Subject: Re: Heidegger in Germany
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 09:40:03 -0800



The issue here is the thinking about the other as different culturally &
visibly
that makes racial thinking. So the idea of race is bound up lexically with
the notion of 'difference' which I would argue is what makes humanity the
most wonderful of primates, excepting Diane Fossey, and primatologists. To
be of race is to be different.

I enjoy  music from around the world because of the different tones,
harmonies, beat, melody,  percussion, intonation, dissonance,
reverberation. 

1.	If I say 'cultural survival' is essential to maintain heterogenicity, am
I also saying that cultural 'purity' is a desireable?

The use of the phrase cultural survival is better - this is true - because
it does not carry baggage. It is pretty hard to corrupt this phrase. 

Cultural purity as is racial purity is corruptable on grounds that it as a
phrase has a history of being used as a "reasonable grounds" for genocide,
which goes by the term "ethnic cleansing" used by the media to describe
genocide in Bosnia and elsewhere. "Ethic cleansing" means that some one
does not want to say what is really happening there in Bosnia or happened
there and is a euphemism.  

Keeping cultures distinct or intact is one thing. 

Cultural survival does not mean that race and culture must be made pure.
Most cultures are blends of other cultures. Purity of race means to say
that this race wills something like this: "purity of heart is to will one
thing" and there is "pure language" [Heidegger refers to pure language when
talking about poetry, that poetry is a "pure language"] Languages are
vehicles for which cultures convey meanings about themselves and sometimes
others. Purity is the unity rather than the difference of content, meaning
or purpose in this case, to direct thinking about the meaning of the world.




----------
> From: jim <jmd-AT-dasein.demon.co.uk>
> To: heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> Subject: Re: Heidegger in Germany
> Date: Friday, January 29, 1999 5:10 AM
> 
> In message <1a58d911.36b0f92e-AT-aol.com>, JSteppling-AT-aol.com
> writes
> >just a thought on Jim's comments
> 
> >to indict Andrew for using a less than perfect vocabulary and suggesting
> >that words like "mix" imply a way of thought is to lose track of what is
> >really significant about race and prejudice.
> The basis for what you are calling an 'indictment' is not a matter of
> vocabulary. There is, I would argue, a logical/semantical relationship
> between such concepts as "mix," "race," "pure race," "mixed race," etc.
> (miscegenation is a concept rooted in the concept of race, pure race,
> etc. -- look at a history of anti-miscegenation laws).When one employs,
> actually uses, one of these concepts as properly descriptive of, as
> genuinely designating some aspect of the person, as for example,
> Andrew's claim that he is a mix, then I submit that the user's thinking
not
> only implicitly invokes the other concepts, but also implicitly accords
> them a coherence or legitimacy. It is for that reason that I suggested
that
> Andrew's denouncement of 'race' seemed comparable to Pooh's pursuit
> of the Woozle (the animal whose tracks in the snow were pursued by
> Pooh, unbeknownst to him that the tracks he was pursuing were his
> very own). 
> > I doubt that Andrew, or myself,
> >using words like "mix" will do anything toward furthering regressive
attitude.
> Quite the contrary. What do you mean by "mix," if not "mixed race"?
> Isn't this short for "a mix of  'pure' races"? To use such concepts in
> conversation with others, to acquiesce in the usage of such concepts,
> does, I think, sustain the thinking that gives these concepts life -- the
> cunning of Das Man, Rede.
> 
> Your quoted comment suggests to me that you don't take the problem
> seriously; that your attitude could be summarized thus: the problem
> exists, yes; but I'm just making light conversation; I don't mean
anything
> serious when I use the concept 'mix', etc; we needn't make heavy
> weather of it.
> Quite the contrary, I would say. Because the racial myth is such a
> cunning and insidious element of everyday life, everyday conversation,
> heavy weather must be made of it. Someone (of reputed distinction)
> once said to me that Koreans smell like garlic. When I blew up at him,
> he became angry with me, because he was just making light
> conversation. That comment made me more furious; I exploded (ending
> one friendship, losing many connections). Not only was it the thinking
> that I objected to, it was the thinking apropos of that very thinking --
> not unlike your thinking about your usage of 'mix'!!!!!! 
> 
> Not only do we carry with us an understanding/way of thinking that
> needs to be erradicated and needs to be broken down, we also carry
> with us an understanding of that very understanding/way of thinking.
> That should compel us to do the right thing, however inconvenient,
> however disruptive of our light conversations.  
> >Sometimes I find in po-mo America
> I'm not familiar with the expression "po-mo America."
> >Context matters
> >and if Rev, Farrakhan uses "mix" in a speech it may well foster thinking
that
> >encouages exclusion and intolerance.
> Granted. Context can alter the meaning of an utterance. However, in
> this case, does the use of "mix" in F's mouth invoke a different concept
> from that used in Andrew's utterance? 
> > On the other hand, " hi to a fellow
> >Canadian" isnt likely to encourage any such thing.
> It is for that reason I asked whether being Canadian was different in
> nature from being Irish or Scottish.
> > And to fixate on it may
> >mean missing other more pertinent ideas.
> Sadly and obviously, to not fixate on it does mean missing pertinent
> ideas.
> Kindest Regards,
> jim
> 
> PS. Beware the Woozle
> 
> 
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