BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Underground > Head Shop >

But I'm on your *side*.....or, why clever people can't be racist.

  
  

Page: 12(3)45

 
 
Cat Chant
15:55 / 16.03.02
quote:Originally posted by Bill Posters:
Nevertheless, cultural imperialism is as bad as racial imperialism. 'Fraid I don't recall any Athenian thinker declaring, "I know, lets invite the Persians over, give 'em a crash course in Greek and then we can all have a great big huggle!"

Oh, absolutely: I just find all this historical-contingency stuff cheering because it shows that the grounds on which people are discriminated against *currently* don't have to exist or make any sense to us, and can therefore be Torn Down (and, hopefully, replaced with something nice).

quote:Originally posted by Bill Posters:
So what happens if, say, I meet a 'black' 'male', or indeed 'wigga' friend and try to object to him referring to his partner as a "bitch"? Am I furthering 'the cause', or indulging in cultural imperialism/classism? 'Tis a postmodern impasse if ever I was trapped in one. And isn't this in a way what this thread is about?

That's exactly what this thread is about. I think. Please elaborate on it because I'm stuck, which is why I've been arsing on about completely irrelevant things (sorry.)
 
 
alas
16:14 / 16.03.02
deva--i hope your declaration of love for me isn't one of those irrelevant things, though... (if i wasn't such a classist snob i'd put one of those cheery graemlins in here. heh heh.)

bill--it isn't easy, of course, to figure out how to deal with the varied and conflicting oppressions, to decide what kind of moves to make to strategically intervene in the status quo. but for me, i'm still always more focused on systemic oppression--e.g., the fact that "women's work" is still devalued in every area of life, so that male nurses are affected as are female doctors.

Personally, I'm just more concerned about macrolevel changes than about whether my neighbor uses the word 'bitch.' My main concern for my neighbor in that case would be, has his ability to dream, to self-invent, been thwarted by the same systems that lead him to call women bitches? How are we allies? And, then, when I get to know him, I might threaten to beat him up if he used the word bitch again in my presence. (heh heh)
 
 
Bill Posters
16:01 / 17.03.02
OPB Deva: That's exactly what this thread is about. I think. Please elaborate on it because I'm stuck, which is why I've been arsing on about completely irrelevant things (sorry.)

No need to apologise, what you said wasn't irrelevant, it was spot on. 'Black' implies racism as 'gay' implies homophobia. Um, to elaborate? Um, well this is tricky 'cos I'm confused too, but isn't part of the dimension of problem with the Wigga thing, and a dimension of the initial problematic which Haus started the thread with, that we seem to have landed ourselves in the realm of culture, as much as that of 'race', and that - many brilliant and educational posts notwithstanding - not much has been made of culture here.

Do we need to factor in cultural capital, or symbolic capital? That there is value (of some sort), and hence a power-claim, in the class-oriented 'spotting' of racism? And that such an accusation within the left is almost always already a power-claim of some kind? And with this:

all arguments against affirmative action seem to break down to me: if it's right not to let race affect one's judgment of people/choice of friends, isn't it wrong of me to pick all my friends *because they're white*? And thus, if all my friends *are* white, doesn't that suggest that I'm already operating an affirmative-action program - at least subconsciously, or at least one that can make itself
invisible...

Again, isn't this partly a cultural thing though as much as a 'race' thing? To use my previous example, why then don't you head down to Brixton or Hackney and hang with da gangstas? It would be a great affirmative action friendship, but... you'd not really like being referred to as a bitch, I imagine. Um, which is me saying, we, us leftie liberal types know that race is a pigment of the imagination, but doesn't a tacit cultural imperialism still stand in the way of a lot of what we're trying to get done? I don't drink with the Japanese guy who's just walked past (though I used to) cos he's a macho jerk, and I don't drink with the Indian-born guy who's just gone because he has a very different sense of humour to me (obviously cultural) and hence we don't get each other's jokes, which makes it boring for me. This isn't exactly racist, their skin tone's not relevant, but it's still dodgy as hell, politically. It is still discrimination pure and simple, actually.

alas:

I'm still always more focused on systemic oppression--e.g., the fact that "women's work" is still devalued in every area of life, so that male nurses are affected as are female doctors.

Indeed, though both at least get paid something, unlike 'housewives' as I'm sure you've noticed.

