Re: Avoiding the mirror

Ruby Rohrlich (rohrlich@UNIX1.CIRC.GWU.EDU)
Wed, 2 Nov 1994 21:14:19 -0400

And what, pray, Sherwin P. Hicks, are you actually doing besides frothing
at themouth?



On Wed, 2 Nov 1994, Sherwin P. Hicks wrote:

> Levity??? The issue of Rushton is put away as if it were a box of summer
> clothes. How convenient. Obviously, the majority of respondents on anthro-l
> are quite comfortable with Rushton's and Murray's theories. Here's a little
> something I hope many of you take to heart.
>
>
> Beyond the world of police, courts, jails and asylums, we were faced with
> the perhaps even more sickening outside world. Within this world, respectable
> people, smart and secure work, day in, day out, to maintain the lie. They know
> about the abuse and cruelty, they know about the dishonesty and corruption,
> they know about the complex falsity of the reality in which they live, but they
> daren't turn against it, they would be turning against themselves, so they
> remain silent - the silent, voilent, majority.
> Beneath the glossy surfaces of neatly combed hair and straightened nylons,
> of polished cars and sponged-down cookers, of pub on Friday and occasional
> church on Sunday, of well planned family and better planned future, of wealth
> and security, of power and glory, are the 'real' fascists. They know, but they
> remain silent.
>
> 'First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out - because I was
> not a Jew. Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out - because
> I was not a communist. Then they came for the trade unionist and I did not
> speak out because I was not a trade unionist, Then they came for me - and there
> was no one left to speak out for me.'
> Pastor Niemeoller, victim of the Nazis.
>
>
> They remain silent when the windows of the house across the street are
> smashed and the walls daubed with racist abuse. Silent when they hear the
> footsteps at night and the beating of doors and the sobbing of those inside.
> Now, perhaps, a whisper, the quietest whisper, 'They're Jews you know' - or
> Catholics, West Indians, Pakistanis, Indians, Arabs, Chinese, Irish, Gypsies,
> gays, cripples, or any minority group, in any society, anywhere - they only
> whisper it once before the warmth of the duck-down continental quilt soothes
> away their almost accidental guilt. Silent again as they hear them led away in
> to the darkness. Silent, as through the cold mist of morning, they hear the
> cattletrucks roll by. And when they hear of the death-pits, of the racks,
> of the ovens, of the thousands dead and thousands dying -they remain silent.
> Because security is their god and compliance is his mistress, they remain
> silent. Against all the evidence, against all that they know, they remain
> silent, because convention decrees they should. Silence, security, compliance,
> and convention - the roots of fascism. Their silence is their part in the
> violence, a huge and powerful, silent voice of approval - the voice of fascism.
>
>
>
> The above was published and released by Crass in August 1992