A Response Too Long for a Comments Box
My friend, Amr, at RANTISSIMO has taken issue with my optimism for our species. The discussion began with this post, Bias, Prejudice and Acceptability. In the comments Amr posits that both racism and religionism are expressions of "soft-wired [sic] aspects of the old lizard-brain territoriality," and therefore ineradicable. I begged to differ, believing that we, as a species, are capable of learning. I cited the brink at which we currently stand. Apparently I struck a chord with my ranting friend for he let me have it with both barrels here: Of Racism and Men[wo] [sic] [his title is still somewhat obscure to me] I respond to him here and invite you to join in the discussion. It is a topic not oft kicked around in the blogosphere.Amr, my dr, Kindly attempt to scrape away your prejudices and stultified preconceptions and read what *I wrote. I most certainly do ask for the whole of humanity. Of what value are we if we are not whole? Your references to Palestinian unmarried men [being so faintly perceptible as to lack delineation, i.e. obscure] notwithstanding; I do not subscribe to that particular irrationality. Nor any other originating in similar shires. Do you? I must ask: what horrifying misfortune befell you that you hate and distrust your own species so? Do you feel the same about individuals? Why do you lack the basic confidence that our species -- for it does belong to both of us, and we to it -- is capable of learning and self discipline? We do not "defile" this planet. We have made mistakes. We work to clean them up. Do you do it differently in your own life? "Given human nature, we would never be able to create these so called "extra" pies. This belief is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you cannot conceive of it, you cannot do it. Nothing is about gold, per se. Gold, my dear friend, is precious because it does not tarnish under the severest of circumstances and is therefore an ideal materiel with which to create long lasting electronics, among other things. Diamonds have similar useful characteristics. They are each useful for particular purposes. Among those purposes are their rarity hence usefulness as symbols for trade. All else you mentioned is hoopla -- mythology which dooms anyone who takes it seriously. [btw, what *is* "EFF?"] Did you know that one's "race" cannot be discovered by looking at one's DNA. Race is simply not a DNA concern. So why condemn humanity to an endless cycle of conquering, subjugation and annihilation? Why turn ourselves inward like those rats jammed by experimenters into populations too dense for sanity? We can keep chewing on each other's tails. Or we can turn outward and expand to fill the empty space around us. It all comes down to whether or not one believes that Humanity is innately Good, or innately Bad. If one believes that Humanity is innately Good, the only moral action is to work toward a circumstance in which we can expand and grow, learn and seek wisdom. In which we can nurture one another in acceptance of our true nature. Part of that nature is our monkey curiosity. It gets us into difficulty -- and without it we would still be sitting in trees picking each other's butts. With it we can reach for the stars; literally and metaphorically. If one truly believes Humanity is innately Bad, the only moral course of action is to kill one's self in as ecologically sound a manner as one can. And to persuade as many others as one can to go along. Perhaps a giant hole dug in an unused corner of the Sahara? Sit and wait to starve? Or, better yet, a mass lemminging off a cliff and into an ocean? Good shark fodder. PS Those "indians" you mention? They arrived on this continent in a mass "exploration" of their own, you recall.
As did the people of Europe, Asia, most of Africa, all of the ocean Islands, India, . . . And their ancestors and predecessing species? Explorers, too.Life is an explorational phenomenon.
UPDATE: I wrote that badly thereby making quite an offensive statement. I apologize for my clumsiness and I am grateful to Amr for pointing it out to me in the comments. What that struck through sentence above would have said had I proofread carefully is:
As the people of Europe, Asia, most of Africa, all of the ocean Islands, India, etc. spread to those places by exploring, seeking new resources and more room to live well. For as long as we have been human, people have moved outwards from the known to investigate the unknown. My point was that Humanity moving into space, which was unavailable to us until we learned how to go there, is a natural, human phenomenon; a logical progression of something we have been doing for millennia.
