Re: Social Engineering (was: Different patriarchy Model)
John Cook (anthro.students@anthropology.su.edu.au)
Mon, 23 Jan 1995 01:01:40 GMT
In article <3fstqg$hdb@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, pioneertom@aol.com
(PioneerTom) wrote:
> John Cook writes:
>
> "What is more of a problem is that you appear to unwilling to accept the
> connection between your normative codes of social conduct and the
> oppression of Afro-americans. The persistance of the norm is the condition
> of black oppression, not what it should necessarily aspire to."
>
> I find it difficult to believe that anyone who wants to adapt, or see
> other people adapt successfully, to our communications intensive,
> technological, industrial environment is willing to say that they should
> not adopt norms that prohibit bashing someone because they get high marks
> on an algebra test. This is what the above quote seems to actually refuse
> to condemn. If people actually think that anyone will get far with this
> behavior they're as loopy as the fools who beat me up thirty years ago for
> the same thing, and are now wondering where their sawmill jobs vanished
> to.
>
> Oppression might well consist of coercing someone to refrain from behavior
> that would allow them more opportunities. That wasn't what was being
> talked about. What was being talked about was a refusal to even
> acknowledge the neccessity for technical knowledge in an increasingly
> technical world. To call that a "norm" that oppresses anyone is like
> calling traffic laws a "norm" that oppresses some group. Remove that
> "norm", in this case one that favors technical knowledge, and you have a
> disaster for the entire society. This sort of thing is one step short of
> calling Newton's three laws of motion a "norm" that oppresses someone who
> has touble understanding and using them.
>
> Tom Billings
There is a continuing conflict in this thread with contributers both
wanting to insist upon how "black" are essentially different, and at the
same time insisting that they assimilate totally with the norms of
mainstream America. This is the conflict the is the basis of children
beating up successful mathematicians. America appears only interested in
saying blacks should assimilate (the good mathematician) but should not be
interested in articulating an Afro-American experience (the other
children). The successful mathematician is undermining the cultural
articulations of the other children. This may be a dead end for both
parties but it is a direct result of the conflicts inherent in the social
order surrounding them.
The fools who beat you up were probably far from loopy, beating you up was
probably one of he only avenues left to them as a way of saying who they
were in relation to say, capitalism, as a social order. Go read some Marx
Tom.
Newton's three laws of motion are a norm that oppresses someone who has
rouble understanding them and using them.
Regs
John Cook.
PS Due to some software confusion my posting have been previously
transmitted on John Marshall's account. I am not John Marshall. This
problem has hopefully been rectified. My apologiesfor any confusion.
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