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The Thomas Theorem
In a written piece and on my YouTube channel, I’ve talked about the “people in the valley” phenomenon.
It is an allegory.
Two men are standing on top of a hill, looking down into a valley at a group of people they do not know. The first man has some passing experience (or at least claims he does) with the people in the valley. This man, for whatever reason — power, status, attention, who knows — decides to describe the people in the worst way. They are immoral, duplicitous, lazy, violent, or whatever. The second man listens, aghast at what the first man is describing, and develops animosity towards “those people.” The first man knows that much of what he is saying is distortion, and so can only believe his story so much. But the second man, with only the first man’s words to go on, swallows the story wholeheartedly. He generates more hate and animosity towards “those people” than the duplicitous messenger.
The first man is a “thought leader.” The second man is most of us: the “followers,” “subscribers,” or, just in general, an “audience.” The people in the valley are the “others” that we come to hate. The allegory explains why we develop negative feelings towards groups of people with whom we have no real experience.
This is not a new phenomenon, of course. Nor is it restricted to any ancestry, sex, or political orientation. But I…
