On the Intricate Relation of Prejudice to Experience, and on its Alleged Stupidity

To say that a certain experience had to be bad because it included contact with Jews, and, more precisely, that it had to be bad because of the Jewishness of the Jews, instantiates anti-Semitic prejudice. But prejudice, according to the new proposal, does not first come on the scene when someone claims that a certain experience had to be bad because it included contact with Jews, and, to aggravate the charge, that it had to be bad because of the Jewishness of the Jews. There is reason to think that the understanding of prejudice must dig deeper. It is implausible that people become anti-Semites because they have had a couple of unpleasant encounters with Jews. There is clearly some merit in the proposal that it is generalizing which makes something a prejudice, irrespective of whether one generalizes in a positive or in a negative vein.