Social Medieval Period

Author: Ahmad Karnama

Disclaimer: These are purely my ideas and reflect and represent my personal views.

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From “girls suck at maths” and “men are so insensitive” to “he is getting a bit senile with age” or “black people struggle at university”, there’s no shortage of common cultural stereotypes about social groups. Chances are you have heard most of these examples at some point. In fact, stereotypes are a bit like air: invisible but always present. And there is nobody to be safe from them.

From Natural Simplification to Stereotyping and finally to Stigma is a process that a society can move from a prosperous social status to ‘social medieval period’.

The capacity of human mind in comparison with the amount of data in the real world that to needs be processed is very limited. Therefore, there is no other way to get an understanding of the world around us rather than by simplification. For example, in physics, physicist get to understand part of the nature by inventing some theories. These theories are only a way to simplify a complex system in order to make it understandable for short period of time. These theories will gradually end-up being quite simple when the understanding of physicist from the nature evolves. When this evolution of theories stops, we get to a period which is mostly known as ‘medieval period’. Population decline, counterurbanisation, collapse of centralized authority, invasions, and mass migrations of tribes is only few drawbacks of the ‘medieval period’.

This simplification happens in our understanding of people around us. It is fully natural for the sake of simplification and get an easy understanding of people around us, we start to connect attributes to group of people around us. For example, it is acceptable to think that women are generally kinder than men. This doesn’t mean that all women are kinder than mem. Or for example think that people from northern countries (in the north hemisphere needs) are generally more punctual than people in the south. This again doesn’t mean that all people in the south are less punctual that all people in the north. It is simply no other way to get a grasp of the complex world, specially when we add extremely complex nature of people, with our limited mental capacity rather than by simplification.

This natural simplification starts to get dangerous when it becomes stereotyping. In social psychology, a stereotype is an over-generalized belief (over-simplification) about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example, an expectation about the group's personality, preferences, or ability.

It is not acceptable and neither needed to start stereotyping after a natural simplification. The main reason that the minds are trapped in stereotyping is to find easy solutions for complex problems. For examples, starting stereotyping immigrants as trouble makers and relate them to all economic and social problems. This is the start of a dangerous process which can lead to the most dangerous stage which is called ‘stigma’.

Stigma is the expectation of stereotypical and discrediting judgment of oneself by others in a particular context. The term originates from Goffman's (1963) definition of stigma, which states that stigma originates when an individual, because of some attributes, is disqualified from full social acceptance. Stigma is the mental worst stage of simplification where a lot of negative attributes are related to a small group of people. This is a stage which I call it ‘social medieval period’.

Social medieval period referred to period in which the society tends to over-generalize and over-simplify human attributes and much more dangerously relates a small group of minorities with a lot of negative attributes and most of social problems. It is very clear that how much such environment can be toxic for minorities and unpleasant for all to live in.

We all individually responsible not to let our individual mind to move from natural simplification to stereotyping. And urgently stop any temptation from any potential stereotyping to stigma. It is easy to trap in such a process but needs to be controlled and stopped in early stages.