[RubberbandSoul]

I wonder if a society that treats people as individuals is even possible?

To me that sounds like reasoning along the lines of the physics professors answer: "First, let's assume that all cows are spherical..."

Not always a useful assumption.

Generalizations are necessary for a human to function. Something like 90% of all daily activities are repetition and you would become psychotic if you tried to make a conscious effort to evaluate and re-evaluate everything all the time.

This goes for how we view people too, obviously. Especially those that we do not know.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't try, just trying to argue that it would be inhuman to expect us to succeed every time.

[everdrive]

We could definitely do a better job than we're doing right now, even if the ideal is out of reach. Shoot for the stars, and hit the moon, as they say.

[cm2187]

Except the stars are millions of light-years away from the moon. I don't think we are that far from a race neutral society, despite the last year of political slogans.

[notSupplied]

Treating everyone as an individual is exactly the opposite of “assume all cows are roughly spherical”. It means judge someone with the highest resolution information available. The fact that perfect information is not always available, doesn’t mean you can’t still have the maxim of making the best of the information you have / can acquire.