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Post by nordicyouth on Aug 17, 2004 3:40:44 GMT -5
gbloco started this damn thread in the first place. He's spamming up Dodona with his interracial flaunting. Who cares, so your friends are multicultural and you date non-Whites, do you want a medal for this? I mean I agree with you on some issues (e.g. re: Galvez), but I don't see this thread going anywhere but a long pointless argument. You created it to provoke reactionaries here on this board, and you've discovered there's quite a few - hence the 8 pages.
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Post by geirr on Aug 17, 2004 6:45:14 GMT -5
gbloco started this damn thread in the first place. He's spamming up Dodona with his interracial flaunting. Who cares, so your friends are multicultural and you date non-Whites, do you want a medal for this? I mean I agree with you on some issues (e.g. re: Galvez), but I don't see this thread going anywhere but a long pointless argument. You created it to provoke reactionaries here on this board, and you've discovered there's quite a few - hence the 8 pages. Imperator-et-Rex, what is your definition of ethnic?
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Post by pconroy on Aug 18, 2004 21:00:52 GMT -5
I've read a lot of BS about the Jews trying to encourage immigration to the US for their own interests, etc. Did it occur to any of you that Jews in the US are dying out as a seperate group due to assimilation - just read some reviews of Alan Dershowitz's book, "The Vanishing American Jew" www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0316181331/104-0908232-7395929?v=glanceThey are being assimilated by other groups, and in the end will simply be American like all other immigrants who came to the US. www.halfjew.com/html/celebrity/That's the future for all ethnic groups in the US, eventually! It's how most nations were created anywhere in the world.
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Post by Anima Eternae on Aug 24, 2004 17:48:38 GMT -5
I've read a lot of BS about the Jews trying to encourage immigration to the US for their own interests, etc. Did it occur to any of you that Jews in the US are dying out as a seperate group due to assimilation - just read some reviews of Alan Dershowitz's book, "The Vanishing American Jew" www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0316181331/104-0908232-7395929?v=glanceThey are being assimilated by other groups, and in the end will simply be American like all other immigrants who came to the US. www.halfjew.com/html/celebrity/That's the future for all ethnic groups in the US, eventually! It's how most nations were created anywhere in the world. The jews have been the one encouraging immigration. But thier monster has bitten its master. Oh, sweet irony.
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Post by DeeperThought on Aug 27, 2004 8:44:02 GMT -5
gbloco,
The first thing that has to be understood is that there are no biological "races" as some would have you believe. Biological-race is nothing more than an arbitrary form of classifying humanity into a small group of idealised types consistent with socio-historical ideas of "otherness". The reality of human inheited variation is that it exists clinally, that is to say that there are no real abrupt discontinuities which might justify the notion that we must all be placed in race "boxes". Biological-race requires the arbitrary privileging of a set of inherited characterists (usually but not necessarily including morphological characteristics). Once such a set of characteristics are privileged in order to "discover" race, imaginary points of discontinuity are established within these privileged characteristics; i.e. the imaginary points at which race X ends and race Y begins. It follows that depending on which inherited characteristics are privileged to "signify" biological-race membership and where in each characteristic the imagined discontinuity between such races is chosen, such biological-race conceptions can be constructed in pretty much any number of ways. One could thus easily claim that there are three races, five races, seven races, twenty-two races or ninety-nine races, each conception being as (il)legitimate as the other, because they are equal in their arbitrary construction.
To repeat; the scientific reality is that human inherited variations exist among a huge myriad of non-codependent clines.
People cling to biological race, however, because it constitutes a useful and simple (simplistic) vehicle for grouping people in terms of "us" and "them", "same" and "different" - it can be used to justify social and political ideologies. It's certainly not science, indeed it's not even rational, but humans are often neither scientific or rational in their thinking.
What you will discover at forums such as these is that "race" is used to identify and justify dislike and even hatred of "others" under a superficial mask of scientific language. Moreover, you will see that those who believe in biological races also tend to conflate this conception of race with national identity; questions such as "what does the ideal Spaniard look like?" are asked and answered as if belonging to a nation, ideally, means also belonging to a certain race. The fact that someone with inherited characterists representative of, say, equatorial west Africa, could be an "ideal" Spaniard, is by necessity excluded. As this example shows, biological-race (itself a fallacy) when conflated with the concept of nationality, forces those of other "races" to be seen as inappropriate or counterfeit members of certain nations. Because "race" and national identity is fallaciously conflated, to be identified as one race when living in a nation associated with another race is to be "in the wrong place".
Typically the biological-race believer carries a deep sense of superiority for his "race" and, by necessity, a deep sense of inferiority for other "races". His race will be conceptualised in terms of being the most "beautiful", "noble", "intelligent" and so on.
In a nutshell, biological-race is a concept mostly used as a vehicle for rampant racism.
You will also find race believers to often be anti-race "mingling" or "mating". They carry the idea that their "race" must remain "pure", must remain "untainted" by "infection" from other "races". They will even express disgust at the idea that humans from one "race" might choose to have children with humans from "other races".
None of their racist views are scientific of course, but they will try very hard to project the view that their assertions are indeed founded on science, and they will even adopt (often pseudo)scientific jargon to persuade themselves and each other that this is the case.
Oswy.
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Post by Melnorme on Aug 27, 2004 9:06:23 GMT -5
that is to say that there are no real abrupt discontinuities which might justify the notion that we must all be placed in race "boxes". Some clines are 'steeper' than others. These are the 'discontinuities'.
