“All prejudice is a time saving device” :: Draft

“All prejudice is a time saving device” - Unknown

We love to believe that we humans are rational beings. And as humans we want to live high ideals, goals, aspirations.

Worthy things.
Good things.
… expensive things.

It takes a lot of brain power to do this. Given a choice, our brain will always go for the most energy efficient thing.

We have two different “brains”:

• The fast, and cheap brain.
• And the slow and expensive brain. Read about this in “Thinking Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman. .

And of course, we use the fast brain most of the time. Our brains are lazy. It does not tolerate waste.

The best way the brain has to save time and energy: By applying prejudices as much as possible.

We group, we categorise, we abstract, we lump.

We say “all”.
We say “always”.
We say “them”.

It cannot be any other way.
It can also, be any other way.

Both these things are true.

When given a choice between two seemingly opposite things I find it valuable to ask “what else”. What else is there that makes these two statements valid and not in contradication?

The “what else” for me is this: Choose your prejudices. Save time, be lazy, use the cheap brain – use it in service of your higher ideals.

This is the prejudice I am choosing: I believe that all people are always awesome. In all ways. And always.

And yes, I say “all”.
And yes, I say “always”.

In this way “us” becomes everyone. And through this prejudice, “us” are a pretty awesome group of people.

It saves me time, to start every interaction - prejudiced.