On a separate matter -- Amr, I think you misunderstood the "last 3 posts" to which you referred. It was not my intent, nor my accomplishment, to deride anyone**. I point to the folly of allowing any one group to have sovereignty over any other group. **[Ok, ok. I do admit a little irritation-borne snarking.]
Your link to Amr’s comments linked back to your own racism comments, so I wasn’t able to read the context of Amr’s remarks, but what you quoted—both racism and religionism are expressions of “soft-wired [sic] aspects of the old lizard-brain territoriality,” and therefore ineradicable . . . is simply foolish. “Racism” and “religionism” are highly abstract, high-level behaviors that cannot possibly be wired in any way in the precortical, limbic system that constitutes the “old lizard brain.” At the very most, they might be ultimately _based on_ something in the thalamic-limbic system, but there would be dozens, if not hundreds of processing steps intervening before you get to a crackpot abstraction like “race” or “religionism.” (side comment: people who treat a zero-content idea like “race” as if it were something real give me an acute pain).
Posted by on 09/12/03 at 02:48 AMOops. Link fixed.
Posted by Claire on 09/12/03 at 07:50 AMI guess we could go on and on.
I remember to this day, a comment made by quite an intimate friend (in the biblical sense that is) of mine (blue eyed, blonde and dutch and all) “I don’t notice any racism in Michigan? what are you talking about?”. I guess UnoStien was right after all, its all relative!
I do take exception to the “Africans” being mentioned as coming here as “exploreurs”. I guess that’s what the travel agent in Mali told these folks before they got onto those comfy ships that took them to the new world of sugar-cane-sweetness and thicker-quicker-picker-upper-cottony-softness where their descendents, to this very day, live a life of wide eyed bewilderment at all the opportunities that have been bestowed upon them. Not the least of which has been the right to vote (for almost half a century now?). Incidentally, prior to that, for some obscure technical reason taht noone seems to remember, they didn’t. I think it was probably because they were considered PROPERTY? (as explained patiently by the benevolent U.S. court system to many a pesky inquirers of “african” origin. This perfectly logical stance was validated, supported and enhanced by the religious authority).
There are explorers, and there are explorers. And some are more equal than others.
As far as racism is concerned, I still feel - foolish or not - that it is an evolved trait. Like Lions eating the offspring of the vanquished rivals. Racism and prejudice is a universal trait. Not just a ‘white’ thing. Some cultures dull the edge, others refine it and hone it to an art form.
Every dominant group exercises. Racism is as universal as love, or poor man(wo)’s love, namely, “hate”.I really don’t see the need to cheerlead for my species. And nothing particularly bad has to befall me to incite such thoughts in my mind. Life itself is my species. And I’m just soooo friggin noble, I could shed a tear over my selfless nobility.. What happens around me, should be enough for me to turn me off. Not lose faith. Just turn me off.
Innate good and innate Bad? You are a WoMan of strong convictions. May I suggest going “Beyond Good and Evil” ? ;)
I still don’t get the extra pie thing. On one hand the resources are limitless, but we essentially have to go off a perfectly good planet and terraform another planet. When we can’t properly fix a minor pollution problem (compared to terraforming, this is real minor stuff). On the other hand we might be turning into rats chewing on our tails. OBTW, do you work in a bio-lab?
Are you sure you’re not offering the hungry masses some extra-delirious cake?
P.S. Man(wo) is wo/man (but as an afterthought, what else can be expected from a misogynistiche hole de arse). I am disgusted at my feeble attempts at being politically correct. This is a remnant from the grotesque 90’s.
EFF is F. All.. as in “I didn’t do Fuck All today!” heh
Posted by A Malik on 09/12/03 at 03:30 PMAmr,
You’re absolutely right. When written as badly as I did, that is quite an offensive statement. I apologize and hasten to explain what I intended to say.
I was talking about the innate human need to explore and was attempting to refer to the spread of humanity over the globe throughout our history. People moving from the Fertile Crescent outwards. Spreading northward into the European continent and the islands of the north. Moving across the African continent. Sailing across the oceans to populate the Pacific Islands and Australia and New Zealand. Moving across the land bridge/across the ocean [depending on the archeological theory] onto the American continent and southward. I was not referring to how people from different places came to America.
