Alice down under in Wonder

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Sun Oct 10 08:37:07 PDT 1999


kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca wrote:


> I guess my underlying (utopian?) idea here is that if it is
> abolished from speech, and abolished from thought, it will
> also be abolished in reality.

Wow! But I gather you do not accept the (marxian but not only marxian) premise of "Im Anfang war die That" (Goethe, *Faust*) -- in the beginning was the deed. (Incidentally, I believe in racisms, not racism, and my remarks on the subject are always u.s. specific.) In the u.s. (past and present, slavery and post- slavery) the oppression and exploitation of blacks has for over 200 years been in *visible* conflict with the textbook verities incorporated in the Declaration of Independence, and that clash between visible realities generates the ideology of racism

Ideologies are *not* changed by changing language or thought (though the battle to do so is an element in the overall battle) but by changing the realities which generate the ideology. (Which brings us back to the Third and Eleventh Theses on Feuerbach.)

Now if you really do ground your thought in Kant (or in the latest "return to Kant"), this won't make sense.

Carrol



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