From: Richard Loggins (brloggins@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Jun 21 2004 - 15:56:05 BST
Ant, msh, Paul V,
> Ant McWatt comments:
> Pirsig goes absolutely down the
> political line when discussing blacks in LILA i.e.
>
> ‘It is not immoral to speak against a person because
> of his cultural characteristics if those cultural
> characteristics are immoral. These are
> changeable 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.’
>
> As is clearly apparent, therefore, Pirsig is
> courageously dealing with the issue of black
> criminality from an impartial view on an
> intellectual basis, neither being swayed by
> supposedly ‘political correct’ intellectuals nor by
> socially-orientated racists.
Perhaps he is courageous and impartial, Ant, but I
think his emphasis slants toward the opinion that
"racism" (the scare quotes are his) is mostly a false
charge leveled against whites by blacks. He hints that
genuine racism exists, but he doesn't say enough about
it to suggest that he aggrees with the part of the AAA
statement that, "The tragedy in the United States has
been that the policies and practices stemming from
this worldview succeeded all too well in constructing
unequal populations among Europeans, Native Americans,
and peoples of African descent." Instead in Pirsig's
view, the tragedy in the United States has been the
paralysis caused by racist slander.
Since Pirsig addresses the issue of black crime head
on but doesn't even mention the effects of systemic
racism on blacks themselves, its not too hard to see
why bigots like Paul Vogel could find a certain
kinship with the socio-political views of my hero,
R.M. Pirsig :(
Rich
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