For instance, the word “Species” is a human invention, made up to explain phenotypic and reproductive functional differences created by GENES. Within or between species genetic differences have the same general properties of INFLUENCE over phenotype as they do over function (correct me on this point, if I’m wrong). IF (big if) that is true, then it’s perfectly logical to also assume that if specimen A and specimen B have large differences in phenotype, but share the same (or very similar) experiences, environment, and nutrition, it makes no difference whether they are the same species or not, in causally attributing those differences to genetics, rather than to some Ostrich philosophy of being “born equal”.

Geneticists (in the last 2 years) have discovered several genes and cofactors which are believed to strongly correlate to intelligence.  Instantly, all the “educated racists” rejoiced, because they felt they would finally be vindicated.  They love to make claims about the validity (now in doubt), about intelligence measures between the races.  They are prone to make claims about how African American slaves were bread to be not-too-smart (politically and philosophically at least), strong, and obedient.

However, no person not mentally ill would believe that children (or persons with mental disability) are morally inferior simply because they are less intelligent.  Even if there are differences in certain types of intelligence between certain races, this is not an argument in favor of moral racism.  Although some atheistic (or even some ignorant religious racists) believe that intellectual differences between races, constitutes a significant case for whole race inferiority, most philosophers (and scientists for that matter) would not accept such a value statement.  Although in practice, natural (or material) value is placed on such shallow and temporary variations, the very definition of value throughout history has been a matter of determination of what is most important, and that has always been the moral good.

In fact, many atheists do believe in a system of ethics which is pro-social and altruistic in nature.  All such mature people would naturally (if they are enlightened even slightly) have a tendency to judge others based on the quality of their character and whatever virtues they live by, rather than on superficial (and largely accidental) characteristics such as skin tone, body shape, financial net worth, intelligence.  Thus, it is of no consequence if the new intelligence genes and cofactors are being found to exist unequally in persons of different ethnic (actually geographic) descent.  As we all know, smart people are just as likely to be morally repugnant and evil as stupid people.  Intelligence (just like body shape, hair color, etc.) has very little to do with morality, I personally think.

But what if scientists are able to locate genes and cofactors related to altruism?  I think the average scientist will agree that aggression can be expressed in positive or negative ways — such as high contact sports, or in certain professions meant to protect others, etc..  We have known for decades now (for instance, by extrapolating from large subject samples of identical twins raised apart) that many of the aspects of a human personality (the big 5) are genetically determined to some degree.  But again, those personality factors (like intelligence) have been assumed to have little to do with moral character, and this is especially true if you have reserved some hope or faith in a “free will”.  However, if there is a gene for altruism (or some related construct) would that somehow confer moral superiority?  Isn’t that racist?  For that matter, what need have we anymore for a belief in “free will” if our moral inclinations are largely determined by genetics?

What follows below is an extended comment on my last post about the qualities often found in a “Racist White-Trash Redneck” (RWTR).  Because of the length and considerable validity of the criticisms of the author, I am posting it separately to stand on it’s own, before I respond to it.

The author of the below commentary is Holly A. Heyser, a professional journalist and instructor at Sacremento State University.  Holly is also a blogger who writes about her first hand experiences and perspectives on hunting at http://norcalcazadora.blogspot.com.

The original (and quite inflamatory) post I wrote, to which she is responding was entitled “My Trip to the Hunting Store”.

Are you a hypocrite? Yes and no.

I am a new (2 1/2 years), middle-aged (43)female hunter. I have been so moved by what hunting has taught me about animals and myself – and what I’ve discovered to be unfounded stereotypes about hunting – that I spend a lot of time reading and writing about the subject, which is what brought me to your blog.

What’s prompted me to comment is the idea that I’d like to have a conversation with you, not a desire to attack you (though I am about to refute some of the suggestions you’ve made).

So, to your final question: If you eat meat, then yes, it is hypocritical to oppose hunting animals. Why did the animals you saw in that store have more value than the cows, chickens and fish who’ve died for *your* dining pleasure? In my opinion, they did not. In fact, the animals you’ve eaten have probably lived a life much closer to the black slavery you discuss here – and just like the whites who accepted that system, most Americans have conned themselves into believing that today’s agribusiness livestock were bred and born to become our food, so it’s OK not to value their lives, right? I don’t buy it.

So why would I also say you’re also not being a hypocrite? Because you observed a lot of things that bothered you, and who am I to reject your observation and experience? I would rather persuade you to challenge your assumptions.

I think your single greatest mistake here is going to such lengths to associate racist/ignorant behaviors with hunters (caveats aside, that’s the clear tone of this piece). No doubt, there is a bubba element in hunters’ ranks. Not the people I hunt with, but I’m sure they’re out there somewhere. Regardless, though, if you really want to question whether hunting is right, I think you should focus on the core issue: Should we kill and eat animals? I don’t think associating hunters with racism addresses that question.

To address a couple of specific points you made:

* First, the big one, re this statement: “(H)e learned the values of the natives, how they respected the animals they hunted, which was never for sport. Instead, when they did hunt, it was for food and other materials — they used every single part they could so as not to waste.”

This is why I hate the term “sport hunting” – it suggests we kill for sh**s and giggles, not for food. The origin of the term was to distinguish “gentlemanly,” ethical hunting from “market hunting” – hunting animals for sale in restaurants – which was helping to decimate wildlife populations 100 years ago, along with the rampant habitat destruction that was taking place.

Now people have come to interpret that as “killing for fun.” The reality that I have come to understand, and which every hunter I know shares, is this: Yes, we hunt because we enjoy it. The process reconnects us with our true nature as omnivores – a nature that has been systematically stripped from us over the past four or five decades as industrial agrictulture has removed most of us from any connection to our food supply.

But the kill? When you pull the trigger, it’s business – you are focused, you have made the decision. But in reality, most of us are deeply uncomfortable with this aspect of the hunt. We show it in different ways – which sometimes include not showing it at all. (Remember, 90 percent of hunters are male and society has taught them to quash troublesome emotions.)

Also, the vast, vast majority of hunters eat what they kill. Yes, perhaps we make a trophy of what’s above the shoulders. But we eat the meat, and we value it – and often prefer it over storebought meat.

