May 9, 2020, 7:55 PM
ARCHETYPES VS STEREOTYPES
—“Reals vs. ideals”—Martin Št?pán
—“The Map (archetype) vs The Territory (stereotype).”—Günther Shroomacher
—“Accurately validated and operationalized reals for the purpose of prediction vs. Mythologically articulated ideals for edifying instruction”—Predmetsky Rosenborg
—“Stereotypes are generalizations about groups/ individuals that are true, vs Archetype is more psychological and possibly metaphysical.”— Donald Kent
—“Deviation from your group VS composition of your group.”—Vengefül Bobmoran
—“Commodity(stereotypt) vs Scarcity(archetype)”—Dave Germaniuk
by JWarren Prescott:
ARCHETYPES
Archetypes are merely an ‘a priori’ to the posteriori stereotype. This follows the 4 main Jungian archetypes. We have a sense of the core elements of what things ‘should’ be. For example, Jung’s wise old man is an archetype of guidance or wisdom.
STEREOTYPES
The word, stereotype, tends to have a negative connotation in the vernacular and ironically, the word has hence become its own stereotype in that regard. There are similar words that have similar meanings but without the social baggage attached. Archetype and prototype are similar words but have less negativity in the mind. Ever since childhood, we are instructed not to judge others and then later, the word judge became stereotype and were admonished that stereotyping was also not acceptable behavior. Apart from the common parental cognitive dissonance that most of us are subjugated to, the word stereotype simply means an empirical generalization or group tendency of some trait or behavior.
The negative connotations of the word from common usage has done a disservice to an incredibly useful term by basically changing its meaning to include pejoratives like, oversimplified, exaggerated, offensive, distorted, simplistic, unfairly and many other terms that connote and/or elicit social disapproval of an argument. These pejoratives are not valid arguments. An argument is a set of reasons (a premise) to support a conclusion and is such that merely holding a contrary viewpoint is not an argument. Emotions such as outrage or anger are never a support for an argument. The stated premise of an argument must logically follow to prove or show that the conclusion is valid. If it does not follow, then the argument is invalid. To employ such tactics is a form of sophistry and social conditioning that has its own consequences in cognitive dissonance. Common stereotypes should never be rejected out-of-hand due to social pressures but should be evaluated for judgment errors. Facts, data, logic and reason are merely tools of cognition and are neither racist, sexist nor bigoted.