People who know me, have heard me make frequent references to "caricatures". This is not any sort of complex "theory" for sure, and in fact it is not original by any measure. What my notion of caricatures asserts, is that we all have unbalanced and unobjective impressions of things and categories around us, which either effect attraction (we find what we are looking for) or aversion (we tend to reprobate things which move in the direction of matters we have been conditioned to distrust.) We can find examples which tend to justify our viewpoints; for example, that the practice of formal religion is shallow, ritualistic and superficial, or "conservative" folks are monomaniacal warmongers and are not compassionate, or folks more "liberal" despise boundaries and live especially sinful lives.
The remedy for this is to possess, from a philosophical point of view, a sense of humor. We can see poetry in everything, look through reality around us, dance the general dance of the cosmos, view other people with innate reverence, follow our consciences honestly and closely (God IS speaking to us personally), but leave all ultimate judgement to Him, as we seek to be friends with everyone. Caricatures and stereotypes are signs of immaturity, like a person just out of school who seeks to apply the categories he/she has learned...to put people and things into them and so somehow validate his/her knowledge. Truth be known, we cannot see to know the beginning or end of the people and things we judge. It is best to be transparent and friendly...ghostly in fact. If we walk in the wisdom which refers all things into the hands of the heavenly dramatist, we will somehow draw our needy world onto a higher path. But it is important, for that matter, that we follow closely our deepest voice for guidance and not become wishy-washy and indifferent to the possibility of personal norms and standards to challenge and stretch us.
