An Assembly Line for the Elimination of Prejudice

Suggestions for Eliminating Prejudice and Corruption

By John Taylor; 2009 June 02, Azamat 16, 166 BE

From my study of Comenius I have learned at least two new things about the disease of prejudice. First, that prejudice on the individual level leads directly to corruption on the collective level. Second, that prejudice always hides behind hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy, which comes from the Greek word for "acting," is a defence mechanism that substitutes pretence for a neglected inner reality. In religion, its symbol is the idol, a sham that we set up as a substitute for God.

"It will be necessary for you to be reformed truly and seriously, so that all these changes in you are real and practical things, not shadows without substance. It is a mistake for men to wish to give the appearance of reform according to God's will without working towards the reality of it. Certainly hypocrites and idols, which are an abomination in the sight of God, must be destroyed forthwith and have no place under Heaven. The tables of the testimony which Moses carried down from the mount in his hand were written on both their sides, and they were the work of the Lord (Exodus xxxii, 15, 16). As a reformed Christian, you must be this kind of tablet, graven within and without, that is, presenting the same kind of front whether to yourself or to others, such as God and your neighbour, made in every detail by the work of God, which means truly. For God is truth, and the works of God are all done in truth." (Panorthosia, Ch. 20, para 20, p. 27)

God is truth and his works are done in truth, which is to say that all true reform begins in a sincere desire to remove all prejudices. Whether social change leads to good or evil depends upon this sincerity. How long our reforms will last also depends upon sincerity.

This recalls my first lesson from Comenius.

To say that a government, a religion or a scientific organization is corrupt is the same as saying that many individuals in these groups are subject to prejudice. The most effective way to remove corruption, then, is to be systematic and efficient about the removal of prejudices. This starts with careful self-examination of the self, and continues through every stage of reform.

In the 19th chapter of Panorthosia Comenius suggests posing at each of three stages of reform a question designed to uproot corruption by testing its prejudicial presuppositions.

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I. What corrupting forces are at work there ruining that stage, and how can they be stopped? (In other words, what defects or excesses and transgressions have marred its existence and still debase it, and how can they be wiped out?).

II. Then what forces must replace them to restore each stage and reform its corruption?

III. What action must be taken to establish each separate stage once it is restored, so that it cannot easily fall into disorder, and deteriorate again?" (Ch. 19, para 18, p. 17)

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While such testing is essential to implementing reform, it is also important to avoid on the one hand impugning the sincerity of others before testing our own, and on the other neglecting the social responsibility to remove prejudice by allowing inefficiency and duplication of effort.

"But who will manage to remove prejudices? No-one thinks that he is prejudiced, and all men think that their judgement of affairs is sound. The answer lies in my salutary recommendation that a systematic collection of all the facts of human knowledge should be begun, so that all men start their investigations from a common point where we cannot tear ourselves away from the common light of the human mind, even if we wished to, and from there we would gradually be uplifted until an end was found to our disagreements. This will inevitably depend upon our knowing the right way to establish Universal Wisdom. (Panorthosia II, Ch. 8, para 32, p. 122)

This shows the influence of Frances Bacon. In Panorthosia, Comenius fully endorses Bacon's recent proposal to collect errors and superstitions into a single, integrated library or database. Once a fallacy has been debunked once, Bacon thought, we should see to it that we do not have to constantly repeat that labour every time an error raises its head again in a new guise. The refutation for each popular superstition or misconception must be given broad exposure in the public eye.

Their suggested project to expunge prejudice was partly implemented by the Royal Society and its development later into what we now call science. Eventually, free, compulsory public education has spread to almost all countries in the world. However it was not universal in the Comenian sense until the Internet and World Wide Web were invented.

Even now, many worry that the Net is propagating as much as eliminating superstitions, crackpot theories and wrongheaded causes. It may yet be decades before everybody on earth is in a position to "start their investigations from a single point."

As a lawyer, though, Bacon believed that to remove unproven, false or harmful ideas is as easy as promulgating a law. As a teacher and school principal, though, Comenius was well aware that this would be far from sufficient. The only way, then, to purify society from corruption and prejudice would be to incorporate their removal into a comprehensive, positive curriculum of research and reform, since "truth must be taught before errors are untaught." (Ch. 18, para 16, p. 246) This is because it is not so much errors in fact that keep us back as it is prejudicial habits that gradually, throughout childhood, became second nature. Once we regard an idea as innate and natural we defend it, right or wrong, as we do our own lives. Once the weed takes root it takes tremendous energy to uproot it.

"Then certain difficulties must be removed, such as habit which has perhaps developed into a natural characteristic. One must show that this can be conquered by a contrasting habit, provided that we begin by destroying the former one." (Ch. 18, para 16, p. 245)

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