Riddle me this, what is the meaning of “black” (the adjective) in your theory of interpersonal communication?
The same as the orthodox meaning of "church". Black is a communion of persons participating in the emergent interpersonal properties arising from our unique protective and developmental psychological adaptation and social configuration in America.
Nietzsche would've understood black; Out of life's school of war: What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.
Nulan,Are you so obsessed with "data", "facts", and "information" that you have turned a deaf ear to what is coming out of the mouths of the Black folk?
Spence asked for data to corroborate your position brah. What data there is, doesn't strongly support your contention(s).
Leaving that minor point aside, my interest is strictly applied and empirical. You see, I eschew economic sophistry in favor of direct engagement with energy and infrastructure, ideology in favor of psychology, and direct interpersonal engagement with black people in favor of abstract argumentation about the nature of the same.
In my 42 years of unrepentant blackness, the only time I've ever heard the accusation that I'm "acting white", was from the mouth of the elderly white woman who ran the pre-school program I attended in Wichita Kansas. This woman told me I was excessively assertive. She went on to say that I acted like a little white boy..., my mother had a life-changing conversation with this woman.
In a discussion of culture there are no "facts", there are only "interpretations". Are you a business major or an engineer or something? Is that why you seemingly love numbers so much? It is obvious that each one of us is convinced of their own claim and are therefore disdainful of proof.
I'm conversant with science and technology. My abiding interests lie elsewhere, however. IMOHO, all useful discussion must be rooted in practical experience of the thing discussed. As Nietzsche asserted in Die Götzen-Dämmerung
One chooses logical argument only when one has no other means. One knows that one arouses mistrust with it, that it is not very persuasive. Nothing is easier to nullify than a logical argument: the tedium of long speeches proves this. It is a kind of self-defense for those who no longer have other weapons.
"NR has no data. Look through the awesome expanse of verbiage he has produced and you will quickly see an immense and ultimately hollow exercise in verbal logic. By allowing symbols and symbol manipulation to completely stand-in for data and for the meaning of experiences of black interpersonal communion -and conflating the former with the latter two...., NR has gotten himself lost and egoically invested in the exercise."
Wow. Your ad hominem critique and brilliant psychoanalysis of me notwithstanding, I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed.
Did I lie?
"Data" does not give meaning to culture. For the most part, culture is largely symbolic anyhow.
NR, once again I believe you've overthought the problem. We are a group of persons participating in..., got it? Nothing symbolic about that.
When Smith and Carlos put on the black gloves in the '68 Olympics.... was it "data" that compelled them to do so?
Black enthused those brothers in that moment. [en-thumos "god filled"]
I'm sure they were in the back after the race doing some hellafied number crunching when they decided, "You know what? According to these figures we need to go out here and put our fists in the air with these black gloves on." I suppose that you would say here, that statistically speaking, a cultural symbol of Black Power needed to be represented at the Olympics at that particular time in '68. Culturally speaking, "data" and "facts" do not provide us with an objective meaning. Its the distinction between "facts" and "values". Two people can look at the same "data" but then have wildly different conclusions with regards to the "meaning" or "value" of those "facts". In order to give "meaning" to any "fact" you have to subjectively apply "value" to the "fact". One person looks at the U.S. Black prison "data" and makes one conclusion (racist system, etc...) while another person looks at the same "data" and makes another (Blacks are more criminal, etc...).
You've wandered off into hyperbole brah..., bring it back down to earth.
I assume you follow Temple3 in believing that "blackness is about the multiplicity of ways of being". Now, in your esteemed opinion, is there an order of rank among these sundry ways of being in such a way that we could objectively say that one way of being was superior to the others?
Did I answer this to your satisfaction at the outset of this post?
Apparently you seem to think so, since you "have equated high black culture with orthodox Christianity". And I assume that you hold "high" culture in opposition to "low" culture.
It's a question of mass and density. I'd consider 1957 an historical inflection point in the mass and density of black community. This is, however, an admittedly sentimental notion.
The "highest" Black culture is the Black culture in which "acting White" doesn't exist. (You'll say, "Where is the 'data' which proves that acting White exists in the aggregate?" --even though countless people have heard it said countless times in their neighborhood.) The "highest" Black culture is the Black culture in which moral judgments are not made across phenotypical lines. Egoic investments aside, your obsession with "data" blinds you to what is coming out of the mouths of the Black folk.
