Religious Stereotyping and Interreligious Relations

J. Svartvik, J. Wirén, J. Svartvik, J. Wirén

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137342676
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology of Religion
• Index: Social Sciences

This collection of essays by array of international scholars addresses some aspects of the issues of religious stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination and offers solutions through discussions of method, terminology and definitions regarding interreligious relations, the political implications in the Middle East, and various case-studies.

1

INTRODUCTION: “FOR SIX STRANGE WEEKS THEY HAD ACTED AS IF THEY WERE FRIENDS”

Jesper Svartvik

Religion can heal but it can certainly hurt as well. Hence, this collection of essays addresses some aspects of the issues of religious stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination, and considers a range of important topics that haunt our societies today. When stereotyping becomes the oxygen we inhale, when it is so important to us that we cannot see how we can survive without it, what can and should we do? This book is not only critical, but also constructive; it not only explores, it also opposes stereotyping.

In Independent Diplomat: Dispatches from an Unaccountable Elite, the former British diplomat Carne Ross critically discusses the way diplomatic telegrams are usually formulated. He provides an example from his early career as a diplomat:

On my first ever overseas posting, to Norway, I wrote a letter—at the encouragement of my boss—to the Western European Department in London analysing the “Norwegian national character.” This letter was superficial in the extreme, mainly because its observations had been gathered from watching the behaviour of Norwegians at the luggage carousel at Oslo airport when I first arrived. I spoke no Norwegian (and never did). This did not however prevent me from sending the letter.¹

It is important to emphasize that this way of essentializing of entire nations and peoples that he criticizes is not an exception, but belongs to the very foundation of our way of thinking: “. . . the habit of referring to whole countries in the singular and to their government as the embodiment of that state is one as deep-rooted as the state-based international system itself.”² Furthermore, he argues that there is an agenda at work here. The motives of other countries are not described in the same way as those of one’s own nation:

It is always easy to attribute to one’s opponents the base and selfish motives of economic interest. [ . . . ] Meanwhile, to ourselves, we routinely attribute “higher” motives of security, democracy, freedom, when of course the material motives are, with only a few exceptions, also at play. But I have often felt, looking from inside the box of policy-making, that it is too simplistic to assign motives in this way.³

SHORTCUTS AND GENERALIZATIONS

Needless to say, it is not quite correct to think that we can establish and define a national character by watching people at the luggage carousel (albeit at the largest airport in the country), but, nevertheless, we all realize that it is necessary to make generalizations. This is something we do all the time; we simply have to do it, since, in the words of Perry R. Hinton in his book Stereotypes, Cognition and Culture, “. . . human cognition is not able to apprehend the full complexity of the world.”⁴ In this sense, a stereotype is a simplified picture of the world, and we all need this kind of simplification. For example, when a man suffering from acute abdominal pain comes to the emergency department of a hospital, the doctor does not consider, even for a moment, the possibility that this male patient might be pregnant, and that the cause of his pain is that he is about to give birth. In short, it is a justifiable cognitive shortcut for hospital staff simply to take for granted that men can never get pregnant.⁵

In other words, we need generalizations; we have to categorize in order to live our lives. For this reason, some scholars have chosen to use exceptionally wide definitions when discussing stereotyping and prejudice. Robin Fox, for example, states, “[w]e have to come to terms with the idea that prejudice is not a form of thinking but that thinking is a form of prejudice.”⁶ Whereas it is intriguing and fascinating to reflect on human thinking in this way, it could be argued that this approach is less than helpful in an anthology that consistently seeks to address the negative consequences of our stereotyping.

Hence, in this context we will differentiate between (beneficial and therefore not problematic) cognitive shortcuts and (harmful and therefore problematic) negative stereotyping. We should ask ourselves whether a heuristic categorization of other people helps us, or, to much higher a degree, hurts them. Are we entitled, for example, to identify, label, and categorize a person as “introvert” (and perhaps even nothing but “introvert”)?⁷

Another example, which may prove to be helpful in this line of thought, is our behavior when we enter a clothes shop and need assistance. We probably look at those present in the room, at what they are wearing and what they are doing, how they are handling the clothes, whether they are scrutinizing the items, looking at the price tags, or whether they are slowly and meticulously folding the clothes and putting them into piles, at the same time as greeting those entering the shop with a word of welcome. We do this in order to distinguish between other customers and the shop assistants. Presumably, we all agree that this is acceptable behavior; it is neither problematic nor prejudicial. In the words of Hinton, “. . . we need to categorize the social world in order to understand and interact with it.”⁸ Sometimes we make mistakes. If we ask, “Do you work here?” and the other person shakes his or her head, we feel embarrassed, but it is not the end of the world (although it might be somewhat more problematic for the other person). Hence, we have to return to the pertinent and underlying question: Why is it wrong to seek to establish the “Norwegian national character” by watching the behavior of Norwegians at the luggage carousel at Oslo airport, but not wrong to assume that men cannot become pregnant?

