>>> <EmaChissit at cs.com> 04/27/99 11:28PM >>>
>
> Chas.: Why is it so difficult to understand that they could hate jocks and
> be racist too ? I mean beside the fact that you don't think admiring Hitler
> is some evidence of racism.
No one has denied that they were racists. We are trying to argue over the degree to which is played a significant factor. I don't believe that race hatred played a significant role in their decision to try to blow up a school and all the other things revealed in their diary. Your claim earlier was that you believed that the idea that they hated jocks was not nearly as significant as that they were racists. My contention is that there is no reason to ignore both of these factors, and it appears quite evident that it was a complex set of factors that motivated them to act this way.
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Chas: The only reason we are discussing this incident is to analyze the GENERAL significance of it. The sad perpetrators are dead and cannot be taught a lesson. Sad Littleton will be searching its soul for a long time.
The general significane of this incident is not that anti-jockism is some new form of major danger. Most "geeks" will continue to make their protests in very, very much less violent ways.
The element in this incident that has the most general significance and potential danger in other situations is the Nazi/Hitler fetish. I say that because, in whatever mixed up , inexact replica of Nazism form this incident was, the MASS MURDER element is very likely derived from the Nazi fetish. That Nazism is an irrational mix that has racism as a critical element.
Therefore, the key thing to eradicate to prevent future Littletons is the Nazism and racism. If we have to uproot all geekism, the task is too great.
Your concern to determine the precise way in which racism fits into various neo-Nazi variations on paleo-Nazism is not important to the main lessons to be learned from the massacre. Those who want to prevent future Littletons should study the phenomenon Nazism/Racism much more than anti-jockism and geekism. Or study geeks with Nazi/Racist fetishes, not all geeks. The correlation between geekism and mass murder is much less than the correlation between Nazism/Racism and mass murder.
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> Chas.: So, do you think members of the KKK ONLY hate black people ? You
don'
> t think members of the KKK might hate white people with higher status than
> them ?
Absurd and completely unrelated to anything we are discussing here.
Chas. : Au contraire. This is a very cogent analogy to the current discussion. The analogy is like the Littleton Two, who hated jocks with status AND Blacks, Jews and Hispanics, KKK members hate socially statused people as well as Black people. Thus, the fact that the Littleton Two hated jocks does not contradict their racist hating.
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>You think that if I attribute racism to someone, I think they can't
> have other motives or hatreds ?
Of course you may attribute racism to folks. The question is, to what degree to race hatred or white supremacy if you will played a role in motivating them to behave the way they did. I don't think that their race hatred was a primary factor here. If you want to target a group of people it is really quite easy to figure out a way to kill them.
Chas: If you don't think race hatred was a primary factor here, then to me your thinking is exactly the main problem with thinking about racism in America today. Most people are not mass murder racists. Most racism is of the type that cannot see racism when it hits them in the face like a Mack truck. Most of the more intellectual racism is exactly the sort of pseudo-scientific, nonsense epistemology analysis of the type rampant on this thread that can't find a correlation or causal link between a Hitler/Racist fetish and a mass murder, a sort of playing dumb social science. The U.S. Supreme Court's analysis of racism is completely rotted out in this way. The technique of ignoring or winking at the causal link between racism and discrimination has been used by the Court to gut the civil rights laws and outlaw affirmative action.
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> It is really pretty simple. You are making a
> kind of elementary logical error. Being alienated from their high school
> scene in general, hating jocks and all that DOES NOT CONTRADICT their
> simultaneously being racist.
No one ever said they weren't racist. You think we deny racism, when what we are suggesting is their race hatred wasn't necessarily a significant motivating factor in causing them to do what they did.
Chas.: No, I think you are denying the significance of race hatred as a necessary motivating factor in causing them to do what they did. But that also means you don't really think they were racists, because you are attributing to them a kind of benign racism. At any rate, the problem is that you would so aggressively and quickly feel so definite that the racism was not connected to the mass murder dimension, was SIGNIFICANT to the mass murder dimension. By that you don't really understand racism. In your case that lack of understanding is compounded by your effort to disconnect today's Nazism from historical Nazism. Nazism today is still dangerous exactly because it generates this kind of murderous hatred and supremacy. This case disproves your disconnecting neo-nazism from paleo-nazism , and you refuse to see it because you want to stick to your idea that there is a clean new type of nazism.