NR, it's not a part of my experience. The gravity of my blackness may have immunized me against the possibility of ever hearing such a thing. Hang in there brother, my objective is to demonstrate to you that there is a simple, literal alternative to the abstracted constructions of blackness you've interrogated here-to-date.
Posted by at June 19, 2005 08:23 AM | TrackBackNR:
You missed the point. Read it again...slowly. And in the final analysis, it will be revealed that this discourse is not a function of age. Africans in the mirror are closer than they appear.
Posted by: Temple3 at June 21, 2005 05:16 PMAre you going to answer the question: Are race and ontology one in the same?
Race or no race...., that is that question at least...,
NR - we are all part of a single human race. Considered from a greater than 3 dimensional perspective, one might even interpret our aggregate structure as that of a vast single organism. In the midst of this teeming and universal humaness, there is an extraordinary developmental possibility called *blackness*.
I am not so arrogant so as to expect you to accept my alternative description of your experienced reality; despite your claims to the contrary which point to my unbridled "ego".
I haven't claimed that your ego is "unbridled". What I said is that you have an egoic investment - evident in the extensive arguments you've constructed - around your abstracted notion of blackness. Beyond this, I observe a tendency on your part to project meanings and associations into my words that I have not asserted. Case in point;
I suspect that your definition of "Black" is rooted in a type of hegemonic group experience. You, like many others, define "Black" as a type of ecology; "a totality or pattern of relations between organisms and their environment"; and it is most likely that you would say that this totality or pattern of relations has historically found its ultimate cultural expression in and through the Black Church. Am I right so far?
Brother, there's an exceedingly low probability that you've ever encountered my type before. The simplicity of my definition of blackness has proven novel to most black folks. Not because they don't understand it, it's just that not that many people have struggled to fully and succinctly articulate it. None - to my knowledge - have ever cited its functional equivalency with the ethical praxis underlying
orthodox Christianity.
I don't draw my cue from the black protestant church, nor do I consider that epiphenomenal aspect of blackness to be even remotely hegemonic. The interpersonal communion of self-identified black folks comprises the backdrop for my view of blackness, period. My description of blackness is utterly pragmatic.
Everything you say about Black is normative because you speak from the standard of a hegemonic group experience; an experience that not all of us share. Our ages are too far apart to understand each other.
I understand you NR. When I was 25 years old, I was very much like you. Nothing between you and blackness now cept interest and opportunity brah.
Nulan,
"Are race and ontology one in the same?" How are you unable to answer such a simple question? If you don't believe that "race" exists, then say so. "I don't believe that race and ontology are one in the same because I don't believe in the existence of 'race'"? Is that your answer?
OK. You can skip this question. All I want is for you to answer one of my questions honestly, so here is a new one: Do you believe in "degrees" of Blackness? Yes or No? (Meaning: Do you believe in such things as genuine/disingenuous Blackness? Yes or No? Do you believe in such things as authentic/inauthentic Blackness? Yes or No?)
Back to it...
You say: 'I haven't claimed that your ego is "unbridled". What I said is that you have an egoic investment - evident in the extensive arguments you've constructed - around your abstracted notion of blackness.'
"ad hominem: attacking an opponent's motives or character rather than the policy or position they maintain."
And I've noticed a tendency on your part to give in to ad hominem attacks in the form of tawdry psychoanalysis. You seem to think that my "motives" or "egoic investments" are "evident in the extensive arguments" I've constructed around my "abstracted notion of blackness". Please. Come off it. Critique the argument, not the arguer.
You say: "Beyond this, I observe a tendency on your part to project meanings and associations into my words that I have not asserted. Case in point;"
This "observation" of yours died when I asked the question, "Am I right so far?". This was not rhetorical. A simple 'yes' or 'no' would have sufficed here. I tend to clarify statements in order to infer them more correctly. I'm trying to guess your occupation; given your penchant for personal analyses and observations I'm leaning more and more towards "psychologist".
"Black is a communion of persons participating in the emergent interpersonal properties arising from our unique protective and developmental psychological adaptation and social configuration in America."
Again, I see nothing "wrong" or "bad" with this formulation. Is it simple? Yes. Does its novelty with people derive from said simplicity? I'm sure it does. But insofar as you claim that your definition is "utterly pragmatic" (based on practical considerations), I see absolutely nothing which is culturally iconoclastic in this formulation. I don't even see you trying to advance any of the elements of your notion of "high" Black culture. IMO, in the end, it amounts to nothing more than a cultural truism. I almost want to say that it seems as if you've explicitly designed it to be psychologically "comforting". As far I can tell, one could easily be tempted to substitute the word 'Black' with the word 'White', or 'Indian' in your definition and not loose a step; yet, somehow, I think you might say that that would change the definition.
