From the archives. Back in 92 or something, before the Web happened, I discussed race and multiculturalism on Compuserv. A Couple Exerpts.
Illegitimacy! O'Rourke you crack me up.
On a non-serious tip, take this racist argument. White women are 3 times as likely to have abortions than black women. It's because white women are not smart enough to raise children on their own. White people can only survive in nuclear families and thus have invented the words 'bastard' and 'illegitimate' because they are actually jealous of non-whites who can be successful single parents.
You obviously go for that dysfunctional stuff to pin on blacks, but who can blame you. You have lots of company. Of course I am sure that you have the intellect to rise above such pettiness so I'll give you a more reasonable opinion on the subject.
First to the data. I'm sure you could guess that to support your argument about 'illegitimacy' your data needs more precision. How does "illegitmacy" break down? What portion are married women who divorce and keep the children? What portion are widows? What are the comparative figures for whites? What are the income levels of these single parent families? I heard an interesting argument that the reason that proportionately more children are born to young black mothers is precisely because more black women are becoming college educated and are having fewer children, later in life.
A good book that I think you would like (It is absolutely packed with statistics) is "The Black Power Imperative" by Theodore Cross. (Basic Books, 1988(?)) He outlines an exhaustive strategy about all the things that can be legally done within the purview of American democracy to get blacks to catch up to the American mainstream, demographically speaking. I thought it a bit boring because they are mostly things I've heard a million times and who cares about demographics. The numbers can be highly illuminating for people who dig numbers.
This argument brings to mind June Jordan's essay "Don't You Talk About My Momma!" from "Technical Difficulties" (Pantheon, 1992). You seem to be repeating Daniel P. Moynihan's 1965 argument, but he's been discredited. Cultural differences make for different family arrangements. "Illegitimacy" is defined from a distinct point of view. At the Columban parish Holy Name of Jesus (all black) where I schooled for two years, most of the young women were married before the age of 20 and took their vows quite seriously. "Illegitimacy" was a very real to them. Despite the fact that many of them married poor men, they refused to work. A perticular kind of family life was most important to them. I was shocked to see that one of the brightest women I knew from that parish never went to college, but taught Sunday School. On the other hand, my cousin who got a full scholarship in Arts to Brown was raised by my aunt and all of us. He could likely be counted among the "illegitimate" but that's a word I never hear black people use against each other. I know all this must be boring you because you probably want me to explain the 'millions' of blacks who live in 'dysfunctional families'. I mean who even heard of black Catholics in Los Angeles and who really cares about one black Sunday School teacher? Who cares about how my cousin was raised? I guess that's the point. You are right about white folks not being in delicate positions. They shouldn't be. Family matters are personal and black folks ain't leaving it to Beaver.
"Illegitimate" "subhuman" "lazy" "irresponsible", whatever.
"slavery" "poverty" "racism" "unemployment", whatever.
THE BLACK FAMILY PERSISTS!
deal with it
When it comes to principles, I would wager that we are in very close agreement. I beleive most Americans are. When it comes however to practice, we are a bit off. Exactly where 'practice' comes in to play is something I beleive we are both experimenting. So conflict here is OK, though competition is not.
What makes us unique in America is our intellectual and physical mobility. We have, as individuals within certain broad limits, the opportunity to 'shop' for principles. It is the nature of our modern society which isolates us from the demanding skills of self-preservation. Therefore we can be successful Americans (given middle class status) in the military, in the professions, as skilled labor, in the clergy etc. Relatively few of us in the middle classes join our parents business, live in the same town from birth til death and identify primarily with the land. We then mark our passages through life as bourgeois individuals identifying with whatever groups we spend time with. We operate on certain sets of principles appropriate to the times and places. Why else would we talk about the 50s 60s 70s and 80s? What's the real difference? We change fashions and revise our ideas and politics in response to the changes we perceive, because we can. In short, we are not Amish.
This fluidity is something specific to large, literate, modern populations. It empowers individuals to do things once only monarchs could do, have personalities and choose lifestyles. In addition, modern conglomerations of power, for example international media, multinational corporations, and globally operating proprietaties accentuate this ability. I believe it was impossible for early philosophers to judge the import of such developments. If there is one thing so many of us admit, a scorn for government control, it is because of the benefits (or rights and privileges if you will) one can get from loyalty to these modern power structures. So again our sense of duty to principles is up to us based on our individual bourgeois panaply of choices. Of course there are real limits to this choice, but not in the American Dream.
Its nice to think about rights as the Enlightenment thinkers portray them. Fixed. Inalienable. But rights are nothing more than privileges. The defense of individual rights/privileges is entirely dependent on the individual loyalty to the defender and the defender's willingness and ability. Freedom isn't free means exactly that. It's a bargain. "To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed." The African American experience teaches the temporal nature of such bargains as a very basic lesson. If you claim loyalty to anything other than America, whites will inevitably work to deprive you of your "inalienable rights" and if you claim more than they think you deserve, you will quickly find what they think of your ability as a human to seek justice. Derrick Bell makes a brilliant case for this in "Faces at the Bottom of the Well". But the black experience notwithstanding, the very conceptualization by any human being, finite as we are, to delineate the full scope of defensible rights in absolute terms is quite a conceit.
