Some of them do, indeed, but other perfer textual analysis and divinations (not that much different from slipping a Public Enemy CD into the Discman).
I may not be an organizer (I cannot organize my own life properly, let alone other people's), but I can tell the difference between reality and divination, science and literature. Personally, I have nothing against literature, but I observed a troubling tendency of the latter calling everyone who does not know what they did a second rate Leftist, if not a closet reactionary.
>you seem not to. But last time I checked, race and sex were deeply
>materialist things (and culture itself was embedded in material
>practices and social relations). So instead of throwing around labels
>with the intent to insult or disparage, could you provide some
>example texts, thinkers, or ideas to illustrate your indictment?
Certainly. In my travels and foreign contacts, I find US-ers to be one of the least bigoted people I meet, much less likely to express racist or sexist views than, for example, Eastern Europeans, Germans, British or French. That pertains to the "common folk" and the "intellectual elite" as well. I also find the US institutions and laws to be much more equitable and accomodating toward foreigners than those of my beloved Western Europe (e.g. Germany that has one of the most fucked up immigration and citizenship policies in the developed world - you can be born in Germany and still ineligible to become a German citizen).
Yet, listening to a great majority of the contributors to this (and kindred) lists leaves one with the impression that US is the most racist, sexist, and bigoted society in the world. That is hogwash, pure and simple, which I attribute to one or more of the following three factors:
- symbolic self-mutiliation, a counter-cultural ritual of generating a shock value by spitting on the conventional symbols of national identity, resepectability, etc. (generally, a good thing if practised sparringly, within reason, but pathetic - if overused);
- "noble savage" mythology, a ritual practised by the well-off to assign a high value to life styles that are antithetical to one's own and then vicariously identify with those life styles to achieve a psychotherapeutic effect, e.g. coping with the frustrations of everyday life, boredom, a sense of emasculation, guilt, inadequacy, etc. - a modern p-c version of safari, if you will.
- collective scape-goating, a common ritual of blaming individual failures and misfortunes on factors seemingly beyond one's control (such as possession by evil forces, disease, "systemic" influence or a conspiracy) - this is an apriori conviction and should not be confused with empirical hypotheses about the effects of individual and collective (social/institutional) factors.
But on a positive note, I find much of the postings to this list extremely useful to the point that I treat this list as one of my main sources of information, much preferred to such outlets like NYT (a message from the Suck-up Department: yours are usually in that category :)).
wojtek