"White is a communion of persons participating in the emergent interpersonal properties arising from our unique protective and developmental psychological adaptation and social configuration in America." Now this seems to work too. Unless you're going to say that their degree of psychological adaptation is simply dwarfed by ours, relatively speaking. But even then, many of them would probably say that they've had to do their share of psychological adaptations as well, relative to their position that is. In fact, I'm tempted to say that if you replaced "Black" and "America" with [insert ethnic group] and [insert country], that this formulation would work for almost *any* group of people. So, in a sense, its really too bad that your definition of "Black" isn't the universally accepted one among U.S. Blacks. We could not speak of such things as "so-called Black folk" if "Black" was universally understood as a "communion of persons participating in..." This however, is not the case. (This is where your normative and pragmatic definition is contrasted with my descriptive and theoretical one which holds that the universally accepted definition is better understood-as it exists among U.S. Blacks-as a way of Being; which you seem to disagree with simply because its abstract.)
But here is why I think our formulations don't jive and why I feel as if we nearing the end of this debate; our intentions are completely different.
You said: "The interpersonal communion of self-identified black folks comprises the backdrop for my view of blackness, period. My description of blackness is utterly pragmatic."
pragmatic: "dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations"
Because you admittedly state that your definition is "utterly pragmatic" in nature, it is also concomitantly completely devoid of any theoretical considerations. Whereas, quite apart from you, my theory of Blackness DEMANDS theoretical considerations which run across some of the major divisions of philosophy itself: two of which are metaphysics and epistemology.
My position is that your formulation is lacking in theoretical considerations which could aid culture, and your position is that my formulation is "too abstract" to be of any practical use: at least this seems to be pretty much the flow of our arguments in the past few days.
The problem is that you will never accept theoretical considerations which contradict your lived experience without some sort of empirical data backing it up. And I am simply too convinced of the need for these theoretical considerations based upon my lived experience to provide empirical proof. So, I will leave you practical, scientific men to your logical positivism. I gladly invite you to Neorgrage to get some original ideas on theory, and I'll sure be visiting Vision Circle to get some original ideas on praxis. Good luck with your podcasts.
"Are race and ontology one in the same?" How are you unable to answer such a simple question? If you don't believe that "race" exists, then say so. "I don't believe that race and ontology are one in the same because I don't believe in the existence of 'race'"? Is that your answer?
First you asked me to define black as an adjective.
I instead insist upon its definition as a noun, as I had previously where I likened it to the orthodox definition of the church. You may want to read this article again more carefully. Your question was decisively answered at that juncture.
Overlooking the substition error in which you transposed "communication" over my original usage "communion" which really couldn't have helped your understanding any at all, I indulged your next question which didn't exactly follow intuitively from the first, "Are race and ontology one [sic] in the same"?
Taking for granted that I'd already given you the cataphatic response - in which I told you precisely what I consider blackness to be, I added clarifying apophatic commentary in which I asserted that race is not a useful construct for genetic science.
Five days ago, I also briefly asserted that Nitromed and the FDA both need to be shot with hot pee for their commercial and official pretensions that blackness is anything more substantial than shared cultural identity. Given the categorical absence of differentiating genetic data concommittant to their opportunistic branding assertions re BiDil. i.e., Race is not a genetically or medically meaningful term at this juncture.
Dood, wouldn't it be better for you to be certain you undersand the answers previously given you?
OK. You can skip this question. All I want is for you to answer one of my questions honestly, so here is a new one: Do you believe in "degrees" of Blackness? Yes or No? (Meaning: Do you believe in such things as genuine/disingenuous Blackness? Yes or No? Do you believe in such things as authentic/inauthentic Blackness? Yes or No?)
Honestly, in the orthodox sense to which you've now been exposed, do you perceive degrees of Christianity? Genuine or disingenuous Christianity? Authentic vs inauthentic Christianity? Do you believe in quantities of Christianity? Elaborate these, and you will have splendid answers for your questions. First, of course, it's essential that you understand what precisely the orthodox praxis is.
Back to it...You say: 'I haven't claimed that your ego is "unbridled". What I said is that you have an egoic investment - evident in the extensive arguments you've constructed - around your abstracted notion of blackness.'
"ad hominem: attacking an opponent's motives or character rather than the policy or position they maintain."
Sorry, would you mind specifically pointing out the ad hominem?
