Re: military superiority; moral inferiority

At 14:29 25/12/01 -0500, Jane Shahi wrote:
>If we aren't quite ready for progress, maybe we could settle 
>for equal opportunity bigotry instead.  Maybe what we need is 
>a couple of thousand years of racism towards anyone of white 
>Northern European descent.  Maybe it will have a cancelling-out 
>effect and then we'll finally have fairness and equality in the 
>world. 

This seems like a Eurocentric view of history turned on 
its head -- take the mythical expansion of European 
dominance into the past at face value, and then demand 
recompense based on myth rather than reality.

At the outside, a couple hundred years of bigotry toward 
anyone of white Northern European descent would square 
accounts ... except of course for all that bigotry at 
poor working class people of white Northern European 
descent and women of white Northern European descent ... 
they'd get it double, once while they were being dominated 
so that people could be dominated on their behalf, and 
again in the backlash.

I reckon this path is simply too complicated to actually 
work out, besides being fairly dud reasoning.  The habit 
of retaliation in kind does not exhaust itself after one 
go round, two go rounds, or N go rounds.  It only ends 
by leaving the habit behind ... admittedly easier said 
than done, but only way to go.




Virtually,

Bruce McFarling, Shortland, NSW
ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au