Personally, I'm just more concerned about macrolevel changes than about whether my neighbor uses the word 'bitch.'

Yes, but as the magicians say, 'the macrocosm is the microcosm'. Maybe...

Edited to add:

Oh and just to be utterly awkward, if 'clever' is a construct of western hegemony, then not only can 'clever' people be racist, 'clever' people are racist, and/or thickist, by definition, no? Are we not locked in an always alreadily constituted thickest subjectivity? Sorry bitchiekittie, but I'd have to disagree wiv ya: putting people in the 'thick as shit' category is very much a form of oppression. Like Jean-Paul sez, there's No Exit kids...

[ 17-03-2002: Message edited by: Bill Posters ]
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
22:53 / 17.03.02
Bill, I can think of two emperors offhand who were probably "black" - Lucius Septimius Severus and Marcus Opellius Macrinus.

As Deva says, the interesting thing here is that this distribution of privileging through the addition or subtraction of "foreigness" is incoherent or incomplete according to our current set of strictures, which is the useful part - it helps to advance the suggestion that prejudice is not in fact hardwired in to function in a particular way.

As for your rolleyes, it is, I fear, a pretty lazy one, "Athens" not being a single spatiotemporal and cultural unity - a bit of "othering" and cultural imperialism there, ironically. There were certainly cosmopolitans, philosophers who advanced the idea that all people, different as they may be, were fundamentally equal and equally worthwhile, at various points in the 1100-odd years during which Athens might reasonably be considered an "ancient" city. Of course, their views may have seemed to the common man as thoroughly wacky and crazy as the idea that homosexuals should have equality before the law might seem to our own dear House of Lords, but that is rather another matter.

[ 18-03-2002: Message edited by: The Haus under the Ocean ]
 
 
No star here laces
08:10 / 18.03.02
[deleted by reason of being too early in the morning for organised thought]

[ 18-03-2002: Message edited by: Lyra Lovelaces ]

[ 18-03-2002: Message edited by: Lyra Lovelaces ]
 
 
Morlock - groupie for hire
12:07 / 18.03.02
quote: I don't drink with the Japanese guy who's just walked past (though I used to) cos he's a macho jerk, and I don't drink with the Indian-born guy who's just gone because he has a very different sense of humour to me (obviously cultural) and hence we don't get each other's jokes, which makes it boring for me. This isn't exactly racist, their skin tone's not relevant, but it's still dodgy as hell, politically. It is still discrimination pure and simple, actually

Erm, is it? Everyone's personality is shaped in part by the culture they were raised in. If I decide a particular white person is a bit of a dickhead, or just dull, and decide not to socialise, am I discriminating against the particular sub-section of white culture that person was raised in? I can't be discriminating against his race, being white myself (whatever that means). Or am I just choosing my friends based on their personality, however they arrived at it?

alas: Positive discrimination has always worried me a bit, because it wanders into 'token woman/person of color/whatever' territory. It's one thing to fight negative discrimination, but I would not feel to good about being offered a job "because we need another white person", or "to enhance our company's cultural diversity". Hammer to crack an egg, and likely to generate just as much of a mess.
I would have thought the only defensible attitude would be to find the best person for the job, disregarding race and culture unless they form a real component of their qualifications for the job. But maybe I'm wrong.
 
 
No star here laces
12:34 / 18.03.02
Ummm, I think we need to make a crucial distinction here.

Discrimination = treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit

Now the fact that you are discriminating might not be "your fault" in that it's an unavoidable spin-off of your culture and background, but it's still discrimination.

If this discrimination arises from the cultural background one grows up in, then it can eventually be eliminated if every generation becomes a little more culturally mixed than the last one.

Hence the idea of social affirmative action (and affirmative action in general). People will never believe in successful black people, or black people being friends with white people without some evidence of this happening, so it's up to us to overcome the negative aspects of our conditioning and do something to change the cultural background that successive generations will grow up in.

Which to me brings up the most interesting question about "racism". If the only way to eliminate racism is cultural mixing, then how do we square the desire to preserve minority cultures with the desire to eliminate discrimination?
 
 
grant
20:36 / 18.03.02
Heheh. The Star Trek conundrum.
 
 
Ganesh
20:39 / 18.03.02
And what if they threaten to execute Wesley?
 
