Things that went whizzing by that I want to remember... FIRST: Robert P Baird: The Invention of Whiteness: The Long History of a Dangerous Idea: ‘By the time The Bell Curve appeared, Du Bois’s assertion that racial categories were not biologically grounded was widely accepted. In the years since, the scientific evidence for that understanding has only become more overwhelming. A 2017 study examined the DNA of nearly 6,000 people from around the world and found that while that while some genetic differences amon
Re: Cosma Shalizi's riveting essay; in the face of the inhumanness of complex mass human institutions, one might conclude that we should and must promote truly human-scale institutions: local consumer co-ops; local citizen committees; neighborhood councils; local arts organizations; food banks; churches- all institutions that allow one to hear and be heard as a human, and which manifest not so much unpredictable behavior that damages people and the planet.
Re: The Invention of Whiteness: The Long History of a Dangerous Idea
I find it interesting that skin color was not that much remarked upon until relatively late in history. But now that is has become a thing, how do you educate the population to accept the underlying DNA story and not accept the "evidence of their own eyes" that there are obvious visible differences? Roddenberry's ST:TOS episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
"solved that problem with the 1/2/ black, 1/2 white faces of the antagonists. But now that we know that idea, yet another new approach is needed. It is not just skin color, but the shape of some facial features, a way of speaking, any trait that cannot be readily changed. As humans continue to climb up the Maslov hierarchy of needs, we seem to need to focus ever more on status, pushing ourselves up the pyramid while pushing others down. Can we really change this nature by education and experience, or are we forever doomed to repeat those possibly deep-seated, primate drives?
"The motion of society turned into a kind of zombie dance, a grim cavorting whirl in which objects and people blurred together till the objects were half alive and the people were half dead. "
Is that the influence behind the famous factory scene in Chaplin's "Modern Times"?
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Re: Cosma Shalizi's riveting essay; in the face of the inhumanness of complex mass human institutions, one might conclude that we should and must promote truly human-scale institutions: local consumer co-ops; local citizen committees; neighborhood councils; local arts organizations; food banks; churches- all institutions that allow one to hear and be heard as a human, and which manifest not so much unpredictable behavior that damages people and the planet.
Re: The Invention of Whiteness: The Long History of a Dangerous Idea
I find it interesting that skin color was not that much remarked upon until relatively late in history. But now that is has become a thing, how do you educate the population to accept the underlying DNA story and not accept the "evidence of their own eyes" that there are obvious visible differences? Roddenberry's ST:TOS episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
"solved that problem with the 1/2/ black, 1/2 white faces of the antagonists. But now that we know that idea, yet another new approach is needed. It is not just skin color, but the shape of some facial features, a way of speaking, any trait that cannot be readily changed. As humans continue to climb up the Maslov hierarchy of needs, we seem to need to focus ever more on status, pushing ourselves up the pyramid while pushing others down. Can we really change this nature by education and experience, or are we forever doomed to repeat those possibly deep-seated, primate drives?
"The motion of society turned into a kind of zombie dance, a grim cavorting whirl in which objects and people blurred together till the objects were half alive and the people were half dead. "
Is that the influence behind the famous factory scene in Chaplin's "Modern Times"?