The Immaculate Heart of Self Righteous Hypocrisy

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


This is a big part of the problem, JP, as you pointed out by linking to my thread about different groups being set at each other's throats.

In your response to that thread, you mentioned being able to embrace both Capitalism and Communism, without despising either, or wanting to give up your right to property. I've noticed that if I try and do the same thing within Occupy threads in particular, I tend to be considered an "enemy," if I don't agree with literally every element of Marx's party line; or if I dare to suggest that perhaps Occupy could be doing certain things more effectively, than via their current methods.

I know Kali is reading this thread, so I'm going to say it again.

I am not an enemy of Occupy.

As I've said, a big part of my problem, is actually being more radical myself, than I feel Occupy are, in certain ways. However, at the same time, I do believe that some elements (not all!) of Marx's ideology, specifically relating to internationalism, are extremely dangerous, and should be avoided on that basis. I also feel that protesting in the streets and getting into violence with the police, is exactly what the government wants people to do; and that quite the contrary to creating real change, doing so is engaging in the very form of behaviour that the government finds easiest to deal with. They simply call in the riot police, who then proceed to beat everyone senseless.

The one thing that Occupy did, which I felt was the most useful, was that with the encampment at Zucotti Park, they gave the mainstream population exposure to how they actually lived.

I recently spent six months living among hippies myself. I consumed marijuana, psylocibin mushrooms, and '___'. I spoke to them, and immersed myself to a certain extent in their philosophy. I saw first hand how they lived, interacted with, and treated one another. I came away from that experience with the belief that the hippie (or "far Left") subculture and lifestyle can genuinely be an extremely positive and beneficial thing, but that due to people's own narrow mindedness as much as anything else, it is not something that they can be told about second hand. They have to actually experience it themselves.

Drugs are probably the single biggest example of what I'm talking about, here. Drugs change you; and in my case, I honestly think it was for the better. You can't give a person that sort of positive change, however, just by telling them about acid. They have to actually take acid themselves.

That is the main reason why the police ultimately attacked the Zucotti camp as brutally as they did, I think...and that is what the government are really afraid of. The government are not afraid of protest, in and of itself. The government are afraid of people being exposed to another way of being. A way of being that isn't based on the pathocratic model, but where we do and create and build things that actually work, and where we use drugs (as well as positive social interaction and healthy food) to truly heal ourselves.

I apologise for hijacking your thread topic, JP; but then again, I really feel as though this is still related to your topic. The reason why, is because it's another illustration of polarisation.

"If you don't think exactly the way we do, you're the enemy."
"If you don't have the same skin colour we do, you're the enemy."
"If you dare question anything we do, you're the enemy."
"If you're different to us in any way, you're the enemy."

The Immaculate Heart of Self Righteous Hypocrisy



In Gangs of New York, Amsterdam, played by Leonardo DiCaprio saves the life of Bill "the butcher" who was the killer of his father years ago. Beginning in 1846, the story mostly takes place at the time of the Amerian Civil War The Civil War, however, is backdrop to the war between the New York "Natives", and Irish immigrants. The video above is a scene that follows Bill the butcher, Amsterdam and many others watching a staged rendition of Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Wikipedia cites The Civil War in American Culture by Will Kaufman, Edinburgh University Press, 2006, page 18, with: "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War". Uncle Tom's Cabin Group Project has this to say:

This novel is more than just a book. It played the role as a piece of literature that had the power to change the world. It had such a great impact that we classify the novel as a "vital antislavery tool."

The book was generally hailed as an important piece of literature that showed how art had its power to change the world. That was then, this is now.

The modern day Urban Dictionary offers as one of its definitions of Uncle Tom, as does a standard dictionary:

Uncle Tom is a term used by black people to insinuate that black people that speak proper English, are mature, have a good job, good education, work ethic and-or if they hang out with white people that makes you a sell out.

or:

A Black person who is regarded as being humiliatingly subservient or deferential to white people.

