====================================================================== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. ======================================================================
Note by Hunter: I believe, ___, that I used the phrase, "an all around tragedy." I suspect all of us -- and certainly all thoughtful people anywhere -- would agree with that. There is, however, a certain kind of "human species" who says, primly and prissily, "She/he did that and now they have to pay." I don't for a moment think that's you. But if someone has soldiered substantially in the Groves and the Jungles, they know precisely that of which Sam and I speak. A friend of mine, a Jewish academic and a refugee from the old Union of South Africa, commented that in the university where he had taught, "The more intellectually astute someone was, the more elaborate the rationalizations for evil." He was speaking both of the sociology of the country and the school. Professor Bishop invested seven years of her life as an assistant professor -- she appears to have been commendably productive -- but was then denied tenure and promotion and automatically slated to leave at the end of the academic year. That happens to many, but that fact doesn't justify a system where tenure -- supposed to be reward, security, and protection -- can be yanked away on what are frequently purely personal subjective grounds. Joe Conlin, who taught history at Chico State and whose writing on the Wobblies and the West were always genuinely high calibre, commented once to me -- we were both full professors with tenure [he there, and I at UND] -- that the one thing he couldn't stand was the fact that junior faculty members felt they had to be "polite to the point of genuflecting."] True, shooting people is not good. But some people are tuned in such a fashion that, under certain circumstances, they do. In explaining this to students, I sometimes would give this example. On the southern end of Salt Lake City, there was a long stretch of road marked intermitted by stop lights. I learned to gauge my speed in such a fashion that I did not have to stop. But one day, an old lady, literally grinning at me, walked against her red light and I had to stop abruptly. She knew precisely what she was doing. I felt like smashing her into Eternity. But I was a fairly rational young man and, of course, I didn't. Darrow, who we both admire, was prone to comment that, every time he saw an unfortunate person in jail, he knew that there, but for the circumstance of heredity and environment, was where he himself could be. I'd like to believe in free will. In all honesty, I cannot. William James also sought rational foundation for free will. But he concluded, in that dimension as in some others, there were no final conclusions. Certain dimensions of our folkways and mores, and the resultant criminal codes, are still far from a rational understanding of individual and social behavior. And compassion, certainly in these times, is very rare. Hunter [Hunter Bear] HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´ and Ohkwari' Check out our Hunterbear website Directory http://hunterbear.org/directory.htm For Black History Month, five of our many Southern civil rights history links: [Each page has several pieces] http://hunterbear.org/a_piece_of__the_scrapbook.htm http://hunterbear.org/Woolworth%20Sitin%20Jackson.htm http://hunterbear.org/most_sweeping_anti.htm http://hunterbear.org/first.htm http://hunterbear.org/NORTH%20CAROLINA_OUR%20SUCCESSFUL%20BLACK%20BELT%20MOVEMENT.htm ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
