Cobb

*thumbs up* great post.

Cobb, I agree with your statement that you want to keep what works. Just this weekend I met with some old friends from Ethiopia. They came here with literally nothing but a suitcase. Now they all own businesses. Some went to college some did not. But they all work, they have houses. One is going to open another business. This is not possible anywhere else. The things that make such a life possible are made up of thousands of beliefs and habits, alot of which we are not even conscious of. These are the things that liberals and radicals want to destroy in the name of some kind of reform. My friends have had more problems with their countrymen than with Americans of any race. They have faced so much envy and malice from other Ethiopians and Africans, even attempts to ruin their businesses, such as false reports to authorities. It's an indication, just one, of why things don't work in other cultures. People resent success or anyone who is different or anyone who strives for anything. I think liberals are trying to create the same kind of mentality here. That way we will all be reduced to the same level of incompetence and fear.

"But I recongize that such platitudes are unacceptable for zealots and activists. For many Americans are engaged in a struggle. They want to continually wage a Culture War. They are threatend by the status quo and they desire to persuade. They run the gamut from gentle persuasion to radicalism. But all of them have something in common, a creed, a dedication to goals they feel are superior to those of the average American."

But you're waging a Culture War too Cobb. Every one of us has the desire to persuade or influence the culture. All culture is a war; and this desire always culminates in value positing. There is nothing "gentle" about pointing out the things that need to be "beat down" with Old School Values.

In other words, stop trying to separate yourself from the "zealots and activists". You are still a zealot insofar as you advocate the proliferation/aggregation of your "core values". You of all people should be willing to acknowledge that its a war of "values" v.s. "values" where U.S. citizens are concerned in general and U.S. Blacks in particular. I'm all for keeping what works working. But what to do about what clearly isn't working, beat the defects down with values, or let people succeed or falter as they please?

With regard to our own culture, how many conversations will Blacks have to have about who is/isn't Black before we realize the "value" of cultural relativism?

http://www.negrorage.com/index.php?p=48 -This is so far removed from your idealistic Pluralism value so as to make talk of tolerance seem hopeless. To me, any talk of universal values is pointless so long as the "not Black enough" phenomenon continues to persist. Does the solution to the "not Black enough" phenomenon (I'm assuming you consider it a problem) require us to beat it down with universally applicable Old School Values or does the solution lie in the realization that cultural relativism is a necessary and healthy development in a culture in which freedom is constantly being redefined?

How can we establish universal values when "values" have taken the place of "good" and "bad" proper? There are only two choices: universal values or cultural relativism, because you can't have both. Whether your arguing for universal values or cultural relativism, you're still a radical activist in the big picture, it just a matter of which side you're on.

That was only 4 questions. And don't get discouraged about throwing thoughts out into the Void. People are listening.

"There are only two choices: universal values or cultural relativism, because you can't have both."

mmm! chewy...

In Praise of Tolerance...

I'm not waging a culture war so much as I'm maintaining the bulwark of democratic principles against those whose politics are corrosive of democracy. I'm going to have to read Victor Davis Hanson to understand how the Core Values I state relate or don't relate to Western Values and a principled reading of the Classics, so I'll be mushy for a couple weeks. But I expect that it will become clear in ways I'll be able to demostrate better, that my opponents are angling towards destruction of America. In other words, it's really not about 'culture' with a lowercase c but with the upper case C.

It's not about browbeating the vulgarians (which i dont' mind doing) so much as it is raising the questions which pertain to the validity within the context of our civilization.

For example, I have a beef with hard afrocentrists because they say that keeping a 'slave name' is wrong. Yet none of them speak any West African languages appreciably. They denigrate Christianity in favor of loas and spirits without considering the values of Christianity. They essentially disregard the usefulness of black influence on Western values in the US, and call for a rejection of them to 'return' to [West] African traditions. So I'm not baggin' on them because I think their Dashikis are stupid, but because they would undermine principles if all of the implications of their protests were taken seriously.

Likewise, I wouldn't say that hiphop is a bad *form* of music, but that it's current *content* is awful. But if people would say that hiphop is not real hiphop if it didn't say 'fuck the police', then it's more than just a small-c culture war.