Reflective Essay: In Defense of Prejudice

Introduction

In his article, “In Defense of Prejudice” Rauch delineates the position contradictory to his own as purism. Jonathan Charles Rauch is an American author, activist and journalist. He graduated from Yale University.

Presently a columnist and senior writer for the National Journal, a writer-in-residence at the Institutional correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, and a vice president of the Independent Gay Forum. He also authored five books. In this article, he utters that the public is not well aware about the term structure and it has nonetheless to be correctly identified. Rauch contends that “purism” cannot be vindicated without the hints of prejudice to be totally eliminated from culture, but that discrimination will never be eradicated from society due to permanent views and opinions that people hold

Discussion

In Rauch's views, the meaning of purism is that there is nothing really wrong with it. He argues, “Where there is genuine freedom of expression, there will be racist expression” (Rauch 392). He made his point comprehensible in this excerpt by saying that racial discrimination along with freedom of expression, as without any one of them, one cannot have the other. Author also asserts that nonetheless prejudice may be mistaken belief, there is no requirement to pick sides and that is the magnificence of academic pluralism. Rauch's article argues that knowledge is something that channels to pluralism and more awareness is not essentially good. By saying, “We acannot aknow ain aadvance aor afor asure awhich abelief ais aprejudice aand awhich ais atruth, abut ato aadvanced aknowledge awe adon't aneed ato aknow”, (393), he shore ups his thought. But with the aim of gaining understanding about anything, one has to have information. In the end, we endure on basic knowledge. Even if there are many inferences about what really pluralism is, the community in general extremely misinterprets what it actually means. In reality, there is not virtually enough information to describe what pluralism is rather than disgraceful ethnic insulation. Narrating one side of the argument, he quoted Ralph Reed who denounced namecalling, scapegoating, and religious bigotry.

Ralph Reed was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, only a short distance from Pat Robertson's first broadcast studio. His early years were interrupted by frequent moves. Reed unquestionably loved politics; even so, he entered the graduate program at Emory University on a scholarship, obtained a Ph.D. in history in 1986, and anticipated a career in academia. Three years later he was the executive secretary of Robertson's new Christian Coalition. At the University of Georgia he was a College Republican, debater, and columnist for the school paper, Red and Black. Reed eventually lost this journalistic position because he plagiarized a story. Always on the political right of every issue, Reed was a leader among campus conservatives by 1982.

The former executive director of the Christian Coalition is quoted at the beginning of Rauch's article. Why use this specific name? What was Reed doing when Rauch wrote this article in 1995? Use the biographical and historical context to analyze ...