There has always been groups of people moving off into the great unknown to explore and find something new and, perhaps better. My point was that moving into places which were unavailable to us until we learned how to go there is a natural, human phenomenon.
Again, I apologize for my ill-stated and un-proofread inanity.
Posted by Claire on 09/13/03 at 04:50 AM“the extra pie thing. On one hand the resources are limitless ..."
ahh, Amr, my favorite misogynistiche hole de arse. That is the point. But we do not have to terraform another planet, which we are unable to do at our current level of competence anyway. We can build settlements on our own moon, underground. We can create settlements, hotels and tourist attractions right in orbit around our own planet. ["hiltons and disneys” if you must] Industry which would, and does, pollute Earthly environments would not create damage in our orbit. And by utilizing the raw materials from, say, the asteroid belt, we can avoid mining those materials from Earth and make parks, instead.
Yes, I am positive I am not offering cake. I am offering steak. And veggies and legumes and flowers as well. One conservative study of the Apollo program demonstrated that for every $1 invested in that effort there was a return of $14 to our economy. They did not take into consideration spin-off technology like velcro, triple redundancy medical monitoring which is the backbone of cardiac care hospital units, teflon,—I could go on for hours but you get the idea. So many of the things we take for granted today are directly derived from or successive generations of technology developed for Apollo.
We did not fill rockets with dollar bills and send them into space. Every person employed in that effort also needed dry cleaning, groceries, new cars, housing, clothing—you get the point. Simply the exploration process was a great economic driver. What could result from the utilization of those resources?
Posted by Claire on 09/14/03 at 04:54 AM"Racism and prejudice is a universal trait. “
Yes, racism is common—that does not mean that it is a good idea nor, certainly, is it necessary. It is certainly not useful. And it is not inevitable. Another facet of evolution is our [humanity’s] capacity for abstract thought—thought removed from the driving forces of the limbic system. It is possible, nay quite common, for a male to see a fertile, attractive female and choose behavior contrary to the impulses of his feed/fight/fuck brain. Any educated person is fully aware that racism and other destructive behaviors toward fellow humans are common throughout history. Is that actually a reason not to do the work necessary to change that perspective and behavior?
You accuse me of cheerleading, and perhaps that is what it is. I make no apologies, for it is my firm conviction and experience that it is impossible to make someone do better by making them feel worse. To advocate the perspective “woe is us” and “how horrible are we” erodes respect. It has become a preconscious theme in our culture to deride the species, cynically expect the worst, focus on it whenever it is found chewing it and prodding it like a sore tooth. The noble, respectable deeds go unremarked. This perspective is insidious, eroding self-respect and leading us to distrust even those closest to us.
What might happen if we expected the best of each other? Studies have demonstrated unequivocally that students in situations where their teachers expect them to do well do do significantly better than the same students in a situation where their teacher expects them to fail. It is a primary human motivator to live up to the expectations of the group. It is how we survived as tribal/pack animals for millennia. In fact, keeping track of the complex social relationships within a group is how we began our growth, evolution if you will, toward more abstract brain functions.
Life is what we are. Life is worthy of respect. Is that not what all religions worship about their god[s]—the creation of Life? We are a facet of Life. Therefore we are worthy of respect. We hold ourselves to different standards than we hold say, gophers or fish, and that is right and proper. If we believe that we can live up to our standards, we can, and we shall.
The only alternative is Entropy—and that is just fuckin’ dull.
Posted by Claire on 09/14/03 at 05:47 AM"What happens around me, should be enough for me to turn me off. Not lose faith. Just turn me off. “
I feel profoundly sad when I read that. What is being “turned off” if not a loss of faith?
