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The word "prejudice" seems to have gone out of style, but when I was a kid in the 70s, it was the great social sin we were taught to avoid. Many of those lessons came from people who were then of the Left, although they probably wouldn't be welcome in the modern Left.
Prejudice is too universal and neutral a concept to satisfy modern Social Justice Warriors with their Marxist power theories. Their ideology depends on deep prejudice against certain groups of people - literally pre-judging them collectively guilty of group and ancestral sins.
In order to avoid prejudice, you have to be open-minded and consider people as individuals, which is anathema to the modern collectivist Left. They judge people as members of identity groups and value victimhood status above all other things.
When victimhood is the most important social asset, society becomes deeply prejudiced because victims require oppressors. Giving victim status points to groups assumes other groups are systematically oppressing them. Members of oppressor groups are guilty until proven innocent.
People are taught to see identity first and dwell upon it endlessly. Assumptions are made based on race, sex, religion, etc. Individual identity is difficult to assert. It's the exact opposite of everything we were taught about avoiding prejudice, once upon a time.
One other thing about avoiding prejudice is that it requires goodwill: giving others the benefit of the doubt, extending them courtesy, giving them a chance to demonstrate their individual qualities. It's another variation on the concept of "innocent until proven guilty."
But goodwill is poisonous to collectivists. They don't want strong social institutions. They want centralized state POWER. A society with a high level of goodwill has less need of compulsion from the government.
That's why the modern Left encourages identity politics, tribal warfare, grievances, and other variations on "guilty until proven innocent." The presumption of innocence is hostile to collectivism, which wants citizens to think of themselves as criminals in need of correction.
I wonder how much of the Social Justice Warrior garbage would melt away if we returned to the old-school classically liberal ideal of avoiding prejudice and embracing individuality, and taught that ideal to children from the youngest age possible. /end
