Re: RE: Re: Re: Re: genome news (fwd)
Brad,can you please read the rest of Steve's post, or the sentence that prior to the sentence you cite? since Steve is not here, I can not talk on behalf of him, but his work is an excellent piece in Marxian sociology. Here's a precious snippet from this nitwit (Steve Rosenthal) from a couple of years ago: . . . This line of attack against the Clintonites is being led by Dick Gephardt and the business and big labor forces behind him. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI), whose funding comes from the Rockefeller Foundation, C.S. Mott (GM), Russell Sage (Cabot gas and banking money), sets forth the line Gephardt has been offering . . . http://csf.colorado.edu/mail/psn/jan98/0072.html No I don't save this stuff. I remembered since I wrote a reply (which he didn't answer), and I thought I would see if I could find it quickly with Google. Came up instantly. Google rules. mbs Google Rules! Brad DeLong
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: genome news (fwd)
In a message dated 00-04-09 00:04:25 EDT, you write: the socio-biological claim that people differ because they differ genetically is called RACISM, No it's not. It would be racist (and genetically illiterate, for the most part) to say that some groups of people are inferior to another because of their genes, but it is not racist to say, for example, that Black people are different in the color of their skin from whites in large part because of their genes. That is just true. Genes are causally efficaous; they do account for some of the variation in differences between groups and individuals, and anyone who denies that has no idea what he is talking about. --jks
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: genome news (fwd)
part of what has made "race" -- and "gender" for that matter -- so confused, etc. is that it regards the *social* assignment of meaning to traits that are biologically inherited-- so people say "what are talking about, of course gender is biological" because we see anatomical differences, but the meaning of those differences is what is socially constructed. people have had a hard time making these distinctions. so we either get the pure social constructionist position, and some people feel uneasy about that because they see anatomical differences, or we get the other extreme and people know that isn't right. racism takes physiognomic differences and assigns social meaning to them. the meaning is arbitrary and socially constructed and has no basis in anatomy or biology, etc. but there are biological reasons for having whatever color hair you have, etc. of course, now it is possible to change one's biological features, too, so sex changes, and lightening skin color, and etc., and this has to be dealt with and factored in. but constructing discrete categories out of what is essentially a continuum (skin shades) is pure social construction, but a social construction that is mediated by physiognamy? I still think Harry Chang in the special issue of Review of Radical Political Economics had this right how many years ago now, but we are still going around in circles some of us some of the time on all this. Of course, Chang wasn't the only one or the first or anything. the discussion below is still sloppy in these regards, because, e.g., the sentence that includes the categories "Black people" and "whites" uncritically assumes that these term themselves are unproblematic with regard to the very issues the sentence is discussing. which individuals end up in the "Black" category and the "white" category depends. so it is true that the shade of one's skin is biological but the categories that are mediated by this are not, and either is the social meaning assigned to them. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sunday, April 09, 2000 10:46 AM Subject: [PEN-L:17872] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: genome news (fwd) In a message dated 00-04-09 00:04:25 EDT, you write: the socio-biological claim that people differ because they differ genetically is called RACISM, No it's not. It would be racist (and genetically illiterate, for the most part) to say that some groups of people are inferior to another because of their genes, but it is not racist to say, for example, that Black people are different in the color of their skin from whites in large part because of their genes. That is just true. Genes are causally efficaous; they do account for some of the variation in differences between groups and individuals, and anyone who denies that has no idea what he is talking about. --jks
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: genome news (fwd)
In a message dated 00-04-09 12:38:32 EDT, you write: the sentence that includes the categories "Black people" and "whites" uncritically assumes that these term themselves are unproblematic with regard to the very issues the sentence is discussing. which individuals end up in the "Black" category and the "white" category depends. so it is true that the shade of one's skin is biological but the categories that are mediated by this are not, and either is the social meaning assigned to them. Don't assume any such thing. Of course I am aware of the social contruction of race, and I don't uncritically assume anything. I also don't need to do the dance every time I use a loaded word,a t least, I hope, in this context. Among people to whom the social construction of race might bea new thought, I'd emphasize it. Here, I might have hoped that I could take it for granted. How very foolish of me. I might have said, I briefly contemplated it, that malinin content avrirs with geographic origin; that genetics explains why people from subSaharan Africa have darker skins, because of higher melanin content, on average, than people fron Northern Europe. But it is tiresome, particularly when one is talking about race, to pretend that one is not. Political correctness is very boring. Incidentally, when I use the word "group" or "race"; I am not implying anything about a class of persons constututed by some feature entirely apart from human choice and conventions. I am not, in other words, being "essentialist." (Boo, hiss.) Racism is not a matter of talking as if people are divided into differenbt groups,a nymore than it is natioanlsit of me to talk about Americans, Sudanese, French. It is a matter of buying into certain assumptions abour superiority, inferiority, entitlement, etc. These assumptions need not be tied to any beliefs about genetics or "blood"--cultural racism is pretty common. --jks
RE: RE: Re: Re: Re: genome news (fwd)
MD: . . . What I understand is that Economic Policy Institute may have a finger in socio-biological research . . . We don't do sociology we don't do biology. I would wager that the word 'socio-biology' does not appear in one EPI publication. I don't even know what it means, but if you don't like it, I probably wouldn't either. cheers, mbs
Of Steve Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: genome news (fwd)
For the record, the Steve referred to below is Steve Rosenthal, not me... Steve (The "PEN Steve") Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822 On Sat, 8 Apr 2000, Mine Aysen Doyran wrote: Steve wrote: Because of these sharp critiques, Wilson reinvented himself as an environmentalist concerned about bio-diversity. Brad replied: If it is an excellent piece of Marxian sociology, why does it make false claims about Wilson's intellectual development? Either Steve does not know enough about E.O. Wilson to know that he was always *both* a sociobiologist and an environmentalist--in which I have better things to spend my time reading, things written by people who have done their homework--or Steve knows that he is lying when he claims that Wilson's environmentalism is an intellectual re-make--in which case I have better things to spend my time reading, things written by people who don't lie to me. Brad, please know what you are saying. Nobody is a lier about Wilson's intellectual development here. Steve is DOCUMENTING passages from Wilson's book. Accordingly, he CITES Wilson who says that human nature "is the_hereditary regularities of mental development that bias cultural evolution in one direction_and thus connect the genes to culture" (p. 164). well, how do you interpret this? just a naive bio-diversity or an objective scientific statement?If you agree with what Wilson says, there is no point in continuing this debate because my reading of him is that he is obviously racist. This is because Wilson is reducing cultural and other social differences to genes, and then reconstructing and universalizing an hypothetical theory of human nature, which is completely false and ideological. Human beings are *not* determined by their genes. They are shaped by the social, cultural, ideological and political-economic environment they live in. As cross-cultural anthropological studies further proves that many societies such as tribal bands, small communities, ancient groupings did not have the same perceptions of masculinity and feminity that we have today. these are socio-historical constructions, sex roles, broadly defined, not genetic givens. the socio-biological claim that people differ because they differ genetically is called RACISM, which is what Wilson does eventually. thus, i don't understand why you support the man! -- Mine Aysen Doyran PhD Student Department of Political Science SUNY at Albany Nelson A. Rockefeller College 135 Western Ave.; Milne 102 Albany, NY 1
