Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Dec 28, 2022 1:09 pmThere are volumes of things I have not studied. I'm sure the same is true for you. Do you seriously advocate for everyone to drop all of our other concerns and delve deeply into the methodical study of social deviance and the history of Nazism? Isn't that a bit like delving deeply into whether or not the "Bell Curve" is accurate? As Noam Chomsky once pointed out, to even worry about things such as whether or not the "Bell Curve" is real among minorities is to engage in racism. Why is it even important? Not everything is worthy of study.
When you write paragraphs like this, Gary, you reveal a great deal about where you stand. You've written many like this. They are interpretive/summarizing.
Do you seriously advocate for everyone to drop all of our other concerns and delve deeply into the methodical study of social deviance and the history of Nazism?
I would advocate for having at least some knowledge-base from which to develop opinions and views. Otherwise you'd have to rely on opinions formed by others and presented to you as capsules.
Social deviance, today, is a wide topic. What is social deviance? On what is this critique constructed? Who holds the idea? From what social and political perspective are they coming from?
You might have associated social deviance with the Nazis, your sentence could be taken that way. But National Socialism and Fascism were both rooted in assessments and perceptions of what was going wrong in society. Like all people who develop a perspective, they also developed a plan to confront what they defined as 'social deviancy'. The same is true
today for all those who have political and social platforms. Be they Antifa, The Democrat Party, The Republicans, the Dissident Republicans, or those who come from different orientations. They describe 'the right way to go about things' and then locate those who 'are not doing things the right way'.
If you are asking me to make a recommendation it is that, yes, you should read a great deal more.
I am also of the opinion that the Nazi imago, the 'Nazi' as a semi-religious Satanic figure (the primary emblem of Ontological Malevolence) must be examined by anyone who is actually and genuinely interested in 'free thought'. Look over the way that Hot Pants conducted himself. Examine where he began, the distortions he employed, and then where he ended up. It does not matter what I say about myself, all that matters is what he thinks, projects and concludes.
So: examine psychological constructs, examine psychological and ideological coercion. And then examine how all of us, to one degree or another, have been manipulated through these narrative constructs. That would be the *philosophical* way to go about doing things.
Isn't that a bit like delving deeply into whether or not the "Bell Curve" is accurate? As Noam Chomsky once pointed out, to even worry about things such as whether or not the "Bell Curve" is real among minorities is to engage in racism. Why is it even important? Not everything is worthy of study.
I would say that you have missed the point. The issue is how an ideological opinion ("it is racist to have any concern over the findings of the Bell Curve study") is used to stifle thought. That is, to make it seem morally reprehensible to read the book, to 'believe in' the ideas, to talk about them, and god forbid to seek to modify political policy or educational programs to accord.
Why is it even important?
You are asking a question which, by your own definitions offered, you cannot answer and still remain moral. But if you seek an answer to your question, if it is a genuine question, you are going to have to read the material of those who, for example, oppose unrestricted illegal immigration. Or who value their *blood* and *soil*. The actual make-up of their communities. The country or the land they believe (or believed) is their own.
Don't ask
me to be their intermediary. Go directly to them and ask your questions.