Many hunters, by the way, like the term sport hunting because they acknowledge that we hunt because we want to, not because we have to. I disagree. I say, “People buy meat the grocery store because they want to – they want the convenience and lack of blood on their hands. They *could* go hunting, or raise their own animals for food.”

* Yes, spending money on taxidermy outweighs what you save from hunting your own meat. But most people I know don’t hunt as a way to get cheap meat. We hunt because we enjoy participating in nature. We hunt because we appreciate wild game and think it’s healthier for us than what we could buy at the store. I spend a boatload on hunting. And I don’t care, because it’s taught me the true value of meat.

* Those taxidermied animals you saw weren’t in the prime of their youth. People stuff very mature animals – typically with really big racks. I can’t think of anyone who’d stuff a young animal.

* You don’t need gun safes to hide your guns from public view; you need gun safes 1) to keep them from any children who may be in the house and 2) to protect them from theft and fire. Yeah, they’re expensive. Aside from my car, I don’t have many – if any – single items that cost as much as my guns, and none of them are that high-end – about $1,000 apiece.

If you’re interested in learning some perspectives on hunting that may not have been at all apparent in that store you visited, go to my blog (the link above) and click on “Thoughts about hunting” in the index. I know I don’t represent all hunters. But what I’ve learned is that I articulate things that many hunters feel, but have never been able to articulate (I know this because they say as much, all the time).

I hope that helps you separate the core practice of hunting from the attitudes you associate with hunters. If after an exploration like that you decide you find hunting abhorrent, then so be it. If nothing I can say changes your opinion, then you probably really are against it.

But you should really consider going vegetarian, for moral consistency.

My response to this extended commentary is forthcoming.

In this (slightly longer post) I will begin with a statement of my personal position on the vegan life which I really don’t think I could handle.  I then qualify that by explaining the origins of my love for nature.  Finally, I begin the real meat of the story with a description of what seems to possibly be a less virtuous portrait of human character, possibly found in highest concentrations in the US Southern states, but probably also existent in other part of the US as well.  Because I have little scientific training in sociology or anthropology other than a few college courses, I am restricting my descriptions to my own personal experiences and first hand observations (which are mostly in the southern US).  I have spent considerable time in Europe, Asia, the tropics, South America, and I have lived in the Northeastern US and for a short while in Southern California.  However, most of my life has been spent in the Southern US.

CAVEATES

Let us begin then.  I am a carnivore.  I love meat plain and simple.  I also love to ‘go native’ with traditional low-brow caveman behavior on occasion, because it appeals to me at some very basic level and harms few others in most cases.   I like to be a “man’s man”.  However, I am also a naturalist, and I have lived WAAAAAAAYYYYY out in the boonies at times, and really enjoyed that quiet simple world, with forested streams, barely travelled paths, and secret fishing-hole ponds.  In fact, when I was a kid I often fantasized about becoming Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn, running away and living the high life on garbage scraps and exposure to the elements (he he).  But seriously, I loved those stories, and many others including ‘Call of the Wild’ and one in particular about a small Native American boy who was originally an English emigrant, but was taken and raised with Native Americans.

NATURE LOVE ORIGINS

In that story of the adopted Native American boy, he was eventually re-captured by settlers and went on to ride in a Rodeo.  But while with his tribe, he learned the values of the natives, how they respected the animals they hunted, which was never for sport.  Instead, when they did hunt, it was for food and other materials — they used every single part they could so as not to waste.  There was no concept of ownership of land, although there were ‘hunting grounds’ where some tribes hunted traditionally.  The best part was the description of the circle of life.  The concept of the circle and how nature has patterns that are like repeating cycles came up several times in that book.  It somehow struck a deep chord with me, as if awaking some inner respect and love for nature.

Well, that was a long time ago.  At a few times in my life, my friends would tell me of their hunting trips with their fathers.  That whole concept resounded in me… the quiet moments of waiting and watching, then the thrill of killing a large animal, one that could potentially be dangerous to the hunter.  Cutting it open with a large knife, feeling the warm blood on your hands.  Then taking the meat home and eating it.  There was something so adventurous and thrilling about those stories my friends told.  Perhaps there was a bit of jealously — as I had no similar man-to-man time with my dad.  However, even as an young adult man, there were times when friends still would tell me new hunting stories, and I would be wishful that I could do such a thing.  I wanted that experience.  Was it just the idea of killing a large mammal, intentionally and then the violence of the knife afterwards?  What was the attraction to me?

MY EXPOSURE TO RACIST WHITES

I am often confronted with prejudices where I live (in Lubbock, Texas).  Most of the time, these prejudices reveal themselves in subtle attitudes and feelings which only a person who is sensitive to such matters would impugn.  Indeed, simply (apparently) because I am white, I often hear white people say things in my presence such as “those black people are lazy, looking for a free ride on the government”, and they love to say that “blacks were bred during slavery to be dumb and muscular, for work in the fields”.  Not surprisingly, xenophobic folks rarely criticize or make such sweeping ‘whole-race’ attacks against their ‘own kind’.  The stereotypical (and appropriate) image used to be Jed Clampett, toting his shotgun, saying “from these cold dead hands”, wife waving a bible and praying out loud, the pregnant teenage daughter clawing at the air despite her big brother holder her back.  Now, it’s the tenure-track ‘proud to be a Southerner’ faculty professor at ‘Blacks Now Tolerated Texas University’, careful to watch his tongue yet eager to wave his Republican-redneck-status on bumper stickers, his son’s pickup truck pumping subwoofer rap music despite having adopted his father’s opinions that national pride and patriotic duty mean “love it or leave it” (like Hitler would have said) rather than “let’s fix this” (as Obama says).

I don’t hate racist people. I just hate racist myths and values.  Some of my closest family, my lifelong best friends (whom I still call best friends), and many associates whom I am really fond of, almost all have some deep down well-hidden attitudes or feelings which are racist (or prejudiced against some other groups).  These are well-intentioned, often empathic and super-warm hearted folks, often honest to a fault and very empathic.  The problem is that there is cowardice among average everyday folks to publicly expose their inner thoughts and open-communicate about sensitive topics.  How can learning take place under such circumstances?  See my last post in this blog for more on that topic, which relates more to educational policy.

