Hacker News Reader

I experience this argument all the time for being both an atheist and a libertarian, except replace "archetype" with "stereotype". People assume all atheists fit into some stereotype they saw on TV, and therefore I must be exactly like that. Likewise, they assume all libertarians are like the stereotype they saw on TV, and I must be exactly like that. Since I'm not like the stereotypes, it's frustrating.

View on HN

I'd reckon that most people experience this argument all the time with regards to their religious and political preferences or lack thereof.

Christian. Muslim. Jewish. Buddhist. Hindu. Republican. Democrat. Moderate. Independent.

Odds are most people who read the above section had some sort of archetypal or stereotypical vision of most or all of those and all of us can identify some of the associated types. And most of us can also realise that not all Christians are fundies (or even vocal), that Jews are greedy with roughly equal proportion of more general populations, that not all moderates have weak political views, etc. But we all get to live with these, though admittedly some are worse than others.

I don't think his post is about generalizations of people. I thought it was at first, and perhaps they're included in the general idea, but every single example he gave was not of that kind.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com