When is our everyday understanding of people stereotyping, and when is it not? We have reason to believe that two aspects are of importance here. First, is part of the answer that the stereotyping may well say something about the truth, but not the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? In other words, the question is not whether there is an element of truth in some stereotyping, but whether it is sufficient and relevant.⁹ Hinton mentions aging as an example. As we get older we become physically less able; hence, it cannot be stereotyping to see older people as less physically able than younger people. Consequently, it might be true, but is it the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Not all elderly people are equally frail (and not all youngsters are equally vigorous and in good shape). For this reason Hinton concludes that what is typical of stereotyping is that it ignores “the variability within a group of people” and that there is “an intolerance of ambiguity.”¹⁰

Second, as Hinton also points out, we exist as members of several social groups. An individual might well be—at the very same time—a parent, a child, a sibling, and a spouse. Hence, such a person cannot be defined only as a mother, because she is simultaneously also a daughter, a sister, and a wife. Hence, her way of speaking and her pattern of behavior cannot be explained simply as the outcome of her motherhood, because she is more than a mother. In addition to these multiple family identities, she might also be a neighbor, employee, supporter of a political party, member of a religious community, and citizen of a country.¹¹

To come to the point, a person can never be reduced to being nothing but a member of one of several social groups. For example, if the head of an international financial organization is accused of sexual assault, and if journalists want to describe him in a few words in their articles in the newspapers, and if scholars seek to explain his behavior (given that the allegations are true), what social groups are more important than others? Is he primarily a man or a European or a French citizen? Is he first and foremost a powerful person or a politician or a professor? Is he, perchance, above all a Jew or a Socialist? If we assume that all these identities are applicable to this person, what aspects do we choose to emphasize when describing him; to what identities do we call attention when looking for the explanation for his alleged behavior?

To put it briefly, the problem with stereotyping is not that it is completely incorrect, but that it does not take into consideration (a) the variability within a group of people and (b) the manifoldness of social groups to which we belong. There may be some truth in stereotyping, but never the whole truth, and under no circumstances nothing but the truth.

DEFINING “STEREOTYPING,” “PREJUDICE,” AND “DISCRIMINATION”

Our next step will be to discuss and to seek to define the three keywords stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination:¹²

1. I would argue that stereotyping is a set of beliefs about the characteristics of a group of individuals. In other words, the important aspect is that the person is primarily defined as belonging to one specific group. It is not what the person says or does that is important, but my own categorization and my own definition of what might characterize that group. I think of the other person as a “woman” and not as a keynote lecturer, as a “Jew” and not as a neighbor, as a “Catholic” and not as a colleague, etc. It is my own categorization and depiction of that group that determines my impressions, not what the other person actually says or does. The stereotyping person judges people as category members rather than as individuals.¹³ The next step in this process is to attribute characteristics to a person based on my preconceived perception of what characterizes his or her group.¹⁴ In short, the other person is first defined as a member of a group (“he is a Christian”); subsequently, this person is described as nothing but what is considered typical of this identity (“all Christians are hypocrites, so he, too, must be untrustworthy”). The other person is never allowed to be an individual; he or she is nothing but a member of a group of people.¹⁵

Why do we stereotype people? Why are the stereotypes there? Richard Dyer addresses these issues:

This is the most important function of the stereotype: to maintain sharp boundary definitions, to define clearly where the pale ends and thus who is clearly within and who [is] clearly beyond it. Stereotypes do not only, in concert with social types, map out the boundaries of acceptable and legitimate behaviour, they also insist on boundaries exactly at those points where in reality there are none. [ . . . ] The role of stereotypes is to make visible the invisible, so that there is no danger of it creeping up on us unawares; and to make fast, firm and separate what is in reality fluid and much closer to the norm than the dominant value system cares to admit.¹⁶

2. The second term, prejudice, is sometimes used almost as a synonym for stereotyping, but what characterizes a prejudice is that it is distinctly emotional. Gordon W. Allport, in his seminal study, The Nature of Prejudice, argued that a prejudice, “. . . unlike a simple misconception, is actively resistant to all evidence th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1 Introduction: “For Six Strange Weeks They Had Acted As If They Were Friends”
• Part I Methodological Considerations
• Part II Christian-Muslim Relations
• Part III Jewish-Christian Relations
• Part IV Israeli-Palestinian Relations
• Part V Case Studies
• Bibliography
• Index