Part of what I want to do here in this post, is to explore the abstract stereotype of the “racist-white-trash-redneck” (RWTR).  I have several ulterior motives, not just including academic and intellectual enrichment.  For instance, my father is a racist-white-trash Southerner (not exactly a redneck, but definitely still a Texan), living on the east coast in Virginia, but originally from Houston, Texas.  He is a minister, with perhaps 50% of his congregation made up of blacks.  Yet, I can recall as a child hearing him use the “N-word” quite frequently, and to this day, he has many attitudes and beliefs still which are racist.  When I met my first wife, my father was quite condemning of her race, and now that I have dark skinned children, there have been a few other times when I experienced some racist reactions by others. In addition, my three youngest children are quite pale, from Russia, and so I currently have a rather colorful family.

THE STEREOTYPE

What I’m trying to describe here is the typical syndrome of a despicable human being which I am labeling a “racist-white-trash-redneck”.  I hope that most rednecks are not racist, and in fact, I do not intend to say that if you have all of these qualities, then you are definitely a despicable waste of flesh, but rather to say, you probably are — in the sense that sounding like a duck, smelling like a duck, etc., you probably are a duck.  So let me sum these up the stereotypical qualities of the “racist-white-trash-redneck” (RWTR) as they stand thus far:

1. Bible-waving orthodox religious orientation (if not ‘saved’, then doomed for eternity, aka ‘other races in other countries’)
2. Low-end economic conditions, including low-cost or lack of expensive education (such as college), blue-collar labor, and possible living conditions (such as living in a trailer).
3. Patriotism defined as: Intolerance for critical calls for government reform, love for murder of people in their own country after we invade their country
4. Belief that morality is phenotypic, influenced by genotype
5. Xenophobic lack of humanistic empathy for anyone different (unable to expand the narrow bubble of origin)
6. Possible additional last quality (explained below) related to ‘Child-like joy and idealization of animal murder for sport’ (or for other non-essential traditions).

IMPORTANT NOTES:
1. The above list is a completely fabricated subjective perception on my part alone and written without any forethought at all, straight from the heart as honestly as I can
2. I may need to come back to this post in the future to revise this list.  In particular, I am very skeptical of number 2 above (economics).  There are plenty of racist-white-trash-professors with terminal degrees, and likewise there are plenty of racist-white-trash-blue-collar business owners who have done very well financially.

DECONSTRUCTING THE STEREOTYPE

Before I begin the main segment of this exploration, I will confess that I have learned that most qualities that describe humans don’t really come in discrete categories, and are more often actually continuums.  In fact, even within a single generations, it is not unheard of that while a set of parents might be stereotypical of what is called “redneck, hillbilly, country, Baptist, hick”, that their child(ren) might quite easily slide into a role closer to the stereotype of the “wasp, middle-class, evangelical, yuppie, preppy”, and carry on subtler attitudes such as “minorities look for free rides more often than whites do” (with the assumption of a moral difference based on race).  Although racism (of certain types) may have been more prevalent in the South, where humans as property was more prevalent and lasted longer, there is no clear reason to doubt that there are many exceptions to all stereotypes including this one, such that racism crosses all boundaries.

That being said, I must wonder whether there is some correlate of certain kinds of cruelty to animals, such as dog-fights, which relates to my list of qualities of the “racist-white-trash-redneck”.  Would education level, economic level, or geographic location be more tightly associated and predictive of being an avid dog-fight observer/trainer?  What about the possibility of shooting and killing large mammals on a regular basis, then stuffing their bodies and displaying the corpse as a trophy?  Would that be more closely associated with education level, economics, or geographic location?  What I’m getting at, is to try and determine whether the list of qualities I have attempted to build on, as the stereotypical “racist-white-trash-redneck”, might also include an attitude which objectifies all animals, including large mammals which are KNOWN to have emotions very similar to humans, to the point that needless animal suffering means very little.

RACISM AND ANIMAL RIGHTS

Ever heard of a racist member of PETA, or Green-Peace?  Me neither.  My wife (Belinda Richardson) is an animal lover, founder and the former president of the Lubbock Pet Project, now called the Human Society.  Like your average Neanderthal, before I met my wife I frankly never considered a relationship with an animal to be anywhere near the same category of human-to-human relationships.  In fact, the only animal rights activists I had ever seen up close, appears to be ‘damaged-goods’ types, more likely to be successful bonding with animals because of their lower-maintenance, and obedience relative to humans (or some other similar explanation such as TRULY unconditional warmth, honesty, etc.).  Belinda has since taught me a few lessons about animals and their rights, but also I have learned some truths simply by living with them.  We have 4 large dogs including a Great Dane, 2 smaller dogs, 4 cats, and other assorted mammals who all live and sleep indoors with us humans.  They each have emotional bonds with me, some stronger than others, and each has cognitions and perceptions, each communicates with me at some level in various degrees.  Some of them are very dear to me, and I feel a kinship with them.  Like my own travels among other peoples, highly diverse cultures, and getting to know highly unique people, there is a process of opening the heart that happens, which transcends a simple opening of the mind.  This is what has occurred by my frequent close contact with animals.

Let us return now to my discussion of the practice of hunting of large and small game, including large mammals, which is a source of great pride and tradition among many southern peoples in the US.  Some months ago, my son was given a gift card to a “sports” store in town.  I’ve actually been inside this store once before, perhaps when I was less alert, and for a shorter period of time.  For some reason on this visit though, I took my time and began to look around.  Very gradually I came to realize that although this particular store had some “sports” stuff, the majority of the store was devoted to outdoor activities, and perhaps more than any other activity, to “hunting”.  As I sat looking at the sections which divide the boys from the men’s sections, and the parallels, I began to see how little boys would be interested in these materials and good, if for no other reason than due to idolizing their fathers.  But in addition, I began to see that this was very much a matter of culture and tradition, carried down from generation to generation.

