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About LinkBacksVery stupid question, I know. But I would like to hear what some of you think.
October 14th, 2007, 03:46 AM
Very stupid question, I know. But I would like to hear what some of you think.
it is just stupid to favour any race, not wrong.
I do think it's wrong, positive discrimination is just as bad as 'ordinary' discrimination. It's always possible to design policies that are general (not aimed at one specific ethnic group) but still solve problems that are specific for a certain ethnic group (for example a policy to offer courses to improve language proficiency that are open to anyone, not just for certain ethnic groups).
And as discussed in another thread, I reject the concept of races.
The question begs: What is considered to be discriminatory? I assume the poster means that in some places in the world it is against the law to refuse someone employment for instance, just because of race or that a company must maintain a certain percentage of minorities. That leads to an interesting dilemma when the person best qualified is from your race.
Hard not to be declared a racist if you choose your race over another in that situation. So is it wrong? Are you willing to take a chance with the courts?
tHE PROBLEM WITH different races is they take all the good shit we have, then bomb us because we don't believe in their fantasy figure. Have we been all too willing to treat other races as equals, just to get discriminated ourselves by them?
Exactly right, I mean take a look at Belgium's King Leopold.Originally Posted by GhostofMaxwell
They took all the natural resources from Congo specifically rubber, they took all the crafty artifacts from other parts of Africa. Then they try to apply their belief and political systems on us and just because Africans don't believe in their fantasy figure they bomb them. After all this robbery they say we should treat them as equals.
The same thing can be said to almost all races.
Ummm... I think it's difficult. In a principled manner, in all our public dealings, to favour any group of people over the other is seen (and IMO rightly) to be unfair and even evil.
On the other hand, if you were a person who always found herself romantically attracted to a particular group of men, then I don't think morality comes into it - it needs to stay a matter of taste so that we don't get into the: "I'll control what you think" nonsense.
6 of one, half a dozen of the other, eh?
I'm not entirely clear what a race is. I am Scots/English by birth, but was raised in Scotland and so think myself more of a Scot. Nevertheless I support England in international sports competitions if Scotland is not involved.
My son is, obviously, 1/4 Scot and 1/4 English. The balance is a mix, in descending order, of Malay, Indonesian and Chinese. He is, however, rampantly pro-Scottish and anti-English. Humans have been procreating around the world from long before the invention of the jet plane. There isn't a pure race (whatever that means) anywher eon the planet.
I agree with Ophiolite. I'm very much a mongrel, myself. My mother is mostly German, but part English and Italian, and my father was Filipino. He was, however, born and raised in America, and eschewed Filipino culture for American - he loved baseball, jazz, and astrophysics. So though my genetic heritage is largely that of a pacific islander, I don't identify myself that way.
My mixed background has also given me what I like to call an ethnically confusing face. People assume I'm all sorts of races - hispanic, middle eastern, eastern european, native american, indian, southeast asian. My boyfriend is half English, half hispanic, and many people think he and I are brother and sister. I can't tell you the number of times people have walked up and started talking to me in another language. People make assumptions based on my face all the time that simply aren't true, and I think that shows how much of a cultural concept race really is.
You could be a usefull actor!My mixed background has also given me what I like to call an ethnically confusing face.
I'm South African, Afrikaner if you wish. We are just as mixed as Brits or Americans, but we think of ourselves as a race on our own. I think it has more to do with a similar culture.
We are geneticaly programmed to belong to a clan, and to fight for our hunting grounds/living space etc. So it is part of our nature to be suspicious of other races, especially if they are easily identified as another race, i.e. they look/act different. I understand where GoM comes from, but I don't think we should vent our anger at the race that is being identified as the ones taking our jobs etc. We should be angry at our governments for making the distinction between races. South Africa as an example, also has to deal with affirmative action, and even though little of the racial nonsense that plagued our country exists today, the government keeps reminding us of our differences.
on the topic of race... I find it interesting that out of the 300-million some people living in the US (America), the vast majority of them are not American. That distinction belongs purely to the Native Americans. Everyone else is probably mainly European, African or Asian. There aren't that many "Americans," really. Not genetically at least. I'm born and raised in America, but I'm not really an American, I'm European... German, Polish, Swedish, Czech, Irish, and Welsh. Except for those who are part Native American, there really aren't any Americans.
If you trace back anyone's lineage far enough no one is from America, not even the indians.
Race is a population within a species that is distinct in some way, for humans you can say that this population or group of people share the same culture, history, and language. But you can also have a mixed race, something that is becoming more and more prevalent.
In most languages this would be called ethnicity. In my experience the word race only refers to physical features of humans (skincolour, haircolour, length etc), all else is culture.
I think ethnicity is something that does in fact exist, people do have cultural backgrounds and norms&values systems and this can influence their behaviour. But I think in humans races simply don't exist. There are some physical differences among humans, but they are tiny and seem irrelevent to me. Skincolour or haircolour don't influence how people behave in daily life. And besides, the different physical characteristics of humans are not coherent: why do we take skin colour as the dominant feature to base race classifications on? Why don't we discern a "blonde" race, a "brunette" race, a "red hair" race etc? It would be meaningless (a parent could have children of a different "hair race"), but it doesn't seem less meaningless than races based on skin colour. So I think it's an arbitrary classification.
So if we change the original question to 'Is it wrong to favour a ethnic group that isn't your own?' What is everybody opinion now ?
If we were to adopt (perish the thought) Dawkin's selfish gene approach, then clearly it is right - from a gene preservation perspective - to favour those who have more in common with us genetically.
I prefer to look at the broader picture and the longer term: what will enhance biodiversity, while encouraging the continued development of intelligence and other properties yet to emerge. This means looking not at the genes, but at the memes (Damn, it's Dawkins again.)
November 14th, 2007, 07:34 AM
Positive discrimination? As others have said? WTF? Has the world gone absolutley bonkers? Folk should do as they please as long as no one gets hurt and why would 'favouring' something be harmful? Thats like saying, I can't stand brussel sporuts. And someone saying: I love brussel sprouts, they're my favorite!
Oh you can't love them because you are not allowed to love them, only tolerate them. See? Positive discrimination, you know ever since The British Empire fell the world has gone potty, and so far for a not very good reason. Positive discrimination. GREAT SCOTT!
Surely intellectual development and the evolution of ideas requires competition ?
requires, or is made more efficient?Surely intellectual development and the evolution of ideas requires competition ?
Requires and more efficient IMO. There is a danger in having all your eggs in one basket.
I think the main idea is not to think about it. Just act like the animal you are. And animal means not to behave like a beast but to try to live a life that comes natural.If we were to adopt (perish the thought) Dawkin's selfish gene approach, then clearly it is right - from a gene preservation perspective - to favour those who have more in common with us genetically.
I prefer to look at the broader picture and the longer term: what will enhance biodiversity, while encouraging the continued development of intelligence and other properties yet to emerge. This means looking not at the genes, but at the memes (Damn, it's Dawkins again.)
If this means you fall in love with a human specimen that has a healthy genetic diversity compared to your kin then this means having a good life with nice children with this person.
From a genetic perspective it is indeed better to spread out your genes. Keep them in a tight community and the bad alleles with match, causing havoc with the offspring. Moreover a local event could wipe out all the alleles.
you lose and lose.
Looking further means that you spread the alleles, while at the same time people with similar alleles as you in your community keep those going in your local gene pool.
You win and win.
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