> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Yoshie Furuhashi
> Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2001 10:39 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: Re: Muppets (was Re: BK on Identity)
>
>
> > > >>I treat nameless characters in anecdotes exchanged on e-lists as
> >> >>"muppets." I'm not against muppets, however, if they are used well.
> >> >>
> >> >>Yoshie
> >> >
> >> >i fail to understand what it has to do with what i typed?
> >> >
> >> >kelley
> >>
> >> Discussion on race & class tends to deteriorate when anecdotal
> >> muppets (my black neighbor, my black friend, etc.) appear. Let's
> >> stick to exploitation & other structural oppressions instead as you
> >> argued yourself.
> >>
> >> Yoshie
> >*******
> >
> >What, let's understand structure without agency and if we admit
> >agency let's not
> >construct structur[ation] out of a rich phenomenology of individual's
> >experiences? Big tales anti-racits learning and action will do a lot more for
> >our side than Marxian inspired econometrics, even though we need
> that too even
> >if it doesn't give some the knockdown argument they dream of in
> >their quest for
> >certainty.
> >
> >Ian
>
> Anecdotes -- especially un-representative anecdotes -- allow you to
> grasp neither structure nor agency, much less agency rooted in
> structure. Everyone has anecdotes -- including neo-conservatives who
> can also trot out black muppets (my black neighbor, my black friend,
> etc.) in their anecdotes.
>
> Yoshie
********
Better to have charts and graphs. Gotta hand out the regressions to the one's who believe in the material benefits of racism [make it so!] first so they can feel confirmed by the high priests of civilization. Don't worry, they're sufficiently beyond the rational/irrational dyad to let any counter evidence deter them from their ways.
"Dr. My multiple sclerosis symptoms disappear after I smoke pot."
"No, that's impossible, we don't have any evidence of that."
Ian