I can’t say how many times I’ve wondered how on earth people (good everyday folks) could stand by and do nothing while their neighbors bought and sold other human beings like property.  Were they really that stupid, that they simply could not use their frontal lobes and reason out just how wrong it was?  Did they know how wrong it was, and yet were mere cowards, as we are lead to believe in the Spencer Tracy movie “Nuremberg”, regarding the vast German public who sat and did nothing while Jews were herded off?  Surely it is probably a collusion of many simultaneous influences, when an entire population of people engages in cowardice or evil, and no single cause can be blamed in isolation.  As I looked around me, everywhere I looked was death and corpses of beautiful majestic animals, who were in the prime of their youth, and probably had families waiting for their return the day they died needlessly.  Could no other person in the store not see what I was beginning to see?  Was this not a sanitized, shiny, glorification of murder and violence for sport?  How different was this from the cultural practice of ritual human sacrifice we read about in primitive societies?

The answer is that it is NOT very different at all.  Those primitive societies had lots of good folks, empathic, virtuous, and kind, who stood by and allowed atrocities to take place, for who knows whatever reasons.  I don’t care.  The point is these practices are now very rare, because most people now recognize them as unethical and immoral, even though we probably have LESS penetration and concentration of religious orthodoxy and spirituality than those societies did.  I’m not attaching religion here mind you, because I personally believe in Free-Will.  In addition, I have a totally open mind toward the possibility that Jesus was (is) God incarnate, and that Mohammed was his prophet, and that the Vedas are true, or tell many truths, and so many other things that give me hope and inspiration.  To the contrary, I think that religion has always been a huge help to humankind overall.  Not only has it been a salve and balm, but an opiate to handle the pain of a brutish and violent existence.  Though often used as an excuse for murder, war, and other crimes, it has MORE often led to the development of more just governmental forms and legislation that I cannot imagine would have developed in so humanistic a course had religion not existed at all (in which case I would expect a world that objectifies EVERYTHING as materialistic gain or loss).

RACISM AND UNSOPHISTICATED SPIRITUALITY

This does bring up a point worth a minor digression though.  Everyone seems to agree that those folks with an external locus of control live in fear and helplessness, constantly struggling to gain control, yet fearing that nothing they do can help.  By the same token, we are now taught more than ever before that self-control is ultimately an illusion and that all behavior derives from either genetics or environment at its origin.  Never (in any psychology course I ever took) is the possibility of Free Will ever brought up.  If you are very poor, the concept of hopelessness is a very frequent companion.  If you have any choice at all, it is usually only one option (the cheapest item on the shelf).  If you are wealthy, you have plenty of choices, and by cognitively exercising the skill of deliberation become a very savvy consumer over the years.  Who then would be more attracted to a more primitive brand of religiosity then, that person who had fewer choices under their control, who may be desperate for some outside assistance to tip the balance back into their favor whenever circumstances are most dire, rent due, and no groceries to feed the young?  It would not surprise me at all that those with a more modern and sophisticated set of religious beliefs, incorporating theological as well as philosophical answers to ethical dilemmas, would be correlated to those with higher economic means/status.

If ownership of the means to production provides greater sense of internal local of control, then one’s conception of God would not require personal intervention as frequently, and might even provide for a less personal, more mystical conception of God.  Furthermore, the need for personal economic control (or perceptions typical of internal local of control) relates more to “relative deprivation” than to actual deprivation in rich countries such as the US, where starvation due to lack of food is actually quite rare among resourceful adults who are not mentally ill or drug-addicted.  Fear of loss of economic control would also seem to be a related factor in one’s choice of religious beliefs.  If you fear some other group of people (xenophobia) or specific groups of races from attempting to take your economic resources, then you might be expected to again, believe in a more personal God, and one who is likely to intervene in human matters to your advantage, upon request.

Like the most primitive societies we know of, ever single action, could be watched by such a personal God, and be punished or rewarded.  Every event, and ever series of relations between events, can be seen as under potential control or intervention by spirits (or by your God).  An external locus of control centered within external spirit entities (or your God), can be an effective substitute for an acknowledged lack of control by the believer, especially in economically harsh circumstances, or when fear of loss of economic resources is greatest (like when there are lots of very poor people who cohabitate with you).  This is really just starting to sound like a deconstruction of typical Republican propaganda which refuses public support or training for those at or below poverty level, so I will end my digression here.  Suffice it to say that it certainly seems that many aspects of one’s choice in religious beliefs relate strongly to the syndrome of fear and hate-filled beliefs called prejudice.

THE GRAND TOUR

Here is what I saw in the store that opened my eyes to the tragic violence practiced for sport by typical “racist-white-trash-rednecks” (in order of observation as I walked through the store):

First I happened across this tall structure attached to a support column.  I thought “oh that’s neat”.  Then I looked closer and imagined myself sitting in it.  No wait, that wouldn’t work, those teensy little seats are meant for children I think.  Indeed, it’s hard to convey via this photo, but essentially, the two empty seats facing to the right in this photo were each about 10 inches wide, and neither of them had much cushion.  I thought to myself “must be for real small folks, or else kids”, otherwise I couldn’t stand more than about 10 minutes of it.

Gradually, I began to survey the walls, noticing many more of these dead animals mounted like trophies all over the place.  This one support post has about a dozen, but along some of the walls were many others including larger more powerful specimens.  Something about it began to seem odd to me, like shrunken heads of felled enemies lining some cave-wall.  Still these ideas were like a mist settling into place.  I really had NOT noticed this very much, or paid much attention to it the first time I had been to this store.  At first, I just thought, these are trophies, nothing more.  The expense invested in their taxidermy far outweighs any savings or other utility gained by the consumption of their meat or other organs.

The clincher which solidified what I was feeling was this very odd large wooden box I found, which was about 5 x 3.5 feet across, and maybe 4 feet deep filled with large rocks.  The box was labeled “trophy rock”, and that was all.

I was so puzzled at first, and couldn’t imagine how a rock would be a “trophy”.  Then I opened the glossy pamphlets that were sitting atop the box.  Below is a photo of the pamphlet.  It kind of looks like a brochure for a circus act, flashy and gaudy.  Across the top is the headline “if you want the rack.. get the rock!”  Suddenly it made sense.  This was a rock with salts and minerals.  It was meant to be tossed into the brush, and left for some time so as to become a haven of needed nourishment to animals.

