Emptiness, race and orientation, Part 3
What to do with Emptiness? Step One - Figuring out Scope
[Continued from Part 3]
At this point, I’d like to return to the context of my earlier blog discussion with Shawn and his concerns. First, he seems genuinely bewildered by my assertions about race, and says, The reason people don’t have the picture of race [you] paint in 3) is because it doesn’t make sense in reality. Race is identity, [whether] one chooses to embrace it or not.
That’s true. People, as I’ve mentioned, don’t generally spend their time wondering about essences, reduction, concepts, etc. They learn, from a young age, to follow the rules around them for naming things. And, in the case of race, we tend to accept the way that the world is carved up around us, focusing primarily upon pigmentation and facial characteristics, along with, secondarily, stereotyped cultural and behavioral cues. Shawn, who is of mixed descent himself, Hispanic and white/European, says that his race is on display for all to see, wether I want it to be so or not, identifying his identity with the primary characteristics I describe. But–and this is what I’m trying to emphasize–what he’s describing is the rules we use to determine who belongs to what group.
From a Scientific American article on this topic: “the implicit definition of what makes a person a member of a particular race differs from region to region across the globe. Someone classified as “black” in the U.S., for instance, might be considered “white” in Brazil and “colored” (a category distinguished from both “black” and “white”) in South Africa.” The differences have to do with cultural ideas, what is important when we observe / group people.
Suppose what were important to us was the shape of someone’s nose. Forget about its color, but we grouped people by whether noses were round, pointy, long, narrow or flat. These were our five “races.” Scientists would quickly begin tracing the genetic origins of these races. Sociologists might map characteristics like intelligence onto them, correlating high IQ with Round Nosers and low with Flat Nosers. Culture might favor Round Nosers, and maybe compare Long Nosers to them–they’re “almost” like “us”, etc. etc.
Still, is this an apt parallel to make? Aren’t there some obvious differences, grounded in biology, between races? Well, that’s really not easy to say. Distinguishing on the level of genetics can tell us something about ancestry (witness the popular PBS series tracing the genealogy of African-Americans through DNA testing), but not everything. To avoid mangling the science, I’ll quote from the aforementioned article at length:
“The results of these studies indicate that genetic analyses can distinguish groups of people according to their geographic origin. But caution is warranted. The groups easiest to resolve were those that were widely separated from one another geographically. Such samples maximize the genetic variation among groups. When Bamshad and his co-workers used their 100 Alu polymorphisms to try to classify a sample of individuals from southern India into a separate group, the Indians instead had more in common with either Europeans or Asians. In other words, because India has been subject to many genetic influences from Europe and Asia, people on the subcontinent did not group into a unique cluster. We concluded that many hundreds–or perhaps thousands–of polymorphisms might have to be examined to distinguish between groups whose ancestors have historically interbred with multiple populations.
Given that people can be sorted broadly into groups using genetic data, do common notions of race correspond to underlying genetic differences among populations? In some cases they do, but often they do not. For instance, skin color or facial features–traits influenced by natural selection–are routinely used to divide people into races. But groups with similar physical characteristics as a result of selection can be quite different genetically. Individuals from sub-Saharan Africa and Australian Aborigines might have similar skin pigmentation (because of adapting to strong sun), but genetically they are quite dissimilar.”
So, I think it’s legitimate to say at this point that while racial distinctions can have some usefulness, we need to be wary not to essentialize them, on two reasons: first, the science doesn’t back it up. There is no one-to-one correlation between gentic traits and racial groupings. Second, and more related to the idea of emptiness, even our choice of certain traits as characterizing the a concept must be recognized as related to our human aims.
Next: Conclusion.
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:15 pm
LOL! I find it more than slightly odd to find myself in these reflections of yours. So odd, in fact, I couldn’t help but leave a comment. This smacks of a nasty group chat about someone who is still in the room … and can still hear the chatter. I mean, you are actually talking about me in the third person! You do realize that, right? Who are you talking to anyway?
I am also weary of the one-ism you seem to be trying to argue for here. To achieve your definition of “equality” or “human rights” it seems that you have to erase all uniqueness and identity. One person’s “emptiness” is another person’s “identity.” Just because it suits your cause to reduce it all to a one-ism doesn’t make it true, or right. You social liberals do this same thing with religion too, incidentally. I’m sure you can get a prescription for it.
Can you argue your case without the one-ism? Can you make your case AND allow uniqueness to be unique? If you can’t then I think I’d go back to square one, because your above reflections simply do not correspond with reality.
Also, if something as inherently unique and biological as race can be reduced to “something we learned at a young age to believe,” then what make you so sure sexual orientation isn’t a product of the same “empty” programming? It seems to me that you are so busy cutting off this tree limb that you haven’t really taken note of your place on it.