Informal derogatory a Black whose behaviour towards Whites is regarded as obsequious and servile
[after the slave who is the main character of H. B. Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)]

Interestingly, the Urban Dictionary also offers this tidbit regarding Spike Lee:

Spike Lee has been quoted in the press as saying that "Uncle Clarence Thomas is nothing but a bandana-wearing, watermelon-eating Uncle Tom."

Of course, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, and it was only a matter of time before "Whites" got in on that act:



How could Stowe's character, Uncle Tom, using "sentimental power" and creating a "noble hero" to sell the cause of abolition to the world have become a figure of derision and someone "Blacks" generally would not want to be? Perhaps it lies in that Uncle Tom is, in the eyes of - at least modern day - "African Americans" less a "noble hero" and more the "tragic hero" who is ultimately sacrificed so that others could be free, and above all, a hero who died by the faith of his "Christian principles". Uncle Tom is a martyred hero, and for the title character of Stowe's book, his freedom can only be found in his death. Perhaps this is a recognition by "African Americans", that even today many must continually negotiate a suppressive system that insists that many of them will only find freedom in death. Or, perhaps it is as Lois Brown writes:

There is no singular monolithic African American response to Uncle Tom's Cabin but there is consensus about the uneasiness of living in a world that relegates individuals to such states. The words of Frances Harper hint at the persistent African American negotiations with this America of qualified liberties and complex works such as Uncle Tom's Cabin. "I ask no monument, proud and high, / To arrest the gaze of the passersby," she wrote, "All that my yearning spirit craves, / Is bury me not in a land of slaves." Then and now, a century and a half beyond Stowe's phenomenal literary success and this nation's agonizing "civil" wars, we too find ourselves called to claim, defend, and know America as the land of the free and a home for all who are brave.

But this is an awful lot of focus on that ever murky gray area of "Blacks" and "Whites". This post began with a clip from Gangs of New York, which was a film about the tension of American "natives" of New York City, and Irish immigrants, and if this is not racism, its ethnocentrism has many of the same symptoms. Racism is not just a "Black and White" issue, and yet if we are to ever resolve the issue I suspect we are going to have to be very black and white in our reasoning and avoid the gray area.

Originally posted by XPLodER
reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

 

dogma:
if the peoples of the world dont come together in unity,
and realise we are all equal and made different for a reason,
then the world will be in for great troubles

only unity can save this world from itself.
that is why evil seeks to point out differences instead of celerbrating them.

xploder

Of course, you've nicely pointed out in one of your own epic thread we have the technology to do worse than just point out the differences. While your thread had its formidable skeptic debunking any fears as nothing more than fairy tale acorns dropping from the falling sky, even so thoughts of eugenics, and racial hygine crept into my mind. Indeed, in another thread created by silent thunder this member here, and I were in debate. Where I was in my standard pedantic mode of insisting unalienable rights are universal and belong to all with or without government, that member chose to point to specific examples of rights violations to prove that no one, including the proud JPZ, has rights.

The irony was that this member used The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment to illustrate that none of have rights, demanding I go tell those people they have rights, presumably under the impression that they would let the pain and suffering of that experiment scar their view existence. Perhaps some would, and others wouldn't, but as that member deeply entrenched in arguments, so too did I. One arguing for the supremacy of unalienable rights, the other insisting this argument is just too dangerous to be trusted, and there in lies a Grand Canyon of difference that necessarily must be pointed to. I have no idea what race that member is, nor does that member, as was made clear, know my racial makeup, but somehow The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment was brought into the mix, and now here we are.

We must most assuredly have love in our hearts. But it takes more than love to push through this mess we've made for ourselves. As the coach from the television show Friday Night Lights would often say: "Clear eyes, full heart, can't lose". We need a rational mind along with love in order to push through this brick wall we keep banging our heads upon. We need to know what we're all capable of, even if most of us would never attempt that capability. It is a problem that goes deeper than just pointing out the differences between us, as now it has become politically popular to use race in any manner we see fit just to win an argument.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, my friend.

Extremely good thread, with great ideas and posts, with corresponding sources.

