Prejudice is wrong. What could be more self-evident? Preachers rail against it, politicians denounce it, and parents caution their children to avoid it. If there’s one thing we can all agree on, prejudice is a bad thing.Not so fast, argues Theodore Dalrymple. His collection of essays In Praise of Prejudice: The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas takes a hard look at our prejudice against prejudice. He ably demonstrates that prejudice (or if you prefer less pejorative words, presuppositions or preconceived ideas) is inescapable. Kris Lundgaard, who first put me on to this book, writes: “Dalrymple takes apart the prevailing idea that any sort of prejudice is bad, and that, if we want to be authentic human beings, we much each choose every idea based on our own examination of it, and accept nothing at all on authority."
Prominent moral philosophers since the late 18th century have celebrated the autonomous human will, insisting that the formation of moral opinions should be wholly a matter of subjective inquiry, divorced from familial, cultural or social norms. The individual, free from external bias, must scrutinize every behavioral choice and make his decision without appeal to authority. Not surprisingly, this radically individualistic philosophy creates a moral climate in which many are suspicious or openly hostile to received moral traditions. Dalrymple uses numerous compelling examples to show the regrettable outcome.
So strong is the prejudice against preconceived ideas that parents cede their authority to the judgments of very young children, and find themselves without the tools to establish moral order in their children’s lives. Dalrymple’s critique of our culture's paedo-centrism is scathing:
"Anyone who has observed a mother in a shop or supermarket solicitously and even anxiously bending over a three- or four-year-old child to ask him what he would like for his next meal will understand the sovereignty over choice that is now granted to those who have neither experience nor powers of discrimination enough to exercise it on the basis of anything other than the merest whim, without regard to the consequences. By abdicating their responsibility in this fashion, in the name of not passing on their own prejudices or preconceptions to their children, and not imposing their own view of what is right upon them, they enclose their children within the circle of their childish tastes. In the name of the struggle against prejudice and illegitimate authority, they instill a culinary prejudice that, though self-evidently harmful, is far more restrictive in the long run than any they might have instilled by the firm exercise of their authority; for, in the absence of experience, children will always choose the same thing, the thing that is most immediately attractive or gratifying to them.
"The precocity encouraged by too-early an assumption of the responsibility for making a choice, as if children were the customers of their parents rather their offspring, is soon followed by arrested development. A young child, constantly consulted over his likes and dislikes, learns that life is, and ought to be, ruled by his likes and dislikes. He is not free of prejudices just because he is free of his parents’ prejudices. On the contrary, he is a slave to his own prejudices. Unfortunately, they are harmful both to him as an individual, and to the society of which he is a member." (19-20)
Sadly, many of these young peoples’ lives unravel as they grow older. They are adrift in a morally turbulent world without a reliable compass and left with only their own impulses and desires to guide them. In an interview with researchers, a fourteen-year-old girl who had a baby out of wedlock said of her school experience: “Some teachers were OK - other teachers I used to swear at - I didn’t like them at all.” Dalrymple comments: “The idea that dislike of someone was not sufficient grounds to swear at him, that tolerable social relations require self-control, that living with others imposed a duty of restraint, had not been inculcated in her as a prejudice, and it was now unlikely that she would ever learn it, let alone conform her behavior to it.” (27) Her life becomes a tragic example of “the cruel effect of not instilling the right prejudices.” (30)
We are never without prejudices. Old prejudices inevitably give way to new ones. The author observes, “We can rid ourselves of any particular attitude to any given question, no doubt, but we cannot give up having any attitude whatsoever towards it.” (29) I thought about this phenomenon as Dalrymple discussed the social costs of pregnancy out of wedlock. Not long ago bearing a child while unmarried was taboo and tarnished the reputation of not only the unwed mother but her family and child. As a Christian I find this prejudice unacceptable; compassion for the sinner is a hallmark of biblical piety. However, the pendulum now has swung too far in the other direction: not only are the mother and child embraced, but also the lifestyle that produced the pregnancy. “We mustn’t pass judgment,” we are told. The mother’s lifestyle, however, yields temporal consequences that must not be ignored. In most cases, these pregnancies prove hurtful to both mother and child, and impose enormous costs on third parties who end up providing for them financially.(33-34) The prejudice of uncritical acceptance of others’ lifestyles contributes to a moral environment that fosters the very behaviors one should avoid.
Parents and educators will do well to take a fresh look at the word “discrimination.” Like prejudice, it has fallen on hard times. Dalrymple recalls his childhood when discrimination meant “proper judgment - aesthetic, moral and intellectual - and my teachers were possibly the last generation of pedagogues who believed that the inculcation of powers of discrimination were the noblest part of their job, so that some of their pupils, at least, might come to appreciate, and if possible add to, the finest traditions of our civilization...Accordingly, a person who did not discriminate, who was undiscriminating, was a person without taste, morality, or intellect; undiscriminating, he was likely to be indiscriminate in his behavior. Discrimination was for these teachers the most important function of the mind; without it, truth could not be distinguished from falsehood, beauty from ugliness, or good from evil, and the purpose of pedagogy was to instill the correct prejudices.” (75)
Dalrymple identifies himself as “a person without religious belief.” But his assessment of the human condition will resonate with Calvinists. “It is, in general, far easier to replace a good prejudice by a bad one than the other way around, perhaps . . . because the heart of man is inclined more to evil than to good, to gluttony more than to moderation, to hate more than to love, to sloth more than to industry, to pride more than to modesty, and so forth.” (97)
Christians will do well to think about presuppositions. No small part of the sanctification of the mind is making sure that our presuppositions are shaped by the infallible word of God, which is planted in us as we attend with faith to the ministry of the word and sacraments.
A substantial portion of this book is a critical response to John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, an intellectual forerunner in the philosophical movement that proclaims the virtues of the sovereign and autonomous human will freed from the constraining biases of external authority. Dalrymple’s survey is a good reminder that pernicious intellectual ideas have a way of permeating a culture which has long since forgotten their originators.
I recommend this book because Dalrymple makes us think about the importance of prejudices, and states what should be obvious: preconceived ideas are inescapable; they enable the individual to escape the prison of self; they bring the collective wisdom of the ages to bear on the individual. They must not be received uncritically; old prejudices must at times be replaced with new ones. But the one thing we can be sure of is that they will always be present. “Prejudices are like friendships: they should be kept in good repair. Friends grow apart, and so sometimes should men from their prejudices; but friendship often grows deeper with age and experience, and so should some prejudices. They are what give men character and hold them together. We cannot do without them.” (126)
