Date: Thu, 28 Jan 99 19:44:17 -0500
Subject: Re: Heidegger in Germany


In <tpakrDAzGPs2Ew3h-AT-dasein.demon.co.uk>, on 01/28/99 
   at 11, jim <jmd-AT-dasein.demon.co.uk> said:

>Dear Andew,
>If you don't mind my interjecting a few points here:
>aglynn-AT-cibcfinance.com writes
>>Given even a cursory
>>knowledge of the histories of different peoples I personally find the idea
>>of any "pure" race laughable at best.
>Why not embrace the extension of this idea, namley, that the idea of
>"race", tout court, is laughable? It is not the notion of 'purity' that
>renders the concept of 'race' so vicious; that merely exclaims the
>concept (most likely deriving from some syncretic version of the ancient
>theory of (mythical) humours, and thus, a piece of myth itself). It is
>the very concept of 'race' itself! 

Thank you - I agree wholeheartedly.  

>What I find deeply disturbing about your comments, Andrew, is that they
>seemingly denounce a way of thinking, but, with no compunction, invoke
>concepts that are intrinsic to it, and thus, keep it alive. These
>concepts sustain the very way of thinking you superficially denounce. 
>For example, you claim: 
>>  (I'm a mix
>How do you mean a 'mix'; a mix of what? 
>>of Irish and Scottish,
>What do you mean Irish and Scottish? I take it you are not referring to a
>purely legally/politically defined population. Defined in terms of what
>then? A pure Irish race? A pure Scottish race? A mix of these 'pure'
>races? 

No, simply that my mother is of Scottish background and my father of
Irish.  However as you rightly point out the terms tend to infect even the
speech of those against the ideas spoken about. 

>>Kind regards to a fellow Canadian
>To be Canadian. Is that anything like being "Irish and Scottish" or
>"German" or "Scandinavian"?

Well, I didn't intend the words as keeping that kind of "thinking" alive. 
Email has a tendency towards conversationalism and at times I don't think
through the words being used as well as I should, much as in speaking I
often make blunders...

>The difficulty here, in many points, is not unlike that faced by
>Heidegger. However, H understood that we cannot dismantle a Cartesian
>'subjectivization' of the kind of creature that we are in terms that keep
>that 'subjectivization' alive. We need a new way of thinking, speaking,
>understanding ourselves. 

Definitely.  However a new way of speaking can IMHO only come to us
through the dissemination of poetic speech into common language.

>No less is true about dismantling 'race', its egregious valuation of
>human difference, and the thinking that sustains it.

It seems to me a not-thinking (in this case my own) that sustains it. 

Cheers
Andrew Glynn
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aglynn-AT-idirect.com
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