I turned around and suddenly my eyes were seeing things a little differently.  I have (over the last year or so) spent many separate moments teaching my children what “good sportsmanship” was all about.  If they pouted after losing, I’d say, “now be a good sport”, and I’d always tell them not to cheat, even when playing alone.  The challenge was part of the fun, trying to find your own limits and expand them out, achieve more.

When I turned around, I could see that there were children’s toys and LOTS of them, in the form of toy guns, bows/arrows, knives, and every conceivable weapon which can be used to hurt or kill animals.

As I then walked on down the aisle I came across a very large display which had a bunch of 5 to 6 ft tall safes.  As most people use banks these days for highly liquid valuables, all I could think was “what would people keep in these?”   Barring the possible few paranoid types who might keep strange things, the most probable answer is GUNS.  Not only are guns extremely dangerous tools for killing, they are also very expensive.  Using a safe this big would be necessary if you own quite a few guns, and don’t want people to see them.

Moving right along, I came to an aisle with lots of spotlights.  As I have learned over the years, using spotlights has been deemed “un-sportsman-like” and therefore outlawed in many places, but still commonly practiced.  Apparently, using the spotlight blinds an animal temporarily, and they become much more helpless.

As I passed the final corner before heading back toward the cash registers, I noticed these cowboy bottles which suddenly did NOT seem funny to me.  All I could think of was an image of immature, beer drinking, machismo-obsessed ignorant racist-white-trash-rednecks who might find it funny in their classless low-brow way.

Will this one day be seen as a primitive practice that died out only slowly among an ever more narrow niche of people?  Is it possible that we do not see such a “sport” as unethical simply because it is still rather common and highly visible, in the same way that common people viewed slavery when it was still thriving?  I will admit that I have never been hunting and never killed an animal larger than a rabbit (which we raised for food and money in my family as a child), and I also admit that I love to eat beef products, chicken, and seafood on a regular basis.  Am I a hypocrite?

A useful analogy here might be the “social contract” (http://tr.im/n2PN) harkening back to Hobbes and Locke.  In order to reap the benefits of goods and services which have been commoditized, we agree to cohere to the laws of our society, though we may also exercise our rights to participate in the evolution of those laws.  That teachers “preach diversity” without really having any clue about it, is both common, and a travesty.  Much the same as the racist white-trash faculty who have not hired a SINGLE black tenure-track professor in some areas, they are ignorant despite their “education”.

Diversity is about respecting and trying to understand the culture, beliefs, and values of people who are different from you under certain circumstances.  This includes “appropriate” expression of those beliefs and values, and particularly when protected by law.  It includes many other circumstances too, such as EEO laws.  It doesn’t mean that you are expected to change who you are, although I would argue that most folks don’t really know who they are as an individual.  In my opinion, my race, my culture, and my geographic origin only partly identify who I am today, which is also the result of my own adult intentional choices, both in experiences and what I have learned and read.

I believe that institutionalizing the practice of teaching ‘diversity’ means opening up communication.  It means keeping an open mind and willingness to discuss things that might make you uncomfortable, particularly if you still have bigoted/prejudiced attitudes and feelings.  The most common problem I see here is that these kinds of ignorance are more a reflection of the heart than the mind, which is why so many highly respectable, well educated people still cling to them defensively.  I am sure I could drag every racist through a course in genetics, and it wouldn’t change their heart one tiny bit.  I could virtually prove to them that genes partially encode intelligence, risk-taking propensity, and other broad personality traits, but NOT morality, but it wouldn’t change their heart.

Most folks MENTALLY already recognize that having well-developed and highly functional frontal lobes is correlated with REASONING about morality and ethics (and intelligence), but as the myths of the bible teach, Satan quoted scripture with the best of them (recall, he was no. 2 in heaven).  Certainly, in many religions, we learn of highly intelligent demons.  Furthermore, these demons and Lucifer himself certainly MUST believe in Jesus, though they hate him.  That you believe in Heaven and Hell as a reality, also makes little difference whether you are a despicable waste of human DNA, or a virtuous kind and empathic person.  For many folks (like Adam and Eve), having the knowledge of good and evil is not enough to keep them from evil.  They have the truth, but it just doesn’t matter to their heart.

I think the problem with teachers who teach diversity while remaining clueless about what diversity really means is that they have at some point simply ‘sold out’ to conformity, rather than really tried hard to understand or reasoning through deconstructions of their own beliefs and values.  It’s not the raving lunatic KKK freaks, or the Nationalist “white-devil” haters who are the biggest problem today.  It’s all the sell-out cowards (Thoreau’s “mass of men who lead lives of quiet desperation”) and uncle Toms who lack the courage to expose themselves, voice their opinions, and enter mature, honest, communication about their beliefs and values – and who pass on their subtle “living room only” opinions to future generations.  It’s all the immature cognitively lazy adults who don’t really have any desire to learn, but somehow chose that field as a career – faculty at Universities and K-12 teachers.

When I was a boy, I used to believe that emotions were the root of all evil. It wasn’t until I became a full-time parent that I began to understand that as Pascal remarked, “The heart has wisdom the mind cannot know”. Some might even interpret Frederick Nietzsche as intending something similar from “There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.” Arthur Schopenhauer’s monster behind the veil seems to be so often in command of what we believe to be sound logic.

At some point, I began to question whether the heart could be a useful compass. I will not claim such ethereal epistemologies as innate ideas, but I do believe the conscience and moreover affect itself, should be not be ignored or suppressed, because they are as inescapable as freedom itself (Jean Paul Sartre might say). Why am I bringing this up? Because I think I have a somewhat radical philosophy of aesthetics with regard to rap. I listen to my heart, and my conscience (often more so than the lyrics of the songs), and they modulate the rationalizations I make.

