Thread: In the defense of a racist.

Atmosfear... Christ.

Originally Posted by Atmosfear

And she's supposed to be the "dim" one?

Here is the thing about this story: you are effectively criticizing a rational human being for reacting to life experiences. It never ceases to amaze me how much a liberal spin can make idiots resist their natural urge to prejudge and form initial reactions. It's like trying to put your hand in every fire to confirm you're getting burned, rather than learning from your first mistake and avoiding the fire until you've got evidence it won't burn you. It just amazes me that people actually think the "right" thing to do is to ignore all outward evidence of a person's culture, upbringing, and personal beliefs and put yourself at risk for the sake of avoiding normal prejudgment.

I'm not defending the Klan. What started as a simple fraternity for angry Southerners to air their grievances and find solidarity in a time when you couldn't trust anyone has evolved into the most backward, misguided, and otherwise worthless organization that can still grab headlines. The Klan's message, however, is absolutely 100% just as dumb as the converse liberal agenda to end prejudice and give everyone a chance.

It's not just the "liberal agenda" anymore.

First of all, I'm amazed that you are jumping so quickly to this guy's defense and calling him a "rational human being," as though you know him at all, and that his affiliation with the Klan could at all be a rational "reaction to life experiences" (now if that doesn't sound like a PC phrase, I don't know what is.) I mean I suppose you then think it's a "rational reaction to life experiences" for black people to become violently militant against white people when they too have been persecuted, right?

Secondly, I'm also amazed that you are so confident about how much our tendency to prejudice in the 20th century is imposed on us by the incidences of our history and how much is "innate."

Racism is obviously an extreme and irrational form of prejudgment (popularly maligned as "prejudice") based on skin color, but its foundation isn't untestable. "Race" as we construct is more of a cultural term crossed with simple visual appearance, but the fundamental idea that there are some groups of people (identified by culture or geographical location more than simple "white, black, red, brown" race distinctions) would be genetically superior to other groups is not ridiculous.

As a person with a scientific bent myself, I have to say that for all I know it is possible that one genetically isolated population has on average superior intelligence in general to another genetically isolated population. But why the fuck shouldn't every human being be given as equal of a chance as possible to rise or fall based on his own merits rather than based upon whatever average characteristics his or her population of people exhibits?

And then there are other questions to ask-- What is the spread in this distribution about the average? Are there are other predictors that even more strongly determine intelligence? As researchers have shown, there is generally a greater genetic spread within individual populations that there is a spread between the average genes of one population compared to another.

Likewise, the idea that cultures are inherently equal has the same liberal feel-good spin. Ethnocentrism is a natural human reaction that's been painted as this terrible, evil concept. If you were to identify the measuring points for the best culture (such as life expectancy, amount of leisure time, volume of art/expression, advancement of language, adaptability, versatility, and defendability), you could easily rank each culture and determine which is best. If one greatest culture were thereby established, why shouldn't it advance its agenda?

There is more evidence that ethnocentricism is something which is a bit more innate than we once thought. Nonetheless, if there is an innate tendency to be ethnocentric, does that make it "good" to feel that way? Is nepotism in every single context necessarily good? There are positive expressions of ethnic pride as well as ones which are by and large harmful, just as there are positive expressions of love for family just as there are ones which are harmful.

Also, there are certainly some aspects of all cultures which are "equal" in the sense that one culture's counterpart shouldn't completely displace another's. For example, it would be a great loss to all people if any one culture's literary, artistic, or musical traditions were simply lost forever. On the other hand, I'm not going to argue that it's okay for women to be marginalized or for slaves to be held just because it's occurring in another culture.

1.

Originally Posted by Atmosfear

Here is the thing about this story: you are effectively criticizing a rational human being for reacting to life experiences

2.

Originally Posted by sycld

First of all, I'm amazed that you are jumping so quickly to this guy's defense and calling him a "rational human being," as though you know him at al

3.

Originally Posted by Atmosfear

I didn't say he was a rational human being.

yea....

Originally Posted by Atmosfear

"a" is an indefinite article you moron

I believe the context you were using it in was to address his specifically, not a general classification. As in him specifically and not "a person".