 
The Monkey
04:25 / 19.03.02
Haus - Equal rights for homosexuals...well, not exactly. The category "homosexual" as in man-who-exclusively-has-sex-with-other-men didn't exist...sex with other men was seen as an extension of masculine friendship and the desire to share male companionship. Male and female were thought of as dichotomous personality types who had very specific roles and very little to talk about. Male-male coupling was seen as the ultimate in emotional-physical bonding, since only men could really understand one anothers' erotic drives and wants. Think Phraedrus.Women were marked as inherently bound to the home and reproduction, barring the highly specialized category membership as heterae, or a prostitute permitted to attend feasts, and thought incapable of the intellectual qualities a man sought in companionship. Recreational sex with men, recreational sex with women, and reproductive sex were considered very different things. So it wasn't that there was a codified "equal rights" amendment: it was simply standard social practice, although you were generally expected to have a wife as well, and pop out at least one kid. Athens - great place to live if you weren't a woman, a slave, or from some other part of Greece....

As for barbaros...the idea was ethnically mapped, when you consider exactly how the term was deployed. It wasn't used to describe Persians, or Khemni, or other Mediterranean coastal folk, but rather the Celtic-language-family speaking peoples of the Dacian and Albanian regions. In fact, the term was mapped rather precisely upon the image that now occurs to us when we hear the word "barbarians" - hairy, bearded, fur-wearing, etc.
Anyway, my point was about how the idea of "race" can be mapped onto any surface difference of physiognomy, and has been, over and over again, in cultural histories as part of the "othering" process. The Hutu and the Tutsi come to mind, as does the Han/Manchu/Canton race distinction in China. "Race" has more dimensions than just skin color: as an empty set, it is a category that can incorporate geographic, economic, class, caste, and subsistence differences under the banner of some sort of intrinsic physiological difference.


Ganesh - You let them kill the little bastard.
 
 
Cat Chant
06:03 / 19.03.02
quote:Originally posted by Lyra Lovelaces:
how do we square the desire to preserve minority cultures with the desire to eliminate discrimination?

Well, "we" don't: the dominant culture's desire to preserve minority cultures is ethnocentric beyond belief. How do we square the desire to preserve our own culture with the desire to eliminate discrimination - well, I'd say an important factor is not to get all nostalgic about an 'authentic' culture set in a (past) time and a (different) place free of the 'threat' of cultural mixing since - though such alternative histories are important in constructing political strategies eg 'Africanism' in black American civil rights/Black Power movements in the 60s - there never was such a thing; it's always been a myth to preserve the status quo from 'outsiders'.

Ahem. Bill, I'm really interested in what you said about cultures - partly because Paul Gilroy in his latest book (I believe - I haven't read it yet) talks about how cultural incompatibility is used as a screen or an alibi for racism. We're sort of back to the 'wiggas' again: if it's only about culture, then what's wrong with pick'n'mixing your culture from the delightful smorgasbord of ethnic diversity that this crazy post-globalized world has to offer?

I bought the Asian Eye from the newsagents I go into most mornings a few weeks ago, basically because I live in quite an Asian area and it seems ridiculous for me only to read the 'white' papers and I wanted to experience the disorientation of reading something which assumed its audience would be coming from a different place than me, because I think it's unhealthy to reinforce my unconscious ideas that it's 'normal' to be white by only reading stuff aimed at white people. The guy behind the counter asked me why I was buying it and - not wanting to give a disquisition on My Views On Racism to the Asian guy I've bought gum from twice ['I must be honoured even more highly than other whites because I'm on your side!'] - I sort of stammered "um... because I've never read it before and..." - as a friend of mine said the next day "What were you going to say? Because I'm so interested in your wonderful exotic culture?"

Tiny incident, I know, but it sort of crystallized the questions for me - how do I go about crossing racial-cultural lines, promoting mixing, and de-Whiteyfying myself without being the white college girl who's 'progressive' because she dabbles in voodoo and has a dreamcatcher? I suspect the answer is, to some extent, that I should just shut the hell up.

(and alas: no, my declaration of love for you was entirely relevant.)
 