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Post by DeeperThought on Aug 27, 2004 9:22:42 GMT -5
Melnorme,
Clinal variation is clinal variation "steep" or otherwise. Pretending that there are real discontinuities to be discovered, rather than imaginatively chosen in the huge myriad of non-codependent clines which inherited variation is expressed through, is part of the above self-deception.
Oswy.
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Post by Melnorme on Aug 27, 2004 9:34:39 GMT -5
Melnorme, Clinal variation is clinal variation "steep" or otherwise. Pretending that there are real discontinuities to be discovered, rather than imaginatively chosen in the huge myriad of non-codependent clines which inherited variation is expressed through, is part of the above self-deception. So what? You think complete discontinuities are a requirement for the existence of race? Of course not. If there was complete discontinuity, we would be talking about different species, not different races. The steeper clines in variation divide human beings into fuzzy but statistically valid 'races'. Is the difference between a mountain and a molehill 'imaginative' just because the only difference between them is an arbitrarily selected perception of height?
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Post by Aria88 on Aug 27, 2004 20:29:29 GMT -5
Melnorme, well said. Astute observation. Nice analogy.
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Post by DeeperThought on Aug 28, 2004 3:59:55 GMT -5
Melnorme,
As explained in my paragraph above, a creative choice is made as to which inherited characteristics will be privileged so as to constitute the signifiers of biological-race identity. While some inherited characteristics are "deemed" important, others are "deemed" not so. The decision to include or exclude any given inherited characteristic in the biological-race paradigm is, scientifically, arbitrary. If this weren't enough a further step of creative and arbitrary decisions are made - in any given privileged characteristic a point is imagined, along the cline of variation, which is "deemed" to turn one "race" into another. Once we realise that both the characteristics used to determine biological-race are arbitrarily and creatively picked, as are the points in any given cline which make one "race" turn into another, we can see that the whole concept is a socio-political fabrication and not a discovery. There simply are no biological-races other than those which are creatively imagined because there are no real discontinuities. It also follows, and this is important, that because of the arbitrary way biological-race systems are constructed, any number of races could be postulated, and the points at which one "race" turns into another could be adjusted, to suit the socio-political agenda of the biological-race creators. There are today competing biological-race systems, some postulate three races, some postulate four races, some five. In the past there have been seven race systems, sixteen race systems and systems with even higher numbers of races. Not to mention the equally fallacious notion of human "sub-races". That there can be such variety demonstrates the creative and fluid nature of "biological-race" as a concept.
There is no real discontinuity, for example, between the imaginary "caucasiod" race and the equally imaginary "monogoloid" race. Instead, an entirely imaginary discontinuity is postulated (consistent with socio-historical groupings) and made into a pseudo-fact.
To pull-apart your analogy:
What represents a "mountain" and a "molehill" is, as biological-race analogy, being imaginatively constructed by the privileging of a set of inherited characteristics, drawing lines around them and saying "this is race X", or, "this is race Y". They are invented "facts", not discoveries.
Moreover, once "mountain" and "molehill" are, as biological-race analogy, defined in this way, a further arbitrary device is employed - where a "mountain" becomes a "molehill" is chosen, not discovered. Despite being an arbitrarily chosen "point" between "mountain" and "molehill" it is presented as a genuine and deeply meaningful discontinuity, as if a human who is deemed "mountain" is in fundamental ways different from a human deemed "molehill". Despite the obviously imaginative nature of the biological-race concept, it doesn't present itself as such, it presents itself as if discovery, as if hard "fact", as if humans really do exist, in nature, within one neat-and-tidy race-box or another and that it means something very important to be in one or another of these race-boxes. The reality is that humanity is not discovered to exist in a small number of these neat-and-tidy race-boxes, but as a huge myriad of non-codependent clinal variations.
Oswy.
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Post by Melnorme on Aug 28, 2004 5:51:02 GMT -5
I'm not talking about 'Mongoloid' and 'Caucasoid'. The very fact that different sub-groups of humanity have evolved separately from other sub-groups of humanity means that there are acquired differences. And, more importantly, there is a discernable order to these differences, they're not just random clines. Because the geographical migrations and reproductive success of different sub-groups of humanity were not random. It sounds to me like you're trying to make a straw-man out of antiquated and misunderstood perceptions of the race concept. Who said anything about 'neat and tidy boxes' or 'deeply meaningful discoveries'? Here's another good analogy, btw : the Atlantic and the Pacific, or just one big global ocean?
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Post by Melnorme on Aug 28, 2004 6:12:42 GMT -5
As explained in my paragraph above, a creative choice is made as to which inherited characteristics will be privileged so as to constitute the signifiers of biological-race identity. While some inherited characteristics are "deemed" important, others are "deemed" not so. Genetically-determined ancestry is the only required characteristic for determining race. There is no longer any need for a 'choice' to be made.
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SeanMichael
New Member
unsensitive to consummerism
Posts: 38
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Post by SeanMichael on Sept 2, 2004 16:22:17 GMT -5
That's the future for all ethnic groups in the US, eventually! It's how most nations were created anywhere in the world. I don't think so , it seems to me that only people from european countries , wichever religion/nation they were of , "eventually" melted into an indistinct american identity ; other , like hispanics , natives and blacks didn't follow this iter. About jews , I suppose that , in 100 years , only those most conservative will be considered "real" jews , liberal ones will have faided away and forgot their distinctive ethnic identity.
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