One isn’t Many and Many isn’t All

One of the arguments that I hear for why people express an -ism belief (racism, sexism, ageism, etc), is that they had this experience with this one person and you know that must be how everyone of that particular group is. I love this kind of reasoning it’s so illogical it’s almost funny and yet people do it all the time.

Venn Diagram: Subsets
Venn Diagram: Subsets

Mathematics will let you know that a subset is not always equal or the same as the larger set contained in it.

So why is that people assume that it is? Who knows, I suspect it has something to do with the same reason we are bad at assessing on an intuitive level risk.

Be that as it may, maybe it would be fair for people who make those sort of assumptions that a subset is the whole set to decide that white Americans are out to destroy America, or that Christians want to kill people and blow up buildings. Yet we don’t assume that because it just isn’t true.

So do you still think the one is the many and that many is all or is it possible that it just isn’t true?


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