NATO Bomb Kills Two Peacekeepers

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Tue Jun 22 13:14:24 PDT 1999


At 12:30 PM 6/22/99 -0700, jordan wrote:
>Or do you think it's kewl to characterize "Whites" based on the actions
>of the railroad barrons? Let's not forget: the exercise of power over
>any group to exploit their labor is yucky, and it has been practiced by
>each and every racial group in the history of this planet.

True, but there are differences in the order of magnitude. I think it is safe to say that certain nations, including this one, have much higher per capita killing or exploitation rates than other nations, e.g. Scandinavian or Eastern European.

Of course your point that not every white person is responsible for the actions of robber barons is well taken - "per capita" is a statistical indicator not physical reality - but the differences in the magnitude of that statistical indicator beg an explanation, no?

My own explanation is that it has something to do with the mechanisms of delegating authority and separation of personal and official accountability, in a word, bureaucratic organization (or hiding behind abstractions, if you will)- a taks at which Western European nations have been particularly adept. It is much easier to cause death from the hights of authority or abstraction than physically doing it with one's own hand. Methinks, genocide is a Mr. Hyde of Western intellectualism.

wojtek



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