And I've noticed a tendency on your part to give in to ad hominem attacks in the form of tawdry psychoanalysis. You seem to think that my "motives" or "egoic investments" are "evident in the extensive arguments" I've constructed around my "abstracted notion of blackness". Please. Come off it. Critique the argument, not the arguer.
Tawdry?
I thought I made it clear that I am a realist. In-so-doing, I assumed the nature of my critique to be self-evident. Sorry.
You say: "Beyond this, I observe a tendency on your part to project meanings and associations into my words that I have not asserted. Case in point;"This "observation" of yours died when I asked the question, "Am I right so far?". This was not rhetorical. A simple 'yes' or 'no' would have sufficed here. I tend to clarify statements in order to infer them more correctly. I'm trying to guess your occupation; given your penchant for personal analyses and observations I'm leaning more and more towards "psychologist".
I'm a simple and humble negrologist NR, you know my name and a google search will tell you everything you might want to know about me. Interestingly, unless I haven't scanned negrorage carefully enough, it's you who's conducting his interrogation of race under cover of anonymity....., hmm...?
"Black is a communion of persons participating in the emergent interpersonal properties arising from our unique protective and developmental psychological adaptation and social configuration in America."Again, I see nothing "wrong" or "bad" with this formulation. Is it simple? Yes. Does its novelty with people derive from said simplicity? I'm sure it does. But insofar as you claim that your definition is "utterly pragmatic" (based on practical considerations), I see absolutely nothing which is culturally iconoclastic in this formulation. I don't even see you trying to advance any of the elements of your notion of "high" Black culture. IMO, in the end, it amounts to nothing more than a cultural truism. I almost want to say that it seems as if you've explicitly designed it to be psychologically "comforting". As far I can tell, one could easily be tempted to substitute the word 'Black' with the word 'White', or 'Indian' in your definition and not loose a step; yet, somehow, I think you might say that that would change the definition.
If you've read and understood the article on hesychasm and my comments relative to that, then you're aware of the high-level basis for my novel construction. Time then to delve more deeply and consider whether I consider the westernization of orthodoxy in any way equivalent with the attenuation of blackness? Remember I held up 1957 as an inflection point in the mass and density of blackness? for example, the national circulation of the Pittsburgh Courier was ~350,000 copies at that time, a level that has not subsequently been achieved by any high-minded and substantive black organ of mass media since.
"White is a communion of persons participating in the emergent interpersonal properties arising from our unique protective and developmental psychological adaptation and social configuration in America." Now this seems to work too. Unless you're going to say that their degree of psychological adaptation is simply dwarfed by ours, relatively speaking. But even then, many of them would probably say that they've had to do their share of psychological adaptations as well, relative to their position that is. In fact, I'm tempted to say that if you replaced "Black" and "America" with [insert ethnic group] and [insert country], that this formulation would work for almost *any* group of people. So, in a sense, its really too bad that your definition of "Black" isn't the universally accepted one among U.S. Blacks. We could not speak of such things as "so-called Black folk" if "Black" was universally understood as a "communion of persons participating in..." This however, is not the case. (This is where your normative and pragmatic definition is contrasted with my descriptive and theoretical one which holds that the universally accepted definition is better understood-as it exists among U.S. Blacks-as a way of Being; which you seem to disagree with simply because its abstract.)
A way of being can't be measured. It's sufficiently vague to be meaningless, much like religion, once you understand the application and aims of orthodox praxis as contrasted with the ritual and theology of religion. If this is all familiar to you already, then please excuse my redundant presentation.
OTOH - interpersonal communion can be modelled and measured topologically. I can quantify the number and frequency of my interpersonal transactions with black folk. I can measure black demographics and other meaningful statistics in my given geography. To me, and to any other realist, this is meaningful. Going beyond this to qualitative pragmatics, I can typify behavioural habits (as culture is fundamentally a collection of behavioural habits, including habits of association) and actually come away with quantifiable measures - as for example microsynchronization of body language, dialect, food preferences, etc..., Now, if THIS is what you mean by the airy fairy construction, "way of being", fine.
But here is why I think our formulations don't jive and why I feel as if we nearing the end of this debate; our intentions are completely different.
I wasn't aware that we had debated anything yet. I thought you were still working your way through the protocol handshake so as to have a basic understanding of my pov. It is after all, unfamiliar.
