I have to say, I find it a bit silly when people identify too much with their nationality (or profession, or gender...) to the point that they get offended when a generic remark is made.
It is fairly obvious that Kim is not suggesting that Chris or Brent or any other specific American in this list is a person of low intelligence. The generalisation per se might be without merit, but even so it's perhaps a good exercise in to learn to tolerate it. We have more in common with each other than with the average citizen of any of our respective countries. Why care so much about imaginary lines in the ground? Cheers, Telmo. On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 12:58 PM, Kim Jones <kimjo...@ozemail.com.au> wrote: > Of course my founding post to this thread was "racist". It was a clear > attempt to label a box and to shove all Americans in there. Not very smart, > you suppose. Not if I myself were unconscious of the inherent racism of > what I said. But I was fully conscious of it. Is that still racism? It's > not that I am a racist, but I definitely felt there to be a point in saying > something that might strike others as racist because this is a good way to > put people on their toes. It was done for a purpose to do with creative > thinking. That purpose is an operation known as "provocation". I am > provoking others to respond, in order to see the thinking. In fact I am not > racist at all because I admire Americans greatly. How could one not. But I > wrote something racist in order to see whether some others might see that > they were being provoked. Provocation is sometimes necessary in order that > people see things they feel they know very well in a new light. Creative > thinking is taking existing information and extracting new value from it. > > For example, had I said the following: > > "America is the land of the free. America champions the cause of freedom > the world over and will fight fiercely to maintain a free world. Americans > are all natural-born entrepreneurs and understand business in an intuitive > way better than anyone else on the planet. Anyone can succeed with a new > idea in America because Americans love a new idea and will get behind it > and help it to come to fruition, particularly if that idea helps support > the cause of freedom and successful entrepreneurial business enterprises." > > - would I still be guilty of racism? The mental operation is identical; I > have a box and I am shoving an entire country into it. The point should be > clear: what motivates all thinking are the values espoused by the thinker, > and those values are based on their 1p experiences. > > That's what perception is. Perception is "first order thinking" which is > to say more a statement about ourselves, not at all the thing we would like > others to believe we are talking about. The very first thing we experience > in any exchange or encounter with the "outside world" is not the outside > world at all, but ourselves. We meet ourselves in everything we say and do. > > To continue with perception for a moment: I said above that Americans love > freedom, America is the land of the free etc. All this is true. But it is > true in only a limited sense. It is true in the sense that choices are able > to be made without coercion or force being applied. For example, an man > sits at a table in a restaraunt in France and is presented with a choice of > beverages. There is wine, there is cognac, there is cider, there is > champagne and there is Budweiser beer. The man freely chooses the beer. A > free choice is made. But the choice is made not out of curiosity but out of > familiarity. Is that still freedom of choice? If you are ignorant of the > qualities of the various alternatives to your preferred choice, in what > sense are you making a free choice? More likely you are shackled to your > preference. > > When we do creative thinking, we learn to take familiar situations and > traverse a different path in thinking about them. This requires training > and is not at all a natural habit of mind. > > Kim > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
