From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@kohath.wanadoo.co.uk)
Date: Sat Aug 06 2005 - 10:42:00 BST
Hi DMB,
> Sam said to Ant:
> By the way, for the record, I've never agreed with Platt that terrorists
> should be seen as biological... However, in Platt's defense I think that
> his
> language CAN be defended by appeal to RMP, who is just as guilty of using
> that language. ("it's a war of criminal blacks... against social blacks").
> Denying that he can do this seems to have more to do with hero-worship of
> RMP than the plain sense of RMPs words.
>
> dmb says:
> You've got to be kidding. If hero-worship means using misquotes out of
> context that totally misconstrue the meaning and confuse the issue, then
> you must be President of the fan club. Basic reading comprehension skills
> are all a person needs in order to see that RMP is NOT making the kind of
> racist remarks that have been under scrutiny here. Here'show he uses "that
> language". The emphasis is Pirsig's...
>
> "It is immoral to speak agains a people because of the color of their
> skin, or any other genetic characteristic because these are not changable
> and don't matter anyway. But it is not immoral to speak against a person
> because of his cultural characteristics if those cultural characteristics
> are immoral. These are changable and they do matter.
> Blacks have no right to violate social codes and call it 'racism' when
> someone tries to stop them, if those codes are not racist codes. That is
> slander. The fight to sustain social codes isn't a war of blacks vs.
> whites or Hispanics vs. blacks, or poor people vs. rich people or even
> stupid people vs. intelligent people, or any other of allthe other
> possible cultural confrontations. Its a war of biology vs. society.
> Its a war of BIOLOGICAL blacks and BIOLOGICAL whites against SOCIAL blacks
> and SOCIAL whites. Genetic patterns just confuse the matter. And this is a
> war in which intellect, to end the paralysis of society, has to know whose
> side it is on, and support that side, and never undercut it."
>
> dmb continues:
> If I may be allowed to summarize the main point here; racism is immoral
> and race is totally freakin' irrelevant to the issue anyway.
Well, maybe I'm just deeply confused (always a possibility) but I thought
the objection was to Platt's use of the word 'biological' in the description
'biological terrorist' - the emphasis being on the first word as the
description of a human being, the 'terrorist' - therefore, if RMP talks
about 'biological blacks' and 'biological whites' he is just as guilty of
using that form of description as Platt.
So it's not a point about racism at all, it's about the use of the word
'biological' to describe a human being, or class of human beings.
Which is what RMP does, in so far as I read the passage.
One of us has definitely missed the point.
Sam
The New Testament can be summarised easily:
1. Unless you love, you die.
2. If you love, they will kill you.
(From remarks by Herbert McCabe)
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