Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id CAA06609 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 10 May 2002 02:09:00 +0100 From: "Lawrence DeBivort" <debivort@umd5.umd.edu> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Fw: future language Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 21:04:52 -0400 Message-ID: <NEBBKOADILIOKGDJLPMAKELNCPAA.debivort@umd5.umd.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6700 In-Reply-To: <LAW2-F1145Rw1SSfWXW0000215d@hotmail.com> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Greetings, Grant,
Do you see globalization -- the increasing mixing of people in work,
residence and mating -- as diminishing the distinctions that separate people
along the lines you describe?
Lawrence
> I think there is a lot of misunderstanding about the use of the
> term racism.
> People of different cultures have natural preferences that
> favor their own
> culture that have nothing to do with race and everything to do with the
> memes they have inherited in the form of language and religion and who is
> good and who is bad. People who don't understand our language
> and customs
> are thought of as barbarians in almost every culture I have
> encountrered in
> the world. But from a racial point of view, what are the racially
> distinguishing features of protestants and Catholics in Northern
> Ireland?
> What racial features separate Serbs and Croats? How are the Flemmish
> racially different from the French? And yet you have the same
> hatreds and
> prejudice between each of these groups as you have between black
> and white
> or Asian and black. The mainstream Japanese are prejudiced against the
> Ainu, the Hindu is prejudiced against the Muslim, and the Hindus
> themselves
> are diveded into castes that act toward each other the same way
> whites act
> toward blacks in South Africa. People will always find ways to look down
> their noses at other groups and divide themselves into people and
> barbarians. It is a fact of human nature and I have no doubt that it is
> genetically built into us because it is so universal among the
> human race.
> I don't know of a single culture that doesn't have some other
> culture it can
> look down upon. And usually, race has little or nothing to do with the
> feeling. Culture is by far the most divisive feature of war and
> separation.
> We often refer to that as racism, but it's not. It's cultural division
> and plain old human nature and not likely to be legislated out of
> existence.
>
> Grant
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