The Construction of "The Other"

We live in a world today where everything can be answered and all known if enough money is spent and creative power employed. We have removed gravity as an obstacle to expansion, tied the world as one with the Internet and telecommunications services, and are close to discovering the exact nature of matter itself. Yet through it all, are we truly any further along in advancing knowledge and the human understanding of the creation of this knowledge than we were when Columbus made arguably the greatest discovery of all time in finding the Americas? I posit that the psychological processes through which we view and ethically judge our problems have only shifted slightly and the actual means of obtaining knowledge, though far less-limited and based far more in empirical observation, are still limited by the same constraints that restricted Columbus's thoughts of mermaids.

I'm essentially viewing the human experience on a Normal distribution (forgive me; I just got back from a statistics test.). In discussing the views of the most intelligent parts of society (who I will consider outliers), one distorts the actual distribution of human knowledge and understanding. Just as Newton's ideas were novel for his time (viewing him as the genius he was), the scientists creating the Large Hadron Collider are not of your typical human cut. It's not fair to include the upper echelons of the intellectual spectrum, all while ignoring the lack of contributions from the mentally handicapped. Therefore, we have to look more toward the middling parts of the spectrum, where Columbus likely would have fallen (perhaps he was even a part of the lower half of the curve, as exhibited in Todorov's discussion of Columbus's outdated beliefs). The way the average human being observes situations has changed little over time.

Assumptions made about individuals and "others" are based in largely superficial value-based judgments, just as those Columbus made about the Native Americans were. We view people as indicative of natural and social trends. Columbus's belief that parrots and dark-skinned people were indicative of gold. Similarly, widespread beliefs about non-Christians in America inspire a deep-seated fear obviously unjustly held. I'd actually like to compare the two, using this case as a sort of empirical example of these biases and their penetration into the broader human worldview.

Columbus saw personal traits indicative of naturally-occuring tendencies, whether they be in the Natives or the land itself. Likewise, the American distrust of atheists, Muslims, and to a lesser extent, Jews is held because of fears of the events supposedly surrounding them. Excitement surrounded Columbus's discovery of a darker-colored people, as his historical experience had led him to believe that finding those of darker tones was indicative of wealth. Portuguese experiences in particular in exploring the West Africa led the nation to great wealth. Seeing that those who lived in hotter environments were dark-skinned, Columbus drew a connection betweeen the two.

locales with darker skins = wealth (thusfar in experience)
ergo
darker skins = locales of wealth

Though I think correlative-causative analysis has shifted this perception among the intellectual elite, the average person does not think in these terms. Take, for instance, anti-Muslim backlash following the 2005 banlieue riots in Paris or the deepened fear exhibited in Americans following 9/11. In both cases, people drew connections that logically ran as follows:

individual Muslims = rioters/terrorists
ergo
all Muslims = bad

or

communists = atheists
ergo
atheists = communists

The logic is exactly the same. It relies on a simplified assumption that conditional analysis is a two-sided coin. If I am white, I therefore must follow a certain trend or be indicative of certain broader conditions. This backward analysis obviously still persists, as atheists remain America's most distrusted minority. My conclusion in this case is that the vast majority of people have not viewed the way they view indicators within a society, and as a result, the actual interpretation of knowledge has not changed. It is still dependent largely on experience rather than empirical analysis, even though with time those empirical facts discovered by more elite figures can come to be accepted.

Onto my second point, that the actual means of obtaining knowledge have not altered so far beyond the manner in which Columbus gained insight into viewing the Natives. As Athkor pointed out in her post, the actual way in which we view knowledge is still based strictly on observation. Even Columbus's analysis holds true here. We still draw conclusions about things, whether it be gravity or the geopolitical order, on previously-existing historical trends or current observations. As Hume pointed out, our knowledge is based in expectation. All we can do is reasonably (very, very reasonably, at that) assume things to be true. That being said, I'm not sitting here denying the existence of gravity. But I am saying that it is still a theory, as by some freak chance it could be disproved. I wouldn't put any kind of money on gravity being disproved any day soon. But the fact does remain that it is a possibility, and is just as great of one nowadays as it was during Columbus's.

So how does this connect to our discussion topic, "how do we construct our perception of outsiders?" Intellectuals can logically extrapolate a perception based on social norms, values, geographic barriers, etc.. But the average individual will not take into account these same conditions when discussing "the other." A bias will still exist without the lengthy analysis the average individual is unwilling to undertake. Most things are viewed at face-value, creating a situation much akin to that of Columbus.