Harry Baird wrote: ↑Mon Dec 05, 2022 4:37 amI think I understand what you mean by "imposition" here, but it seems to me to be a misleading notion in this context. Why? Because any choice that we make -- whether ethical or unethical -- in a sense "imposes" upon the (rest of the) world. By our will -- the exercising of which we cannot avoid -- we unavoidably change the world in one way or another, and thus "impose" upon it. Choices guided by ethics are no more "imposing" than unethical ones; in fact, they are less imposing, because they seek to minimise harm - the worst type of imposition.
I merely wanted to bring out, to bring to the surface, the issue of *imposition*. And I cannot disagree with you: all decisions made by human beings have the potential to be *impositions*. I say 'have the potential' because I recognize naturalistic choices as potentially non-conscious, non-reasoned; perhaps instinctual is the right word.
In respect to your general position I have made the observation that I see your ethical value-system as a very real *imposition* that chooses to act against the way things are in our world, and that *world* could be described as amphibious: on one hand rooted in naturalism, rising up out of naturalism, while simultaneously accessing or employing another element: that of conscious decision, the apprehension and application of principle, et cetera.
You seem to be alluding to a very strange sort of logic here: that other species sometimes behave in nature in certain ways, therefore we as human groups should behave (or at least are justified in behaving) in the same way as those species towards other human groups.
What
I am saying is that *we* arise within a naturalistic context and, as it pertains to a specific instance -- in this case
the founding and the construction of South Africa, which can become an 'emblem' for a great number of similar situations, from *time immemorial* up to and including our present -- which I personally take as a sort of *model*, that in one way or another these are inevitable processes that pertain to 'the world of becoming'. The world of mutability and mutation. The world of growth and decline. The world of 'planting' and also 'construction'.
The first is that if we were to design a world which was to be as naturally good as possible -- in a moral sense -- it would probably look quite different to this one.
The second is that given that this world appears to be designed, we can infer from it something about how the designer(s) want it to "work" (whatever their motivations otherwise are).
There is a tremendous debate about the value-systems and the value-concepts that comprise a 'moral position'. In fact our world, the world of our present, is in substantial upheaval due to value-battles, conflicts between perspectives and value-orientations. I find that I am uncertain if I can go along with your moral imperatives though I believe that I am able to understand them.
The issue of 'designing a world' though does attract my attention. And that is what I am talking about essentially in my reference to South Africa and what had been created. I've told you that I *support* it. I've told you that I 'cast my lot with it' in the sense that I cast my lot with my ancestors who have constructed the world in which I live and who have also provided me with me, if I can put it this way. So I have to make choices. And I have to assume responsibility for those choices. Now as it happened, settlers came from Europe to the Americas and, through naturalistic imposition (an advanced civilization encountering a stone-age culture) and through imposition on many different other levels, the way of life of those stone age peoples literally came to an end. There is, effectively, no way that a hunter-gatherer culture could have survived what amounted to an onslaught
of an entirety that was the encounter I refer to.
So here we come to another point that we have in other places touched on (and which aroused intense reaction on your part). That 'conquest', what resulted from that encounter, whether you or I like it or not, is still going on. Not long ago I referred to Mario Vargas Llosa (Peruvian writer and intellectual) who has stated that in his view the best course for Peruvian indigenous culture is
assimilation. Along the same lines I propose that a same process (and imperative) applies to those of African descent in the United States (and elsewhere in the Americas). The issue with Black America hinges on 'assimilation'. The entire cultural and social and political process in the United States has been, centrally, about assimilation. There is no way to turn back from it. You will not ever be able to *return* to some former time or status. If you do think that you are engaged in a strange and seductive form of romanticism. Similarly, I proposed to you that Aboriginal culture must 'assimilate' to the degree that this is possible. These are 'inevitable' processes. They were set in motion, they continue in motion (in one way or another) and they cannot, effectively, be reversed.
So it is really in this primary sense that I refer to what is *primitive*. A tribal people, living off the land (more or less), without a written language and without a sophisticated material culture and technology will, simply by proximity, be subsumed into the dominant and dominating culture. What power or process *oversees* this? I am uncertain how to define it. It seems to be at least in part grounded in naturalism. So for example if it happened that an alien culture landed on our planet *by accident* and not through specific choice and they were immensely more advanced than we are, that there influence would be impossible to avoid or to resist. Effectively, it would modify everything about our own *world*. What force or power oversees this? You could perhaps see it as 'providential' (as opposed to merely naturalistic and accidental) but that implies a 'plan' and a 'planner'.
