From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Sun Jun 27 2004 - 08:24:29 BST
Dear Horse,
You wrote 27 Jun 2004 00:08:03 +0100:
'I'm making the assumption that we are using the standard idea of race which
is the classification of humans according to their skin colour'
I would say: skin colour and other observable characteristics that are
supposed to be genetically rooted.
You continued:
'what useful information do we gain with this categorization?'
It helps to guess at peoples descent (e.g. that their family hasn't been
living in the Netherlands for generations). Knowing the immigration history
of my country and some statistics of the social circumstances in which
different categories of immigrants live, it helps to guess at the social
circumstances in which people have been raised and live.
Knowing that patterns of behaviour and systems of ideas correlate to some
extent with social circumstances in which people have been raised and live,
it helps to guess at the behaviour to be expected from them in specific
situations and at some aspects of their systems of ideas that may diverge
from mine.
So when I happen to see a group of young people standing around in my path
who look like the majority of people living near the non-European shores of
the Mediterranean, racial classification helps me to not make friendly
remarks to them about the Islam that could be misinterpreted as criticism
and to not look at them too inquisitively. I might end up in hospital.
When I am in such a situation (which doesn't happen very often given the
social circumstances in which I live) I have to (and will) fight the urge to
choose another path. No amount of knowledge about statistics and their
limitations prevents feeling that urge. I just read an article in yesterdays
newspaper showing that even academics who have much more knowledge about
statistics in general and about relevant statistics in particular, who have
studied the relevant cultures thoroughly and who share my biases in favour
of underdogs feel that urge and ... -very irrational- felt that urge
stronger for some period after 11 September 2001.
People function largely pre-rational, even if they have very sophisticated
rational and post-rational parts. They even need that pre-rational part to
function properly in our society (and not end up in hospital too often) as
long as those rational and post-rational parts haven't developed much, much
further and have created and reformed collective habits to the point where
they don't feed that pre-rational part any more.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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