We are told about the world before we see it. We imagine most things before we experience them. And those preconceptions, unless education has made us acutely aware, govern deeply the whole process of perception.
For the most part we do not first see, and then define, we define first and then see. In the great blooming, buzzing confusion of the outer world we pick out what our culture has already defined for us, and we tend to perceive that which we have picked out in the form stereotyped for us by our culture.
Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
It requires wisdom to understand wisdom.
Public Opinion
by Walter Lippmann
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6456/pg6456.html
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6456
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PART III. STEREOTYPES
VI. Stereotypes
1.
For the most part …
3.
We are told about the world before …
“Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.”
― Walter Lippmann
“It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.”
― Walter Lippmann
“There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the means by which to detect lies.”
― Walter Lippmann