Everyone has been discriminated against at some point in their life. This is where people who pretend that they are Goth usually spring up and scream "Ooh! I was called a freak today! Isn't that totally bad! Wow, I'm so different, I think I'll go cut myself!"

And so on.

But I'm talking serious discrimination here. Where people are honestly just plain cruel. I'm sure we've all experienced this in some way, whether directly on the giving or receiving end, or through observation.

But why do we feel the need sometimes to do this? Is it simply in our nature to feel "better" than another person for some sort of stupid reason, like race, gender, age, or creedo? Or is it the way we were brought up? We're exposed to so many media stereotypes as we grow up that it could almost twist us to such an attitude. The grandparents of those in our generation spent a big part of their lives during the segregation period. The influence is certainly there...

People from different social groups ("lifestyles" if you will) are often discriminated against. The gothic subculture (or what they thought it was, anyway) was targeted by the government soon after the Columbine tragedy. Gays claim discrimination quite a lot. Etcetera.

Professional discrimination is rampant as well. Affirmative action is, essentially, quantity over quality. Michigan State assigned that point system to their applications, in which you received a 3 for a good essay, a 5 for an amazing SAT score, and 20 if you were black. Is this fair? I don't think it is. If everyone wants equality, then shouldn't everyone be expected to work EQUALLY to gain what they wish to gain?

I'm not racist at all, and I don't mean for any of my attitudes to be taken as such.

Perhaps age discrimination is the most constant and consistant of all...The young resent the old, the old resent the young. Adults are, in many cases, immediately suspicious of a group of teenagers. Hazing happens within high schools. Seniority-related things...we're taught that this is OK to do. But isn't it just discrimination that we're condoning through this?

What are your thoughts? Is discrimination part of human instinct and nature? Or is it learned and condoned through our society? And what about equality?

Not so much condoned in a liberal way, but inherited. Our forefathers (now this will sound abit over-the-top) came from the psuedo-democratic society of the wartimes (ww1, ww2) which, i think, was more fascist than anything else. Everyone had to dress the same, talk the same, even more or less think the same. Anyone who was different was despised by the state and society in general.
This way of thinking gradually made it's way down the bloodlines and into what we now call "pop-culture". The progeny of this semi-fascist society stick to what the majority says and anyone different is not looked upon in the same...manner or whatever.
Yes, this is just an opinion of a self-proclaimed anarchic thinker, but on another note...if we were'nt judged and looked upon unfairly, would goth culture be the same as it is? or would it just feel like another trend?

So you think that the majority of pop culture as it is today is a result of the WWI and WWII era mentality?

I would be inclined to agree with that in a way. Some people have obviously vehemently rebelled against that WWII conformist mentality, but the majority of people obviously are conformist. If eight out of ten people weren't, the human race would be extinct by now...

The problem is when you have people who feel threatened by rebellious spirits, and that I would think is probably instilled in them by their parents, and by their parents ad infinitum. I think it is very easy to direct people's paranoias in certain directions...

The big problem in Britain at the moment is that the shift in the manufacturing industry from employing people in the West to employing children in the middle East has left a lot of people jobless. The blame has been placed on immigrants, even though any thinking person can see that if the immigrants were to go, we wouldn't suddenly have new jobs, merely a new scapegoat...

I suppose that things like the Patriot Act in the USA don't exactly assist this. Now the non-conformers are being branded as anti-American, and there's been an entire political aspect added to it...

Do any of you see this changing? What will it take?

Tony Blair seems to take great delight in clamping down on civil liberties, but he's nowhere near as bad as George Bush...

I was appalled and mystified when I saw that Bush was using the memories of 3000 people to push through one of the most disgusting pieces of legislation I have seen in my lifetime...

One of the most beautiful examples of poetic justice occurred in the UK on this subject...

Blair has been pushing legislation thru which allows him to snoop on people's emails. it all backfired when someone caused a national scandal when they intercepted Cherie Blair's emails to known criminals and gangsters and sold them to the media...

Yes, the Patriot Act seems to be only a tool to support conformity and eradicate those stupid concepts such as "freedom" and "liberty."

He's a very frightening man, The Prez...