From: Brian Phillips (deepbluehalo@earthlink.net)
Date: Fri May 31 2002 - 07:53:39 MDT
quoeth me
> Speaking as a transhumanist, someone who
>generally agrees with extropian principles,
>an avowed ethnocentrist
Damien replied
<<<A *what*?
and later:>>
>Either this list represents liberty through human
>ascension to higher levels of rationality or it doesn't.
<<Higher levels of rationality through better ethnocentrism! There's a
ringing call to action, if ever I've heard one.>>
>I will simply unsubscribe and spend the time reading or tend my cacti
>if it tends to the latter.
<<Me too, but I think we might use different metrics.
Damien Broderick
[ethnically slap bang in the center]>>
Damien,
Do you enjoying spending quality time with people who
you identify with? Do you detect patterns in those
you identify with, whether behavioural or otherwise?
Do you find that the cultural,and psychosocial
attitudes typical of some arbitrarily defined phenotypic
groups make you desire to exit their vicinity as quickly
as is feasible?
Do you feel that you should be allowed to associate and
contract freely with those you identify with, and decline
to associate and contract with those you do not wish to
for any reason what so ever?
Do you acknowledge that individuals possess different
levels of various abilities and that various populations of
like individuals possess, on average, different strengths
and weaknessess, in relation to their in-group likeness?
Do you feel it is your duty to decline to shrink from those
perceptions you believe to be valid, in this regard?
Do you have a strong affinity for a specific cultural
background, and view it as a scource of strength, honor,
and integrity you can use to help make difficult decisons
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?
Do you look at the heroes of the past, people with whom
you can identify, and resolve each day to take their greatness
into your own life-struggle and express the precious gift
of that cultural inheritance in new and ever-more meaningful
ways?
Do you look with disquiet and sometimes with loathing on those
who seem bent on attacking you for quietly being a person
your grandparents and ancestors would be proud of (if somewhat
confused by, given the march of progress), and also for wishing
to pass on that inheritance and culture in as great a measure as
possible to your descendants, again consistent with the needs
of a complex evolving world?
Do you despise the illogic and laziness of thought that gives
rise to decitful and malicious politics of presumptive victimhood
and the quest for ever-higher levels of a persecution quotient?
Are you proud as hell of who, what, and what sort you are..
and do you think anyone who believes that's reason for guilt
should get aquainted with a hungry wolf pack far far away from
you? And would you smile if you found out they actually did so
without any help from you?
If so you may be somewhat ethnocentric, that is, someone who
is "centered" or rooted in their heritage.
There is a saying in the neijiaquan arts to the effect that
"Rooting is first, it is the heart of the steppings, which make
the weak strong and enable the pure of heart to overcome
the hundreds of foes without fear."
regards,
Brian
Don't fear the tip of the whip, the real force comes from
the soles of the wielder's feet.
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