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>
> Chas. I am not having the least bit of trouble understanding it. It is as
> simple as the word "and".
You quite literally sneered at the idea early on, to wit:
" The main thing was they hated athletes". Yea, right, a big social problem in U.S. history and society, the hate of athletes."
You couldn't fathom it. You thought it ever so much silliness.
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Chas.: All I can say is you just don't get it. My statement is still correct and does not say that hating jocks was not a cause. My statement does not in the least contradict my statement regarding the and. I didn't say they didn't hate athletes. I said that the fact that they hated athletes in fact is not the main problem in this particular situation that is SIGNIFICANT or important to the larger society. Thus, my sarcasm that hating jocks is some big social problem in U.S. history and society. Hating jocks is not the most significant larger social aspect to this incident, because hating jocks is not as big a social problem as racism.
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They were racist AND they hated jocks. You seem to
> think that if they hated jocks , they couldn't also be racist. Why exactly
is
> that ? As to "exploring other social factors, I said nothing against that.
You most certainly did. You certainly like to twist people's words around. I believe that I have always said they were racists. I've challenged you as to your ludicrous claim early on that any talk about them hating jocks was simply a media maneuver designed to obfuscate racism. Plainly not.
Chas.: You just don't want to get it. It is not ludicrous that they hated jocks. It is ludicrous to see hating jocks as the significant larger social problem that is likely to trigger future massacres. It is the racism/Nazism that is likely to trigger future incidents. AND THE EMPHASIS ON THE HATING JOCKS BY THE MEDIA PLAINLY IS OBFUSCATION OF THE RACISM/NAZISM.
99999999999999999
> You are the one who leapt to the conclusion that saying racism is a
> significant factor means there can't be other factors. I have often
denounced
> the dog-eat-dog, rat race mentality that capitalism creates. I have
"explored"
> in many situations. It dovetails with racism.
You have offered the altogether too easy answer that they were neo-Nazi's. I see no evidence for this, no evidence for any organized belief system on their part.
Charles: I can't tell you how scientifically and politically off your notion that there is some kind of problem with or "easiness" in giving an answer that they were neo-Nazis. On the "easiness" , you seem to be taking up the hoaky high social scientific rigor standards bs that Wojtek and others are putting out. As a matter of fact, the neo-Nazi explanation has some complexity, since, they killed a lot of non-Jews etc. It is an explanation that goes beyond the surface, the phenomenal level. So , it is not even "easy."
On the "organized belief system" , a very significant thing about the paleo-Nazis is that they were highly irrational, i.e. they had a DISorganized belief system. The fact that neo-Nazis usually mix in creativity and new elements with their nazism is NOT the important aspect of neo-nazis. The important thing is the ways in which they are faithful to paleo-Nazism. And these particular two are getting so much attention exactly because of their mimicking one of the worst aspects of the Nazis - mass murder. The likely thing is the run of the mill American racism the Littleton Two picked up from being regular Americans caused the racism of the Nazis to resonate with them.
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> CB: There's a lot of it in the news. Here's one :"Dylan Klebold and Eric
> Harris hurled insults at Jews, blacks and Hispanics". I heard the sheriff
at
> a press conference over the weekend. He said from the evidence they had the
> boys seemed to be doing a "Nazi thing" and that the day of the incident was
> because it was Hitler's birthday. That is evidence of the type you ask for.
So? What does this mean? Does this necessarily mean that they were really Nazi's? Neo-nazi sympathizers?