You said: "The interpersonal communion of self-identified black folks comprises the backdrop for my view of blackness, period. My description of blackness is utterly pragmatic."pragmatic: "dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations"
Because you admittedly state that your definition is "utterly pragmatic" in nature, it is also concomitantly completely devoid of any theoretical considerations. Whereas, quite apart from you, my theory of Blackness DEMANDS theoretical considerations which run across some of the major divisions of philosophy itself: two of which are metaphysics and epistemology.
Your theory was constructed outside the context of black interpersonal communion. It is thus experientially malnourished. That's an excessively purty way of saying you don't know your subject matter well enough to posit a useful theory NR. Sorry.
It's evident that you've not yet gotten up to speed on my formulation - and - you deny the usefulness of data.
My position is that your formulation is lacking in theoretical considerations which could aid culture, and your position is that my formulation is "too abstract" to be of any practical use: at least this seems to be pretty much the flow of our arguments in the past few days.
um..., we haven't gotten to arguments yet. But keep at it, all is not yet lost.
The problem is that you will never accept theoretical considerations which contradict your lived experience without some sort of empirical data backing it up. And I am simply too convinced of the need for these theoretical considerations based upon my lived experience to provide empirical proof. So, I will leave you practical, scientific men to your logical positivism. I gladly invite you to Neorgrage to get some original ideas on theory, and I'll sure be visiting Vision Circle to get some original ideas on praxis. Good luck with your podcasts.
NR, you gots no arguments, no testable hypothesis, no data to support your opinions, and now you're getting out of dodge before you run the risk of letting some implacable brothers infect your dubious theoretical construct with a degree of uncertainty that will likely bring it crashing to the ground. A realist might be inclined to believe this a good thing. An egotist, otoh, might tuck tail and flee. ce la vie....,
cnu,
you are to be commended for your patience and diligence...i don't know that nr will appreciate the gift he has been handed, but i have known many days when such consideration could have saved much pain and learnt much wisdom...
these links are exhaustive enough to make a blind man see...i'm still rockin with johntaylorgatto...spent a lot of time in some of the same buildings and seen too many of the same things to put it down...great link...thanks.
nr...if you read this one, i would simply ask that you follow the advice of my previous post...you don't need to respond - just let your body listen to the post - not just your ears.
one love.
Posted by: Temple3 at June 22, 2005 11:52 PMNulan,
Somehow, I just knew you weren't going to let this die. So here I am. You've pulled me back in. We are now steeped knee-deep in your theory of Blackness as interpersonal communion which extends from the root of Orthodox Christianity (or simply, genuine Christian praxis). Admittedly, I'm probably in your comfort zone here, as I'm no theist.
But back to it…
You say: "Taking for granted that I'd already given you the cataphatic response - in which I told you precisely what I consider blackness to be, I added clarifying apophatic commentary in which I asserted that race is not a useful construct for genetic science."
I have never seen anyone so deftly circumvent such simple questions.
OK. This covers your position on race as it appears within the realm if genetics. You, like many others, are in favor of throwing it out; and to my knowledge it has largely been discredited my both geneticists and anthropologists alike. However, in the history of social policy here in the United States, race HAS been a useful (…useful like a handgun) construct in determining the social order; quite apart from its function as a construct of pure genetic science. So, insofar as "race" has been used to categorize individuals according to ancestry on census reports, and its role in determining the social hierarchy in a vertical racial system; do you believe in a natural metaphysics of race which extends beyond the realm of trivial differences of morphology, hair texture, and skin color and into the realm of characterology, morality, and ontology; such that "culture" can be said to be a manifestation of race? Answer this, please.
Moving on…
You say: "Honestly, in the orthodox sense to which you've now been exposed, do you perceive degrees of Christianity? Genuine or disingenuous Christianity? Authentic vs inauthentic Christianity? Do you believe in quantities of Christianity? Elaborate these, and you will have splendid answers for your questions. First, of course, it's essential that you understand what precisely the orthodox praxis is."
No, No, No, and No. Believing in such things as authentic/inauthentic Christianity defeats the purpose of interpersonal communion (common participation in a mental or emotional experience). Calling someone's "authentic Christianhood" into question because of some sort of disagreement in "praxis" defeats the purpose of establishing anything "common". A certain degree of relativism would have to be permitted insofar as individuals have free wills. ('Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.' Isn't that how it goes?) Of course, we could imagine an absurd example where we could observe someone biting the head off a chicken each time before they prayed; in which case we might be inclined to say that that was not "authentic", in terms of genuine Christian praxis (assuming that chicken-head-biting is not part of the Orthodox praxis).
