On Wed, 14 Jul 1999 11:27:07 -0400 Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
writes:
>Chuck Grimes wrote:
>
>>Why do you post this shit?
Actually that type of argument was both anticipated and answered in the 1970s book *Blaming the Victim* by William Ryan. Ryan pointed out how the most sophisticated racists and classists invoked not biological determinism (as did the social Darwinists of the beginning of the century or The Bell Curve people do today but rather turn to cultural determinism in order to wrap their positions in a progressive sounding veneer.
Jim Farmelant
>
>Because it's symptomatic of where rightwing thought & propaganda are
>going; they've left the Bell Curve way behind. As Angela noted, the
>author was careful to put his argument partly in the mouths of
>members of maligned groups. It's also an example of the way that
>pseudo-scientifice racism has moved out of biology and into culture.
>You can bet that a lot of centrists and liberals who'd be nervous
>about embracing biological theories of poverty are willing to swallow
>"cultural" explanations. It all fits in with what Balibar & Zizek
>call neo-racism or multicultural racism, which holds that cultures
>are sacred and ought to be kept pure & apart. Multiculti racism
>avoids saying one is better than the other; "this shit" is pretty
>clear on the hierarchy, but everyone should be Benthamized.
>
>Doug
>
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