[Sca-cooks] chocolate health benefits

[Tom Vincent]

I see.  I don't know how someone can be considered to be prejudiced 
against chocolate (or whatever your unexplained statement was referring 
to), but maybe it's a New Zealand thing. :)

What I was actually *warning* about was the implication that chocolate 
was a 'health food' based on the misleading titles (and, I would say, 
the first few sentences) of the four articles someone posted.

I stopped by my local co-op this morning and picked up a bar of 90% 
organic Ecuadorian chocolate, just for...uh, 'research'...yeah, that's 
the ticket.  It's pretty potent and a small square is probably enough to 
satisfy someone's chocolate jones.  I'll stick with carob, which I prefer.

Duriel

PS: Here's a fairly exhaustive definition of 'prejudiced', for future 
reference (from Wikipedia):


*Prejudice* is, as the name implies, the process of "pre-judging" 
something. It implies coming to a judgment on a subject before learning 
where the preponderance of evidence actually lies, or forming a judgment 
without direct experience. Holding a politically unpopular view is not 
in itself prejudice, and politically popular views are not necessarily 
free of prejudice. When applied to social groups, prejudice generally 
refers to existing biases toward the members of such groups, often based 
on social stereotypes <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_stereotype>; 
and at its most extreme, results in groups being denied benefits and 
rights unjustly or, conversely, unfairly showing unwarranted favor 
towards others.

This is different than viewpoints accumulated though direct life 
experience, which are neither prejudiced, conditioned or necessarily 
instinctive: they are not pre-judgments but post-judgments. Some argue 
that all politically-based views stem from a lack of sufficient life 
experience; this, however, provokes the question of how much life 
experience is required before a point of view 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_%28cognitive%29> is no longer 
regarded as prejudiced. If no amount of experience entitles a person to 
a viewpoint - if every is biased - then there can be no objectivity. 
Judgements based on experience may, however, be colored by prejudice. 
One might imagine a continuum from "prejudiced" to "based on 
experience," with many, if not most, views coming somewhere between the 
two extremes.

Fallacious extension of one's own negative past experiences to the 
general case can be harmful; it can be termed bias 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias>, or more colloquially 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slang>, "lumping". If a person has 
developed the concept that members of one group have certain 
characteristics because of a sour past acquaintance with a member of 
that group, s/he may presume that all members of the group have such 
characteristics. For example, a person who has had a series of bad 
relationships with members of the opposite sex may develop a prejudice 
against that sex, thus adopting the prejudice known as sexism 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexism>. This is typical of all prejudice: 
racism <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism>, linguicism 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguicism>, ageism 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ageism>, religious intolerance 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intolerance>, heterosexism 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterosexism>, prejudice based on 
differing political <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics> stances, etc.

In other cases, it may be a matter of early education: people taught 
that certain attitudes are the "correct" ones may form opinions without 
weighing the evidence on both sides of a given question. Many 
prejudicial behaviors are picked up at a young age by children emulating 
their elders' ways of thinking and speaking, with no malice intended on 
the child's part. The prejudiced adult might even be shocked to hear a 
slew of racial slurs <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_slur> and 
their own half-cocked opinions on various groups echoed back at them 
from their children. Early learning is highly influential, however, 
prejudice can be learned at any age.

In Jane Austen <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Austen>'s novel /Pride 
and Prejudice <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_and_Prejudice>/, the 
heroine forms a strong opinion of a man's character before she hears his 
side of the story. The balance of the facts, when finally made known to 
her, challenges and ultimately overturns this prejudice. Prejudice is 
also a theme in To Kill a Mockingbird 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prejudices_in_mockingbird>, in which a man 
is wrongly tried and convicted because of his race.

Sociologists have termed prejudice an adaptive 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptation> behavior. Biased views are 
necessary at times for human survival: we don't always have time to form 
a legitimate view about a potential foe before adopting a defensive 
stance that could save our lives. Conversely, prejudice is non-adaptive 
when it interferes with survival or well-being (e.g., refusing to 
patronize the only doctor in a town who could save you because he or she 
is black <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American>, or rejecting a 
potential friend/partner because of ethnicity).

Differing opinions of what constitutes prejudice can prompt us to 
reconsider our views, with an emphasis on self-understanding. Does, for 
example, criticizing another person as being prejudiced in itself 
sometimes involve pre-judging the very person being criticized? Another 
interesting intellectual conundrum is to consider whether deeply-held 
spiritual or religious views are also prejudiced, since they are not 
necessarily based on direct experience.

There is some confusion between common and legal usages of the term 
"prejudice." In law, the phrase "with prejudice" implies a judgment 
having been made after the presentation of evidence; it does not imply 
any form of bias.



Adele de Maisieres wrote:
> Tom Vincent wrote:
>> I don't know what prejusdiced means.
>
>
> Oh, fercrissake, don't start.  Yes, you are indeed prejudiced.
>