Quote:
Originally Posted by dreadgeek
Noam Chomsky (who I generally disagree with) has pointed out that, for instance, we place almost *no* meaning judgment on other arbitrary characteristics like eye-color or height. No one, at least in Western culture, would say "oh, women over 6' tall are smarter than women under 6' tall" or "men who are 5'6" are more prone to be criminals than men who are 5'10". We do not ascribe intelligence to brown eyed people, kindness to blue eyed people and dutifulness to green eyed people. Height and eye color are just two visual descriptors we might use to describe someone physically but we do not interpret that physical description to say something about their character.
I think we should be aspiring to a culture where the characteristics we *currently* use to ascribed character traits to a person are no more meaningful than height or eye color.Cheers
Aj
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Yes, this exactly....whether those descriptive terms have to do with gender, race, age, size or whatever else you can imagine.
We get hung up (individually and as a society), I think, when we attach character assumptions and value judgements based on physical characteristics.