Wenn ich Kultur hoere (was Re: Invention of the white race // Rakesh on eugenics)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 02:06 PM 5/29/98 -0400, Charles Brown wrote:
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>>>> Yoshie Furuhashi writes
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>With the hegemony of neoliberalism and the severe erosion of what little
>elements of the 'welfare state' that the USA has ever developed, the ruling
>class in America is in need of a new emphasis on geneticism and biologism.
>Blacks in America have become refigured within the ruling ideology, from
>the unworthy clients of costly social services to the targets of outright
>repression. Before neoliberalism and while the 'welfare state' was still in
>place, 'black inferiority' was figured by the ruling ideology as a matter
>of environment, culture, etc. and thought of as susceptible to
>interventions by the state. Now that the agenda of capital is different,
>the environmental or cultural explanations have become inadequate for the
>ruling class. The argument that biology is destiny is far more consnant
>with the reliance upon more overt and direct repression + social control of
>those who cannot be even admitted to the regular labor market.>>>
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>I believe Yoshie's explanation of the resurgence of academic,
pseudo-biological racism is substantially correct. To speculate in
extension of her comment, if the liberal anti-discrimination reforms which
were established in response to the demands of the Black Freedom movement
of the 50's through 70's -affirmative action,  an extent of anti-racist
ideology somewhat hegmonic in a significant mass of the white population
etc.- had been allowed to remain in place, racism would have been
drastically abated after some years or decades. 

I reply (WS):  I generally agree with that line or argument.  I also think,
however, that both Yoshie and Charles attach too much value to the contents
of this neo-racist pseudo-science.  As I tried to show in my earlier
posting under the same thread, this stuff is evdently crap and can be
easily refuted on methodological grounds.  Thus, its value to the ruling
class must lie in something else than the content that can so easily be
refuted.

I view this stuff in the context of two phenomena.  The first phenoment is
the eneromou changes taking place in the world - old empire crumbling, new
empires emerging, new technologies being introduced, entirely new
legislations to regulate them being drafted, new markets, spehres of
influences being established, public properties (space, information
technology) being transfered to corporations -- in a word, the captains of
industry re-designing the new world order on the grand scale.

The second phenomenon is th eproliferation of culture wars fought a hundred
years ago: sexual freedom, abortion, school prayer, and now biological
grounds of social inequalities.  It seems to me that as the history shifts
into the fast-forward gear in the corporate sphere, it also shifts, or
rathwr someone is trying to shift it, into reverse in the public sphere.

I do not view it a mere coincidence.  I think that culture wars over
abortion, race and school prayer are a delibearte tactic used by th emedia
owners to divert public attention form how the spoils of the cold war and
new age technology are being divided.  The issues, race, abortion or
religion, are selected not because of their contents, but because of their
one and only property -- they are highly divisive and inflammatory, thus
create a perfect diversion.  I bet you a beer that the next Kulturkampf
will be over a flat-earth-science and geo-centric cosmogony being intriuced
by some wacky group to school curriculum.

Religion and culture have always been a perfect diversion from real social
problems.  I do not think this time is any different.  Cultural identity
politics is such a nice diversion from the corporate pig-out.  That, BTW,
makes me almost sympathetic to the dictum by Hanns Johst (a Nazi
playwright): "Wenn ich Kultur hoere, entsichere ich meinen Browning." (When
I hear about culture, I cock my pistol.) 

Regards,

WS

This would be the death knell of capitalism in the U.S., ending the main
division of the working class. Reaganism had as a main element the defeat
of this reform drift. Reaganite racism has as a distinguishing
characteristic a demogogic use of the factual trend of diminishining
racism(which  I describe above) by claiming that racism has already been
eradicated. This is taken even further to claim that reverse discrimination
is now as much or more of !
>a problem as "straightup"discrimination. 
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>David Duke, the Neo-Nazi/kkk leader, used anti-affirmative action as the
main plank in his campaign for governor of Louisiana in the 80's ( He got
40%). From the fascist to the crypto-fascist to the conservative right
affirmative action was and is the main factual hook for reverse
discrimination and Blacks -as -now -privileged -over- whites demogogy. This
probably explains in part why some big corporations favored it in the
California Initiative vote last year. The myth that reverse discrimination
is now more the problem and its logic is critical to maintaining the last
(?) type of  racism, which Reaganite racism the big bourgeoisie must have
to rule in America.
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>Charles Brown
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