A few thoughts on the latest round of White Guilt discussions

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

This thread is excruciating.

Don't ever change, PD.com.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the second coming of Jesus H Christ.   

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Here before us we have the perfect man; he carries no misconceptions, preconceptions, or misjudgment of his fellow men and women.

Hallelujah!

It doesn't take a perfect person to be a fair person.

The danger of being convinced that you are perfectly fair and unprejudiced is that it means that if you do have prejudices, say toward potheads or rednecks or rich white women or people who don't wear helmets, you will never be able to see, acknowledge, and repair those aspects of your perception. I am very uncomfortable with people who claim to lack prejudice, because I've never found it to be true, and those people are the most incorrigible in terms of their prejudice because they, secure in their knowledge that they are unprejudiced, believe their prejudices to be objective truth.

Again, I claim no perfection at all, and reject the idea that what I've been talking about infers perfection.  I can be perfectly unfair to people, individuals, but not because of what I think they are, but because of how I'm interpreting what they are doing or saying in front of me. 

Yeah I kind of feel that way too, with a big, steaming medium-rare helping of wut.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I even have white friends.

[Juana]

Yeah, I was noticing that, too.

[AFK]

I mean, here's the deal, one of the things that drew me to Discordianism is when I read the PD, and came to this section:


http://www.principiadiscordia.com/book/56.php

Particularily this passage:

        Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the ANERISTIC ILLUSION. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.
It was a complete head-nodding experience.  Yes!  It was something I always felt and knew but had just never saw expressed and laid out that way.  And I truly believe there many more out there who hold that same philosophy.  Sorry, this looks all funky, my iPad always seems to fuck up when I cut and paste from other sources.

I've noticed that no one has addressed this point.

[Juana]

Because it's not really relevant to the issue at hand? I had a head-noddy moment with it, too, but it has nothing to do with whether or not I've picked up shitty memes.

[Cainad (dec.)]

I mean, here's the deal, one of the things that drew me to Discordianism is when I read the PD, and came to this section:


http://www.principiadiscordia.com/book/56.php

Particularily this passage:

        Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the ANERISTIC ILLUSION. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.
It was a complete head-nodding experience.  Yes!  It was something I always felt and knew but had just never saw expressed and laid out that way.  And I truly believe there many more out there who hold that same philosophy.  Sorry, this looks all funky, my iPad always seems to fuck up when I cut and paste from other sources.

I've noticed that no one has addressed this point.

That's because it's not really a point, in regards to the discussion.

[AFK]

Also, a polite request, I no longer post pictures of myself here out of a desire to protect my anonymity for professional and personal reasons. In fact I'll be emptying my photobucket account to ensure anything I have posted is gone. It would be greatly appreciated if the WOMP was removed and my visage deleted from WOMP vaults.  I hope that my request will be heeded promptly.  Thank you in advance for your cooperation. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I mean, here's the deal, one of the things that drew me to Discordianism is when I read the PD, and came to this section:


http://www.principiadiscordia.com/book/56.php

Particularily this passage:

        Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the ANERISTIC ILLUSION. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.
It was a complete head-nodding experience.  Yes!  It was something I always felt and knew but had just never saw expressed and laid out that way.  And I truly believe there many more out there who hold that same philosophy.  Sorry, this looks all funky, my iPad always seems to fuck up when I cut and paste from other sources.

I've noticed that no one has addressed this point.

What point?

[AFK]

Because it's not really relevant to the issue at hand? I had a head-noddy moment with it, too, but it has nothing to do with whether or not I've picked up shitty memes.

I think it is highly relevant to the discussion of prejudice.  The idea of different cultures having different reality grids, but that no one set of grids from any one culture is True.  So, with that understanding, it would be completely counterintuitive to trade in prejudice.

[Juana]

Because it's not really relevant to the issue at hand? I had a head-noddy moment with it, too, but it has nothing to do with whether or not I've picked up shitty memes.

I think it is highly relevant to the discussion of prejudice.  The idea of different cultures having different reality grids, but that no one set of grids from any one culture is True.  So, with that understanding, it would be completely counterintuitive to trade in prejudice.

It's relevant to whether a person is *actively* and *intentionally* prejudiced. Passive and unintentional prejudice - those shitty memes - are not particularly related to it.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I actually think that when speaking in terms of prejudice, "shitty memes" is a poor choice of representative words. A prejudice is merely a culturally or personally induced shortcut for thinking about a particular subject. These cognitive shortcuts are actually absolutely invaluable in terms of improving our survival ratio, they are not spurious. But prejudices can be counterproductive, especially when they are embedded in a cultural context where they have no usefulness other than perpetuating inequality.

[Pæs]

I mean, here's the deal, one of the things that drew me to Discordianism is when I read the PD, and came to this section:


http://www.principiadiscordia.com/book/56.php

Particularily this passage:

        Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the ANERISTIC ILLUSION. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.
It was a complete head-nodding experience.  Yes!  It was something I always felt and knew but had just never saw expressed and laid out that way.  And I truly believe there many more out there who hold that same philosophy.  Sorry, this looks all funky, my iPad always seems to fuck up when I cut and paste from other sources.

I've noticed that no one has addressed this point.

What point?

I think the point was "everywhere I look I see evidence for this belief I hold" but I may have picked up bad signal wrt RWHN from you spags.

[Dildo Argentino]

Also, you are STILL stuck on the idea that privilege is a black & white issue, that it's all the same and that you either have it or you don't.  This isn't the case.

No, I am not stuck on that issue, and to deflect your loaded statement, neither was I stuck on it, ever. It's your projection. I am fully aware that privilege doesn't pick colours and also that it comes in fine grades. What's your point?

[Dildo Argentino]

^^^ This. I believe you when you say you're committed to equality. I just don't believe you've managed to escape the bad signal totally unscathed.

But the thing is, it is not necessary to be totally unscathed! Being aware of the phenomenon of unconscious prejudice, looking out for it, counteracting it, is enough. Having prejudices is actually just taking action on the basis of insufficient information, something we are forced to do all the time. The question is not whether you have them pesky prejudices, but what you do with them. And there is a healthy minority out there who have learnt to control their prejudices and only use them when no other tool is suitable. They are a minority, but far from unicorns.