Freeing Ourselves from the Quagmire of Prejudice

As Sydney Smith once said: “Never try to reason the prejudice out of a man. It was not reasoned into him, and cannot be reasoned out.”

Chivalry-Now offers an effective way to approach this problem.

When dealing with human decisions and behavior, it helps to understand how the human mind works. Prejudices exist in us not as separate ideas that we can easily handle or extricate. They exist as parts of informational groupings or long-held associations in our minds, which give them a permanence they might not deserve. When a prejudicial thought is challenged, a multitude of personal associations intervene so that the thought’s rationale is well protected. It is, after all, part of the values grouping that shapes our identity. We either ignore the challenge or find ways to preserve it.

In order to initiate change, we need to disentangle our prejudices, misunderstandings or concepts that are simply wrong from our collective understandings that are true. Only then can we reevaluate them unimpeded by the threat to misplaced loyalties.

How do we untangle them in our minds?

Not by belligerent attacks or insults from the outside that embolden our ego defenses. Indeed, accusations of bigotry usually draw quarrelsome responses that only makes things worse. Whole ideologies to justify prejudices have been raised to counter such attacks, resulting in organized efforts to keep prejudice alive.

Chivalry-Now offers a way to untangle good values from bad. It recognizes that we all have prejudices, which reduces antagonism that invites resistance.  It eliminates another barrier by not aligning itself with political ideologies. Instead, Chivalry-Now promotes ideals unimpeded by false premises. It appeals directly to reason and conscience (Nature’s Law), which is the essence of positive freedom.

In this way, Chivalry-Now liberates us from the constraints of inherited value entanglements in order to see things as they are and learn from a higher perspective.

Chivalry-Now calls us to step outside of habitual social contentions and questionable loyalties to untangle our powers of discernment. This allows the 12 Trusts to inspire a new sense of consciousness. It calls for us to engage life with the renewed vigor of a quest, rather than be perpetually burdened by angry reflexes. There is no good reason to identify with the prejudices impressed in us by others.

And we all need to liberate ourselves in order to find personal authenticity, which we view as the goal of human life. Knighthood does not occur for the asking. It takes work. It takes growth. It takes the self-discipline of a dedicated, liberated mind that seeks viable answers to our problems, not partaking in insults and contention.

Top

Special Features: