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From: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: defining racism -- Laura on compassi
Message-ID: <394@ubvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8-Jan-86 22:35:05 EST
Article-I.D.: ubvax.394
Posted: Wed Jan  8 22:35:05 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 13-Jan-86 17:54:05 EST
References: <336@l5.UUCP> <28200431@inmet.UUCP>
Reply-To: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
Organization: Ungermann-Bass, Inc., Santa Clara, Ca.
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(my firm's site has had some machine problems recently ...)

To restate before discussing Jan's response, I think racism
has most to do with passings on of "common wisdoms", usually
national myths, which describe the relative positions of
peoples and races in vivid terms which the mass media and
our own memories retain and remember, while we filter out
exceptions in the process.  National myths, or common wisdoms
if you wish, protect some groups and withhold protection from
others.

As an activity, racism derives more from people not bothering
to separate their thoughts about other individuals from common
wisdoms, than from any resentments or frustrations towards excluded
groups.

Jan seems to believe racism comes from "feelings and attitudes"
which as real emotions, deserve our respect and should be looked
at as emotions individuals should find the heart in their lives
to change.

I link "feelings and attitudes" theories with psychological arguments,
arguments either at the level of individual histories or of drives
common to all members of the human race.  I believe in respecting
feelings deriving from individual histories, and of compassion in
that sense.

Where do racist feelings come from?  Some feelings come from other
feelings, developed over one's life -- an argument from psychological
history.  Other feelings come mostly from other people and a willingness
to accept received opinion and dogma -- an argument from social
environment, media, and bad education.

That the feelings are there is not in dispute, to me.  That we should
give these feelings the respect we give to individuals as people with
histories and moralities is what I dispute.

I will not give the feelings towards Vietnamese of a person who learned
them by watching Rambo the respect I give to a person who was a POW
in a Vietnamese camp.  And I don't *care* if those feelings are
exactly the same.

I think this is a defenseable moral opinion.  And I believe that racist
feelings are almost entirely feelings of the first and not the second type.
Hence I feel all right in giving little respect to them or to people who
animate and develop them.

These kinds of feelings should be open to the corrective intervention of
educational bodies and the state, and so should the ability to animate
and develop these feelings, within the limits defined by individual
rights.

I'll discuss jan's article next.

Tony Wuersch
{amdcad!cae780, amd}!ubvax!tonyw