The very root of this word indicates that prejudice is something that stands in front of common sense, that is, prevents it from moving forward.
If a person has broken his arm, he usually immediately goes to the doctor. Friends and even unfamiliar people will sympathize with him and, perhaps, even help him manage affairs that require a certain skill of both upper limbs. However, not all illnesses evoke such unequivocal sympathy.
In the Middle Ages, European countries were engulfed in panic: the townsfolk were surrounded on all sides by witches. In order to get into their number, it was enough to have red hair, and sometimes just to be a beautiful woman. They simply checked the sorceress: they tied her up and threw her into the nearest body of water. If the poor thing came up, it was "clear" that she was a witch and therefore subject to burning alive…
Why in some cases do people avoid communicating with those who differ from them in some rather abstract way? Especially if these personal characteristics are not related to possible upcoming joint cases? Obviously there is a biasattitude, i.e. prejudice. This is an opinion imposed by someone or voluntarily accepted, transferred to a specific person.
There is such a phenomenon as xenophobia, that is, the rejection of everything that is characteristic of customs and mores, and sometimes the appearance of residents of other countries and continents. At the same time, many differences are fictitious, and with the light hand of some unkind or stupid person (or possibly a group of people) have become public opinion. Stereotypes and prejudices against foreigners take place in almost every country, and some rather nasty character traits or a tendency, for example, to a parasitic lifestyle, are attributed to the owners of a skin of a different color or a face of a different shape. So, in the famous fairy tale by Yevgeny Schwartz, the archivist is convinced that gypsies are terrible people. However, he himself did not see any of them.
Agitation campaigns in some republics of the former USSR during its collapse, when the idea of “treacherous occupiers”, besides, drunkards, who should go straight to the train station with their suitcases, can be considered numerous examples.
In addition to racial or national, there are social prejudices. They are mainly manifested in relation to those who are at other levels of the social hierarchy. Most often, the more fortunate fellow citizens feel contempt, and sometimes hatred, for the poor, or those whom they consider to be so. However, it also happens vice versa, when any successful person is obviously considered a scoundrel and a thief. Sometimes these sentimentsfueled by politicians based on some self-interest.
And another kind of bias. Religious prejudice is intolerance towards people who profess a different faith. It is precisely such differences that often became the cause of wars, the collapse of prosperous states and genocide. The prejudices that had been developing for centuries served as the basis for the propaganda of discord, which it did not take much effort for someone to deduce from the subconscious.
Of course, not all intolerance is a vice. There are customs and mores that are contrary to the norms of a civilized society (for example, cannibalism). But for the most part, prejudice is a very unfortunate phenomenon that interferes with the mutual enrichment of cultures and mutual understanding between such different and always wonderful people in their own way.
