In search of an understanding of prejudice

Last Wednesday, I was at my usual weekly Undergraduate Philosophy Society meeting (shameless plug, check us out on Facebook). That evening, the discussion centered around how we should attempt to understand bullying and how to prevent kids from doing it. Quickly, the group of us recognized the ways in which bullying mirrors — and frequently reflects — different phobias and other bad “-isms” like homophobia, racism, sexism and transphobia.

As we reflected on the idea a lack of empathy and an abundance of ignorance often contributes to predatory behavior, I got to thinking. What factors do these prejudices share, and how can we collectively move away from them? In other words, what can we do as a society to raise future generations to be tolerant and loving human beings?

In philosophy, we often refer to individual people as agents or subjects performing actions — hopefully with knowledge, intention and perhaps free will — throughout the world. This claim might seem obvious, but each of us is a subject, not an object. We can act on other subjects and objects in our environments, but it is important to recognize other people, including friends, family members and strangers, are each themselves subjects.

Here’s where the bullying and victimization elements come in. Some philosophers argue, and I agree, predatory behaviors like bullying stem, at least partially, from failing to recognize other people as subjects and instead viewing them as objects. One way of understanding this comes from Martin Buber, a 20th-century Austrian philosopher who wrote on what he basically called the “I-Thou” and “I-It” relationships.

As you might imagine, I-Thou represents a subject’s relationship to an “other,” an active engagement with — in the classic case — another person. I-It refers to a more static engagement with the world or the way we experience or use objects around us. The relationship I have with my mom and dad represent I-Thou connections, but I have an I-It relationship with the car I use to get around each day.

These engagements, however, can get twisted around. It seems clear to me our healthy relationships rest on an I-Thou foundation; we recognize the other person as outside ourselves but also worthy of respect, a subject with their own wants and needs, loves and pains. However, we can see how toxic relationships such as the one between bullies and victims or bigots and targeted groups seem to embody Buber’s I-It relationship.

The classic schoolyard bully uses their victims as means to an end: Perhaps the bully is subject to a difficult family life back home, and targeting kids on the playground lends a false sense of importance and security. Victims serve as mere objects to the bully, for the bully does not consider how the victims must feel.

This example lends itself quite well to more serious cases: a racist who belittles and demeans minorities, a bigot who won’t recognize anything but heterosexual love or a sexist who thinks women are better seen and not heard. These people fail to recognize the shared subjectivity — the common humanity — between those who appear different than them. This is especially clear when it comes to issues of intersectional marginalization or when a person experiences oppression as a result of belonging to a combination of certain races, genders or classes, for example.

I don’t mean to say philosophy can totally explain cases of victimization from elementary school bullying to widespread intolerance and hatred. But I do think understanding at least some of this behavior through Buber’s framework provides us with one more way to target, stop and prevent it: through a deeper comprehension of how we view ourselves and others in the world and how empathy and respect for our fellow humans can truly get us to a safer and happier world.

Mia Gettenberg is a UF criminology and philosophy senior. Her column appears on Mondays.