Half life of Prejudice
Radioactive Half Life: the time required for a quantity of a radioisotpe to decay by half.
My theory is that the half life of any prejudice, be it race, colour, caste creed, sex, anything, is one generation. The prejudice doesnt just die away with time, it needs a generation to halve its following. With each generation the prejudice decreases by half, untill it becomes miniscule. That doesnt mean that it will ever disappear, traces of it will always be present, come what time, but it will decrease until maybe the least count of prejudice, being one human being is reached.
Take women in worplace for example. In our parents generation, women in the workplace were scarce, or rather they had to fight their way in a male dominated society. They had to work harder to be recognized, they were passed over, they were looked upon as weak etc. compare that to a generation earlier where they wernt even allowed into the work force, a women was supposed to clean the house and cook food.
One generation they are confined to the house, come next generation , they faught for a place in a prejudiced society, and then comes our generation where I see women are treated almost equal, atleast among our generation. When some top executive says today the she still faces prejudice, take it with a pinch of realization that at her level she is still dealing with people from her generation, a generation that grew up with that prejudice level, one should not generalize that, as the state of the union today. She is still fighting with her generationa and will always be, its not the state of top officials but rather the workhorses of todays generation or rather the youth which determines the status of a prejudice.
Just as even after disintegration takes place in radiation, there are always lingering atoms, so there will always be lingering prejudiced people, but the general half life is a generation, hence the number keeps halving each time until it disappears, ,
The same thing goes with blacks, castes, religion, creed, jews etc......
My theory is that the half life of any prejudice, be it race, colour, caste creed, sex, anything, is one generation. The prejudice doesnt just die away with time, it needs a generation to halve its following. With each generation the prejudice decreases by half, untill it becomes miniscule. That doesnt mean that it will ever disappear, traces of it will always be present, come what time, but it will decrease until maybe the least count of prejudice, being one human being is reached.
Take women in worplace for example. In our parents generation, women in the workplace were scarce, or rather they had to fight their way in a male dominated society. They had to work harder to be recognized, they were passed over, they were looked upon as weak etc. compare that to a generation earlier where they wernt even allowed into the work force, a women was supposed to clean the house and cook food.
One generation they are confined to the house, come next generation , they faught for a place in a prejudiced society, and then comes our generation where I see women are treated almost equal, atleast among our generation. When some top executive says today the she still faces prejudice, take it with a pinch of realization that at her level she is still dealing with people from her generation, a generation that grew up with that prejudice level, one should not generalize that, as the state of the union today. She is still fighting with her generationa and will always be, its not the state of top officials but rather the workhorses of todays generation or rather the youth which determines the status of a prejudice.
Just as even after disintegration takes place in radiation, there are always lingering atoms, so there will always be lingering prejudiced people, but the general half life is a generation, hence the number keeps halving each time until it disappears, ,
The same thing goes with blacks, castes, religion, creed, jews etc......
posted by adarsh adarsh at 9:51 PM
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