Being Racist: The Certainty of a Pathological Organisation of the Personality

Abstract

Certainty about a belief system rests on a defence mechanism or a defensive organisation of the personality. The feeling of certainty is secured by adherence to a group of other people committed also to a similar categorising of others. Therefore, although the way social categories are used is a social phenomenon, the beliefs and conviction are necessarily individual matters coordinated by a group. In considering race as one example of these destructive forms of stereotyping, I shall argue that the organisation of the individual mind is a basis on which the organisation of social categories necessarily depends.