At Sun, 14 Mar 1999 22:18:05 -0800, you wrote:
>
>Ok, Joe, but why the notion of a group? 'Apart' not a part from other living
>systems, let alone other human beings? What rights do humans really have? What
>obligations? I like that you say the problems we face do not lie with them. I don't
>know, maybe I'm ready for the loony bin, but in my mind, there is no them, there is
>only us.
>/donna
>
We have the right to live without interference from others, and the responsibility not
to interfere in other peoples' lives. We have the common obligations to protect and
preserve our common home for not just future generations, but for its own sake, and to
noncoercively and ethically raise our young, so that they, too will observe the rights
of others while exercising their own, and will be able to knowledgeably and
responsibly accept stewardship of our home from us, and teach their own children to do
the same. While not denying the existence of groups, and the rich human diversity
which issues from them, we must treat people as individuals, and expect the same from
others.
>
>> Well, we can start by acknowledging among ourselves that all persons, whatever
>complexion, ideology, gender, sexual orientation, or disability, should have the
>right and the duty to own equivalent rights, obligations, and responsibilities, and
>to realize that the problems we face do not lie with them, but with those who
>consider membership in any of these groups as indicative of weakness, decadence,
>inferiority, hostility, or incipient character flaws, and therefore consider them
>incapable or unworthy of such rights, obligations and responsibilities. Membership
>or nonmembership in any group should not give anyone a free pass on the display of
>prejudice or bigotry. Judgements about groups are always overgeneralizations, and as
>such are prejudicial against all members of the judged group which the person making
>the judgement has not personally met. Different is just that; different, and should
>carry no connotations of better or worse. All groups have their own share of as!
!
s!
>es!
>> !
>> and saints, and sometimes the two are found seamlessly integrated in a single
>individual. It is impossible to be color or gender blind, so long as we have eyes,
>but we can be aware of that fact and refuse to allow someone's color or gender to
>influence, either positively or negatively, our interactions with them, and refuse to
>allow someone to treat us any differently because we belong to different groups. If
>they get called on it enough, sooner or later, egalitarianism will reinforce itself,
>and bigotry and discrimination will crumble against the wall of diminishing returns.
>
>
>
>
Joe E. Dees
Poet, Pagan, Philosopher
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