Tahir writes:
> 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.
I apologize. I was unclear by what I meant by pluralism (why I put the qualifier term "Jamesian" in front if it).
Wm James writes: "Pragmatically interpreted, pluralism or the doctrine that it is many means only that the sundry parts of reality may be externally related. Everything you can think of, however vast or inclusive, has on the pluralistic view a genuinely "external" environment of some sort or amount. Things are "with" one another in many ways, but nothing includes everything, or dominates over everything. The word "and" trails along after every sentence. Something always escapes."
Full text:
http://www.emory.edu/EDUCATION/mfp/jpluralism.html
> I think these categories need to be destroyed, that they are inherently racist to begin with.
James is equally against categories and "pigeon-holing" as he refers to it.
> In other words, there just isn't a set of races 'out there' that you can catalogue.
Exactly. Why James writes: "The word "and" trails along after every sentence. Something always escapes." Only a monist thinks that any category or theory can encompass "everything."
Brian Dauth Queer Buddhist Resister