Race versus culture

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davidm
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by davidm »

Seleucus wrote: Wed Oct 18, 2017 3:21 am Bodhidharma himself was a blue eyed White man. .
What a dim dummy you are.
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Seleucus
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by Seleucus »

davidm wrote: Wed Oct 18, 2017 3:21 am
Seleucus wrote: Wed Oct 18, 2017 3:15 am
davidm wrote: Wed Oct 18, 2017 3:09 amNo it doesn't, twit.

You,like most of the people who post here, have NO IDEA what you are talking about.
Powerful argument based on extensive research, and written respectfully too.
You don't deserve respect. And yes, there are powerful arguments based on extensive research supporting what I say.
Powerful argument based on extensive research, and written respectfully too.
davidm
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by davidm »

Seleucus wrote: Wed Oct 18, 2017 3:26 am
davidm wrote: Wed Oct 18, 2017 3:21 am
Seleucus wrote: Wed Oct 18, 2017 3:15 amPowerful argument based on extensive research, and written respectfully too.
You don't deserve respect. And yes, there are powerful arguments based on extensive research supporting what I say.
Powerful argument based on extensive research, and written respectfully too.
See my previous replies, you dim dummy.
davidm
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by davidm »

Are you white with blue eyes, dummy? :lol:
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Seleucus
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by Seleucus »

davidm wrote: Wed Oct 18, 2017 3:23 am
Seleucus wrote: Wed Oct 18, 2017 3:21 am Bodhidharma himself was a blue eyed White man. .
What a dim dummy you are.
He was a "Blue-Eyed Barbarian" who came from the West. That's the tradition. He was a Central Asian Aryan from somewhere between the Caspian Sea and Gansu Province.
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Seleucus
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by Seleucus »

davidm wrote: Wed Oct 18, 2017 3:23 am
Seleucus wrote: Wed Oct 18, 2017 3:21 am Bodhidharma himself was a blue eyed White man. .
What a dim dummy you are.
Trust me, I can appreciate your surprise, it's obvious from a little thought and reading, but of course it sort of upsets our Orientalist mental schema a bit when it's put point blank: Buddhism is a Western and Indo-European religion and Bodhidharma who founded Zen was a blue eyed White man.
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Greta
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by Greta »

Seleucus wrote: Wed Oct 18, 2017 3:04 amThis is a big big topic that one could write thousands of pages on...
Maybe to you and others for whom race is important.

However, those who marry those of other races don't seem to have your yearning to be amongst their own kind. Further, it's very easy to imagine a person with the kind of personality that would be irritated by their own culture and choose to embrace another. By the same token, to be close to family is most important to many people, but some simply can't get far enough away from them.

It's about diversity, human/natural difference, Seleucus (do you know Gustav Bjornstrand by any chance?). Some love diversity, some hate it, and most are in the middle.

Also, remember that the world is increasingly organising itself according to class rather than culture due to the increased connectedness of the well-to-do as compared with others. So the wealthy of any given nationality or culture will tend to have many similarities through international business connections and good education while the middle and lower classes of different societies tend to be more different to one another.
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Seleucus
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by Seleucus »

Greta wrote: Wed Oct 18, 2017 4:18 am
Seleucus wrote: Wed Oct 18, 2017 3:04 amThis is a big big topic that one could write thousands of pages on...
Maybe to you and others for whom race is important.

However, those who marry those of other races don't seem to have your yearning to be amongst their own kind.
I'm in a mixed race marriage. Happily married. I think people who are in mixed race marriages like myself understand race much more accutely and have a lot more respect for it than people who live in racially homogeneous spaces. Almost everyone I know who is in a mixed race marriage or who is a long term ex-pat would be labeled "racist". It is an ironic phenomena for sure.
It's about diversity, human/natural difference, Seleucus (do you know Gustav Bjornstrand by any chance?). Some love diversity, some hate it, and most are in the middle.
Can you spell out the significance of this guy. I looked him up on Wiki, he was in Fanny and Alexander? Sublime movie, I'll never forget the line, "I am horribly awake!". But not sure your point here....
Also, remember that the world is increasingly organising itself according to class rather than culture
I've heard it said but it just dawned on me literately the other day that it is the upper classes who maintain the cultural traditions the longest, look at the Greek kings of Egypt who outlasted the Greek middle class in keeping their Greekness for example. Generally the upper class is the ethno-linguistic nucleus of a civilization, they are the prime culture bearers.
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Seleucus
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by Seleucus »

