How fights start

Over and over I hear exchanges in these lines:
A: General statement about something (e.g. “Asians are smart”)
B: “How can you say that is true for ALL? There are exceptions!”*, basically calling the whole A’s statement invalid, often turning into an argument and accusations of racism.
This is a template of any attempt of a productive discussion on controversial subjects, especially in the US. A lot of misunderstandings and social conflict could be avoided if only people better understood what general statements actually mean.

There are two reasons why B’s interpretation is wrong. (In the end they are the same thing)

1. The interpretation of A’s general statement to apply to all/everyone is wrong.
2. Exceptions cannot make rules.

Interpreting general statements

By pure logic, “Asians are smart” is indeed wrong. But we are dealing with the real world and the issue is about language conventions rather than logic. But it takes some logical thinking to understand the conventions (or lack of logical thinking to not to). “Asians are smart” can be understood in two different ways — only one makes sense, but the other is often the result.

It is obvious that not every single Asian is smart. If I am not seriously mentally impaired, it is obvious that I know that. So why would anybody assume that when I say “Asians are smart”, I mean that every single one is?

Although logically correct, this interpretation does not make any sense in vast majority of real cases and is useless. Therefore, another interpretation should be used instead that that would be meaningful and useful. That interpretation is that the statement is true for a significant part or statistic**.

To show it on the example: we can assume that the general statement (“Asians are smart”) does not mean it is true for every instance (“every single Asian is smart”) as B did, as that is out of reality. Instead it means that it is true for a significant part (“most Asians are smart” or “In average, Asians are smart” or “The ratio of smart people is higher with Asians than some other group”) — which is the meaning that A intended.

Sometimes we really want to say something about every single instance. But in that case we can say it explicitly — “All Asians are smart”. But even in many such cases we can assume that the person is just intentionally over-exaggerating. It is all about trying to understand.

Exceptions do not make rules

The no. 2) of B’s wrongs is more simple, but maybe even more important. Let’s use another example — “Dogs have four legs”. That is something we kind of accept. But then some B comes and says “No way, I have seen a dog that had an accident and has 3 legs. So dogs have three or four legs”. … or any other number they identify with. And you will get arrested if you say they have four from now on.
By pure logic it is true we can’t say “dogs have four legs”, as a single exception is enough to invalidate a general statement. But that is not very helpful for our daily life — which is an argument I already made with no. 1).
The important angle here is that because of an exception of a 3-legged dog we shouldn’t alter and destroy a helpful rule and be saying that dogs have three to four legs. Even though it would be more correct, it would harm our everyday life. Just imagine the confused children.
Every rule has exceptions. That is a part of what real-world rules are. Exceptions do not make rules, they underline them. Dogs don’t have three legs and people do not have 129 genders. Yet, in Canada, you can get arrested for claiming there are only two.

So to sum it up — when somebody says a general statement, they most likely do not mean all/everybody. Just try to be positive — first try to understand what they mean and what makes sense***. People usually mean well. It can avoid a lot of bad things happening.

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* The reaction seems to depend on what the general statement is about though. Saying “Africans have lower average IQ” is quite guaranteed to invoke the response “You racist, how can you say that ALL Africans have low IQ?” at the least — while saying “ALL white males are privileged Trump voter racist sexual predators” seems to be fine.

** Does not even have to be a majority. With “Fish live in water” we mean pretty much all of them. But “driving is dangerous” does not mean we have an accident on most drives, only that the danger is somehow statistically higher than some other activity.

*** Applies even to stupid people. They can mean it the wrong way, but everybody should get a chance first.