From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Fri May 31 2002 - 22:15:01 MDT
Brian writes
> Damien replied
> >Either this list represents liberty through human
> >ascension to higher levels of rationality or it doesn't.
and so Brian asked Damien a number of interesting questions,
in an effort to explain what he means by "ethnocentrism".
Among them were
> Do you have a strong affinity for a specific cultural
> background, and view it as a source of strength, honor,
> and integrity you can use to help make difficult decisions
> when your own abilities seem inadequate to the tasks
> before you?
...
> Do you prize the ideal of family relationships, and extend
> that ideal outwards in a manner consistent with the other
> larger groups relationship to those family bonds?
I don't know about Damien, but I think that most people
on this list will answer "no" to these questions.
Didn't Extropianism originally attract more libertarians
than non-libertarians, and wasn't cyberspace first
inhabited by very strong individualists? I think that
while libertarianism is far less dominant today on this
list than it was---if it's still dominant at all---the
tendency remains for most Extropians to be very
individualistic. Now there is no causal relationship
between the two, but this does mean that at the present
time, comparatively few Extropians will be strongly
patriotic, or identify with any particular cultural
heritage.
I disagree with Damien's characterization of your
"ethnocentrism" as less than fully rational, because
many of our loyalties and feelings of solidarity
with this or that cannot be utterly rational. But
just because some people have great emotional
attachment to their "people", or "the workers", or
"Americans", or "the underprivileged", or whatever,
does not imply that their beliefs are any less
rational. Values can't be rational or irrational.
I myself would answer "no" to your questions; I don't
have any particular heritage that I identify with, nor
do I especially prize the ideal of family relationships
and extend that ideal outwards.
My own cross to bear appears to be an almost instinctive
patriotism of a different sort. Even as a very, very young
child I somehow sensed that the Roman Empire was a great and
good thing because all the Roman citizens were patriots,
and what set them apart from others was their loyalty to
their nation, and their willingness to accept anyone as a team
player once that person cast away other loyalties. (Of course,
I didn't realize all the actual flaws in Rome as my ideal.)
So with their high technology (high compared to others, at
any rate), and high degree of civilization, legal rights,
and law, the Romans and the Pax Romana just grabbed me
at an incredibly basic level.
>From 1960, at age 12, to 1998 I was an exemplar of an
American patriot. I loved my country in a way that a
son loves his father, and it pained me greatly whenever
evidence of wrongdoing would emerge for either. I didn't
want to see such evidence, and I would make every effort
---every effort that logic and reason would allow---to
look at my country's behavior with rose-colored glasses.
But things for me, in the emotional area, are always pretty
black and white, and in 1998 I just couldn't stand it any
more. There was, as one might say, simply too much cognitive
dissonance. I won't go into why here, but I couldn't call
myself an American any longer. Worse, not only am I a man
without a country, I am a man without a people.
The Romans, you see, were also a people. When two met
on the street, they *knew* that each *knew* that they
were the *same*, not *different*. I had grown up under
a terrible delusion: I had supposed that people felt
the same as I did, and had this powerful built-in urge
to have a people and to have a nation. I was quite wrong.
Not one person in ten has those intense feelings; and many
of them are punks whose loyalty is to their street gang
or football team.
Curiously, when I speak to Vietnamese, I sense this same
identical feeling. It's as if all the ones I've talked to
(not a large sample) are on the same page. They seem to
be built that way, as I am. When McNamara went to Vietnam
in the 80's, he asked them "How could you stand dying in
such great numbers at our hands?", and they simply
responded, "It was for our country".
For me 1998 was a terrible year of pain. I feel like
I'll always have the scars. I know I'll always miss
not having a nation or a people. It seems to be part
of my character.
Lee
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