One of the most critical aspects of rap music, and of hip hop culture more broadly, is that it is a culture. Many of the ethnocentric bigots who made casual observations from a distance in the 17th century and earlier, of foreign cultures they considered ‘inferior’, have largely been discredited of having scientific merit today by the community of cultural anthropologists. At some point, the novel idea that one must go inside the building if one’s comments about the interior are to be considered valid, was lighted on, and suddenly ethnographers were “going native”.

The best actors have to truly ‘become’ the character, in order to accurately work out exactly what that character is feeling and thinking, even when that character is on the edge of sanity, or commits horrific ethical crimes (police detectives do this too). That is also why it can be easy to empathize with the many innocent and descent folks you find in maximum security federal prisons, if you are a person who naturally attempts to understand and see the world through the eyes of another.

That is the flavor of art criticism I have approached the matter with. Rather than evaluate the meaning of the lyrics, or the character and life choices of the artists, I have attempting to feel what they feel, and relate to their mindset, in the context of their environmental history and culture. Although more often than not, a skilled artist will gracefully fluctuate between hiding their meaning in metaphors or anecdotes and blatantly proselytizing for their political stance, this entire element of art is not a complete necessity for it to be art.

Although I find myself attracted to books like the below, I believe it ultimately comes down to the sounds and rhythms, and whether they make you feel good, or give you some sense of outlet for negative feelings (like a safe way to express or experience social taboos). Still, if you prefer purely logical explanations, the below books look like they would be an excellence starting point:

Hip-Hop and Philosophy: Rhyme 2 Reason (Popular Culture and Philosophy) (Paperback)
by Derrick Darby (Editor), Tommie Shelby (Editor)
http://www.amazon.com/Hip-Hop-Philosophy-Reason-Popular-Culture/dp/0812695895/
pairs great philosophers and their works to rap classics by Lauryn Hill, OutKast and others to show rap can help uncover the meaning of such philosophers as Plato. A delightful, fun presentation invites young college students to understand underlying meanings in both ancient and modern texts.

When Rap Music Had a Conscience: The Artists, Organizations and Historic Events that Inspired and Influenced the “Golden Age” of Hip-Hop from 1987 to 1996 (Paperback)
by Tayannah Lee McQuillar (Author), Brother J of the X-Clan (Foreword)
http://www.amazon.com/When-Rap-Music-Conscience-Organizations/dp/1560259191/
What comes to mind when you think about rap music? If you’ve been paying any attention to the high-profile rap releases of the last decade, it wouldn’t be surprising if that question compelled thoughts of violent lyrics, booty-filled videos and images of decadence and materialism. But as Tayannah Lee McQuillar points out in her book “When Rap Music Had a Conscience,” in stores on April 10, it wasn’t always that way. McQuillar’s book is a celebration of the “Golden Age” of hip-hop (defined therein as occurring between 1987 and 1996), when artists like Public Enemy, De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest were able to carve out a space for themselves with their thoughtful, political music. The book isn’t just a look back, though; it’s also a lament over the current state of rap music, which the author views as tipping too heavily in the direction of the “gangster” and “crass materialism” and away from the progressive values of the golden-era rap she holds dear.

Hip Hop as Performance and Ritual (Paperback)
http://www.amazon.com/Hip-Hop-as-Performance-Ritual/dp/1412053943/
by William E. Smith Ph.D. (Author) “Hip hop has definitive links with African performance elements and musical techniques that are traceable through the well-documented characteristics of Africanisms

Total Chaos: The Art And Aesthetics of Hip-hop (Paperback) by Jeff Chang
http://www.amazon.com/Total-Chaos-Art-Aesthetics-Hip-hop/dp/0465009093/
In this wide-ranging, academic anthology of essays, interviews and panel discussions, 2005 American Book Award–winner Jeff Chang (Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop) presents hip-hop’s past, present and future as seen by some of its founding figures, guiding lights, journalists and scholars.

Intro

Preferences leading to prejudices, biases leading to loyalty, patriotism leading to nationalism; all of these are similar and may rest along various points on a similar single scale of measure. What if they all collude and combine at one extreme into something called racism?

Preference & Morality

Isn’t it natural to prefer to sleep and have sex and eat all day long without end, and to indulge every whim and fancy without hesitation at every minute of the day? Isn’t everything in nature good and morally right? How can the beautiful natural world be separated from the moral world? If we natural physical beings are not moral agents, then there would not be any immediately obvious reason to believe in morality at all, would there?

Let us not descend into epistemological chaos though. Let us overlook the many imperfections in our current assumptions, and start half-ass without perfecting them, and see where they lead us, and at least we shall not go quietly into the night. If there is an ultimate Good that exists, then the will and thought of that Good, must be ultimate Truth, if for no other reason than that it is willed into existence, and thus becomes ultimate Truth, by virtue of infinite Goodness. Do we need a separate definition of truth other than perfect existence – that state of being in which no falsehood or deceit exists? In that way, there is a great beauty to great Truths, and every great Good, is a great Truth, and every great Truth, is Good.

A finite creature may not ‘will’ anything infinitely, or know anything infinitely, but may happen across streams and fall prey to their currents, and taste their waters, and be impressed with some perceptions and opinions of them, which is a dark reflection of their ultimate true essence and material being. A being may be innocent, and as a young child horribly suffer because of natural events, not initiated by mankind, but completely coincidental with regard to any human intention. No, I do not think that nature is always good. Not every natural physical being is good. Some humans are bad. It is the will of the ultimate Good, which imbues goodness. Being outside that Will imbues moral ambiguity. Being directly against that Will, either through commission or omission, imbues evil.

Preferences and Property

When you purchase an item, in human law, you alone then hold the right and authority to give it away. If the item is stolen, someone may advocate on your behalf, but no one may claim a ‘right’ to that item, but the person who paid the price for it. Wealth which is distributed as gifts is the same. The question as to human rights then becomes, “do we own our own bodies?” If we are the owners, we alone should have rights to our own bodies, unless there is some strong argument to the contrary. Do I show preferences or prejudices for my own property? Shall I have the right to burn my house down, or to burn my baby alive? More on that later…

Preferences within the body, are natural, but may not always be good. Even though we may prefer to grant our own selves pleasure over giving others pleasure, to do so at all times, to the exclusion of caring for our children for instance, would probably be considered immoral, and not morally good. Preferences themselves may not always be good, and whether the preference is natural and has evolved as part of the true human nature, from our first ancestors, does not satisfy all criteria we might decide on as qualifying that preference to be good. It is too difficult to say whether or when masturbation, or any other inclination which may start at a pure and natural motive, becomes immoral, even if only perpetrated upon ourselves (or our property). Whether small animals are lives which can be made property is another matter altogether in carnivorous societies.

