- “Stop generalizing!”
- “Some, not all!”
- “[Insert one person who proves the rule here] is [Insert rule that said person is meant to break], so what your saying is false!”
If there are any other phrases that you heard, let me know, I’d love to add them.
These phrases are usually meant as counterarguments to opinions that people give; most likely you’ve heard them used as deterrents to prove that a fact is wrong based on a way that someone feels, or because one person proves that rule “wrong.”
The ironic thing about this is the fact that accusing someone of generalizing when facts are given by giving an example where one person disproves the rule is exactly the reason why that rule is true. Saying “I have black friends, so I can’t be racist” will NEVER excuse the alt-right’s existence. Stating that anyone can make it as a stripper because one became famous does not offset (see what I did there?) the fact that many will not make it out of their hometown.
Being unrealistic about how the world works leads to magical thinking, which in turn leads to perpetual frustration in how the world works.
Always understand that nothing is truly a hundred percent. An opinion or rule will never hold true for everyone in that demographic. To think that it does – or doesn’t – is foolhardy.
With this knowledge, understanding implied facts and where they apply will help to make conversations between people from different backgrounds easier to understand. In an era of information, it makes no sense to not understand that there are people who haven’t had the same experiences as you.
Rolling Dodger 