Ok, confusion again. What does this mean? Thanks. Brian Dauth Queer Buddhist Resister
Well, pluralism seems to mean that you have a bunch of well established and known categories, e.g. the 'white race' and the 'black race', or whatever, and that you are saying that all of these are OK and that they can coexist within the social and political system. But I don't think that's OK - as I said in another post, I think that that's a recipe for continuing racism. I think these categories need to be destroyed, that they are inherently racist to begin with. Obviously existing categories just don't disappear overnight, but we won't supercede racism without creating a whole different vocabulary around physical types.
To illustrate further the absurdity of the pluralist position: If you have an individual of 'race' X and another individual of 'race' Y and they together produce offspring, then it is clear that a new 'race' has come into being (accepting the logic of all this). But it is equally clear then that the number of races is infinite, and since there are people being born at every moment they are not only infinite over time but also quasi-infinite at any and every moment. In other words, there just isn't a set of races 'out there' that you can catalogue. Hence if I am opposed to the notion of race, as I am, then I must be opposed to pluralism as well (a plurality of what?), at least in the political longer term.
Regards Tahir