Greta wrote: Wed Oct 18, 2017 4:18 am
Seleucus wrote: Wed Oct 18, 2017 3:04 amThis is a big big topic that one could write thousands of pages on...
Maybe to you and others for whom race is important.
This phenomena of living among other races and become more racist seems to be quite common, I notice a video on it here,

https://youtu.be/eRATeUEBWJQ

Where there are some racist touchy points between my wife and I are with Jews and Chinese. I'm a Zionist. My wife however is more anti-Semitic. I do admit that international Jewry, like diaspora Chinese are undermining the states they live in, but now there is a Jewish state, so all that Jewish energy is being invested in nationalism not internationalism, I honestly think this fact of Israel since 1945 is one of the main reasons for the rise of nationalism and rightism worldwide. My wife really dislikes Chinese too, I honestly don't care one way or the other about Chinese, it's obviously an advanced culture of diligent people, but also Chinese are cruel and greedy and uncreative. An interesting thing about the Chinese is, like the Whites, they have a very matter of fact belief in their racial superiority and a clear sense of Chinese contra barbarian: Hau versus Yi. My wife and I don't really have any hatred but instead have interest about each other's race and culture.

It's also worth getting clear about what racism is. For me, I call it unfair discrimination based on race. But even then, what is unfair? A woman tells me literally yesterday about her plan to open a bakery and only hire Muslims. It's quite common since Islam is a gang. Obviously Muslims have this attitude of superiority too, and a belief in the house of Islam versus the kafir. Here was an article last week about a Muslim only laundromat.

http://www.todayonline.com/world/asia/m ... aysia-spin

Obviously Islam isn't a race, but is it even unfair to only hire Muslims or only serve Muslims? My view is that spiritual purity is magical thinking and OCD, but I'm not sure that when I can't rent a house or get a government job if I am not Muslim that that is actually "unfair discrimination"? This is all hushed up about the Muslims, because if a tranny can't rent an apartment then everyone thunders "unfair discrimination"! Or if a Black weren't given service there would be an uproar. I think I'm okay with this kind of discrimination when a Muslim won't allow a kafir into their laundromat or when a Black isn't allowed into a university because these are private organizations so people have a right about their own private groups, that goes for nation states most of all.

This I think connects to the debate between ethno-nationalism and economic-nationalism. To me, a culture group or a race is actually a trade route and in Marxist terms a mode of production, and all the commodity fetishism and character masks that go along with it. Are ethno- and economic- nationalism really ever separable? We have this expression for example "corporate culture". No doubt! A nation state is essentially an extended family, sometimes a family greatly expanded by adoption as is the case of America or Canada.

By the way, you deserve an award or something it seems for being able to dialogue without calling others dummy and idiot and so on...
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vegetariantaxidermy
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Seleucus wrote: Wed Oct 18, 2017 2:41 am
vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Tue Oct 17, 2017 6:15 pminherently inferior anyway
The jury has to be still out on this. Myself, I can imagine that culture is sufficient to explain the differences between races. But we have to grant that no scientific control-group research has been done on the psychology of whole races. It seems pretty clear there are temperamental differences between dog breeds. Are Indians filthy because they have not been taught to feel disgust at the sight of rot and rubbish, or is the psychological propensity, or lack there of, genetically controlled? Are Black Americans performing so poorly in schools because of something like a culture of poverty, or because of genetic differences? Since large scale experiments on whole societies is impossible, and race and culture tend to be almost always co-joined, there isn't likely to be an answer coming anytime soon.

One possible clue might come from a law suit in Canada recently, native Indians were adopted in mass by non-Red Indian parents over the past decades, if those adopted Indians have been far more successful in society in terms of education, rate of suicide, rate of drug addiction, happiness rating and so on, that kind of "twin study" might give some clues? But, it couldn't be definitive given the many complex variables. The jury is always going to be out on this question of the material inferiority and superiority of races.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... s-children
Cherry picking. My intent was irony. 'En masse'. Why would you expect an indigenous people to instantly adapt to, and understand, a completely alien culture? That hardly makes them inferior. What would you do?
Belinda
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by Belinda »

Seleucus wrote:
(Greta had written)Also, remember that the world is increasingly organising itself according to class rather than culture
(Seleucus replied):I've heard it said but it just dawned on me literately the other day that it is the upper classes who maintain the cultural traditions the longest, look at the Greek kings of Egypt who outlasted the Greek middle class in keeping their Greekness for example. Generally the upper class is the ethno-linguistic nucleus of a civilization, they are the prime culture bearers.
It's true what Greta said. Unfortunately, the international elite class contains baddies as well as goodies. It contains Donald Trump who is noted for his bad taste in so many spheres of life. Unfortunately Seleucus is quite wrong that the ruling elites are what he says; now that lesser men are free they are also culture-bearers. Seleucus, your preference for the linguistic habits of the upper classes is common snobbery with no foundation in socio-linguistics. Obviously you don't know about the language of Shakespeare, or Robert Burns.