 
Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?
06:20 / 19.03.02
Thak you, Monkey; I am passingly familiar with constructions of homosexuality in Classical Athens, which I at no point mentioned in my post - I suggest humbly that you reread it, bearing in mind that the "House of Lords" I was referring to is the upper house of the United Kingdom. You may be thinking of the Areopagitae.

I would also respectfully offer that the work you are thinking of may be spelled Phaedrus. although for another Socratic dialogue on the separate roles of male and female I might suggest Xenophon's Oeconomicus.

I would also suggest digging out the transcript of "Wild Neighbours: Perceptions of Megarian Identity in Fifth-Century Athenian Comedy" by Monica Florence, delivered to the APA in 2001 IIRC(before Bradshaw and Farooq took down the Undertaker with a double Clothesline from Hell) for a less binary presentation of intrahellenic identifications than Inventing the Barbarian- give me a shout if you find it.

[ 19-03-2002: Message edited by: The Haus of Horror ]

[ 19-03-2002: Message edited by: The Haus of Horror ]
 
 
No star here laces
08:37 / 19.03.02
hmmmm....

7 inches, Haus wins by a whisker.
 
 
Ganesh
08:37 / 19.03.02
quote:Originally posted by Lyra Lovelaces:
7 inches, Haus wins by a whisker.

Not now he's detumesced.
 
 
Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?
08:37 / 19.03.02
7 inches *is* detumesced.

I've got a great coat, as well.

Ahem.

Sorry.

Deva - possibly the only answer to the "why are you buying Asian Eye" magazine *is* "because I'm looking for ways to understand the way many of the people whom I share an immediate urban environment think", although maybe a bit Lo-slung Denim for a trip to the newsie.

I'd suggest that that is in itself (aaargh, value-laden term ahead) better than our paradigmatic dream-catcher girl - a better equivalency with whom might be sitting in a cafe ostentatiously reading Asian Eye...

But why does that, or the dream-catcher, conturbat me? Perhaps because the relationship of dreamcatcher girl or sarong-clad ad exec presupposes a relationship in which elements of cultures are appropriated while nothing is done to arrest the function of a society which (a) privileges the whiteness of the appropriator and (b) does so actively at the expense of non-white, non-middle class etc communities both within their society and elsewhere.

So, perhaps my atavistic loathing for this is based on the implicit proposal of the idea that bearing a token from either another culture or indeed the idea of multiculturalism somehow absolves one of personal responsibility for the actions of the privileged social group to which one belongs. The idea that *being* multicultural (I know, whatever that means)
can be equated with *purchasing* items or, like the three-month satori that is the special preserve of the gap-year backpacker, purchasing a set of off-the-peg enlightenments.

Problem with that being that such judgements seem a) to be highly personalised, b) to be highly aestheticised and c) to imply that those not actively involved in combating the deleterious effects of the society that raised them on the societies it exploits (and I am assuming here that pretty well ever wealthy Western nation is a wealthy Western nation in part because a lot of other places are getting really bad deals) should stick to their own culture, lest they appear to be performing the above.

Meep. I also suspect that I am privileging the intellectual understanding of other cultures over thinking "hey, nice outfit!" when in fact the two may both be ultimately productive or at least equally context-sensitive.

Hmmmm.

[ 19-03-2002: Message edited by: The Haus that shot Liberty Valance ]
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
12:01 / 19.03.02
Hah. Forestalled the exact point I was about to make.

Deva's given a concrete example of how tricky it is to go investigating into cultures where you're an outsider.

I was about to suggest that people's validation/interaction with other cultures is conducted in a variety of ways (*not* levels, as I don't want to set up a hiercharchy for these ways of interacting)

Is thinking someone's dress/style is really cool and interesting and aping at as something that's lacking in your own cultures neccessarily less open and valid than taking a scholarly interest in them, or deciding that the way you wish to interact is on intellectual terms?

Also, what happens when 'minority' cultures rip off each other's cultures, what's going on there? (thinking of something like the bhangramuffins - a sketch from a uk comedy show based on the utterly real phenomenon of certain sections of 2nd gen indian men/boys doing the afro-american/homeboy thing)
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
13:44 / 19.03.02
I think Haus and plums may both be asking, in part, the same question that crossed my mind, ie "why is this college girl with the dream-catcher getting so much shit? what's she *done* that's so *bad* exactly?"... I don't think it's much of a progression to have moved beyond an 'othering' of racism that says "thank god I don't use the word 'paki' like those racists who don't know what I know" to one that says "thank god I don't appropriate symbols of 'other' cultures like those naive appropriating fools who are basically racists and don't know what I know - oh, a copy of the Asian Eye please". That's not a slam against you, Deva, because you're obviously examining your own motives here quite critically - but the casual observer in the queue behind you might be moved to form the same judgments as have been made about this mythical "girl with the dreamcatcher".
 
 
The Monkey
13:59 / 19.03.02
I back down before your tumnescent, pulsating reference materials, O Haus of Many Columns. But understand one thing...English is my fourth language. Sometimes when I don't understand a phrase or post it has more to do with this problem than with my desire to wave about intellectual plummage.
 
 
Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?
14:14 / 19.03.02
Actually, I wasn't particularly trying to slap you down (well, except for Phaedrus, but there you go). I assumed you were American, and had confused the British House of Lords with the Areopagus, its nearest Athenian counterpart - the suggestions are completely sincere. Honestly, I try to be all respectful , and people think I'm taking the piss...I feel like Avon in "Aftermath"...

[ 19-03-2002: Message edited by: The Haus that shot Liberty Valance ]
 
 
The Monkey
15:00 / 19.03.02
But to what degree is the appropriation process, both upon an intellectual and a superficial/material [exceeding rough distinction, don't hold me to it] normal? I mean, in anthropology/archaeology/social history we refer to the process of "cultural diffusion," which was one attempt to characterize this process of individual appropriation and exchange of cultural memes, potentially leading to change in the overall societal framework, or simply the budding of new microcultural forms.

This process of appropriation/exchange would seem to be intimately related to economic [material] consumption, particularly in the realm of the non-essential goods and services, both across time and space. One could almost speak of the pursuit of novelty, a la the beginning of "100 Years of Solitude," as an element of consumption history. In the case of trans-cultural, trans-ethnic interactions, one can further establish a marked category of the "consumption of the exotic": the purchase of material products that are "other"...non-locally produced, scarce because of circulation, and lacking in recognized enculturated structures of use...because they are other. This can be seen in the microscale, as in farmer's markets comprising the fruits of multiple villages' labor, and the macroscale, such as import/export companies such as Pier 51 or Cost Plus.

What has changed in recent history - by which I mean the past five hundred years - has been the power dynamic and scale within which goods and exotics circulated. Political and technological circumstances generated an economic center in-country - the modern version of the city, as trade hub and industrial base - and globally - the "centering" of Europe as consumer.

I think a big hinge of the discussion here is the implicit recognition of this power dynamic, with the [white] European on top by default due to the processes of the past, and its impact upon the modern ability for consumption. The ability to buy a dreamcatcher as an artefact of Native American culture (Which tribe? - I honestly don't know....) is predicated by a process of imperialist extraction of that material good from its original context/position.

There is a similar inverted unease regarding the reciprocal activities of appropriation occurring in non-European post-colonial contexts. The desire of young desi for bluejeans and Nikes, or the !Kung usage of metal tools, doesn't sit well in the stomach because the trading interaction somehow seems to have been forced...thrust upon them...as part of the power dynamic of Europe-as-economic-center.

The sick thing is there's really no going backwards. I'm not sure the appropriation process can be checked either direction, and attempts to "return" to an uncontaminated culture are not so much a reversion as an impressionistic interpretation of the past. Perhaps the latter is the way to go...Albert Memmi certainly suggests this type of methodology, that the "West" should simply go away and leave the colonized to sort out their culture on their own, independent of the value systems ingrained in European thought [in other words, the closure of the dialogue between colonized and colonizer, "center" and "other"]

But if the dialogue remains open do we have to examine the parameters of appropriate and inappropriate consumption of cultural artefacts and memes?
For example, is it acceptable to incorprorate the sarong into fashion because it is an item with no strong second-order meanings? Similarly, is it entirely inappropriate to acquire an item considered sacred - such as a Maori Te Moko (the characteristic tattoos, which are sacred) copied from a photograph?
 
 
The Monkey
15:13 / 19.03.02
The latter example used because of a recent rash of Te Moko patterns turning up on the arms of celebrities like Robbie Williams, which is considered very offensive, given their ritual significance as a marker of an individual possessing great mana and respect within the Maori community. While Maori also have cosmetic tattoo designs (I forget the term) Te Moko patterns are very specifically set aside as a marked category.

