Originally Posted by
Steepclimb
One of the problems we in free world have is that we believe everyone is just like us.
It's a dangerously naive view of the world.
On the fourth day of the first year of my engineering degree in 1991 an Iranian student appeared who had missed the first three days of the course. Like me he was in his mid-late 20s, so I grabbed him and brought him up to speed on what he'd missed so far (not much), and we ended up sharing a student house for a year.
Ali had finished school in Iran, then served in the Iran-Iraq war before travelling to Kuala Lumpur to learn English and complete an Australian high school qualification to get entry into an Australian university.
This was his first time ever outside of Iran and Malaysia, and his initial beliefs about western society were comically off the mark. Upon finding that the faculty sub dean for first year students was a woman (and not much older than us at about 30) his first question to me was "but who really does her job?". He really did initially think that Australian society was just like Iranian society, except in details like women's place in society, where we pretended it was different but they were nonetheless useless.
A now ex-friend who was simultaneously proudly left leaning and yet incredibly racist towards muslims hated him for being what she had decided being muslim meant and for such attitudes towards women, while Ali's attitude very quickly changed as he recognised that what he had been taught about western society was a load of nonsense and he rapidly adjusted to reality on the ground.
One of the things that struck me about Ali as I got to know him was just how similar his family, concerns, ambitions, etc, were, but in an entirely different culture, to every day Aussies. On one occasion I was going out to lunch with a jewish friend I had know a decade or so. Ali very seriously warned me to be very careful, that you could not trust jews at all. I think he almost thought my jewish friend might slit my throat at any moment! I looked at him and told him that jews were just people, like him and me, with families and hopes and ambitions. Jews are not inherently untrustworthy, but jews in Israel might reasonably be just a wee bit hostile to Iran!
So, yeah, believing "everyone is just like us" or at least "just like the limited subset of humanity I have encountered so far" is in fact completely normal for all humans. The worst racists are always the people who live amongst the fewest foreigners.
"Enter into the Royal Exchange of London, a place more respectable than many courts, in which deputies from all nations assemble for the advantage of mankind. There the Jew, the Mahometan, and the Christian bargain with one another as if they were of the same religion, and bestow the name of infidel on bankrupts only. There the Presbyterian gives credit to the Anabaptist, and the votary of the establishment accepts the promise of the Quaker. On the separation of these free and pacific assemblies, some visit the synagogue, others repair to the tavern.
Here one proceeds to baptize his son in a great tub, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; there another deprives his boy of a small portion of his foreskin, and mutters over the child some Hebrew words which he cannot understand; a third kind hasten to their chapels to wait for the inspiration of the Lord with their hats on; and all are content.
Was there in London but one religion, despotism might be apprehended; if two only, they would seek to cut each other’s throats; but as there are at least thirty, they live together in peace and happiness."
Voltaire