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Stereotypes Sets Against a Specific Community
Intellectual empathy, according to Maureen Linker, argues that when people empathize,
they tend to put themselves in the situation of others and feel what they feel in particular
situation and thus, empathy is different from sympathy. Because people do not often face similar
situation as other people, empathy is often not the same in people. Instead, people can creatively
imagine feeling others person’s experiences by projecting themselves in to the situation of the
other person. For this reasons, a robust self-awareness can assist one empathize more effectively
by imagining themselves, who they and by putting themselves in similar situations as stereotyped
people (Linker 3). The application of intellectual empathy on stereotyped group is not entirely
relying on obtaining information on other people on how they feel and the belief inherent , it
involve acquiring critical imaginative insight on how information is understood and processed by
those whose information is not similar to those who are stereotyped. It looks at how social
identities are perceived by those whose social identities are different from our own (linker 14).
This essay aims at applying Maureen linkers’ intellectual empathy to stereotyped groups of race,
LGBTQ and religion.
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There are five skills in the intellectual empathy that are used to effectively elaborate
social inequalities. These include; understanding the invisibility of privilege, social identity is
intersectional, using models of cooperative reasoning, Principles of conditional trust and
understanding our mutual vulnerability. On web of beliefs, Linker explains that this is a concepts
schemata and emotional associations alongside values, expatiations and hopes. It is in this
schemata that our core values are stored. It can be challenging to revise these beliefs because any
attempt to revise them can alter the entire web (Gettier 2). This is the reasons why people tend to
maintain the status quo without reconsidering everything they believe (Searle 9). Any attempt to
change them can lead to an evolutionary strategy. This is because the core belief are deeply
integrated in people’s sense of self that any change can threaten it. For instance, web belief
applies in the situation of LGBTQ because peoples’ sense of belief or rather the majority have
been taught that sex between same sex is wrong and any attempts to do contrary to societal belief
is considers erroneous. For this reasons, people often stereotype those who are LGBTQ as not
informed and there is no amount of words that can change people’s thought thoughts same sex
marriage. Some of the claims against LGBTQ are same sex does not lead to bearing of children
which is the main intention of marriage. If same sex marriage are legalized, the current male-
women marriage systems will be affected. However, there is no evidence that same marriage will
alter existing marriage systems. Opponent to of gay marriage claim that because one cannot be
apparent to a pebble, it is the same as not being a married to man if you are man. This is a logical
fallacy resulting from peoples’ preconceived social identity and they are aspect that relate to
membership in social group. They often come in interaction with the social system and often
correspond to the manner with which people see themselves. This is the reasons why having
sexual orientation that does not conform to the social identity or majority is considered awkward
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and result in labeling as stereotypes. The LGBTQ often suffer from victim culprit dichotomy
because they only have the option of being judged socially different people. They are assumed to
occupy the victim’s role because they are socially disadvantaged while those with privileges
occupies the culprit role.
Conformation of bias is a common cognitive bias that enable people to seek and pay
attention to evidence that reaffirms the societal belies and discount evidence that are against the
existing beliefs. It is related to peoples’ conservative with regard to people changing their
existing beliefs (Linker 195). Peoples’ conformation of bias is a phenomenas that enable them to
hold on to only content of their beliefs but also emotion and expectation associated with beliefs.
For instance, it is difficult to change the societal belief that the other race is inferior, or rather
whites are superior to the Blacks. The interaction between content and emotion in the
confirmation bias is strong and volatile because any changes to the issue of race can cause the
other to feel uncomfortable. This is because people want to maintain a coherent web by only
allowing information that conforms to their bias. Initially studies of the issue of race claimed that
Blacks were inferior because their mental capacity could not be matched with those of the
whites. Same as the issue of race there have been claims that the Blacks’ culture and civilization
is uncivilized and thus the western civilization is the better. All these claims suffer from logical
fallacies because they produce no evidence to confirm their reasoning (24). For this reasons,
black are often stereotyped as inferior people. According to linker, privileges are the social
advantages based on the issue of social identity that has nothing to do with peoples’ merit, but it
involves benefits which people get based on history of the social injustice. While history of
racism shows that other races, other the whites are lesser people, then it comfirms that the
privileges enjoyed by the racially superior groups is as a result of the privileges earned in the
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course of history. Linker argues that peoples sentiments in general particularly peoples empathy
are most times affected by the distinctions that they think are morally relevant on issue like race
or gender, (linker 142).
Still on the issue of race, inter-sectionality identify ways that the systems of privileges
domination and oppression forge people’s identities. It provide significant insight into the
complex ways that people’s privileges are constituted mutually. (Linker 197). For instance, a
case involving black women claiming that there is discrimination in the seniority system in her
company particularly to black women is an intersection of black women. If there are evidence
that the company had hired both black men and white men equally, it can be judged that the there
is no racism in the company. Based on Linkers argument, it can be seen as sex discrimination on
paradigm of gender. It also be based on the white women experiences and the experiences of the
black men which stand for the paradigm of race. Therefore, the notion of race and sexual
discrimination is due to narrowly tailored reasoning to embrace only a small set of circumstances
of which none proves discrimination of the Black women. The baseline argument is that people
identities involves several traits and circumstances of oppression privileges and multiple
intersections across issue of race. Thus linker implore us through intellectual empathy to
examine our identities to get the connection and related coalitions across different social groups.
Invisibility of privileges explains the difficulty of identifying the social privileges when
one is the receiver because the privileges are treated as normal. This can be applied to a Muslim
who find it hard to navigate his way or conducting his or her activities normally in Christian
nation or participating in a Christina function. When more privileges are given to the Christian at
the expense of other religions, for instance Islamic religions, the latter become marginalized or
stereotyped. Together with conformation bias, the invisibility of privileges explins that those
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who are religiously affiliated to Christianity might find it hard to seek evidence that might
confirm an Islamic beliefs because to them, Islamic religion is considered erroneous and thus
become a social stereotype. Some of the claims in religion are Muslims are terrorist while
Muslims claims that Christians are evil and do not worship true God. There is a religions claims
that Muslims are more faithful than Christians. None of these claims has evidence to prove the
fallacy because all Muslims cannot be seen as terrorist. The same notion can be viewed in the
light of EZ Pass that allows easy access for those who are socially advantaged while discrediting
those who are not members (linker 196). Religions bias can also apply to Christians who lives in
Islamic state. There can be a tendency to discredit a Christian in a Islamic state considering them
as undeserving despite the fact that there is no evidence of such socially biased favoritisms.
Maureen Linker’s Intellectual Empathy provides stepwise approaches that can facilitate a
discussion of issue of race, LGBTQ and religion differences. It provide a critical thinking on
how these debate are broken down and what inform peoples thoughts when it comes to these
issue.
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Works Cited
Gettier, L. Edmund. Is Justified True Belief Knowledge. JSTOR. (1963). P.2 Retrieved from:
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=df679ab487&attid=0.2&permmsgid=msg-
f:1698997238307953566&th=17940cfc8fb71b9e&view=att&disp=inline&realattid=f_ko
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Linker Maureen. Intellectual Empathy. University of Michigan Press. (2015). P.1.196. Retrieved
from: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u6Orx6sHYfS56ptl0qFt1yRLUSWNi-
n8/view?usp=gmail
Searle, John. Making the Social World. Society, the Basic Facts and the Overall philosophy
(2015). P.24. Retrieved from:
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=df679ab487&attid=0.4&permmsgid=msg-
f:1698997238307953566&th=17940cfc8fb71b9e&view=att&disp=inline&realattid=f_ko
cmtnf14