Off to find the link to the Maori webzine that started me on this topic.
 
 
Bill Posters
16:51 / 19.03.02
Deva, um, I'm not very well-up on 'race theory' or whatever one calls it but I think the point I was trying to make seems to be comparable to what that guy is arguing. It seems to me very pertinent right now given that 'Arab' or 'Afgan' do not necessarily get categorised as 'black', and so much of the venom being poured in those directions by the west now seems to be in terms of cultural imperialism, not 'racial superiority' as such. Bravo Two Zero for example has no racism in it, but McNab justifies slaughtering "jundies" (Iraqis) during the Gulf War with the idea that their culture is backward to the point of being pathological (to McNab, they are all 'poofs' and hate women).

As for the intellectual interaction with the Other, well, anthropology has been wracked with self-critisism since the mid-80's; one scholar even argued that anthropological texts are a form of pornography. I think they know that going off to study the Other (with their oh so penetrating intellects) is politically problematic. Quite what they're gonna do about it is another matter...

This 'lets all pick on the New Age college girl (woman?!) with the dream catcher' business: I totally fail to see that buying a dream catcher necessarily precludes one from being an active anticapitalist protestor, interfering when one sees racial abuse being perpetrated in the street, or any other kind of affirmative action. Moreover, I'd borrow Monkey's point from page 1 and reiterate that we shouldn't necessarily see the producers of these dream-catchers as passive, helpless victims. That's colonialist in itself. They can make money from this stuff, and in relative terms a lot of it; 'appropriation' can be a two-way process, even if it is always going to be a relationship of unequals for the foreseeable future as Monkey rightly points out. (This problem has been addressed in The Magick not so long ago but I can't seem to find the thread.) Moreover, if such appropriation is opposed, doesn't one end up almost copywriting culture? The Indian sarongTM, the Navaho DreamcatcherTM, etc etc, and thus ironically foisting a western intellectual property notion onto Other cultures which may not even have much of a concept of private property at all...

It's a tangled web we weave...

[ 21-03-2002: Message edited by: Bill Posters ]
 
 
Bill Posters
14:40 / 20.03.02
I don't think anyone's trying to deceive Haus old fellow. It's more a question of trying to leave the world a less nasty place than we found it. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions and all that. Erk, a proverb attack; this must surely constitute some sort of thread rot....
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:44 / 06.01.03
God, I *love* this thread. Just the right degree of tightly-reined in flirting, speculative motion, directional concept drift and lots of lovely huggles. Also, a startlingly tiny amount of Barbelith Fight Club, which I'm hoping we can keep as I resurrect it.

Basically, there are a couple of threads going on at the moment which have resulted from some flare-ups over the use of language on Barbelith, and this thread seems like an interesting place to tie up some of the ideas, especially going back to DPC's thoughts on the separation of acts and people.

I'm thinking in particular here of the comments:

I must confess to having a hard time understanding the motives behind threads like this, because it seems fairly apparent that there isn't a sizeable homophobic contingent on Barbelith (in fact, I've not seen anyone here at all who is "against" homosexuality) and yet this topic inevitably ends in factionalizing and ill feeling among a group that feels the same on the broader issues. Wouldn't we be better off working on the root problem instead of a (perceived) symptom? Shouldn't we focus on working together to stamp out homophobia instead of dividing and factionalizing over vocabulary??

and

What this thread has imparted to me, thus far, is a sudden doubt as to whether I'm qualified to decide that my usage of gay as a pejorative term is non-homophobic. And, with that doubt, I'm left wondering whether there's actually anyone capable of making that kind of decision.

Unfortunately, I have a feeling my logic is pointing towards a result of "If anyone, anywhere,is offended by a word, then the word is offensive." And from there, well, it's a hop, skip and a jump to newspeak, Orwell, and nuclear armageddon.

But in the other direction, we've got the freedom to be as much of a bigot as you want, as publically as you want. And I'm not really comfortable with that - speech can be performative, &c, &c.

