Racist Schmacist

[erudito]

When, Dafydd and I were visiting vizi, we got into a discussion with some of his housemates about Hamas’ recent election victory. I mentioned that one of the more sensible public statements on it had been made by Dubya. To which one housemate responded that Dubya’s “racism” was more circumspect

Comments

I just have to say...

[insignificant1]

Well said :}

It is refreshing to say the least to encounter someone who is not simply stating the popular 'tripe views' (cue housemate in question) and does indeed have an opinion and view based on their own ideas/interpretations ( infact regardless of whether they are actually your 'views' - the point is you understand what you are saying (belive) and why you are saying it)

In the context of the above matter, it would seem we do agree on this subject, in the broad sense (I say broad because I only have read of you to go on) but my statement applies all your views regardless of whether I agree.

Re: I just have to say...

[erudito]

Intelligent compliments gratefully accepted :)

[taavi]

Really, everyone seeks to define themselves as morally superior. You, erudito, do it every time you repeat your rant about how morally bankrupt and intellectually shallow the left are. Your argument is a universal human tendency.

Simply not true

[erudito]

everyone seeks to define themselves as morally superior
Simply not true. I read, and often link to, several left-of-centre blogs which I enjoy reading precisely because they do not play these games.

It is certainly true that this is a problem not confined to the Western Left. It is also true that it is easier to misinterpret writings and statements operating from different premises than one is used to/familiar with/share.

It is precisely that loss of a sense of an arena of debate in which serious disagreement is possible without assaults on basic moral character and legitimacy which is the saddest sign of the decay of the Western humanities academy.

What lead me down this path of analysis was seeing how persisently and consistently bad contemporary academic writing typically was on areas I actually knew something about from direct experience. In other words, it started from an empirical puzzle.

Racism In England

[taavi]

Have just got back from England, where I met many ordinary English guys in pubs. Interesting. I found well-educated English incredibly tolerant and supportive of mutli-ethnicity, but lower down the scale much less tolerance. Reason? Two sets of laws. One for locals and another for migrants. Or so it is alleged

Re: Racism In England

[erudito]

Two different sets of rules is more-or-less guaranteed to cause resentment. One of the issues that Pauline H's insurgency picked up on is that folk at the lower end of the housing market who struggle to, or cannot afford, to own their own home resent really badly houses being "handed" to Aborigines some of whom, for predictable human (it's free and they'll get handed another) and cultural reasons (the mores of home ownership are not exactly built into hunter-gatherer culture), effectively trash them.

But if you complain, or even mention that, you're "racist". (And, indeed, complaints might be expressed in racist ways, which does not mean that there is no substantive point underlying them.)

The House of Lords did indeed knock back the student's appeal. See here and here.

You might note the identification of anti-Islamic feeling with racism in the first blog's header.

[jordan179]

I didn’t say anything, but the man who appointed a black man followed by a black woman as the public face of American foreign policy and thinks Arabs are up for democracy (and has appointed an Afghan-American has point-man in first Afghanistan and then Iraq) and is apparently obviously “racist”, he’s just clever about it. Indeed, so clever that Dubya’s acted precisely as someone who is not racist would.

Indeed: note that Colin Powell and Condaleeza Rice have been major power players in the Administration; their appointments have been hardly token ones. Also, despite the major opposition to Bush from the US media, nothing has surfaced regarding racist comments or actions on his part: this absence is telling, since the media would cheerfully run with a story about even the slightest racism from Bush.

Which, of course, makes it so implicit it is not racism. The special noxiousness of racism is precisely that it picks on a characteristic which is unchanging. It not only says a group of people are deeply flawed in their humanity, it

[jordan179]

There is also a striking ignorance of the interaction between racial prejudice and capitalism. In both the American South and South Africa it was precisely because capitalism could not be trusted to grade folk by race that the state intervened to do so. Capitalism is deeply subversive of hierarchies except the unstable and contestable hierarchies of wealth and fame, which is why so many traditionalists hate it.

Capitalism erodes distinctions of race and class precisely because the merchant cares more about how much money you have than the color of your skin or the dignity of your ancestors. Unless there is a major downside to serving the disfavored race or class (*), the merchant will usually serve them as well