In Defense of Prejudice by Jonathan Rauch Essay

In Defense of Prejudice by Jonathan Rauch - Essay Example The essay "In Defense of Prejudice by Jonathan Rauch" discusses the article, written by Jonathan Rauch. He was born 1960 in Phoenix, Arizona. After his graduation from Yale University, Rauch started work at the Winston-Salem Journal in North Carolina, for the National Journal magazine, and ultimately as a self-employed writer.A criticizer of U.S. government civic policy in general, Rauch has followed homosexual-related subjects as an explicitly homosexual author since 1991, and is a keen supporter of same-sex matrimony. The author, being a Jew and a homosexual has clearly been exposed to bias in the past, which makes his writing-piece all the more influential. The article is not coming from a disgruntled individual on the top of the social ladder, it is written by the kind of individual who believes that hate-crime regulations are meant to safeguard. Rauch initiates by asserting that bias is an inevitable aspect of humankind, that "Homosapiens is a tribal species for whom "us versus them" comes naturally and must be continually pushed back." This intolerant nature he says is accountable for small factions being battered, as what is inexplicable is naturally dreaded, he senses that this nature is an inherent component of civilization, "for as thickheaded and wayward an animal as us, the realistic question is how to make the best of prejudice, not how to eradicate it." So how to make the better and the most of prejudice? Rauch proposes that to disapprove prejudice only makes it stronger., and lashes out against those "crusaders for sweetness and light" whom he tags as "purists." He asserts that in the purist’s effort to eliminate cruel words from general use they have lent a type of "shamanistic" supremacy to them, as however the words could now cause corporal destruction. He quotes a sample of the use of the word "nigger" by Charles Lawrence in 1990; "The experience of being called 'nigger,' 'spic,' 'Jap,' or 'kike' is like receiving a slap in the face," In their benevolent effort to defend the purists have become authoritarian in substance, like the church in its effort to terminate McCarthyites and heretics trying to abolish communalism the purists have gone way too far. The philology used by the purists takes on a terrifyingly acquainted attitude. In his assessment it is not only for ease and parity that prejudice must be demolished, it is for the very protection of the individuals. It advances a whole new logic of earnestness to the purist’