For most of humanity, race is simply dispositive. Not a signal, but the thing itself, determining all kinds of boundaries and relations.
For the upper classes, class is dispositive—not a symbol of any value to be discovered, but shared membership and possible comity.
For the upper classes, class is dispositive—not a symbol of any value to be discovered, but shared membership and possible comity.
The project of post-War Liberalism, of 'the West', in its purest intentions, has been to try to elevate everyone into the latter situation that those at the top of hierarchies enjoy, by rebuking as strongly as it can the former.
But hierarchies aren't and can't be democratized.
But hierarchies aren't and can't be democratized.
There will simply always be divisions of some kinds.
Without them we wouldn't have any identity at all, and it's the habit of anyone with dignity to have particular love for themselves and those like themselves.
We shouldn't delude ourselves about this instinct, and embrace it.
Without them we wouldn't have any identity at all, and it's the habit of anyone with dignity to have particular love for themselves and those like themselves.
We shouldn't delude ourselves about this instinct, and embrace it.
This one is the most significant, the most telling of such clips
Notice how he describes "white society" as "imposed" on him, but happily, as he lives *within it*—As an American, just as remade here, no longer African, as one might be no longer Irish:
Notice how he describes "white society" as "imposed" on him, but happily, as he lives *within it*—As an American, just as remade here, no longer African, as one might be no longer Irish:
What did it mean for the norms of "white society", White American (Anglo, Protestant—WASP) society, to reign supreme?
Was it "White Supremacy"? The left may have a point.
But look at, listen to these Black Americans—take them at their word.
What is *their* opinion of it all?
Was it "White Supremacy"? The left may have a point.
But look at, listen to these Black Americans—take them at their word.
What is *their* opinion of it all?
I'm not white, either.
I was born in a WASPy part of America (albeit a poor one, not one associated with the high society 'WASP' now connotes.)
If I got any cultural comfort than these Black Americans, it's that my ancestral ethnoreligious identity is intact—a blessing, indeed.
I was born in a WASPy part of America (albeit a poor one, not one associated with the high society 'WASP' now connotes.)
If I got any cultural comfort than these Black Americans, it's that my ancestral ethnoreligious identity is intact—a blessing, indeed.
But I look on the testimony of these Black Americans, people who call themselves Americans—and that's how they clearly think of themselves—seeing how they'd be attacked today as 'upholding White Supremacy' and sympathize greatly.
Does having amour propre forbid having loyalties?
Does having amour propre forbid having loyalties?
Does it forbid enjoying one's own circumstances and more than acculturation, the native habitus? Does it require animosity for and degredation of childhood playmates and pupils and friends, loves and colleagues and comrades?
Wasn't the stated desire of Liberalism to protect that?
Wasn't the stated desire of Liberalism to protect that?
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