To me, racism implies judgements based on skin color. The world, for generations, was "divided up" according to others of different skin color: black, white, yellow, red. In recent history, differences based on race was a "science", and I remember seeing an 1880's school text book from a state in the Midwest that illustrated the races with White at the top, the superior race, going through the colors to Black at the bottom.

While giving preference to skin color is not confined to the United States, my experience has been primarily in the USA. To me, the idea of divisions based on skin color is such a terribly outmoded idea, that it is embarrassing to see people who continue to hold such ideas. Sometimes erroneous beliefs take years, generations, to die.

What is worse is the idea of a racial superiority. The United States is coming off of a legacy of both racism and racial supremacist thinking. Both bad ideas are still around, and will be for awhile, but I think such thinking is lessening with each generation. The election of a black president turned a corner, but could not in itself put an end to racism/supremacism. In fact, it seemed to do the reverse, bringing out the last vestiges to fight for life.

I remember a commercial some years ago, featuring a photo of a black man, with the voiceover describing how a highly decorated police officer had been brutally murdered by a scumbag. What was revealing was viewers' reactions to the story and picture, especially at the end, when the voiceover explained that the photo was the slain officer. Many viewers assumed they were seeing the killer of a white policeman.

Now, there certainly are other ways populations can divide themselves, for ex, along ethnic/cultural lines. Recent differences going back to tribal times could involve no skin color differences.

As the world gets smaller, there are more interactions that will eventually break down feelings of otherness. But, no, there still will need to be a lot of time/generations to get over harmful (to humanity and self) ideas. Maybe, though, instead of taking thousands of years, only a few hundred will make humanity One.

I have been thinking long and hard about this topic for the past couple of days since you invited me to it JP. Trying to sift through the links you provided and seeing how some groups will take a topic and utilize it to push their agendas, shows how far down the rabbit hole we must go to find common ground to stamp out hypocrisy regarding the subject.

From the admittedly leftist site you linked, we see they have taken the topic and used it to push for the extinction of capitalism. They attempt to do this by linking racism as being a product of capitalism. Making the argument that while slavery existed in the world prior to the colonization of the Western World (specifically the Americas), it had nothing to do with racism.

This is a bit of definition trickery in my opinion on their part. By not defining what racism is, the author of that piece is able to mold it into their own ideological musing. They pointed out that while the Greeks and Romans most surely had slaves, it had nothing to do with race. This is absent the fact that racism, truly defined, is the belief that one's race is superior to another. It has nothing to do with skin color, though it does play a factor when we think of the more recent despicable acts such as the Transatlantic Slave trading in the 1600s to late 1800s. Their view and understanding reminds me of an old (and quite ugly) "joke": "I don't believe in racism, I just think every white man should own a black man".

That "joke" highlights the view presented by the leftist site and their pass given to the ancient world in terms of their partaking in slavery.

The only way we can continue this open debate is to be unafraid of our past and not make excuses for the doings of our ancestors. It is to meet the pain of knowing that there are persons in this world that truly believe that their race; may it be white, black, yellow, etc; maintain a superiority complex and believe their "race" to be the better.

Originally posted by Kali74
reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

 

I do think there's probably something encoded within our DNA that causes us to behave as if there isn't enough to go around for everyone. Governments know this, they know what makes us tick. The thing is we also have other things encoded within our DNA that we get rid of without much thought.

Perhaps it's the knowledge we all have as human beings that, at the end of the day, we are very delicate animals. Food, water, shelter and community sustain us, but our internal landscapes can also pave the way to our destruction. We are only now beginning to understand the biological effects of stress and the many ways it is prompted and can manifest.

I believe that the fear of resources becoming scarce prompts us to identify superficial differences that we can intellectually transfer into reasons why we are most suited for dominance and survival. Humans are efficient: if we can identify one physical trait that corresponds [in our minds] with negative societal consequences, we can justify any and all means used against the one who is different. And when resources are not directly threatened, we can still feel the fear that they will one day be under seige, which causes stress, prompting a response to extinguish the stress.

True psychological assessment is tedious, and humans avoid it unless they feel no threat to their resources and survival. Only then may they indulge such an emotional luxury.