From: Horse (horse@darkstar.uk.net)
Date: Mon Jun 28 2004 - 01:05:46 BST
Hi Wim
On 27 Jun 2004 at 9:24, Wim Nusselder wrote:
> 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.
It would seem from what you say above that a biological pattern of value which
determines skin colour also determines a whole bunch of social and intellectual patterns
of value but as these biological patterns of value must have existed prior to social or
intellectual values there would seem to be a problem. At least to my mind anyway.
Cheers
Horse
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