>>If your argument is that race and gender as categories have the same
status socially as "witches and phlogiston and angels and bigfoot" &
should be treated as such, what's your argument for affirmative
action, for instance? *****************
I don't have one based on the fact that race[s] does not exist, nor can I if I don't think there are race[s]. Guarantee jobs to all that want one. Guarantee unconditional access to k-college free of charge. "Grant" all job applicants "the right" to tape record the job interview; have firms fill out forms to determine reasons for applicant rejection so as to compile statistics to track for racism with fines so large as to create disincentives to engage in race and sex discrimination or to attempt to lie about it. Launch a public education campaign on the tube letting every employer know they're being watched and that racism/sexism has nowhere to hide anymore [kinda like "Cops"]. Pass living wage laws. Hold Congressional hearings on reparations during prime-time, trigger a society-wide debate on racism etc.
>>Should we exercise affirmative action for witches and angels as well as for
women, blacks, etc., since they are
all biologically meaningless categories? If so, why? If not, why
not?
*************
Now you're being obtuse.
>>What's your argument for reproductive rights & liberties?
Should men as well as women have a say in women's decision as to
whether to give birth or terminate pregnancy? *************
Have a say; yes. The FINAL say; no.
>> Should wives get husbands' permissions before getting abortion? If so, why?
If not,
why not?
*************
Gender baiting
You rightly wrote earlier: "'group', 'class,' 'gender,' and 'race'
interpenetrate in so many
ways"; does _phlogiston_, however, today interpenetrate class?
**************
Obtuseness again.
It is correct to argue that racial, gender, and other oppressions are
_caused socially, not biologically_; that doesn't mean, though, that
it makes sense to argue that race, gender, sexuality, disability,
etc. are "like witches and phlogiston and angels and bigfoot" -- you
can tell that, I suppose, to whites, blacks, & others, men & women,
straights & queers, able-bodied & disabled, etc. all day long, but at
the end of the day nothing will change, for your argument doesn't
touch the material conditions that produce such ideological
categories as race and gender.
************
What? Ideas don't count when it comes to changing other minds but they do when moving about bits of matter which then change minds? The relations within production are changed by relations beyond production and it seems entirely possible to change the relations that are constitutive of racism and sexism/genderism beyond and within production without moving plant and equipment around or changing the property rights structure of capitalism to the point that it collapses. Under your argument no one could ever have their mind changed by ideas, so how is it people believe in evolution after formerly being theists; how do people give up belief in astrology etc.? New ideational conditions change institutional conditions change material conditions in very complex ways that make the chicken-egg problem look simple; hello, overdetermination. We could, like I said get rid of racism/sexism and still have capitalism.
Is it so hard for you to think that social kinds are NOT mind or discourse independent of the societies that constitute them even though they usually are independent of the minds and discourse of the individuals who try to explain them. That's precisely how capitalists/capitalism is trying to sever itself, sometimes willingly, sometimes recalcitrantly, from racism/sexism in the countries where folks have achieved a sufficient level of outrage catalyzed collective action to try and bring about the end of racism/sexism even as the overwhelming majority of them don't want to abolish capitalism. Just think of how many African Americans are calling for the end to capitalism, how many women and GLBT's.
To take just one example, as long as
women don't have complete reproductive rights & freedoms, as long as
reproductive labor is not socialized, etc., there will be a category
called women.
*************
Reproductive labor is always already socialized; you're merely calling [rightly] for a different social structure for reproductive labor than that which exists under capitalism. Neither you nor I can predict whether after capitalism people will continue to use the category of woman or man.
>> There is an important difference between pre-capitalist slavery,
>> serfdom, etc. and modern capitalist slavery! Always historicize!
>
>I did! "It seems that they can't be separated from SE even though
>the forms of SE are different in antiquity, fuedalism...."
Unfortunately, you didn't, for you wrote: "Doesn't the co-production
of slavery/race antedate the US by a few centuries--Slavs etc.?"
Slavery in ancient Athens, etc. was not based upon race.
Race was
created by capitalism & modern capitalist slavery. ************* Reification. I'll agree that race[ism] was invented by capitalists. But capitalist racism existed before the US did which is what I was trying to convey. I apologize for my errors of entanglement in the SE quote above.
Pre-modern
peoples had no belief that humanity should be divided into such
categories as "blacks," "whites," "Orientals," "Indians (= indigenous
peoples of the New World)," etc., though they did have contempt for
outsiders, serfs, slaves, etc., regardless of colors of those
outsiders, serfs, slaves, etc.
Yoshie
**************
Lots of people today have the same lack of belief. The goal is to get everyone to have that same lack of belief. The larger question is whether contempt, domination, exploitation, capitalism can go the way of race[s] and witches etc.....
Ian