Hourani / Ignatius, Clint Watts / Buddhism, Hindutva / Dhimmitude
Immigration, annexation, and colonialism are processes that may create subordinate groups. Other processes such as extermination and expulsion may remove the presence of a subordinate group. Significant for racial and ethnic oppression in the United States today is the distinction between assimilation and pluralism. Assimilation demands subordinate-group conformity to the dominant group, and pluralism implies mutual respect among diverse groups.
Did you read that? Frankly I’m at a loss to know whether these two paragraphs were intended as black humor, or are simply humorlessness:
Other processes such as extermination and expulsion may remove the presence of a subordinate group.
Hunh?
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Grurray:
November 2nd, 2015 at 2:52 am
Charles, the near and far enemies of the Brahma Viharas reminds me of something John Robb tweated out the other day-
the opposite of creativity isn’t destructiveness but mindfulness.
When I first saw it I was wondering if it wasn’t a matter of opposites but a continuum or spectrum – one end is creativity, the center is mindfulness, and the other end is destruction.
Now that I read your post I wonder if it should be mindfulness is the near enemy of creativity and destructiveness the far enemy.
Graham:
November 2nd, 2015 at 1:48 pm
That Pearson text appears to have merely distilled a lot of the core ideas of contemporary social and political science, at least in their pop form.
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The part I found most interesting was that sentence comparing assimilation to pluralism. I appreciate that pluralism is more or less as described, but the writer seems to have no awareness that:
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a) the greater number of smaller groups [a precondition of pluralism], the less likely any one group will be dominant or subordinate; America today only fits that model if you arbitrarily define all possible groups into 2 or 3, which if accurate means there is no basis for pluralism anyway;
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b) that the effect of assimilation is to eliminate ‘groups’ as such by redefining the majority and minority over time into one entity; The ultimate pluralism- pluralism among individuals within a common society;
Graham:
November 2nd, 2015 at 1:54 pm
Sorry- wrote in haste.
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In a) I meant to say that America only really fits the dominant/subordinate model if you arbitrarily define all possible groups into broad categories like “white”, “black” and “Hispanic”. If you break all those down, the model is much less applicable. And although those categories have some value, they capture so little of America that it’s hard to take them at face value