Prejudices: who benefits from them

[Jean]

I think it deserves it's own topic, because it sheds a light on many issue. The topic is not intended to disucss if the examples of prejudice I will use are true or false. You will see that it's kind of irrelevant.
Let's imagine you are at the top of many institutions, even some invested of public authority and your are using this power for you own benefit at the detriment of everyone else. You and your peers among other characteristic have in common to be of jewish origin. You are only a fraction of the people with the said characteristic.
Now people see you and think that jews are conspiring against everyone else.
Who is benefiting from it? There are two variables with two positions each: jew(j)/non jew(g), conspiring for world domination(c)/not conspiring for world domination(n). So four possibility, jc, gc, jn, gn

gn doesn't benefit from it. If he wan't to free himself from world domination, he will then confuse j and c, and instead of focusing his effort on c, he will randomly attack every j in his reach. This will absord is energy with no other result, than pushing jn more toward jc. If gn doen't want to commit prejudice, he will more likely give jc a free pass for his action and further suffer from them.

jn doesn't benefit either, he will be hated for what jc does, and serve as a human shield for the hate created by jc's action. In addition he will start to support jc, despite jc acting against his interest

gc might be taken for a j if the prejudice is strong, which isn't detrimental, and he will benefit from the human shield as well (but not from the jn solidarity)

jc is the biggest winner, all the hate that his actions are creating is now directed toward a much broader set of humans.

The biggest beneficiary of a prejudice is the one for which the prejudice is true.

Try it with other prejudice, it works with all those i tried.
Arabs are thiefs, Blacks are rapists, whites are oppressors, women are liying goldiggers, etc...

I've looked for someone having theorized this, but haven't found.

[ZAFCorrection]

The answer to your question is E for "everyone." The human brain is absurdly lazy and uses heuristics at every opportunity, which is why trying to reduce prejudice passed a certain point is playing whack-a-mole with human biology. The social shortcuts currently classified as prejudice are just a sub-type that has recently been deemed unacceptable. The opposite of being a horrible anti-semite is spending 6 months stuck in the grocery store trying to conclusively determine what you should buy for dinner.

[Jean]

I agree. But when a narrative is being actively propagated, there must be some bigger beneficiary.

[ZAFCorrection]

@Jean

It's also possible the narrative is just a result of memetic emergence. Sometimes Justin beiber is popular just cuz, not because of the lizard overlords.

[luxagraf]

@Jean
It's also possible the narrative is just a result of memetic emergence. Sometimes Justin beiber is popular just cuz, not because of the lizard overlords.

But without the lizard overlords we'd all be responsible for our own actions. Can't have that.

[Jean]

Maybe I should have used an other example.

The important part is not the lizard encouraging prejudice one, it's the prejudice are harmfull to you even if you aren't targeted.

If you think all arab are thief, you will lose attention on watching every arab (impossible) coming into your shop, instead of focusing on other thing that could help you identify a thief. I don't believe there is an arab thief guild willingly propagating the"all arabs are thief" meme.

Like "all jean's post are stupid" is making you giving too much credit to actually stupid posts.