The guy I work for rants all day to me about his theories, mostly concerning race, gays, selfish people, and morals, all in his conservative, traditional outlook. I agree with a lot of what he says, but some of it is just off the wall insane. For instance, he believes that there are different breeds (he uses the word species) of people in the world and their genetic makeups makes them inherently distinct, and either inferior or superior relative to one another. He says, "How can dogs, cats, horses, evergreen trees, and iguanas come in all sorts of different breeds, but humans don't"? To this, I confess to him that yes, humans do come in different breeds, some white, some black, some mongoloid, etc. But then he follows up, "Does a doberman innately have a more aggressive temperment than a poodle?", among other examples of character differences among non-human species. I confess, yes, they do. Then I'm cornered. "Why would it be that if all these animals are different physically and mentally, then how could human beings be anything different?" He follows this by saying that he has met hundreds of thousands of people, everyone of them he has greeted with an open mind and given a fair chance, and with no exceptions he has seen the same personality patterns among the people he meets based upon their ethnicity. Blacks (he uses a very different word), for instance, he believes are inferior to whites because he has observed their innate selfishness, regardless of their wealth and background. Just as animals within a species differ in brain chemistry and its accompanying termperment manifestations, so do humans. How do I respond to someone like this? Cheers
you cant convince someone who thinks that way to think any other.. so id do like i do with nigga joe,,.. an just throw subliminal snipes in when im havin a conversation with them.. eventually they will say there joking,,.. but thats only a 1/3 correct..
We are not inside his head; therefore, we can not provide you with any sort of logical, accurate explanation. Perhaps he was raised that way, or perhaps not. Why does anybody believe in what they do?
because he was brainwashed that way from a very early age.. and the concept has never left him because,, there are just enough like minded people that feel the way he does to keep him believing the way he does.. now aint that logical?? some break away from there raising,some embrace it.. it is a melting pot..
So this dude has his own views and opinions, so does bush on the war, the pope on camel riders and thier evil religion. Its his right, but you dont have to listen and could even let him know youd rather focus on work or work related issues in a polite way. Im very opinionated? But at work I keep it work, its hard enough to get folks to focus on what they are doing, few can talk and work so I let them know id rather they work if they cant do both and then its just general conversation. Id rather not like my workers then have them not like me, a happy worker is a friendly productive worker.
I can't speak for your boss, but like HHB, he was probably raised with those beliefs. From there, he's tricked himself into reenforcing them. So, if for example, he meets a certain number of black people over a certain period of time, and a certain percentage of them fit into his stereotypes, then he would be very capable of convincing himself that this proves his theories are correct, and that any of those people who didn't fit his stereotypes are exceptions to the rule and can be dismissed. It's the car on the corner thing. If you drive down your street every night, and there is a weird car on the corner 2 nights per week, it's easy to convince yourself that it's there every night since you only notice it and think about it on the nights that you see it. You are then free to assume that it is there every other night as well.
Take home your pay and filter out the BS. If you engage him in these types of discusions you will loose. He sounds like a great negative role model.
Actually, he's a great role model. Extremely generous, moral, courageous, tremendous work ethic, scientific-minded...its just the racial things that i have issue with. I usually can hold my own against him in debate, but the discussion i mentioned earlier has me at bay. I want to be able to throw a logical argument back at him, if not for his wellfare then for mine. I don't want to just ignore something that I intuitively know is wrong - I want to analyze it and discuss it with the believer and smash the belief and expose it as ignorant. Especially with this dude, he loves a good debate. Now does anyone out there know of the science behind human "breeds" enough to disprove his analogy between human and non-human animals?
Why don't you buy him a copy of "To Kill a Mockingbird"? They guy sounds like he is frightened by the more abstract and hard to explain ideas of complex race interactions and cultural trends, so he has developed a rather juvenile but clever little explanation that avoids him the need to think.
