Walter Liptmann Stereotypes

Walter Lippmann explains that everyone in the world sees through a culture based stereotype. He attempts to provide reason as to why society will never be able to eliminate stereotypes, but also why they arose in the first place. Lippmann incorporates a wide variety of examples to further his point that living in a world where most of our information is second-hand has changed the way people view everything around them and forced people to see through stereotypes. People find comfort in stereotypes. Lippman says this when speaking on stereotypes, “ They are an ordered, more or less consistent picture of the world, to which our habits, our tastes, our capacities, our comforts and our hopes have adjusted themselves.” Society has become so accustomed
What he means by this is almost everything we know isn’t from our actual personal experiences. All of one’s thoughts and opinions have somehow been shaped by things they have read, seen, touched, heard, etc. Society gives false trust to what it believes to be true, even though they have no personal experience to back their reasonings. Lippmann even brings up the idea of stereotypes being popularized for different reasons. He claims that “...the attempt to see all things freshly and in detail, rather than as types and generalities, is exhausting, and among busy affairs practically out of the question.” People simply do not have the time nor the desire to seek out information on every unknown subject, especially if there is information already given. This can be dangerous though, because no two people experiences things the same way. Consequently, people are living under the illusion that things are the way that they are, even if that would not be the case for them as an individual. Lippmann uses the example of two brothers. Although raised in the same family and raised similar ways, “...the older son never does have the experience of being the younger” and vice