For the matter of moral preferences, merely having an opinion of the good, is very similar to having a preference for one type of good over another. In one case, a particular preference may neither be good nor bad, and this at all times may be the case. Alternatively, some preferences it would seem may at one time be good and at another time be morally bad. We should probably consider the context in moral preferences (for example, telling a lie to save a life). But a preference for chocolate may not be morally bad. In fact, some preferences alone may never be bad, or rarely, right? It is the choice and the actions taken, such as indulging that preference to the exclusion of caring for one’s own children. So the context, as when there are competing preferences, should be taken into account. Preferring the company of one type of person, to the exclusion of all others, taken to an extreme — could that possibly carry a moral value (for example “all my friends are proud white trash”)?

One’s opinion of the Good, can never be infinitely known, beyond all possible doubt, and with complete certainty, because of the limitations of the human mind. We can at times be fallible, we can at times be deceived by others, and we can at times be sick or otherwise not capable of healthy reason (such as brain damage). We humans can only attempt to attain some reflection of the Good, and to entertain what the Truth might be.

Preferences & Human Rights

Harming another may violate their right to health, but only if they truly own their own body. If the State owns our bodies, then you have transgressed only the rights of the state, the true owners of that property. If the Creator owns our bodies, and rightly constructed them from materials willed into pre-existence at some point billions of years in the past, by some fantastic plan set in motion with infinite foresight, then the only transgression of rights, was by the guilty party against that Creator’s rights. In fact, that would to some degree correspond to that person being morally ungood, if such as Creator did not will that you should harm the other person, because as we mentioned before, the will of that Creator might be defined as the Good (moral good).

Regardless, preferences are not always good, and often can be quite bad, when taken within the context that they are expressed. If a man never acts on his preferences, but is secretly and quite craftily concealing his preferences, either because he loathes them and feels great shame and guilt over them, or because his society shuns them, there may be some other moral problem with such preferences. A preference which draws a man sexually toward pre-pubescent little girls, may be a morally evil preference in some society (but not others), even if not acted upon, right? What about a preference, which is engaged through fantasy, to do great bodily harm to some other person? Certainly some preference may seem to be potentially bad morally. I would personally be concerned with the character of my heart and soul, had I such preferences in such a continual and persistent manner, being a 37 year old white male living in the southern United States in 2007.

Preferences and Accountability

We are often fond of defending our preferences. Why shouldn’t we like one flavor over another in ice cream, or one particular time of the day, mornings over nights for instance? Whether a person is exclusively attracted to brunettes over blonds, or whites over blacks, or large women over very thin women, is partially just a pattern of his DNA, isn’t it? Are child molesters and psychopathically violent people not morally bad, if their DNA is to blame? To this question, I would suggest that two people who are alike in every respect, who both stand by and do nothing to assist a woman lying in the road in pain, may not be equally guilty. One person may have prior knowledge that this woman has a heart condition and may be dying. The other may be a stranger, with a morbid fear of others, based on some prior unfortunate incident of torture.

The point here is that we are each morally accountable individually on a sliding scale, each according to our own prior knowledge and understanding of the moral status of our choices. I would imagine that, if there is a Creator, and if that Creator has not deceived our minds which so earnestly want to believe in a just Creator (looping argument or not), that justice would dictate opportunities to gain such knowledge would also be considered. A criminal on the cross, born into misery to a prostitute, who makes one small kind statement, may be judged less harshly than a king who provides alms for the poor (aka., campaign contributions) only so far as it is tax-deductable, and then even ensure that a paid-for press release spreads the word. Morality is relative, not because of ‘fit’ to personality, lifestyle or preferences. Morality is relative to one’s knowledge and ability, and to the circumstances which dictate the greater good and may include competing and incompatible choices.

Yet in man’s law, ignorance is no excuse in many cases, particularly where malice and forethought were part of the crime. Again, this only serves to magnify the importance of individually carrying our own karma, because certainly intentionally avoiding the emotional growth of facing reality and honestly self-reflecting on our own internal motives and character, is but one layers of the enormous complexity a good judge would need to take into account, along with some infinite knowledge of the many opportunities we may have passed up, at the prompting even of loved ones, to get honest and introspect. Yes, preferences for remaining ignorant, and thus comfortably free of the stress and strain of a deeply affected and sensitive conscience, can be morally bad.

Prejudice and Biology

There is however a difference between a preference and a prejudice. A prejudice is a special type of preference, and should rightly be placed beneath it as a subset of preference. Whereas many preferences are emotional and/or biological, most of our prejudices are ultimately cognitive and are subject to cognitive examination at some point in our lives if we have the courage to do so. Prejudice is more likely to take place apriori to some event or choice, if emotional biases are in place before one is presented with the need to judge one’s choices. Sometimes this is called loyalty or nationalism. That will lead us toward patriotism and then racism later. For now though, let us move the conversation into the subset of preferences, which can be called prejudices.

Prejudices allow us to discriminate. It is not coincidental that we evolved to dislike the extreme bitterness (or other unpalatability) of poisons. If we were unable to discriminate between colors for instance, then we would die by eating the wrong roots or berries, or make other grave mistakes. All I am doing is establishing that the ability to discriminate can be good. Prejudices are sometimes naturally produced by strong influence of our DNA or society, thus at times they also enhance our social and individual survivability. Prejudice (before the fact or experience) for the company of our own species (social needs), as well as our own children to those of other children has been good for our species in some respects.

It is the high resolving power of male attraction to those females most likely to be sexually inviting and reproductive and of those females toward those men most likely to fiercely protect and intelligently gather resources which allows for the exclusion of mates who are less desirable and therefore elimination from the gene pool, and overall success of the species (in addition to out-competing other species). However, merely to deconstruct how discrimination works in humans is not an affirmation that it is never morally wrong or good. Discrimination (like sex) is critical to survival, but not always appropriate or good.