The work of successful modern governments is striking a balance of those priveleges it seeks to defend for its citizens and limits to its own authority. A literate population will be demanding. Jefferson and company deserve their share of accolade for striking the 18th century post-colonial/pre-industrial/ agrarian/slave labor ecnomic balance (Im being historically specific). It proved successful. What is interesting is by what right Jefferson and company took it upon themselves to declare and define those rights by fiat. I grant them that simply by reason of their complaints which I see as legitimate. We would all to well to recognize this motivation in all political opposition movements and the liberating aspects of fights against tyranny in political thought. Yet today we harken back to feudalism as the lords of capitalist industry, whether state lords, corporate lords, or private lords exercise their privilege with sovereign spirit. It is convenient for these leaders to claim the rights and privileges of individuals for themselves and consequently for the enterprises they control (Richard Secord comes to mind). The point is that what intelligent people might conceive as rights/privileges for their own justification is slippery and has slid far beyond the control of Religions, Kingdoms, and now even Governments. That's OK. The proof is in the sanctity of the bargain.
Many Americans, have come to find little hope in fealty to the Federal government. Alexis deTocqueville was wrong. We haven't chosen to vote ourselves comfort, rather we have switched loyalties from the central government to organizations of our own choosing. American democracy doesn't give us the privileges we want and it costs too much. I beleive that unless there is a radical change in the nature of our representative government, that American citizens will abdicate federal loyalty in greater numbers. I don't particularly like that. Good government is a relatively cheap way to defend rights and privileges. I wonder how we will reconcile a decline in patriotism to our need for public spirit as this trend continues. We need serious political reform.
As for Rand's lack of specificity. I want to know (but not really) beyond her abstract declaration and repulsion to racism how she expected people to combat it. Go hide in some happy valley behind an electronich shield where the racists couldn't find you? Where did she write to the New York Times and call for changes in government policy? How could she interpret history as simply a great struggle between brave individuals and shuffling masses when she took so little time to understand the validity of political struggle. I still agree that "No concept man holds is valid until it is fully integrated into the sum of his knowledge" but Rand strikes me as one particularly detached from integrating her concepts into the sum of humanity. Objectivism is hamstrung by its inability to realize that over time and space, peoples methods to power change. Modern society as we know it is not absolute and the dichotomy between good and evil will not always be defined by the suppression of individuals. But I really don't want to belabor the point about crediting or discrediting Rand, which I think indicates something important about culture. All of us in this forum may agree, as I said up top, about principles of individual liberty but for me the person who best exemplifies that might be Frederick Douglass, for you 'Solzienitzn'. The point is that each moved under very specific conditions with courage against very specific oppressions bringing along with them very specific followers. It is these actions in history which demonstrate the actuality of these abstract principles which in themselves have no power to liberate humans nor to defend such liberties. To evade the facts of history is to create a moral video game in mental hyperspace. To me, Rand is such a player.
re:Now, you mention the Declaration of Independence. It should be noted
that the principles in that document were the source for the eventual removal
of slavery. The prinicple of individual rights is the reason you have an
inkling that men should be free.
Aww come on John, mentally retarded children from preliterate roving bands of cannibals captured as slaves would have an inkling that they should be free. It should be noted that in Haiti, slave revolts freed the slaves. They had no constitution. They may not have created an admirable government but slavery was ended and the French hit the road. Though my knowledge on the history of slavery is thin, I do know something about the Fugitive Slave Act which gave license to bounty hunters to return escaped slaves into bondage. And the only reason I spend a lot of time quoting the Declaration is because it's something lots of folks respect, plus it's real easy to understand and supports a great many arguments. I would wager that John Brown and most abolitionists were motivated by Christian principles rather than Constitutional principles. I would similarly wager that about Nat Turner. But I do agree, in principle, that a constitutional framework against slavery would work best starting with a declaration of rights. Peter Suber would argue in "The Paradox of Self-Amendment" (Peter Lang, 1990) on a purely logical basis that any constitution with an amendment clause can be amended to say anything. To attribute modern freedoms to original intent given our history of amendment is logically inconsistant.
mbowen
ps. having watched charlie rose this evening on pbs re: thurgood marshall (a frat bro of great distinction) it came as a pleasant surprise to hear from one of the interviewees, a certain circuit court judge from philadelphia, say that in a bicentennial speech marshall commented that the constitution wasn't all that hot when it started but it had gotten a lot better and was destined for better days. amen! but as we know in the final dissent of old man marshall "..the currency of the Court is now power, and not reason"