In search of understanding

W ould you ever learn about combat by only talking to deserters? Learn about marriage only through the divorced, dieting through the obese, justice through those on death row? How much would you understand about college admissions if you only knew top students, or parenthood if you only knew single mothers?

Today, we are almost all disciples of diversity. We congratulate ourselves for having friends of other races, religions, income brackets, family backgrounds, political ideologies. It's modern; it's enlightened; it's politically correct. We may think the diversification of our social circles gives us a wide understanding of various peoples and belief systems.

However, thinking so would be overlooking the narrowness of our perceptions. Knowing a Jewish person, for instance, does not convey to us the entire Jewish experience, nor does it justify generalizations about Jewish people any more than a lack of relationships would. But this is exactly what some seem to believe. Once I heard two people ridiculing a Jewish person with orthodox views, and when one seemed to back off because "I guess that's just a part of their religion." The other replied, "Well, Rachel is Jewish and she doesn't believe in that [expletive]."

Despite the widening of perspective he may get from having a Jewish friend, the speaker fails to see the wide variation between all the people who call themselves Jewish — a variation all groups inherently and deservedly have. He fails to acknowledge that as many people as he may know from a certain group, he probably still knows only a small subsection, and he fails to realize that his tolerance toward that subsection does not justify his intolerance of others.

While knowing different people can help dispel stereotypes, it also makes it easier to stereotype at all, an unfortunate fact that mostly affects minorities. They are more likely to be in situations where they represent a particular group or cause. On them rests the burden of a thousand eyes and a thousand prejudices and a thousand expectations, not to mention the reputations of a million people "just like them."

If you judge many by a few, not only do you put undue pressure on the few, you also risk greatly misjudging the many. For instance, many dismiss feminists, environmentalists and pro-lifers by associating them with their extremists. Certainly, you can gain cheap satisfaction in your own superiority by being disgusted at women who refuse to shave, scornful of people who chain themselves to trees, and aghast at protesters who bomb abortion clinics. But this kind of "understanding" is, at best, lazy and superficial.

Perhaps stereotyping is the ironic consequence of the importance we place on diversity. We group everyone based on various characteristics, then try to make sure every corporation, school, organization, and social circle has members from each of these groups. If we value people based on certain labels, we naturally search for reasons they are under a different label from ourselves. As a member of such-and-such group, what are you like? What do your people have to offer, anyway?

The classifications can be justified. An atheist and a devout Christian have notable differences, as does someone raised on food stamps from one with a trust fund. But sometimes the distinction seems pointless, like when two people are identical in every way except skin color, yet they or others invent differences that "must" be there. That's when diversity, with its system of classification, can backfire.

I'm tired of those who think they understand the immigrant experience because their neighbors came over in a boat. I'm tired of those who think they can evaluate a religion because they know former believers or fringe members. I'm tired of how the diversification of our social circles gives us false confidence against our own limitations, like duct tape against terrorist attacks.

Groups of people, like people themselves, are far more complex than they appear. At a university like Princeton, unlike the high schools in our towns, we can meet a wide assortment of people. But just as college only begins to reveal the vast amount of learning that is out there, knowing a diverse group of people is just the start of understanding the human experience. Julie Park is an English major from Wayne, N.J. You can reach her at jypark@princeton.edu. Her column appears on alternate Tuesdays.