From: Brian Phillips (deepbluehalo@earthlink.net)
Date: Sat Jun 01 2002 - 08:18:14 MDT
I wrote
> Do you enjoying spending quality time with people who
>you identify with?
Damien apparently replied
<<This is rather circular, don't you think, and question-begging? Assuming
that `identify with' means `have considerable sympathy with, and common
shared interests and concerns', obviously. Does this mean that I *don't*
enjoy spending time with other people not yet in this favored set, or would
like to do them harm? It depends. Weirdly enough, I rather like the idea of
*extending* the range of people with whom I enjoy spending time.>>
Perhaps circular to you. I think it's fairly obvious to *my sort* of
people
that you haven't the foggiest idea of what roots are all about. And no
that isn't a race comment.
>Do you detect patterns in those
>you identify with, whether behavioural or otherwise?
<<Yes, indeed; so far, they are humans, but I expect this to change
moderately soon. Most are literate and their intelligence is schooled in
ways I'm familiar with. >>
How's THAT for going out on a limb! Why don't you utilize your
apparent intelligence to analyze a little more deeply, to look for
the patterns.
I enjoy star-gazing and dreaming also, but not to the exclusion
of focus on the present. There is a balance to be struck there.
One does not overcome the future by allowing it to determine the
past.
<But the long `patriotic'/crypto-white man's burden
list that followed this question strikes me as rather sad, and, you know,
un-extropian (for what that's worth).>>
Had to get in a nazi crack didn't you eh Doc? I'm no fucking patriot,
which should have been real clear from the terms I was using.
For all your qualification in the use of the English language you
are as prone to tossing things into the sameold stereotypical pile
as any klansman. I'm talking about family, not countries. Kin not
flags. Trying to muddle up the pleasures of folks and good food,
and of knowing *exactly* where you are from and what it means,
has nothing to do with imperialism. White man's burden my ass.
And as for *un-extropian*... well perhaps you should muster
a meeting of the Committee! :P
<<<I just plain *don't* feel most of
these antique filiations, although in some ways maybe I'd be better off if
I did (if I'd been closer to my immediate family, say, when I was a
teenager).>>>
That may have something to do with it. Family is one of those
constants. I'd question whether they are truly *antique* just yet
of course. I pity you sir, and that's not a conversational thrust,
it's a genuine statement. For all your sophistication and academic
success you (apparently) lack something even an illiterate beggar
can hold near and dear, and use to ease a painful passage through
life. A pity.. Hopefully you will have many centuries to repair the
error, should you come to see it as such.
< The nearest I get to it is a special warmth and friendliness
toward people who admire science, say, and to a lesser extent sf readers
who aren't ninnies; if that's an ethnos, then I suppose I'm a kind of
default ethnocentric too--but I reckon that's a big stretch.>
Stretched to deformation and failure I'm afraid. I like people who
like science as well, but it's not like I'd call them to help bury a
body :)
<<Ethnic* is
apparently being used here as a (coff coff) PC or euphemistic way to avoid
more candid, frowned-upon words like `race' or `class' or `dirty stinking
[fill in disapproving term of choice]'.>>
Not only must you not use the forbidden words, but substitutes or apparent
substitutes for these words are also verboten!
Ja whol Herr Damien!
<<But of course I would not choose to live in exile *exclusively* among
fundamentalist Muslim Arabs or fundamentalist white former-Rhodesians or
goat herding Africans or whale eating Inuit or motorhead Australians or
trailer trash white Americans with pointy white head gear. I don't regard
that as ethno*centrism*, though. >>
It isn't. Rest easy 'fessor, your soul is clean and untainted by the nasty
thoughts.
One thing you need to realize is that just because I'm lots smarter than
most
of my relations, more open to novelty, probably will be lots richer,etc.
doesn't mean I don't have a clear and consistent obligation to them, to
protect them, to guard their interests. We hear lots on this list about
game theory and disinterested brokering based on reputation.
Reputation. In a word the appearance of honor. Which stems from
what? Adherence to values.
But those are all dead words, *archiac filiations* to you are they not?
I have an idea. You can look at all these archaic filiations as memes
which I have chosen because I believe they make me a more effective
individual, and the person with the most loot and time in existence wins!
How's that for rational?
<<Damien Broderick
[a heathen]>>
LOLOLOLOLOLOL.
I about lost my laptop spewing coffee. See all the "heathens" I know are
Asatru, and they make ME look tepid on the subject of kinfolk. Maybe
the heathens in Oz are different from here!
Woden guide you brother Damien!
Wes thu hail!
Brian
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