Posted by Claire on 09/14/03 at 05:47 AMHi,
My blog went the way of the environment. Still trying to fix it. You give me lots to chew on. And I learn a lesson. Don’t push too many buttons at the same time
“Turning Off” means there is hope for being turned “On” again. “Losing” something.. well.. I guess you could say that losing “faith”, one could find it once again.. so both are equivalent, yet Losing Faith seems too strong of a description of how I feel seeing what happens around me (in this world as a whole).
I’m going to do a pure Apache+Vi low-tech blog very soon. This whole MT crashing thing has soured me off of technology once again.. ;p Until then, I shall wander the wilderness of other blogs. Blogging vacariously thru comments.
Also, how can racism NOT be useful? Look around North America, this used to be inhabited by (according to some “studies") 150 million plus people. Today the North Europeans inhabit this place. And the reward is that the offspring of the early people enjoy these vast lands, and their bounty. The ruthlessness necessary to wipe out large numbers of competing groups is the edge sharpened by racism. The fruits are being enjoyed by everybody (well not _every_ body, but majority). Racism is still in use today to conquer -erm- “explore” new worlds and bring equivalents of “enlightenment(s)” of the days of the past (to the unfortunate recipients of those unsolicited bids of forced-civilizification.It is my contention, without any proof of course, that it was racism that wiped out (or at least assimilated the Neanderthals). Things have come full circle yet again.. Doubly ironic for Neanderthals given that the earliest remains of Neanderthals were found in Iraq itself. heh!
I think that we should respect and celebrate the differences however vicious or vile they may seem. Not turn humans into angels (which are so non-existing its not even funny), or devils and demons. Humans are just as bad or good as the gopher or the rat or the stray cat (or the domesticated one for that matter). And in the end, I would contend that we are just as innocent as any other species (in the cosmic scheme of things). We are doing what we have evolved to do. Creating sky scrapers is just as innocent as taking a leak on a tree in the savanna to mark a territory. And both actions are just about as meaning/ful/less.
Say what you will, but life is just a brief vacation from Entropy. I can’t remember whether it was dull or not. I was part of one of the most violent explosions that the universe has ever seen. And a good chance everything else was too. Too bad we don’t have memories of that (new-agey stuff notwithstanding).
Talking about being “alive”, most (99.99999999999%) of a conscious being (even humans included) has no idea, or consciousness of, whether its dead or alive. I wonder if a singlle celled animal ever realizes that it passed from being alive to being dead (when the transition happens that is)?
I think religion is a good thing. But some people take it too seriously. IMHO.
-AmrP.S. I really should refrain from posting half-cooked comments, but I’m just too impatient methinks.
Posted by Amr Malik on 09/14/03 at 01:00 PMAmr,
I am truly sorry to hear about your blog-borkitude! You might try bloghosts.com who will install MT free, give ya templates and help when ya need it—all for the low, low price of:
Bronze: $3/mo
75mb Disk Space
5gb Bandwidth
Unlimited Subdomains
Unlimited Email
cPanel7 Control PanelLess if you pay in advance… Losing your Rantissimo would be a crime against, well, ranting. Go thou and fix it.
Posted by Claire on 09/15/03 at 12:30 PMAmr,
on to less serious matters than blog-borkedness—though you’re welcome to be a wraith on the moors of my blog til you get yours going. My Pollyanna needs some ...er, balance. All I ask is that you fully-bake your wraith-droppings, yes?
The 150 million population number seems extremely debatable. [http://www.hellinahandbasket.net/archives/000277.html] and [http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/03/mann.htm]
**the earliest remains of Neanderthals were found in Iraq itself interesting…
It is good to see that you can contemplate the idea that humans are just doing what we are evolved to do and that creating sky scrapers is not inherently a bad thing. No one [here] wants to turn humans into angels, whatever that is—only to utilize the consciousness that is a part of our evolved beings to its best advantage. That means increasing self-awareness and making conscious choices toward useful ends as opposed to reacting any old goddam limbic way. Which means increasing our awareness of, well, everything that is outside ourselves.
