SLSL Racial Differences

[calbert at hslboxmaster.com]

This exercise really seems to piss you off......There is no such 
thing as "dumb as dirters" around here.......The occasional outburst 
of obtuseness perhaps.....

IF you put the fragment back into its context, I think it reads a little 
more clearly, and becomes less "seminal"......that done, I believe 
that the only remaining issue is what is referred to by the "them", 
and I think it is "power and money' rather than racial differences, 
because then "deplore" makes more sense.

Also bear in mind that this "hypothetical" is in the context of an 
"opposition"  (It may yet turn out)  twixt the young "crypto fascist" 
and what I believe is the  "us"........what makes the issue so 
"sticky" is that, as phrased, the fragment does at least ALLOW for 
the possibility that the US could POSSIBLY be as concerned 
about the accumulation of money and  power, and that 
"empathy/sympathy" offers but an excuse to some of US to 
indulge in such fancies....

He does, after all, continue with "This having been said, 
however......"



"  Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigu'd, I said,
     Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead.
     The dog-star rages! nay 'tis past a doubt,
     All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:
     Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,
     They rave, recite, and madden round the land. 
.....

Who shames a scribbler? break one cobweb through,
   He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew;
   Destroy his fib or sophistry, in vain,
   The creature's at his dirty work again;..."

 ALEXANDER POPE (1688-1744)
EPISTLES TO SEVERAL PERSONS: EPISTLE TO DR. 
ARBUTHNOT 


http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/pope14.html

I'll leave it to others to determine how relevant Pope is to the issue 
at hand - but I just had to share this......


love,
cfa



> 
> --- Steve Maas <tyronemullet at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > "It may yet turn out that racial differences are not as basic as
> > questions of money and power, but have served those who deplore them
> > most, in keeping us divided and so relatively poor and
> > powerless."--Thomas Pynchon
> > 
> > The (or "A") meaning is clear enough to me, it is only in trying to
> > rephrase that meaning that confusion sets in.  Yet another example
> > of P.'s unique skill.
> 
> Why is it, then, that you don't bother to clarify it for the rest of
> us "dumb-as-dirters".  "P's unique skill" lies in making statements
> that one thinks one understands untill one tries to analyze the
> statement in detail? That skill is otherwise known as the ability to
> bamboozle.
> 
> David Morris
> 
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