what's wrong with being pc?

[Andrew Dinn]

davemarc replies to Bonnie:

> >So where do we draw the line?  [. . .] for myself, as for others (say, 
> >the founders of Amnesty INt'l) there is a space wherein cultures can 
> >converge--simply, on the matter of torture and pain.  Am I wrong?

> No, not at all.  It's a fallacy to think that a "culture" is an
> unchanging phenomenon with a clearly defined "inside" and "outside."
> Humans interact and exchange ideas all the time.  Protesting any
> human practice, whether "individual" (they all are, in the long run)
> or "cultural" (they all are, in the long run), is just as much a
> part of the culture as the practice itself.

If you give Jules this much room to manoeuvre then your criticism is
redundant. For, if a culture is truly the catholic and impartial
compendium of human practices you suggest then there ought to be no
danger of Jules' views being accounted representative of those of
other members of the culture - at least not `in the long run'.
Dissociating yourself from Jules' posting is merely a minor
articulation of your own particular stance within that amorphous and
unregulated mess known as White Male EuroAmerican culture, an
articulation in a vacuum which requires no response from anyone who
recognises the real nature of the beast, Kultur. For, doubtless, the
invisible hand which regulates the cultural market place will sort
things out equitably `in the long run' without the need for your
protest.

In which case your comments can only be addressed to the short run.
So, to paraphrase the Iron Queen of the free market, are you not just
trying (to no avail, of course) to buck the system to satisfy your own
cultural agenda? And if, as I believe, cultures actually serve to
regularise and consolidate a system of power relations (they are a
manifestation of that urge to empire which tarnishes so many human
endeavours) then your worry is indeed well-founded and your response
appropriate to the nature of the juggernaut. But in that case your
response is also a self-contradictory ploy which will work, if it
works at all, by force of rhetoric alone.

So which horn will you be gored on? The choice is yours (even if the
selection on offer is all my own work).


Andrew Dinn
-----------
And though Earthliness forget you,
To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
To the rushing water speak:  I am.