From: "Lee Corbin" <lcorbin@tsoft.com>
> Olga writes
> ...I pasted in something from Natasha's recent post: "At first,
> > only those with money or connections had them. Today, in downtown
> > Los Angeles, there are more Mexicans using cell phones than executives."
> >
> > What was the implication in that sentence? That once upon a time when
cell > > phones were expensive they had a certain cachet as only rich
hoity-toity
> > CEOs could get their hands on them; but now these formerly exclusive
handy > > little gadgets have become so cheap and plentiful that "Mexicans"
have
them > > (Mexicans in this case standing for a catch-all word meaning
what? --
poor > > people? riff-raff? the hoi-polloi? illegal aliens?). [YOUR
IMPLICATIONS,
> not hers]
Note the question marks. I neither said the implications were Natasha's -
nor mine. I was asking how they may be perceived by the general reader (and
I suggested a few ways they may be perceived).
> Now, I think that there *is* an implication in that sentence that
> Mexicans are poorer than business executives, and are poorer
> than some other ethnic groups. But Olga---this is a fact!
Thank you, Harvey Newstrom, for saying exactly what I would have said to
this. To reiterate, don't think it is helpful to use the term "Mexicans" in
such an instance - and I suggested a more accurate description may have been
"poor people" or something ...
If > I imagine that some small enclave of people of my racial persuasion
> were to have to flee to Japan, and for *whatever* reason were poorer
> than the Japanese, I would not be offended by such a sentence. The
> sentence would only be alluding to a fact (or a widely-assumed fact).
If there were no other people of your racial persuation in Japan other than
"poor," this would work. Otherwise, this example would have the same
problem of fallacy as the aforementioned one. Being or not being offended
is a whole other subject which I did not bring up in my post.
> The huge mistake that the left has made is this: people are not
> only supposed to not allude to certain facts, but worse, they're
> not even supposed to *recognize* certain realities.
There's nothing I like more than facts. But give me facts. People on the
right don't have a monopoly on recognizing realities, in any case. Neither
do people on the left.
It's a little
> bit like thought-crime. This puts a fiendish burden on everyone,
> themselves included! As we discussed before, any normally functioning
> human being constantly generalizes; it's part of how one's nervous
> system works, and if it didn't, we'd never have evolved to where we are.
I will defend your right to say anything you like. I only point out there
are consequences to some of our actions. A particular consequence may
inspire a change in behavior, if that consequence is judged worthy of
modification. Humans beings have the capacity to become more educated,
insightful, mature all their lives, in spite of how their nervous system
works. It depends on what is important to you, personally (i.e., I am not
proposing that everyone will come to exactly the same conclusions as to what
constitutes education, insightfulness, maturity).
> If you happened to live in a country where those people who were dressed
> a certain way, or had some other distinguishing characteristic, were
> more likely to harm you than others, you *could* *not* *help* but
> notice. To then pound yourself with criticism over your own
> stereotyping reminds me of nothing so much as Orwell's 1984. Out
> of sheer ideology---or because the party says so---facts are denied,
> thought is controlled.
More likely to harm you? While this subject has validity, it is a bit out
of the range of what we were discussing here. I am not a person who
believes in things out of sheer ideology, in any case. I wonder why I may
have given you that impression, if you are imputing some of the above to me.
> Which is it you want? For Natasha to not have such thoughts, i.e.,
> exercise such mental agility that thought-crime is impossible, or
> merely for her never to *say* what she is thinking? And if the
> latter, then how do you think that she is going to *feel* about
> her evil thoughts? The Christians make it even a sin to lust,
> and so they're screwed, because humans will always lust, and it's
> the same thing here. (What should have been a sin is to *act*.)
Again, we're back to thought crimes -- and I'm not sure what that's all
about. Natasha is a smart lady, and will come to her own conclusions. I
have a feeling Natasha is somewhat like me - she will "never graduate"
(i.e., keep evolving and learning).
> I'm starting to think that you'd be happy with the Chinese self-
> criticism sessions that were on-going for a couple of decades.
> Every week *everyone* would join a self-criticism group, and
> confess their bourgeois tendencies and lack of focus and failure
> to more steadfastly incorporate Mao ZheDong thought. Just think:
> if we had those here, then each week you could go confess the
> way that you yourself had been unconsciously noticing patterns
> and stereotyping. Wouldn't that be great?
No.
> Your political correctness even reached fever pitch when you
> analysed Brian's perfectly innocent observation about Mexicans.
> (You even admitted that there were no implications at all,
> unlike Natasha's transgression.) What had Brian failed to
> do right? I'll tell you! He didn't qualify his sentence
> about the Mexicans with newspeak. I mean, he didn't qualify
> his sentence with indicators showing solidarity with the
> masses. Oops. Wrong country again. I mean, he didn't
> qualify his sentence with politically correct panderings
> to progressive forces, i.e., he could have said "Latinos",
> or he could have thrown in a phrase about exploitation, or
> something. But he didn't, and you were on him in a flash.
Again, I was asking a question. Brian answered my question. The background
of this for me was that this issue was percolating on a back burner since
Natasha's post at the end of July - and please observe I wasn't "on [her]
like a flash" (what you attributed to me in Brian's case). It may have
seemed like I was on Brian "like a flash," but the truth is that his post
brought up Natasha's (from the back burner), and so I thought maybe I would
address it. I even thought it may do some good to explore this issue.
Maybe I was wrong.
Olga
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:18 MDT