It is also debatable how much of Life is self-aware. Many animals demonstrate behavior that can indicate no other conclusion. I would prefer to err on the side of awareness, no? Even with other humans.
Now—go cook yourself a big helping of patience and use your TextEdit or Notepad program to rein in your limbic. Pull it together, man! Then get back to me.
Posted by Claire on 09/15/03 at 12:51 PMYes.. I can see how track back can be a good thing. But I’ll have to resurrect this fiendix from its archived ashes. Until then, I have to eat patience pie.
I think I share your enthusiasm about going into space and exploring. But I have problems with the philosophical foundations of the currently “in-vogue” concept of “exploration”. Which is essentially no more than code for justification of racially motivated exploitation of others as if they were property or just resources to be exploited. I suppose at a subconscious level I don’t like it because I would qualify as being that particular type of resource in that particular time period. Or even now, for that matter, albeit in a much more “sensitively-put” manner, more in line with the fake plasticky-emotional-smileinyourface-while-secretlyhateyerguts times that we live in now.
Personally, I would like to see peaceful explorations into space (after we humans have put our philosophical house in order). However, given the current technology, and the current intellectual trends, it just doesn’t seem possible in a non-destructive way. In a “market driven” system that is not motivated by sheer wonder of something like space travel, but by its return on investment; space travel, and scientific and philosophical exploration of space would be another botched attempt at McSincerity and McWonder (while screwing up the last remaining frontier) that I for one, just don’t have the stomach for.
I guess in my twisted worldview, if it can’t be done properly, then it shouldn’t be done at all. But some would call it paralysis by analysis.
Posted by Amr on 09/16/03 at 02:36 PMAmr,
I am unaware of any current “vogue” for exploration of any kind. Seems to me that the slightest mention of exploration only garners piles of PC nonsense about racially motivated exploitation of others.
Return on investment is the fuel for any undertaking - no matter how that “return” or “investment” is measured. Dollars to emotional angst to skull-sweat: all are investments. You gotta bring your own sense o’ wunda. [BYOSW]
Some would call (after we humans have put our philosophical house in order) paralysis by perfectionism. That prerequisite would have prevented all past human undertakings. No pyramids, no UNICEF, no communist party, no Buddhism, no Harvard Square, no Callahan’s Place or Moon is a Harsh Mistress, no Mona Lisa or Mona Lisa Overdrive: nothing but chittering apes in trees endlessly debating like mullas/rabbis on speed. This is how Humanity learns—by doing. Just like horses. Can’t learn sitting down and blathering or reading the blather of others, pleasurable as that may be—must put it into action to actually learn, taste, feel, hear what anything really is.
I think the most poignant part of your comment is your revelation that you believe “I would qualify as being that particular type of resource.” Hell, wouldn’t we all?!? Women, men, brown people, black people, Irish people and Italians, Jews and Arabs, Xians and Shinto—you name the group and they’ll tell you some time someone has exploited them. It is all a part of the struggle to be the fittest.
I agree that exploitation of others is icky, horrible and unpleasant, stupid and wasteful, and that those who are currently in possession of the power would do better, and accomplish more all round, if they did not exploit others, but rather helped all involved to utilize their talents to the highest and best.
But it is not always the case that those currently in power take the most useful or efficacious course of action. What is left to the rest of us is to take our own power and do the best toward our dreams that we can.
“Sneering at something is an admission of failure. You are claiming superior talent or insight...but declining to use it. The best way to sneer at something is to improve it or outdo it. Shorty
Posted by Claire on 09/19/03 at 02:45 PMIf you would be unloved and forgotten, be reasonable.
Posted by Ong Brandon on 11/28/03 at 04:29 AMI hereby agree to pay this blog the sum of $100 for the weenie ad I placed here.
Posted by on 11/28/03 at 04:29 AM[In] mourning, it is better to err on the side of grief than on the side of formality.
Posted by Brown Heidi on 01/09/04 at 04:50 AM
Next entry: The Watchers Council Speaks
Previous entry: 9.11.03