Chas.: Probably. But the problem with what you are saying here is that you have the presumptions reversed. If someone wears nazi regalia, is known for racist attitudes and commits mass murder on Hitler's birthday, the presumption should be that they are Nazis of some sort. You should place the burden on the proof of the opposite proposition (they are not nazis). Instead , you place the presumption the other way. You hold up some arch skepticism against their Nazism. You ask are they necessarily Nazis. This is backward by evidentiary or epistemological logic.
In other words, on the evidence you have so far, you should be skeptical and put the burden of proof on those who claim these two were not similar to classic Nazis.
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There was a website turned over to the police in which Harris denounces racists. There are newsgroup posts from his email account where he denounces racism. Some students said that they actually wore an anti nazi insignia.
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Chas: The fact that there is conflicting evidence does not justify getting enthusiastic about disproving that they had racist motivation. The odd thing is how many people on this list subscribe to the notion that misattribution of cause to racism in this case or others is some big problem or error being committed by me or others in general today.
Mussolini was in the Socialist Party. The Nazis were demogogically the National Socialist Party, but they were the opposite of socialists. Doubletalk by the Littleton Two might be typcial Nazi demogogy or insane mixup. The Littleton Two being insanely confused and self-contradictory doesn't make them unlike Nazis. Hitler was insane, like these two. I bet Hitler was alienated in high school too.
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Nazism simply requires a cleansing of the pure from the impure and those impure could be defined as any group whatsoever. There is no necessary need for their interest in Nazism to automatically signal racism as in *white* supremacy. (((((((((((((((((((((((
Chas: This point you keep repeating is off. You have it backwards. Interest in Nazism PROBABLY signals racism as in white (no quotes) supremacy. In rare cases, it might not mean it. But we should be more concerned about the majority of cases when it does mean white supremacy. The danger is not that we will attribute racism to non-racists. The danger is that we will overlook the racism of racists. Your doubting should be reversed, the other way around. Doubt first that interest in Nazism is NOT racist. Presume that it is racist. Put the burden of proof on those interested in Nazism to prove they are not Nazis, don't put the burden of proof on others to prove that they are racists.
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Earlier in this century there was an attempt to define poor whites as a separate race. In the 1800s there were thought to be 6 different races. Race is an historically and socially constructed category and racism, the particular modalities it manifests, is historically and socially constructed as well.
Chas.: I am well schooled in the history of race and racism. I majored in anthropology because of it. That race is historically constituted does not redound to the support of your argument over mine here. No the Littleton Two were not racist by their genetic heredity. They learned it in racist American society. The shifting history of the pseudo biological categories of race does not cut against my argument here.
> "Primarily"motivated is you playing games. Their racism was a significant
> factor in the sad mixture of thoughts that made them do it. Your effort to
> basically say that racism was NOT a significant factor is a disservice
anyone
> trying to learn the lessons of this tragedy.
You keep saying this over and over and yet I'll hazard a guess that you can't find one post where I said racism wasn't a factor.
Chas. What you say is that it was not a significant factor. See above where you said;
"degree to which is played a significant factor. I don't believe that race hatred played a significant role in their decision to try to blow up a school and all the other things revealed in their diary. "
Saying it "was a factor ,but not a significant factor" is no better.
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I simply object to anyone saying that this was primarily motivated by race. I objected to your earlier comments in which you dismissed their hatred of jocks as a farce perpetrated by the media. The media does cover up racism on a regular basis. No one has denied that. The media is a racist, sexist, classist, and heterosexist institution.
Chas: Making it more precise, the best presumption based on all the facts so far is that racism/nazism were a significant factor in the mass murder dimension of what happened. If they had just hated jocks with no racism/nazism in their thinking, they probably would not have planned a mass murder ,but rather hacked some sports institution computer like most computer geeks. That is the farcical aspect of the monopoly media portrayl: That is was mainly their geekness that caused them to do the mass murder.
In this case it is difficult for the media to completely coverup the racism because of the heavy Hitler/Nazi themes. So, the media uses its spin doctoring approach such as putting up the ridiculous jockhating-as-a-new form-of-mass-murder ideology theory. But of course, lots of people buy it, because the monopoly media is a real life Big Brother.
Charles Brown