Judging Books by Their Covers
Stereotypes are modern heresy. But should they be?
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Amongst a crowded and competitive field, the most prodigious modern bore must be the type who, after waiting for their turn to speak, says, ‘Oh, but that’s a generalisation.’
Social policy demands you reply in kind, as if generalisations—the meat and potatoes of language—warrant a caveat. They don’t.
When a friend says, ‘Oh, Korean film is great,’ they’re generalising. Is all film ever to spawn from South Korea indeed great? I’m sure there’s a dud amongst the many, many cultural atom bombs. Is it strictly true to say that all Korean films are great? No. Is it worth pointing this out? Obviously not.
Another linguistic kamikaze pilot is ‘reductive.’ To boil down a topic to its essence is reductive. If you wish to sound faintly interesting to the strangers huddled smoking under the umbrellas outside The Pride of Spitalfields, just employ that term. Isn’t this Guinness rather reductive?
But I have a weapon for you, reader, when surrounded by bores. After they finish yapping, just say, “Hmmm. That’s a little opaque, no?”
They quite nearly shit themselves. “Opaque? What do you mean? I’m not… it’s not.”
Let your pretentious prey piddle on the pavement for a moment. Watch them ransack every drawer in their skulls for a simplifying solution. Once they offer it, reject it out of hand.
“Hmmm. But isn’t that a little… reductive?”
You cannot lose. Plus, when you scuttle into the pub and glance back, a glorious sight. They’ll scowl. Then they’ll beg their boring friends to piss off to the next pub, away from their tormentor. They’re exposed as a fraud—an impostor—a pseud. And they know it.
This tactic works best when the waiting time for a pint exceeds four minutes and there are too many bums on too few seats. Expose enough frauds and the boozer is yours for the evening. In central London, on any given evening, a full seventy percent of pub patrons are legitimate targets.
Of course, I’m generalising. I’m being reductive. I’m rioting in stereotypes.
For all the taboos clouding around stereotypes like sarin gas, they get a bad rap. We bags of water and electrified meat think in patterns. We observe behaviour, social cues, the way someone pronounces ‘issue’. We mentally file these details—millions of details—into a backless filing cabinet.
When the time arises, we consult the receptionist burrowed in our skulls: I’ve heard posh girls emphasise the ‘et-uh’ in theatre—as in thee-et-uh. Therefore, this sinewy siren’s parents live somewhere in prosperous, cobblestone Kent. They vote Tory. They drink Bombay Sapphire and they drive Jag. They scraped together £30,000 a year for Poppy to elbow her lissom frame into a mid-management role at a Soho creative start-up. Am I wrong? Often, but not today.
Modern culture forbids little but to make generalisations or indulge in stereotypes. But we all do. From left to right, stereotypes and generalisations reign. Stereotypes are often unfair. Generalisations often over-generalise. That doesn’t mean they’re untrue.
My healthy prejudices could paper over the Sistine Chapel ceiling and leave reams of material to spare.
Here’s one. If a keffiyeh-draped Zoomer, a cloud of vomity weed smoke hanging above their green and purple feathers, joins the train at Paddington, I know where they’ll skulk off: Bristol—the epicentre for British progressives too neurotic even for Hackney Wick.
I know everything about them. They love Jeremy Corbyn. They hate J. K. Rowling. They vote Green. They smoke green. They eat nothing but plants. And their pronouns change with the wind. The curious thing about freethinkers, as their pin badge exclaims them to be, is that they all think the same thing.
My prejudices are not political. This one I call the Three Ts. The first T is for teeth. The second T is for tattoos. The third is for Trenbolone.
When traipsing around central London, scanning for a pub in which to sink a few jars, I spy through the window. If there is more than one young British male possessing the Three Ts, I reasonably deduce a few things.
The first is that he has recently travelled to Turkey and returned with a set of impossibly white gnashers and a pre-pubescent hairline.
The second is the clock tattoo on his sleeve. This, should you enquire, means a great deal to him. “Oh, this? Yeah. It represents time and, like, how time passes on and all that.” His girlfriend, too blonde for the Third Reich, dutifully mimes each word.
The third T, given the current vogue for protein shakes and triceps dips, demands a trained eye. A quick glance over his mountainous shoulders suggests he jabs 200mg of Tren into the upper stretch of his backside every Monday evening.
The Three T is usually a politically decent chap. At least he does something useful for a living and questions the well-intentioned folly which welcomes millions from countries which aren’t exactly liberal in their tastes.
Put it this way, I’d sooner send my self-assessment tax returns to the first Three T I see on Holborn High Road than to the current crop of over-promoted traffic wardens in parliament. That, I admit, is a bar so low it is a carpet.
Although docile when alone, the Three T succumbs to the mob. When joined by his fellow tribesmen, he reverts to a lumbering beast. Nocturnal and keen to hunt in packs, the Three T exerts dominance. He starts a fight with the 97-lb neckbeard pouring his sixth pint of Madri.
If one is in luck, the Three Ts fight amongst themselves. This is quite the spectacle. You see, the Three T sprays on his shirts and requires a tube of KY Jelly to shimmy into his jeans. Such shrink-wrapped attire is not ideal for scrapping in pubs. The result: it’s like watching two seven-foot bears scuffle beneath a five-foot ceiling. Don’t get too close. Your £7 Guinness will dress the carpet and you’ll shit yourself. It’s best to avoid such enclaves after 8 p.m.
Everything I have just written is verboten. Of course, we must play pretend. One is forbidden to notice such things, at least to say them out loud. We must treat each and every soul as a dazzling starburst, undimmed by tribe, class, fashion, or habit.
But the brain, militant reactionary it may be, refuses to comply. It files and sorts and groups and predicts. Despite modern sensibilities, the mind remains a hard-boiled bureaucrat at heart. And stereotypes, however impolite, remain its dearest paperwork.
I actually used to love playing off of stereotypes. See, as an over-educated white male people always made certain assumptions about my background, especially given that I could wax fairly eloquent in the public speaking department and had some capacity for critical thinking. Of course people assumed I was from an urban, upper-middle class family with all the attendant charms and social graces. I'd go to conferences and they'd invite me to dine with them. Oh, the looks I'd get when I showed up dressed down in my jean jacket, cowboy hat and boots! I had one guy once say, "What, are we going to a rodeo?" trying to get a laugh. I gave him a withering look and said, "Are you making fun of the way I dress?" and he stammered out an apology, properly embarrassed and chastened. At dinner I would regale them with tales of the non-elite life of which most had no clue, like firearms and gutting hogs and bar fights. It was always great fun to see their assumptions shattered.
To their credit, most (including the guy who insulted my clothes) became friends or at least treasured acquaintances, though a few I believe felt somehow mislead and wanted nothing more to do with me. 😂
Stereotypes are known in the rest of the world as instincts. As it would turn out those little inklings which tell me that a young lady with a predisposition for swearing and being very upset with unfair men who impose such terrible rules as those about shirts and shoes and service, makes not a fantastic wife and men who spend more time on the internet than is good for them make bad company. Very good article!