What then modernizes? What processes oversee all that we witness in the world? You can focus, literally, on any event, any conquest, any encounter, any invasion, any occupation, any colonial project be it a modern one or an ancient one, and you will be thoroughly powerless to *impose* your highfaluting idealisms, as a type of moral retrofit, onto the way things actually are in this world of becoming.
I don't otherwise follow your logic.
Well, of course you don't! How could you? You'd have to bend or modify your worldview in order to entertain some of the ideas, or realities, that I am presenting. And for this reason I refer to your *system* as one that can best be grasped if it is described as an *imposition*. I may go along with you with some of this, but then I may also choose not to. I also have determining power.
Here's how I see it: to a meaningful extent, within the realm under discussion (human society and civilisation), we get to decide "the way things really are". We are under no compulsion nor obligation to simply mimic the natural world, nor simply to do what power allows. In fact, if we are civilised, we will decidedly not follow the power principle of "might makes right", because that's one of the least civilised principles; it's the principle of the brutish dictator.
It would not be my primary point to disagree with you essentially. But remember that this discussion began, at least for my part, with wondering how it is that 'righteous projects' that have taken place in our Modernity seem to lead not to positive and productive results (sound accomplishments, the maintenance of structure and solidity) but rather to disruption, chaos, breakdown, civil strife, ungrounding, and a whole range of other problems.
The problem -- perhaps it is your core problem? -- is that by referring to the breakdowns we observe, or I observe, in South Africa we must take into consideration the people who took over the system and, as it is happening, run it into the ground. You are quite aware that I am referring to Black Africa itself. And you are also aware of the perception that *they cannot run a country* and they cannot *manage civilization*. And so we must then note that they never wanted it in the first place, did they? It was *imposed* on them by Europeans and European culture. The issue then is what inner structure, within them, determines what they construct or do not construct, right? We know that the dreaded White Man is entirely capable of constructing civilized worlds. This is what he does. He did exactly this in your country Australia. As he did in all the English colonies. That is
his will in operation. And, simultaneously, it happens that his will has acted and is still acting in this our world.
That's all really. That is all I wish to bring out to be seen. Curiously, and no matter where I go -- I refer to myself as an individual and as a member of a culture -- I am aware that my effect will always take shape according to these designs. It is part of my *internal structure*. And yes I am aware that my presence is an *imposition* in this sense.
So the way I lok at things, again speaking about South Africa, is that those early settlers certainly did impose themselves on the land and the *primitive tribes* who lived there. That is the San and the Bushmen cultures, descendants of Late Stone Age peoples, then Bantu and other peoples such as the
Khoekhoe. No part of this can be negated, neither in South Africa or, in similar manner, all over the world.
What interests me is the 'turn against oneself'. The review of history, the revisioning of it, the vilification of historical processes, and the development of a kind of reverse-trajectory. I am aware of this *attitude* or this *inclination* because I have been subject to it. It is quite literally a part of my upbringing. These were ideas and ideals that were presented to me as 'necessary' and also as 'moral'. Precisely as you present your moral views to me or at least largely so.
So what I have done over a number of posts is to refer no so much to you as to a *general person* who holds to these views and ideals. I have critiqued it and them and revealed what I think is another perspective that is possible to have and which can be 'justified'. But that justification requires a confrontation with the value-system that you seem, generally, to hold to. And so when I refer to being involved with other idea-sets and refer to people who are working intellectually in these areas, at the very least you may understand why. Nothing is absolutely settled for me. In the final analysis I cannot say with clear certainty what *view* to cultivate and hold to. The entire conversation however is very interesting to me.
One final note. When I said "I am
nothing if not self-interested" it has a double-meaning. You take self-interest as a negative. But I transvalue it into a positive. If I cannot have self-interest I cannot, literally, build and achieve in the realm of
becoming. I would be nothing if I did not have self-interest to accrue to me all that I do have, all that I am, and all that I choose to remain being.