I tend to use this blog as a platform to store little pieces of knowledge that I don't see as common but never-the-less hold true.  Well I have a new one.

I have always had an issue with other people's issue with generalizations.  For instance, have you ever made a general statement only to have someone say, "That is a generalization!  You cannot do that!"  This is where I have a problem because by the definition of a generalization, you can say something in a general sense.  For instance, I think it is a safe generalization to say women talk more than men.  It doesn't mean that all women talk more than all men, but on average, women talk more than men.  Studies have shown it.  Of course they list the information in the terms of "Studies have shown that the vocabulary of women is far larger than the vocabulary of men."  This is not what I recently learned though.  I had a new revelation about generalizations.

            I recently had a disagreement with someone.  The disagreement was basically about the fact that I didn't like the way they treated me.  They used generalizations to defend their actions though.  There main one was, "Honestly is the best policy."  It really annoyed me when they did this, but I couldn't figure out why; then it struck me.  Generalizations are for dealing with many instances of something.  When you're dealing with a single instance, you have to do it on a case by case basis.  This person was either lumping me in with a bunch of other people or they didn't care enough to deal with this situation on an individual basis.  I tried to explain to them that using generalizations to justify your actions only works if you are dealing with a group.  That even if they wanted to use the generalization, they should state that this is a generalization that holds true for this instance.  At least then I have something to consider that pertains to this disagreement.  For my efforts I got a funny look.

            Anyway, that is one of my not so common revelations.