(no subject)

James Wynn · 18 Jan 2011, 15:08 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2011 09:08:08 -0600
Subject: (urth) (no subject)
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W60C8C95E6571C90343631FCFF70 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W60C8C95E6571C90343631FCFF70 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <4D35ACD8.9010709 at gmail.com>

>>> I guess I can't exactly hate racism..how can I hate what is an
>>> integral part of my own species?
>> QFT; the instinctive tribalism in the human animal is not an excuse for
>> the practice of racism, any more than instinctive elimination is an
>> excuse for peeing on the wall when nature calls.
>
> It should be quite clear that absence of hate does not equal "excuse".
> My own personal philosophy is that encouraging any kind of hate is a sin
> always worth avoiding. Certainly a worse sin than, say, peeing on a wall ;- ).

All morality is about causing people to act contrary to their natural 
inclinations. This is the problem with using surveys (such as the Kinsey 
Report) to determine the opinions we ought to have toward some behavior. 
"Okay, it's common. So what?" This goes for racism but it also goes for 
anything else you could mention. But equating the use of a word with 
'racism' or anything other "ism" in absence of context is moronic. 
Still, Huckleberry Finn is not a book written for Elementary or Middle 
Schoolers, so I don't understand the need for a bowdlerized version.

On the other hand, in WWII (the only war left to us for which it is 
politically correct to say was "just"), soldiers were encouraged to hate 
the Nazi society and the Imperial Japanese society and the armies that 
protected them. Many never got over it. My favorite uncle, who fought 
hand-to-hand on Iwo Jima wanted nothing to do with Japanese products 
until the day he died. Still, I don't know if one can argue this is 
'sin' if he simultaneously argues that war can be a necessary evil.

u+16b9

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