Category: philosophy/religion topics
All right, putting it here because its more of a philosophical discussion. I hesitated to do so because I am hoping for open and actual discourse, not parroting of popular / theist positions.
Here's what I have been faced with, in recent years, and critical analysis won't let it go:
We've all been taught since childhood that race is a social and cultural construct, not a fixed division. Also, in recent decades at least, gender is often seen as socially defined, and not fixed.
All right, assuming we are holding the default positions here, I have a couple of questions:
Then why are whites declared the source of all evils / the architects of destruction / etc.? All your textbooks have said this since the 70s. Only, Genghis Khan was not white, but killed approximately 40 million people in the 1300s. And every continent has its people who have suffered, been conquered, done their own conquering, and so on. Even whites as we know them, were conquered by the Romans, indoctrinated / forced to convert to Christianity, and told that their predecessors were cannibals by the Romans, just as the Koreans were by the Japanese.
If race is a cultural construct, then we cannot ascribe blame to one particular group merely based on their lack of pigment.
Also, if gender is a social construct, we cannot say all men are pigs, or that women are superior, less given to physical vices, and so on. In fact, the default feminist position would, if laid on the blind, cause many to say, "Don't put us on that pedestal!"
If you're a theist or otherwise not concerned with pragmatism / critical thought / rationalism, then I can see how you could manage these contradictions, just like the faithful manage contradictions in the Bible.
But if you consider yourself rational, an objectivist, or even an atheist, and you subscribe to the default positions here, how do you rationally do this?
Honestly? I think most people in the Western world are probably at heart egalitarians. Get religion out of the way, and you would have had gay marriage sooner. Get feminism out of the way, at least radical feminism, and you would probably have a more equitable set of sexual standards, without defaulting to one gender being arbitrarily the baser, more guilty, etc. Get other movements out of the way, and you would probabgly have people groups from around the globe cohabitating and intermingling with a lot less incident.
Paleontology shows that people groups did a lot of this even in prehistory, as shown by styles of tool making and other factors in the paleontological record.
If you do hold the default positions, how does this help the group you're trying to advantage?
My opinion personally is that rationalism, impartiality, and critical thought, are the enemy of extremism. It's been predicted that within a thousand years, all our descendants will be mixed race anyway. And where you have more education and ready access to birth control, women's standard of living (and life expectancy) improves, where women by and large outlive men in civilized nations. I think the default position is clearly religious, uncritical, very partial, and rather embarrassing to anyone claiming to be of a scientific persuasion. Let alone dehumanizing to some, and a demonstration that humans really have progressed, just changed the players of the same old games we've always played based on ignorant superstitions and priests. Just, we have new priests and new superstitions.
Hmmm. I agree with a lot of what you said all ready and have more to add. Going way back to the times of cave men as we refer to them, survival of the fittest was and still is key. There was constant competition for food and dominance. It is that need of dominance and power that drove people to compete or even kill each other. Because anything that did not agree with the people of a certain territory or cultural standard was a threat, and the threat needed to be eliminated. From a religious stand point if you look in to the battle of Catholics versus the Protestants this is an example of a futal disagreement of religious beliefs, which each side saw the opposing one as a threat to the people. Not only that, but it was also seen as a threat to their religion, and it was something that went against everything they were taught to believe which they viewed as the correct beliefs. Many people before John Calvin were simply executed for disagreeing and refusing to follow the norm, but he lucked out because of people he knew and the amount of support he gained. As far as race is concerned, we all come from Africa as most if not all historical beliefs say. Once nations panned out across the world after the ice age was over, Portugal began taking Africans from their home land and using them as slaves, either keeping them themselves or trading them to other people. The belief about slavery got so out of hand that even after slavery was abolished here in the United States, the Blacks continued to be held at that societal status mostly in the south. Racism still exists to this day and it always will, because of that idea I mentioned earlier about dominance, and the fact that some people can't seem to let go of the old beliefs. Believe it or not, some people feel so strongly about things like these that they raise their children to believe these same ideas and encouraging them to join groups with these beliefs. It's not right, and I wish there was a way we could eliminate it but I haven't a clue if that's possible. I have family members who make racist comments about things like sports, abilities of people of different races, crime, and shows like Judge Judy where you see people go on there with all kinds of problems. And the shows like that don't help matters, because they fuel the stereotypes that people like my grandparents believe in. We have come a long way, though, in excepting various groups and making them more equal. Gay marriage is now becoming more excepted, though I see personally in my family the disgust that it brings among people. And the social roles that men and women play are changing. Now, it is more common to see stay at home dads sometimes, and women working in things like construction and going out and doing outdoorsy sports like hunting and fishing. Hell my sister just got a bow and arrow for Christmas from her boyfriend, and she absolutely loves going out in the woods and hunting with him. We are an ever changing society now, and the ones who are stuck to the old racist, stereotypical beliefs are far from non-existence. But the sooner they except the change and try to be more understanding and open-minded, the better.
I just have a part of this. In the lower classes you don't have as much power struggles. Anyone on top wants to remain on top, so will do whatever they can to stay that way.
You say ya woman got a bow and arrow for Christmas, and she thinks that is a bigt deal. I can understand that.
Did you know it was expected of indian squaws to know how to hunt, and grow gardens and such?
Many lower class, even white hill billies, women could provide if need be.
It is just how it had to be.
Yes. Even pioneer women could shoot as well as the men. It's only historical revisionists who claim all women beforehand were restricted.
My sisters did as much grubbing in the dirt and playing swords and stuff growing up as us boys. This idea that women were always oppressed and kept inside and kept away from things is largely a religious myth designed to oppress people.
Even my Wife, who was more in the upper middle classes, played sports and did all sorts of things in the early 70s.
We just swallowed all that dogma about oppression without thinking. Key word, without thinking: just like good faithful religious, we simply took it from the Priests / Priestesses, as it were.