From: Zero Powers (zero_powers@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Aug 07 2001 - 01:43:48 MDT
>From: "Lee Corbin" <lcorbin@tsoft.com>
>I would like to address the points that Harvey Newstrom made, but
>there isn't room in this email. I wish to say that for a huge number
>of otherwise rational thinkers, I am afraid, the statements that I
>made above qualify and overqualify me as a racist. Anyone who thinks so
>please give me a careful analysis---not a one line emotionally driven
>rejection or put-down.
The problem, Lee, is that we are *all* racists. It is virtually impossible
to have been born and raised in the US without being a racist. It is in
part a social problem and in part an evolved defense mechanism. The less
like "us" a given person or group of persons is, the more likely we are to
view them with suspicion and caution. Not necessarily a bad thing in and of
itself. But when that instinct is not tempered by a willingness to consider
the possibility that the "different" person is not so bad as our gut
reactions tell us, then our rationality is being trumped by animal instinct.
A very un-Extropian way to go, if you ask me.
-Zero
"I'm a seeker too. But my dreams aren't like yours. I can't help thinking
that somewhere in the universe there has to be something better than man.
Has to be." -- George Taylor _Planet of the Apes_ (1968)
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