In Praise of Prejudice

Today, the word prejudice has come to seem synonymous with bigotry; therefore the only way a person can establish freedom from bigotry is by claiming to have wiped his mind free from prejudice. English psychiatrist and writer Theodore Dalrymple shows that freeing the mind from prejudice is not only impossible, but entails intellectual, moral and emotional dishonesty. The attempt to eradicate prejudice has several dire consequences for the individual and society as a whole.

Prejudice Is Wrong, So Lack of Prejudice Is Right	p. 1
The Uses of Metaphysical Skepticism	p. 6
History Teaches Us Anything We Like	p. 8
Why We Prefer the History of Disaster to that of Achievement	p. 13
The Effect of Pedagogy Without Prejudice	p. 17
Prejudice Necessary to Family Life	p. 21
One Prejudice Always Replaced by Another	p. 25
The Cruel Effect of Not Instilling the Right Prejudices	p. 30
The Inevitability of Prejudice	p. 33
The Conventionality of Unconventionality	p. 39
The Overestimation of Rationality in Choice	p. 42
Authority Necessary to the Accumulation of Knowledge	p. 47
The Supposed Equality of All Opinions, Provided They Are One's Own	p. 52
Custom Supposedly Wrong Because It Is Custom	p. 55
A Partial Reading of Mill Leads to Unbridled Egotism	p. 60
The Difficulty of Founding Common Decency on First Principles	p. 63
The Law of Conservation of Righteous Indignation, and its Connections to the Expansion of Human Rights	p. 68
The Paradox of Radical Individualism Leading to Authoritarianism	p. 72
Racial Discrimination Being Bad, All Discrimination is Bad	p. 75
Rejection of Prejudice Not a Good in Itself	p. 79
The Impossibility of the Mind as a Blank Slate	p. 85
The Ideal of Equality of Opportunity Necessary to a World Without Prejudice	p. 90
Equality of Opportunity Inherently Totalitarian	p. 94
The Rejection of Authority as Egotism	p. 100
Prejudice a Requirement of Benevolence	p. 104
The Dire Social Effects of Abandoning Certain Prejudices	p. 107
The Inescapability of Commandments of Which Justification Is Unprovable	p. 114
The Exercise of Judgment Unavoidable, Even in the Absence of Metaphysically Unassailable Principles, and Therefore Prejudices Necessary and Salutary	p. 119
No Virtue Without Prejudice	p. 123
Index	p. 127
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In Praise of Prejudice

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