In Praise of Prejudice: The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas

I know the title of this book is off-putting.  Prejudice is a dirty word, immediately invoking images of segregated lunch counters and hooded Klansmen.  But Thomas Dalrymple wants to rehabilitate the notion of prejudice.  Dalrymple, a British medical doctor, separates the notion of race and prejudice.  Prejudice, in the broader sense, refers to acceptance of authority, values outside of oneself, judgment, and discernment.  Dalrymple is certainly prejudiced: he has a prejudice for parental authority, for families sharing mealtime, for sexual abstinence outside of marriage, for dressing formally in dark clothes for funerals, and against putting one's feet on the seat of a passenger train. 

Modern, liberal thinkers like to reject prejudice, declaring themselves free-thinking individuaulists, but, Dalrymple points out, "To overturn a prejudice is not to destroy prejudice as such.  It is rather to inculcate another prejudice."  For instance, "The prejudice that it is wrong to bear a child out of wedlock has been replaced by the prejudice that there is nothing wrong with it at all."  As a doctor serving in an English prison and slum areas, he saw first-hand the effects of the lack of prejudice against unwed motherhood.  And certainly the middle class is not exempt from those effects.

More broadly, he argues, the rejection of conventional norms, the glorification of unconventionality for the sake of unconventionality, the rejection of pre-conceived ideas, and the rejection of authority as a valid source of knowledge lead to intellectual, societal, and moral anarchy.  Attempts to eliminate prejudice and promote economic and social equality have historically lead to genocidal atrocities.  Even the enlightened intelligentsia's call to question everything and live in suspicion of any authority (which is itself a paradoxical argument from authority) leads one to the conclusion of the unknowability of anything.  He gives the following example: he knows that the Battle of Hastings was fought in 1066.  But if he were asked to prove it using primary sources, he could spend a lifetime trying to do so without convincing a hardened skeptic.  Such is futility of the prejudice against trust in authority.  Ultimately, such a course leads to an egotistical, sociapathic reliance on the authority of no one but oneself.

He concludes, "We need both the confidence to think logically about our inherited beliefs, and the humility to recognize that the world did not begin with us, and that the accumulated wisdom of mankind is likely to be greater than anything we can achieve by our unaided efforts.  The expectation, desire, and pretense that we can go naked into the world, shorn of all prejudices and preconceptions, so that every situation is wholly new to us, is in equal measure foolish, dangerous, and wicked."

I love Dr. Dalrymple's perspective.  He brilliantly links philosophical movements with their ultimate expression in society.  Many great (by the standards of intelligentsia) thinkers do not realize the devastating implications of their ideas as expressed in cultural norms.  Dalrymple's intellectual prowess and clinical experience come together here for a biting critique of the prejudice against prejudice.  In Praise of Prejudice is a satisfying, challenging read.