Initially when I took admission in Law school, I was not sure what the word 'Prejudice" meant and never clearly understood it, so I made it a point to ask my Contracts professor who used to teach Specific relief act who uttered 'Prejudice" one day. I still don't recollect what explanations he gave and I was not much convinced about the term. But this lecture has been an eye opener for me. Here it is.
The Price of Prejudice, Thought, Opinion and Debate by Dr. Sameer Dalwai – Director, New Horizons
Prejudice is some kind of pre-conceived notion, bias , partiality, at times unfair assumptions, favourtism, predisposition and pre-conceptions that override our intellect, that is capability to distinguish between right and wrong in a rational and logical way.
Prejudice is an intellectual trait and a problem largely not recognized in our society as a potential danger which can lead to incurring of price in the form of degrading quality of life and its sustenance.
Prejudice at times may assume dangerous proportions and may lead to various problems in our day to day lives. Prejudice scrambles brain to such an extent that leads us in a completely different path, causing problems for the beholder of prejudiced notion and the environment one comes in touch with. Prejudice may be personal or collective unjustified view held towards a person or a group as the case may be without any reason and thus largely impairs judgmental capacity for progressive and peaceful sustenance of life.
Prejudice may not be a momentary phenomenon but can have long string of links as far as with our DNA and may be held for generations together. It may also be a phenomenon genetically programmed to discriminate. Prejudice also builds ever since the Child is borne due to environment the Child is in and the exposure it received from various quarters starting from mother to parents to relatives, to place of living, village, city, country, from school to various institutions it gets exposure to, it may not be a one day phenomenon. Prejudice brings in discrimination which is at times against rule of law and principle of natural justice and thus greatly impairs fairness to conduct of our lives.
Our body has 100 + trillion cells and every year 90% of our cells change, but how do you can recognise Mine 2009 model with that of 2010, because each cell before dying produce multiple cells with memory & thus produces Me like features in my eyes & eye brows; so that people can recognise Me in after years. Each human cell has got memory & I may not know the name of my 5th Grand Father but his nose may be on my face. Secondly, all 100 plus trillion cells like each other very much & remains in proper harmony & synchronicity. That's why we all love ourselves & like our own nature. If we sit by the sea shore we like it more than traffic jams on the road because sea shore is more close to our nature. Our cells are designed to give away love & compassion, so if we become jealous, angry, produce hatred, have high ego etc then our own cells get confused and start attacking, this in medical terms is called Auto immune disease. So spread love & compassion to stay healthy and get inspired by the champion of love & compassion His Highness Dalai Lama. So to have a prejudiced mind may produce auto immune disease or other heath conditions, so stay away from prejudice.
Other examples of prejudice are Child being brought up as Boy or a Girl and when girls are given Barbi Dolls and boys are given Toy Pistols, that’s when the parents start to superimpose prejudice in the mind of the innocent child. Likewise dressing pattern difference amongst Boy and a Girl, long hairs for Girls and short for Boys actually has no sound logic, it can be either way round with no harm at all. But the social prejudice plays a role here to determine the behavioral pattern not part of human’s natural conduct.
Social, Political, National prejudices leads to certain behavioral patterns that may lead the Society towards right or wrong direction and that’s where we need to guard against harboring prejudices and not lead the self, family, society or country to adverse positions so as not to benefit from the universal bliss and natural gifts of the creation.
So the issue here is first to recognize the prejudices, identify them and then make attempt to gradually get rid of them and avoid them as far as practicable, so that the price of the same is not incurred. This would ensure tranquility and prosperity in the social environment that we live in. Personally also giving refuge to prejudice in own mind leads to serious health risk for self like giving rise to anger, desire and other negative attributes etc., and at certain times leads to fatal health disorder like heart attacks at an early age. There are many live examples of young people suffering from premature diseases and ending life much earlier than average life expectation.
Therefore, Prejudice is just not a legal term but a health risk as well in these modern days of stressful living.
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