Saturday, January 27, 2007

Is this prejudice?



Is this news report (New Straits Times Thursday, January 25, 2005) prejudice? or pre-judgement? or misjudgement? or hasty conclusion? or bias?

The NST report quoted several lawyers and "experts" in reference to what Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad (Badawi) said in London as reported by the NST (January 24) when he was asked to respond to the suit being taken against bloggers Ahirudin Attan and Ooi Chuan Aun.

According to Allport in his book "The Nature of Prejudice" (1954), there are differences between "ordinary pre-judgements," which all of us periodically engage in, and prejudice, a special type of pre-judgement.

"Pre-judgements becomes prejudices only if they are not reversible when exposed to new knowledge." He argues that "we emotionally resist evidence that contradicts our prejudices unlike that which occurs with ordinary pre-judgements. Thus, we have a third key ingredient of prejudice - resistance to new knowledge."

"... prejudice is an antipathy based upon a faulty and inflexible generalization. It may be felt or expressed. It may be directed toward a group as a whole , or toward an individual because he is a member of that group."

3 comments:

LUBOK MELAYU said...

nampaknya bloggers bersatu memutarkan meja menyepit nstp!
hebat.

hidup kuda ranggi!

Unknown said...

Itulah adat berkawan. Jangan biarkan kawan menangis keseorangan sedangkan sebelum itu sama-sama ketawa riang.

Pepatah Cina ada menyebut: Seorang tentera yang baik tidak menyerang. Pejuang yang bagus, berjaya tanpa sebarang keganasan. Penakluk yang hebat menang tanpa berhempas pulas. Pengurus yang cemerlang memimpin tanpa paksaan. Itulah yang dipanggil kebijaksanaan tanpa keganasan. Di sinilah letak kehebatan manusia.

Tidak tahu pula sama ada mereka yang berkenaan tergolong dalam kategori ini.

Anonymous said...

Syed

It is heartening to know that the spirit of setiakawan & camaraderie is still very much alive among us.