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Success by Lord Beaverbrook
The fourth and, perhaps, the most violent form of prejudice...
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The fourth and, perhaps, the most violent form of prejudice, outside the sphere of religion, may be found in politics. Men embrace certain political conceptions, and, though the whole world breaks into ruins, and is reconstructed around them, nothing will alter their original ideas. The Radical says that the Tory does not change his spots, and the Tory is convinced that a Radical is still a direct emanation of the evil one. In the middle of these conflicting antagonisms the real road to national peace, prosperity, and security is missed by those who prefer prejudice to the lessons which reality teaches. The most infamous case of all to the unbending partisan is that of a man who has so far outlived the prejudices of party as to be able to criticise one side without joining another.The advantage of prejudice is the preservation of tradition; its disadvantage is the inability which it brings to an individual or to a nation to adapt life to the change of circumstance. It is, therefore, at once both the vice of youth and of age. Youth is prejudiced by upbringing; age is prejudiced because it cannot adapt itself to the circumstances of a changing world. But both youth and age can fight by the power of the human will against the tendencies which steep them in their own prepossessions. Youth can say: "I will forget that I was brought up to be a Scotsman and a Presbyterian, and so prejudiced against all Roman Catholics or Jews; the world is open to me, I will form my own convictions and judge men and religion on their merits." The subconscious self will still operate, but its extravagances will be checked by reason and will. Age can say to itself: "It is true that all that has happened in the past is part of my experience, and therefore of me. I have formed certain conclusions from what I have observed, but the data on which I have formed them are constantly changing. The moment that I cease to be able to accept and pass into my own experience new factors which my past would reject as unpleasant or untrue I have become stereotyped in prejudice and the truth of actuality is no longer in me, and when touch with the world is lost the only alternative is retirement or disaster." The more quickly youth breaks away from the prejudices of its surroundings, the more rapid will be its success. The harder that age fights against prepossessions, born of the past, which gather round to obstruct the free operation of its mind, the longer will be the period of a happy, successful, and active life. Prejudice is a mixture of pride and egotism, and no prejudiced man, therefore, will be happy.
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