them.

- Dennis