Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 14:17:01 -0800 (PST)
Subject: HAB: American children of enlightenment [Matt, 24 Dec.]


File habermas.archive/habermas.0212, message 61
Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2002
Subject: HAB: Children of the Enlightenment [Gary]
From: "matthew piscioneri" 


M> 1 question: Do you count young male afro-Americans among
the "children of the enlightenment"? 

G:  Yes, I do.  The great majority of African-American
families are succeeding. 

You had counterposed the EU as your hope for enlightenment
relative to your silly comment that such hopes were 
sacrificed in the U.S. "on the alter of capitalism," to
which I reacted in terms of the openness of the U.S. to
immigration--kind of a non sequetor, I guess. But really,
there was no focused issue, which is why I didn't respond
to your following comments, which I now believe might be
useful to address. 

M> I don't have the figures at hand but the disparity in
the rate of incarceration (bench warmers on death row
also?) between male afro-Americans and their peer groups
might suggest that not all is hunky dory in the land of the
free. 

G: Can you recognize that a culturally perceptive person
might not want to respond to this? You're evidently
presuming that  the black American prison population says
something important about being black in America; you
wouldn't be alone in this racist misconception. 

Does your comment mean that you genuinely believe that
disparities in imprisonment indicate something  important
about the extent to which the U.S. is a rational society? 

Regardless, you would  agree that African Americans have an
interest in social change--and in fact, the civil rights
movements in the U.S. might be paradigmatic of what
important social change looks like (recalling your cynicism
about interest in social change expressed earlier); thus
the intricacies of the change process for African Americans
would be instructive for thinking about what important
social change involves (e.g., for aboriginals in Australia.
Is there any sense in which the U.S. civil rights movements
could NOT serve as a model for understanding social change
for aboriginals? Or perhaps you have a better, "European"
paradigm). 

You "dont have the figures," so what kind of point would
you wish to make WITH some figures? IS this an issue you
wish to pursue, as a matter of interest in social change? 

First of all, we should recall that crime and inner-city
poverty are strongly related.  What are the causes of
chronic urban poverty that make intervention programs so
unsuccessful for some folks?  You don't see dramatic news
stories about the degree of success that most urban black
Americans have experienced.  Why have so many black
Americans succeeded while many others have not?  What are
the characteristics of the chronically felonous criminal
career? What went  wrong with early child  development and
access to health care (It also goes wrong for a minority of
 Anglos, urban and rural, as well of course with some
Latinos--but not Asians much; why is that?)? What went
wrong with education for the numerial minority of African-
and Latino-Americans in the inner city? What went wrong
with family support for child education? What went  wrong
with family employability? What went wrong with social
services (including the church)? What went wrong with
access to good legel council and representation after
arrest? 

Vapid cynicism is  worthless.  

M> Similarly how have the indigenous peoples of North
America fared since the children of the Enlightenment
colonised their lands etc.?

G:  It's a mixed story.  Also, it's a long story. 
Spaniards slaughtered native Americans long before there
was a U.S. government (or even English colonization).
Tragically, much of the death came from lack of immunity to
European diseases, centuries  before any concept of
infectious disease or immunity (a modern notion) existed.
British settlers lived more or less in peace with native
Americans. Colonial America was very entwined with native
American culture (Some say that northeastern Iroquois forms
of government significantly influenced early American
concepts of localist participatory democracy).  

But it's a long story.  I would argue, though, that the
Enlightenment in America has  been only good for native
Americans, but that the Enlightenment was in competition
with European colonialism worldwide.  There is no great
colonialist thread in *North American* civilization, though
there is a significant *European colonialist* thread in
North America.  The American Revolution fought against
European colonialism. The Civil War was fought against the
legacy of European colonialism in the American South. The
American ethic won that  war, but the vestiges of European
racism continue among the relatively illiterate in power
everywhere. But education erases racism. 

M> Gary, never having been to the US I should really defer
comment. 

G:  What you should  do, Matt, is strive for more
thoughtful comment---so-called hermeneutic generosity
toward the other.  

M> Yet I want to re-assure you once again my sentiments
(admittedly too often expressed in this forum as cynical
polemics) are not bland anti-American criticisms. 

G:  I see no evidence to the contrary. I really don't. 

M> Of course the U.S.A is not the satanic empire. It is the
figure head of all that is wrong in the world, ...

G:  This two-faced comment is symptomatic of pathogenic
thinking, it seems to me. 

M> ...and also what is possible and what I think should be
striven for.  Let's roll the dice again.

G: Let's not play flippantly (What's the cognitive merit of
 flipping dice?).  Let's set a good example of
communicative  interaction, both in terms of the  "object"
(subject matter) of critique and dignity of the other
(subject matter and conversation partner--the reason I
ventured a defense of te Bush administration, in the spirit
of hermeneutic generosity only).  

One of my New Year's resolutions: Don't waste my time on
knee-jerk cynicism anymore.  

Best regards,

Gary





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