It is true that in recent centuries the rich and powerful financed the arts including architecture that survive today to our common delight. The rich and powerful also financed the established churches and other industries that fashion the culture of beliefs.The rich and powerful still do so to a large extent.They would, wouldn't they? It's a cosa nostra thing.

Seleucus wrote:
A woman tells me literally yesterday about her plan to open a bakery and only hire Muslims. It's quite common since Islam is a gang. Obviously Muslims have this attitude of superiority too, and a belief in the house of Islam versus the kafir.
You have obviously far more experience with Muslims'company than I have. Even I however have the impression that Muslims in general are on the defensive and have become, or remained, defiantly tribal. By "tribal " I mean sentimentally attached to the idol of natal or adopted ethnicity. Perhaps Muslims from 'village' origins are more inclined to be traditionally tribal in their world views. It would be interesting if some anthropologist had studied the causes of tribalism and traditional attachments among Muslims. I'd make a guess that Islam is not the cause of Muslims' narrowly tribal view of others. A metaphysical (ontological) God is common to all the western religions, and legitimates intertribal warfare.

Tribalism, now. Are you yourself tribal, or universal, Seleucus? Your preference for what you call "race" and Europeans in particular begins to sound tribal.
Last edited by Belinda on Wed Oct 18, 2017 10:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
Londoner
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by Londoner »

Seleucus wrote: Wed Oct 18, 2017 2:41 am The jury has to be still out on this. Myself, I can imagine that culture is sufficient to explain the differences between races. But we have to grant that no scientific control-group research has been done on the psychology of whole races.
And it never can be done - because there are no races.
It seems pretty clear there are temperamental differences between dog breeds. Are Indians filthy because they have not been taught to feel disgust at the sight of rot and rubbish, or is the psychological propensity, or lack there of, genetically controlled?
First, there is no race; 'Indians'.

Second, supposing you could define the Indian race, for you to be right then there would be no Indians who liked to be clean. If there are any examples of such Indians, which there are, it totally disproves your theory.

But of course this is the 'no true Scotsman' school of science. The 'Indian race' going to be defined by whatever bigoted idea you have about them, so that any example of an Indian who fails to fit your stereotype isn't a 'real Indian'.
Belinda
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by Belinda »

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Tue Oct 17, 2017 8:31 pm
Belinda wrote: Tue Oct 17, 2017 7:25 pm Seleucus, would it perhaps be better if you stopped referring to race when what you mean is ethnicity?
What difference does it make? So he doesn't like people who are cosmetically different from him. Does it really make any difference WHAT he calls them? Is anyone but a biologist thinking of biology when they think 'race'? I suppose the medical world is being racist when it talks about certain 'cosmetically differing' groups of people being susceptible to cerain illnesses. It's all really beyond pathetic.
I see. I meant that calling ethnic differences "racial" differences gives a spurious biological respectability to his hostility to outsiders.
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Arising_uk
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by Arising_uk »

Seleucus wrote:Race certainly exists and it is something worth having pride in. The product of millions of years of beautiful and sublime life and struggle. It is worth understanding the origins and history or your race be you White, Austronesian, Korean, Arab or what have you. There are a lot of problems comparing languages and genetic systems, languages easily co-mingle but dogs and zebras do not blend. ...
Which shows that humans are one species then?
Just as we can speak or Arabic or English or Korean, much the same we can speak of White, Oriental and Semitic races. ...
'Semitic' race? You do like to slip stuff in don't you.
There certainly is some fuzziness and matters of power in how the definitions are created, but just as sure as you can understand what I'm typing, no one will mistake me for a Capoid or a Negrito.
For sure but is Obama not white then?
Belinda
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by Belinda »

Seleucus wrote:
I appreciate being among my people. I appreciate being among people I can understand, who share common values and dreams. The land, the culture and the people are a symbiotic entity. Everyone refugee, everyone in exile, everyone stationed with the military or working abroad understands this at a very bodily and emotional level.
We, our Scottish family, were a forces family, in the 60's. We often met foreign nationals, common country people in agricultural Andalucia, who were all welcoming and nice to be with. This, to the extent that the newspaper from home was so full of crime and unrest that I almost dreaded going home to Britain. Not just the people I met but also the terrain and vegetation of Andalucia felt like home.

I think that something must be loading you with a general and unreasoning prejudice against foreigners, Seleucus.I think you have just been unfortunate in the foreigners whom you have met.

By the way, I enjoy your large lexicon of 'racial' terms.
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