> On Wed, 24 Jun 1998, Justin Schwartz wrote:
>
> >
> > Lucretius and Democritos, post S's both. --jks
> >
>
> I thought it was Epicurus and Democritos. (or somebody with an e. sorry
Oops, quite right. Still post-S's.
> about spelling. when i was in school we said classics is bullshit, and
> chose to ignore the greeks, etc. and study the literatures and
> philosophies of Africa, Asia and the indigenous people of the Americas.
Alas. I know about this sort of foolishness--it's the sort of identity politics I decry as reactionary. It's multiply stupidm because it's completely anachronistic. The ancient Mediterranean world wasn't "white"; it was Mediterranean, and in the Hellenistic Era the capital of learning was Alexandria, in Egypt. Martin Bernal has written a suspect book, Black Athena, arguing (plausibly) that traditional classical historiography (16-19th century) was indeed racist, also, plausibly, that
lot of Greek philosophy and mathematics came from the Near East and North Africa, and (implausibly) that it came from sources further South in "Black" Africa. This is this best of that lot. (Black Athena is actually worth reading, especially vol. 1.) But it's a very deep confusion to take the German and English imperialist scholars appropriation of a genuinerly multicultural civilization as a "white" heritage at face value. Of course the multiculturalism and syncretism of the ancient world offers cold comfort to nationalists of any stripe.
In addition what you will find when you look at traditional Asian philosophies is a lot of stuff about why the imperial government is good. This is the upshot of a good deal of Chinese philosophy, anyway. It's good to know something about Confucius, OK, but as someone to follow, well, Mao was right about that.
We
> also believed--and I still do-- that the Black Student Union had good
> reason to insist on being Black, while organizing coalition groups of
> various organizations to work toward common goals.
Fair enough.
White students should
> take African American Studies courses--in fact it should be required, and
> Women's Studies courses should be required for men--
I hate this culture wars stuff too, battles about what courses should be required or what goes in the canon, as if it changed anyone's views to take a required course or read a required book. Maybe the idea is that it is supposed to be sort of gesture of respect towards a culture or a people to require classes or books in their tradition even if it doesn't change anyone's views, but that sort of culrural politics is pretty remote from anything that makes a difference in changing the world. Better to gight for giving students and professors the option of studying and reseraching in a variety of areas.
but the idea of white
> students joining the BSU--as opposed to supporting anti-racist work, etc.,
> seems ridiculous to me.)
OK.
--jks