Anyway - point being: whether or not we police it doesn't change whether or not it's an offensive term. But what does?

and

Perhaps Barbelith should consider showing new posters a code of conduct? Something along the lines of "Violence and war are almost certainly bad. As is hating (or even disliking) someone for what they are, rather than what they've done. By joining Barbelith you accept these terms." I rather thought everyone here thought that anyway, and didn't need reminding.

The questions being raised or answered here strike me basically as questions of entitlement; the people on Barbelith are entitled, for example, not to be thought of as believing "violence and war are almost certainly bad. As is hating (or even disliking) someone for what they are, rather than what they've done."

(Slight threadrot - actually, this is already problematic, as of course is the idea that potential Barbeloids have to accept an ideology before joining. Certain posters on this very thread have in the past approved of violence, and of violent protest in particular.)

For example, Duncan Falconer, quoted and contextualised in the "hate speech or descriptive diminutives" thread here, says that terms that others find painful are not in fact necessarily abusive. Then I was criticised for my own insensitivity in throwing the terms around in a way that, although clearly not intended as "hate speech", does show a willingness to use the terms in discussion with a failure to understand their impact as a result of never having found myself on the receiving end of them. I had assumed, perhaps, that my own entitlement came from my own (self-perceived, self-constructed) status as a good guy...

So, yes...I'm being a bit vague and floaty here, because I don't really trust my own perceptions on this at present - because I'm right, damn it (you see?), but I was wondering if we could tie some of the recent discussions in and out of the Head Shop into some sort of overarchy thing here, perhaps leading onto some practical solutions for goodness (hey, Alas!)...
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
15:27 / 06.01.03
cool, was trying to dig this out t'other day. will have a think and come back.
 
 
Ethan Hawke
15:59 / 06.01.03
Perhaps this thread and one's reactions to it, and an investigation of who found it funny, who forwarded it to your e-mail box, and to whom you forwarded it, can be enlightening as well. I think it's kind of unexamined as to who found it funny and why they found it funny.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
17:03 / 06.01.03
Having just reread it in its entirety, I too love this thread. What Haus said.

'tightly reined'....mmmmmmm

Sorry. I *will* come back and say something constructive about how I think my responses of anger to the uses of the words Paki and Chink' are produced in part by something which i think connects to this 'i'm on your side' debate.
 
 
some guy
22:32 / 06.01.03
To what degree is our "guilt" over the other just masturbatory self-flagellation?

The desire of young desi for bluejeans and Nikes, or the !Kung usage of metal tools, doesn't sit well in the stomach because the trading interaction somehow seems to have been forced...thrust upon them...as part of the power dynamic of Europe-as-economic-center.

Isn't the fact that these people want blue jeans and so forth more important than any sense of liberal white guilt? Wouldn't it be completely elitist and absurd to claim that things like the Internet belong only in the culture that first develops them? Is the desire to keep cultures distinct (as if they were quaint little toys) just another form of cultural imperialism?
 
 
The Falcon
22:33 / 06.01.03
The bottom quote linked by Haus is also mine, but I'd like you all to bear in mind I was being pissy and ironical. (And I also have a certain amount of approval for violence, correctly applied. But that's another thread...)

The other problem here, for me certainly, is that I'm far more used to conversing with people face to face (though I've been posting on messageboards for a few months now) and clearing up misapprehensions rather quicker and more easily. Said people, when you consider I live in the North-East of Scotland are also overwhelmingly more 'mainstream' in both colour and sexuality.

I find Todd's aforementioned 'Black People Love Us' thread extremely funny, and is the link I've touted most among my friends (although Kikkoman was also very good.)
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
23:07 / 06.01.03
Well, certainly not knowing very many non-white or non-straight people is going to make it an awful lot easier to excuse almost any behaviour on the grounds of being a good guy....maybe all us guilt-ridden liberals should move to the Orkneys.

Lawrence raises a very interesting question:

Is the desire to keep cultures distinct (as if they were quaint little toys) just another form of cultural imperialism?

I was wandering around the Horniman Museum a while ago discussing a similar question with a friend. The position under discussion was the "triangle of needs" - the idea that people need first water, then food, then shelter, then etc etc etc until eventually at the very top you have spiritual satisfaction, intellectual stimulation and so on. One argument explored was that this allowed the dominant powers in the world to vitiate other cultures while claiming to be providing or retaining the important things - i.e. water, food, shelter, te tum te tum.

