Hello Platt, A very thoughtful post . However I ask, how are we to make the distinction from "an excuse for oppression through fear (central planning enforced at the point of a gun)."? How do we instill pro-social ethic without oppressing the individual? I think we can not expect to fix this problem quickly because it evolved over a long period of time. America allowed a culture of oppression to develop a culture in opposition to "the man" (central planning enforced at the point of a gun). Even today I hear older whites reffering to blacks who conform to social standards as a "good nigger". Remember slavery was abolished about 150 yrs ago in the U.S. and civil rights in the last 50, I would think it would be difficult break from subcultural values of anti-establishment after hundreds of years of development. If you do conform you are called an "uncle Tom" by your peers. Yes the charge of racism is abused but most black people I know see this as justified in defense of the more general racist atitudes of white america. I think it is idealistic to think that the MoQ would provide a quick fix to these problems developed over centuries. If anything MoQ helps us to realize that the fix requires changes in values and attitudes over long periods of time from all parties. -Ron
________________________________ From: Platt Holden <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, January 6, 2009 7:23:50 AM Subject: Re: [MD] Multiculturalism scam All: Pirsig pretty well pinpointed the problem with the multiculturism in recounting his conversation with a professor at the University of Chicago: "Phaedrus remembered a conversation in the early sixties with a University of Chicago faculty member who was moving out of the Woodlawn neighborhood next to the university. He was moving because criminal blacks had moved in and it had become too dangerous to live there. Phaedrus had said he didn't think moving out was any solution. "The professor had blown up at him. "What you don't know!" he had said. "We've tried everything! We've tried workshops, study groups, councils. We've spent years in this. If there's anything we've missed we don't know what it is. Everything has failed." "The professor added, "You don't understand what a defeat this has been for us. It's as though we never even tried." "Phaedrus had had no answer at the time, but he had one now. The idea that biological crimes can be ended by intellect alone, that you can talk crime to death, doesn't work. Intellectual patterns cannot directly control biological patterns. Only social patterns can control biological patterns, and the instrument of conversation between society and biology is not words. The instrument of conversation between society and biology has always been a policeman or a soldier and his gun. All the laws of history, all the arguments, all the Constitutions and the Bills of Rights and Declarations of Independence are nothing more than instructions to the military and police. If the military and police can't or don't follow these instructions properly they might as well have never been written. "Phaedrus now thought that part of the professors paralysis was a commitment to the twentieth-century intellectual doctrines, in which his university has had a prominent role. (Multiculturism) A second part of the paralysis probably came from the fact that the criminals were black. If it had been a group of trash whites moving into the neighborhood, robbing and raping and killing, the response would have been much fiercer, but when whites denounced blacks for robbing and raping and killing they left themselves open to the charge of racism. In the atmosphere of public opinion of that time no intellectual dared to open himself to the charge of being a racist. Just the thought of it shut him up tight. Paralysis. "That charge is part of the paralysis of this city here. Right now." (Lila, 24 -- Parens added. Similar charges are flung today at anyone who challenges leftist doctrines, as some recent posts on this site amply illustrate. Platt Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
