[lbo-talk] Race and difference (was Rwandan ....)

Tahir Wood twood at uwc.ac.za
Mon Feb 23 23:46:56 PST 2004


Balibar and others have argued that there's a "new racism," which is derived from seemingly progressive traditions in anthropology and other social sciences, that holds that no one race is better than the other, but we're all just different, and should stay that way. This is the sort of thing that Gore Vidal flirts with, as do critics of "cultural homogenization" in the antiglobo crowd. Doug

This just sounds to me like good old liberal dishonesty. The one part is sayable, "races are different" - the other part is unsayable, "some races are better than others" - so you just say the part that is sayable and keep the other part to yourself or only reveal it in private conversations. Human beings are judgmental - you cannot say that two things are essentially different and then legislate against an opinion as to which of the two different things is better. Once you accept that there are definite 'races' and that they are different to one another, the rest simply follows ... It is because people don't perceive a difference between cans of beans that are the same brand that they don't evaluate one in comparison to the other, but give them two brands and they will immediately wonder which is the better (even if the stuff inside is utterly identical and produced in the same factory). As far as anti-globalisation goes, well this will always have a right wing to it, and it is an inherently problematic notion open to such a rightwing interpretation, just because it has a nationalist premise. I don't believe that progressive persons can simply be opposed to globalisation. Tahir



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list