Of ocurse, question emerging from that is a) whether the actions of the dominant powers *is* conducive to providing even basic necessities and b) why the dominant powers should be worrying about providing even the bottom of that pyramid, as opposed to leaving well alone. Is it a question of moral obligation, or enlightened self-interest, or just liberal guilt, or what? Or is the question academic at best anyway?
 
 
some guy
00:03 / 07.01.03
Good questions, Haus. I suppose our answers must depend in part on whether we see the world as a single humanity or discrete species. The "Prime Directive" is based on an important moral judgment...
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
07:22 / 07.01.03
Discrete species? Interesting use of terminology - why species rather than nations, cultures or interest groups?

(The Prime Directive is Star Trek, right? Something about not interfering with alien cultures? Only it occurs to me that it's a bit late for that on one level. Also, does that flow both ways? I mean, if Kirk saw a style of dress or a way to make coffee on an alien world that he really liked, could he half-inch it? And does the Prime Directive only apply to not interfering with more "primitive" cultures, or to affecting other cultures with their own recurring characters)
 
 
some guy
11:14 / 07.01.03
Discrete species? Interesting use of terminology - why species rather than nations, cultures or interest groups?

Because the other terms lead back to "one humanity" pretty quickly, which unbalances the playing field a little bit. Obviously we're not talking species, but I figured everyone here would understand we're playing with terms.

The Prime Directive is Star Trek, right? Something about not interfering with alien cultures?

I've probably seen half an episode of Star Trek in my life, so all I know of the Prime Directive comes from pop culture allusions. Non-interference sounds right. The "no jeans for tribes" post upthread seems to champion a PD approach. I find the PD thing odd, as it's loaded with several dubious value judgments, not the least of which are:

1) Humans are not social animals; and

2) Cultural change is bad.

IMO cross-cultural contact is a positive thing, because humans are social animals. The "contacted" tends to want to chat with the "contacter," and vice versa. To get back to the dreamcatcher thing, it's a mutual exchange of ideas (and lord, how much does the West owe to the rest of the world, culturally?). There is the matter of exploitation and so forth, but this doesn't make the basic idea bad, just certain applications of it.

The second question is trickier, but I'm going to suggest that part of the "liberal guilt" phenomenon comes from an unexamined position that cultural loss or change is a bad thing. Or, to put it in other words, that it's fine for our culture to change almost overnight thanks to printing, films, cars, the assembly line or what have you, but something's wrong if a tribesman wants to buy jeans and Coke. Or we get the dreamcatcher scenario, where it's spun as tragedy and spiritual exploitation if Robbie Williams wears a tattoo, or a hippy chick buys a dreamcatcher - where are these critics when it comes to the daily reduction of Western religion to commodity? Cultural exchange cuts both ways - both sides might use the other's ideas/products/art in new, unrelated ways. Why is that necessarily bad?
 
 
grant
19:36 / 07.01.03
If you're gonna use the Prime Directive as an example, it's important to know that within the show, it's given a lot of lip service while being egregiously violated. Later series use debates over the Prime Directive itself as a central source of trouble within the plot.
 
 
The Monkey
22:50 / 07.01.03
I attempted in my long-ago, last post on this thread to put forward the reasons that someone experiencing what you refer to as "liberal guilt" would evince for their sentiments. The essence of my point was that while diffusion and exchange of concepts across cultures occur regularly and naturally, "appropriation" is a discrete entity in which exchange occurs along a power dynamic...specifically thinking of the colonial and neocolonial context...such that one side possesses the hegemony on deciding what gets imported and exported, e.g. the British got to call the dances with all of their various "subjects," giving just as much as they wanted while stripping the cupboard of both ideas and artefacts.

I don't necessarily agree with this logic when it comes to modern economic and social interactions between the so-called "First" and "Third" Worlds, it certainly fits the bill with what was going on during the Colonial Era. As I pointed in my first two paragraphs of my last post, even on a macro-scale consumption is a two-way street (now more than ever). There is a fairly large academic and radical demense, though, that sees colonial models of unequal cultural exchange as a continuing process.

Then again, I know a lot of pissed-off indigenous people who feel that their heritage got sold to Hot Topic by a third party for a mess of potage, and without any rationale I kinda get their point. They never got to say no.
 
  

Page: 12(3)45

 
  
Add Your Reply