- An act or instance of discriminating, or of making a distinction.
- Treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favour of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs.
- The power of making fine distinctions; discriminating judgement
- Archaic. Something that serves to differentiate.
Ah, discrimination... in and of itself - not a bad thing!
Discrimination gets a bad rap;
It's part of our everyday lives, it's synonymous with things like shrewdness, perceptiveness, taste, and sensitivity, as well as it's darker forms of misogyny, racism, bigotry and intolerance. Let me ask you, do you not discriminate between who you surround yourself with? How do you pick your friends? Do you hang out with anybody, regardless of how they treat you or your family? It's one thing to be friendly or patient - it's a whole other thing to allow people into your life who just shit all over everything.
You would be wise to tell the difference between which influences you allow yourself to be subjected to. I suppose that flies in the face of acceptance.. but there are lots of behaviours that are totally unacceptable! Acceptance doesn't have to be blind. Do you not use discrimination when choosing any kind of partner? If you have a school project, do you want the diligent kid on your team or the lazy one? Sure, the lazy kid may need more help, but the help he needs is discipline - not a free ride.
Now, the reasons why you discriminate are really what is at issue. Like so many things, the criteria for discrimination is what is important. This brings us to the common use of the word.
When we think of discrimination, we think of prejudice; usually based on skin colour, gender or nationality. Add whatever topic you want, if it's something that people can't change or control then you may need to rethink your criteria. This brings up the interesting issue of gender or sexual orientation, as we can now augment, change and control our bodies to suit what we feel that we are.. That's a lot of controversy that I'm not prepared to expound upon, but I can say that no matter what your feelings are - you always have a choice in how you act upon them. Many external forces and consequences influence how you make that decision, so it is by no means easy or straightforward - but my position is, and always will be, that you have within your own person the final decision on how you do or don't act. Isn't the way that people react to pressure and difficulty exactly what we use to judge character? If not, what is?
In fact, character is good criteria for how to discriminate the best candidate for 'the job' - whatever the job, role, or need might be.
Your character will be defined as a result of your habits, just as your habits will be the result of your actions. Those actions, in turn, will come about as a result of things you say and the words that you speak, just as those words will come as a direct result of the thoughts that you think.
As in everything, the crux of the issue on how to discriminate, separate, distinguish or make judgement upon - boils down to ideas. If your criteria for differentiating between people, places and things (nouns) is based on thought, you will cut through a lot of bullshit.
You will also be better equipped to recognize who your enemies are.
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