[Peace-discuss] Would It Kill Us to Apologize to Iran for the Coup?

[John W.]

Here is a point on which Carl and I agree, though his interest in the topic
is more academic, let us say, than mine.  Capitalism was the root cause of
racial discrimination rather than the reverse, and it's the source of just
about all of our other disparities as well.

However, I go a step further and identify unregenerate human nature as the
real culprit.  Humans, by and large, are self-centered, grasping, fearful
little creatures who are more interested in getting ahead of their neighbor
than in sharing their bounty with him/her.  It doesn't matter what "system"
we operate under, be it monarchy or capitalism or communism or what have
you.  Some humans always seem to figure out a way to oppress their fellow
humans, and rationalize their behavior in myriad ways.  They don't even
consider it oppression, they consider it "working hard" or "living right" or
whatever - even when they don't work and live on the income from a trust
fund!  And in that Marti is absolutely right; by failing to recognize their
privilege and surrender at least some of it for the common good, they
perpetuate and exacerbate the evil.

I continue to wonder at the factors which caused Europeans, just in the last
half of the last century, to get it more nearly right than most other
societies in history.

JW


On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 11:44 AM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:

I wouldn't call it limousine liberalism, but John is correct I think to
> suggest that there is a tendency in recent American liberalism to substitute
> diversity for (economic) equality as the goal of progressive politics.
>
> The argument is sharply set out by Walter Benn Michaels in "The Trouble
> with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality"
> (2006).  And it's been argued that the real story of Tom Frank's "What's the
> Matter With Kansas?" (2004) is that the working class abandoned the
> Democratic party when the Democrats abandoned economic equality (insofar as
> they ever embraced it) in favor of diversity.
>
> Benn Michaels summarized his argument in a recent issue of the British
> journal, "New Left Review."  Here is his conclusion:
>
> "...the answer to the question, 'Why do American liberals carry on about
> racism and sexism when they should be carrying on about capitalism?', is
> pretty obvious: they carry on about racism and sexism in order to avoid
> doing so about capitalism. Either because they genuinely do think that
> inequality is fine as long as it is not a function of discrimination (in
> which case, they are neoliberals of the right). Or because they think that
> fighting against racial and sexual inequality is at least a step in the
> direction of real equality (in which case, they are neoliberals of the
> left).  Given these options, perhaps the neoliberals of the right are in a
> stronger position -- the economic history of the last thirty years suggests
> that diversified elites do even better than undiversified ones. But of
> course, these are not the only possible choices."
>
> <http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2731>
>
>
> John W. wrote:
>
>
>> On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 8:58 AM, Robert Naiman <naiman.uiuc at gmail.com<mailto:
>> naiman.uiuc at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> I'm definitely not in favor of refusal to recognize privilege. But I
>> presume
>> that in a non-racist society, if everyone woke up one day and discovered
>> that
>> by some mysterious process, a chunk of their neighbors were
>> disproportionately excluded from the economic benefits that the society
>> had
>> to offer, people would move to address the disparity.
>>
>>
>> You gotta be shitting me, Robert.  Surely you jest?  You have neighbors
>> right
>> here on this mailing list who are disproportionately excluded from the
>> economic benefits that society has to offer, and it has nothing to do with
>> race, and no one on this list is doing a damned thing about it or is GOING
>> to
>> do a damned thing about it.  Whenever I talk about poverty, lack of health
>> insurance, etc., from a personal perspective, I get a blank stare from the
>> limousine liberals.  "Get a life," they say, or "Be warmed and filled," to
>> quote the Good Book.  I daresay that most of the readers of this list care
>> more about people in Pakistan than they do about their neighbors, at least
>> in
>> terms of doing anything pragmatic to help them.
>>
>> I'll probably live to regret that comment, but there it is.
>>
>>
>>
>> So, the fact that such disparities persist in our society, and the fact
>> that
>> we don't move successfully to redress them, to me is evidence enough of
>> racism; no other story is necessary.
>>
>>
>> You ain't read enough stories, apparently.  There are many types of
>> disparities in our society, and many complex causes of such disparities.
>> Racism is an important one, but it is only one.
>>
>>
>>
>> That doesn't mean that other stories don't have value, and might not also
>> be important to achieving the end of redress, but I see no need to posit
>> them as
>> prerequisites, and some reason not to; since it might be the case, for
>> example, that some people have a psychological barrier against recognizing
>> privilege, but not against redress justified on some other basis.
>>
>>
>> You lost me there.  Not that it matters.
>>
>
>
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