Prejudice and Heuristics

Let us suppose for a moment that you are among a group of elite soldiers, in a very small and highly selective team. All of you are ‘lifers’ meaning that you love your country and you love your job. Almost every single movie I have ever seen regarding these lifers portrays them similarly, in that there is a good guy and a bad guy (sometimes the same guy may be good and bad). At some times, the situation may call for bending the rules a little, in order to ‘get the job done’. The problem is often made grotesquely obvious by a ‘bad’ guy bending these rules further and further until eventually, even the MOST patriotic person must admit that the lunatic must be stopped, though all admit this person is only trying “to do their job”, by any means necessary.

Now I ask you, why is this such a fuzzy grey area? You can also trade this story, for one about police officers who do not ‘rat’ on each other, but hold loyalty to each other or to their overall local force, in higher regard than the law itself, which is often flawed, ineffective, and contra the best interest of the people it seems. Everything is much more comfortable as long as we have cognitive balance. Once dissonance or paradox creeps in, we squirm until we reach balance again. We much prefer for people to easily fit into the categories we have created for them.

Heuristics are mental short cuts. Like stereotypes, they allow us to divert mental resources to other tasks, because once we match a new pattern to a previous pattern, all the prior situational rules can then be applied to the new pattern and we know what we are ‘supposed’ to do. If it sounds like a broken axle, feels like one, smells like one, tastes like one, etc., then it may have a high probability of being a broken axle if for no other reason than Occam’s razor. Now imagine a microscopic bug on a beach in North America, travelling south. For millennia, this bug, and all its ancestors and for many generations prior, may have travelled in one particular direction, and actually have made their trek through millions of millimeters of rough terrain. The great forefather bugs in their wisdom through great intellectual inquest, have deduced many facts about the “known universe”.

Bug scientists have conducted experiments that recreate the hypothetical beginning of the world, and have determined that mere millionths of microseconds before the very first primordial bug emerged from the dust of the past to begin this trek, that the known universe was very different indeed, and that there may not have been a beach at all. There was instead, something known as grass. Irreverent younger bugs would be flabbergasted to imagine a world where not only did the beach suddenly veer (perhaps near the gulf of Mexico), but that it disappeared completely under a great and mighty ocean which has no bottom. In such cases, logical deduction and generalization from their narrow past experiences outward to the vast “known universe” would be still be only a glimpse of all that is.

Prejudice and War

A rich man will quickly tell the masses that it is their obligation to protect his wealth from an invading army, because of love for their country. If they are not willing to die for love of country, then they are unpatriotic, and should be hanged, or at least ridiculed. For those who own no property though, what have they to loose if they go from one master to another? Yet the property owners do not die, they merely send in the slaves to die. If the property owner is a kind and good master though, they will not castigate those who do not want to die to protect their property, and instead, they will only label their political enemies as unpatriotic. If you criticize the system, then you are unpatriotic. If you advocate political reform, then you are unpatriotic.

What then is patriotism? Is it a love for the physical geographic land and environment? No, tree-huggers are unpatriotic because they ridicule the giant corporations who are killing the ozone layer and all species who depend on glacial ice. That cannot be the definition of patriotism. Is it a love for the original values and ideas upon which a country is based? Yeah, let’s all start beating our wives, burning those with epilepsy because they must have demons, and teaching our children to hate!

I say no to that also, because blind allegiance and loyalty to an unwavering position, means that you don’t want things to ever get better, even if you later discover that you were wrong (unless you are already perfect). I personally wish to be loyal only to the method and the process, not to the product. It is more important that you carefully select and continue to refine your METHODs of discerning truth, than it is to stand strong and continue to salute a leaking ship. If I have guests in my house, and I treat them better than my own family, then I am a jerk. I will grant that (I do love my family, and some things about my country). By the same token, if I have a guest in my house, and I treat them worse than my own family, I believe I am equally a jerk (respect ALL peoples). I will feed them from the same stock as my own.

Conclusion

We are all brothers in this world. Although we may have greater trust and have won a greater intimacy with some people over others (such as our own family members), and will consequently inevitably be more willing to provide for, protect, and love those we trust more and to whom we are closer, it makes no rational or logical sense (in my system of ethics) to PREJUDGE someone based exclusively on whether they share the same country or culture. There are good and there are bad people in every country and we should each be judged individually on our own.

Military regimes come and go. Values, beliefs, and morality overall CAN be improved upon, especially when sciences helps us see the physical and non-spiritual aspects of the problem and thus discriminate better between which part is a moral issue and which part is a spiritual or ethical issue (as in the case of learning that primitive tribal peoples in some areas of the world, are in fact genetically the same species as Anglo-Europeans).

Poor people who are choosing to die in wars fought to protect only those peoples who are sitting on top of natural resources which will make our masters richer (who do not participate in the war directly themselves, but benefit financially in great degree from that war) may be patriotic. But they may also be mere pawns who equally buy into the statistical error of generalization from their narrow little beach-front existence, to the greater world of foreign cultures and peoples. They bravely die, and yet they cowardly refuse to question tradition. We should limit war whenever possible, to protecting and doing good, rather than securing the wealth of a few.  Help that is not wanted, is not help at all, but more than likely a charade of crafty land-owners who preach endless sermons of patriotic duty. Vengence (you hit my sister, now I will hit you) is not the equivalent of protection (I will block you from hitting my sister) and may be a better description than patriotism in some cases.

Resources:

• Samuel Johnson “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”
• George Bernard Shaw “Patriotism is a pernicious form of psychopathic idiocy”
• Thomas Paine “My country is the world, all men are my brothers and to do good is my religion”
• Right-Wing Conservative argument:
http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/07/16/france-love-it-or-leave-it/
http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2006/05/25/destructive-tolerance/
• Left-Wing Democratic arguments:
http://www.harrybrowne.org/articles/AmericaLoveIt.htm
http://www.partialobserver.com/article.cfm?id=213