May 23rd, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Shawn, lose the sarcasm. You know I’m talking to anyone who reads this blog. And it isn’t “nasty group chat” if I’m talking about ideas you put out in public. In fact, most of the posts are simply continuing to think through implications of what I’ve been studying
I don’t know what you mean by “one-ism” or what you mean by erasing “all uniqueness and identity” - go back and read what I wrote again, read up on what “reduction” is and is not, what I’m saying, and then try again.
Finally, I’m sure it suits your cause to claim god’s revelation suits your pre-conceived ideas, too. Or are you the only one allowed to have an authentic desire for understanding? I can think of a thousand other ways to defend “my cause” (which is what, exactly?) that doesn’t involve delving into cause, reduction, essences and Buddhist philosophy.
By the way, if you can’t lose the tiring snark (”you social liberals”, etc.) you won’t be allowed to play here.
Thanks!
May 24th, 2008 at 2:24 am
Edits by moderator
When I find my name used repeatedly in a conversation that I have no part of, I think I can react in any manner I choose. Also, we are talking two different sorts of “reducing” here … You are talking the philosophical sense, I’m using the term reducing in the basic, everyday sense (i.e., consolidation, and in this specific case, consolidation around the most generic sense of the word race is empty and therefore not unique or identifiable in any real sense or essence). That is what I mean by “reducing.” And social liberals do it with religion too, if you need yet another example.
You’re being part of the conversation right now, so that’s a really lame excuse. And when you say “talking two sorts” what you really mean is the fallacy of equivocation, or not interacting with the argument on its own terms, but switching out words as you like.
I could care less if I am allowed to “play” here … I rarely even comment here, but your using my name so much in your reflections I thought I just might. I thought it might make it less weird, to be honest. I mean your readers, who have no context, are probably wondering, “Shawn? Who is Shawn?” LOL! Your reflections would have been so much better to read if they did not include my name. It’s inclusion added a strange touch. Seriously. But it’s your blog!
Ah yes, thank you for caring tremendously about my readers who have no context, outside of the earlier discussion and links I have posted. And true, without including your name and tortured attempt at wordplay, perhaps they would have been better. But I was doing what “we liberals” do best–trying to be fair in my description of the other side.
Furthermore, a “one-ism” is just a coined phrase to illustrate the fact that social liberalism’s methodology is built upon “reducing” everything to a one-ism in an effort to either make a point, or substantiate a practice. So, if you have “a thousand other ways” to make your point, that go beyond the tendency towards “one-ism” that lays waste to real identity or uniqueness, then go for it! Because identity and uniqueness are realities in this world, especially when we are talking about race. You can’t make race and “empty” essence in your effort to make your point. It doesn’t make sense.
Shawn, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You haven’t in any way touched upon any of the points that I made, merely coined phrases, used equivocation and ad hominem in an attempt to be clever.
God’s revelation informs my ideas; it does not substantiate pre-conceived ideas. And so far, I would say it is much more dependable and solid, if compared to what you have been serving up here, in this discussion. Unless you can show me otherwise.
No thanks–you have your mind made up about biblical revelation, so it would be merely pearls before swine.
I’m done!
Carry on.
Yes you are. In fact, you have, in a mere two comments, broken just about all of my very basic rules about commenting here after a warning. I should have realized, after the offline conversations we had a year ago, and the tenor of your own blog, that you’re not–like many other Christians I interact with online–at all interested in civil conversation.
That’s sad. Very sad. So I’ll not be commenting at Lo-Fi, as I have a few handful of times when I
thought we could have a conversation interesting to both parties.
Carry on as well and feel free to stop back when you can be polite and show a modicum of graciousness.
May 24th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Shawn, as a third party to this debate, I have to say that Colleen has done an admirably clear job of trying to spell out some difficult ideas, whereas your reaction is entirely opaque to me. Although I cannot say that I entirely understand what ’social construction’ amounts to, the relation to conventional or perspectivally sensitive truth helps. Also, pointing out the scientific evidence which shows there is no correspondence between conventional racial characteristics like skin color and a useful base for induction like genetics also helps. Your responses, on the other hand, do not help me understand what opposition there might be to this view. You seem to mostly have a egotistic agenda, but even when you try to clarify things it doesn’t help (like “by reducing I mean consolidation”… what is consolidation in this context?). It is unfortunate.
May 24th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Colin, thanks. I have to ask, though, that any further comments on this thread be directed at the ideas I’ve presented, since Shawn is banned and cannot defend himself.
In that regard, I’m probably not helping by using the term ’social construction’ since it carries a lot of baggage from other fields like gender studies. However, it seemed to be something at least close to “conventional truth”, so that’s why I equated the too.
Further, while I’d say that science is just as “empty” as any other realm of description, that doesn’t mean that it is useless or unhelpful. The idea is that we tend to assume that “race” equates to something “real”, and our conceptions of “real” usually come from some folk understanding of science/biology. Showing that race <> biology doesn’t mean it’s entirely un-useful as a category, but it means we should proceed in caution in using it as the contrasting basis of further parallels, like sexual orientation (to which I would apply a similar analysis).