Is Bigotry Taught?

BloodyMage · 02-23-2010, 03:07 PM

I'm not sure about other countries but it is the case in Northern Ireland where peoples religion and views on things like Catholicism and Protestantism is largely passed down from parents to children. Back when I went to high school, and even in primary school, there'd be a lot of kids who hated Catholicism and hated the school across the way because all the Catholics went to that school. The majority of them didn't even understand what they were hating though, but they hated them anyway and they, and their father, would usually march in the Orange order and celebrate the Battle of the Boyne, even though, as I said, they didn't even understand what they were doing. It was just passed down from one family member to another.

I mean that's a very regional and religious specific one, but I think that it can happen in other areas to like racism or sexism, where it may not be exactly 'taught' in such a sense, but children grow up in such an environment where their parents support something, and their parents send them to schools that support the same ideas and the vast majority simply grow up thinking that these kinds of things were normal and o.k. when they're not. It seems like most people learn to think for themselves after a while, which is good, but I think in most instances bigotry is probably 'taught' in a loose sense of the word.

02-23-2010, 03:07 PM	#10
BloodyMage I'm not even in the highscore. Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 667	I'm not sure about other countries but it is the case in Northern Ireland where peoples religion and views on things like Catholicism and Protestantism is largely passed down from parents to children. Back when I went to high school, and even in primary school, there'd be a lot of kids who hated Catholicism and hated the school across the way because all the Catholics went to that school. The majority of them didn't even understand what they were hating though, but they hated them anyway and they, and their father, would usually march in the Orange order and celebrate the Battle of the Boyne, even though, as I said, they didn't even understand what they were doing. It was just passed down from one family member to another. I mean that's a very regional and religious specific one, but I think that it can happen in other areas to like racism or sexism, where it may not be exactly 'taught' in such a sense, but children grow up in such an environment where their parents support something, and their parents send them to schools that support the same ideas and the vast majority simply grow up thinking that these kinds of things were normal and o.k. when they're not. It seems like most people learn to think for themselves after a while, which is good, but I think in most instances bigotry is probably 'taught' in a loose sense of the word.