However, if you equate "genuine" Blackness with genuine Christian praxis (which you apparently do, since this is how you "answered" my question of, ''Do you believe in such things as genuine/disingenuous Blackness?"), then I am not entirely certain that we could say that one who was in the habit of biting off a chicken's head before he prayed was not "genuinely" Black, insofar as he could not be observed to have actually "changed" his "race" such that we were no longer able to infer his ancestry; although we would certainly not consider him to be a practitioner of genuine Christian praxis at that point. Again, a certain degree of relativism would have to be permitted insofar as individuals have free wills.
Further, if you equate "genuine" Blackness with genuine Christian praxis (or genuine Orthodox praxis), then you haven't accounted for Blackness on a world-scale; because I'm fairly certain that MANY Africans are not practitioners of Christianity; nor were they before they got to the U.S. (Unless you're going to say that certain native Africans are not "genuinely" Black; in which case, I'm done talking to you.) But I don't think you really believe this. At the most, you could deride them for being anti-Christian; but you can't really be anti-Christian without any knowledge of "genuine" Christianity or praxis.
But, I'm tempted to infer from your statements, that its your position that very few people have any knowledge of genuine Christian praxis; and because you equate "genuine" Blackness with genuine Christian praxis, its likely that you would say that very few people have any knowledge of what it means to be "genuinely" Black; or, because you love the word "praxis" so much, you would say that very few people have any knowledge of what it means to be "actively Black", or something to that effect.
I'm really starting to get a feel for the way that you frame things. I addition to being a realist, you're also a bit of an idealistic moralist. I even see something of an objectivist strain in your thinking. A realist idealist?
Is this what you hold to be empirically and unequivocally true?: "The first characteristic of Orthodoxy is the emphatically important truth for spirituality that God is Trinity. The spiritually relevant meaning and implication of this fact, for our purposes, is that reality is ultimately and inescapably interpersonal communion."
You say: "A way of being can't be measured. It's sufficiently vague to be meaningless, much like religion, once you understand the application and aims of orthodox praxis as contrasted with the ritual and theology of religion. If this is all familiar to you already, then please excuse my redundant presentation."
My entire point is to STOP taking cultural "measurements" of Blackness Craig! Our racialized society has been taking measurements of "Black" for hundreds of years. Remember the 3/5ths rule? Your theory of interpersonal communion has absolutely nothing to do with the ability to apply meaning to statistics. What? Are you trying to measure the level of "Black interpersonal communion" in the U.S.? What is the unit of measurement on a scale which measures "Black interpersonal communion"? Are you trying to build a "genuine-Blackness-o-meter?" (These were rhetorical by the way.) Nulan, Christianity stands or falls by the belief in the resurrection. In the U.S., "Black" is nothing more than a social categorization in a vertical racial system which is situated in a racialized social ontology. Everything about your logical positivist definition of "Black", which you hold to be the empirical basis for accurate "measures" of interpersonal communion, is rendered highly dubious when one reflects upon the history of America. Your statistical project is so riddled with difficulties at its outset which arise from American cultural and racial heterogeneity to the point of rendering it scientifically absurd.
In terms of social policy in this country (census reports, Civil Rights legislation, Voting Acts, etc), the social categorization of "Black" derives from an individual's ancestry. Even those "Blacks" who do not self-identify as "Black", avoid the categorization of "Black", and reject "Black" culture (other "Black" people call them "Oreos") are considered "Black" according to U.S. policy insofar as their ethnicity is derived from their ancestry.
So tell me, you statistical god you, how many U.S. Whites are unaware that they have "Black" ancestry?...or vice versa? (Keeping in mind that the statisticians, anthropologists, et al, have only 'guesstimated' this figure.) Because if you aren't surveying them AND U.S. Blacks in your precious demographics, topological measurements, and your quantifiable measures of microsynchronizations of body language, dialect, and food preferences, then guess what, you don't have an empirical "measure" of "Black" interpersonal communion insofar as the social categorization of "Black" is applied according to one's ancestry. And what would you do about the "White" people who self-identify as "Black", or vice versa? Would you count them as "Black", even if they aren't of African ancestry? Even if you decided to survey everyone who self-identified as "Black" (as some who are considered "Whites" do) in a come-as-you-say-you-are fashion, the other scientists would you look at you and the resulting "data" like you were stone-crazy, because the social categorizations of "Black" and "White" are socially and scientifically inferred from ancestry in the United States.
You have fallen so far into the abyss of logical positivism that you have come to reject all metaphysical theory which isn't backed by some sort of empirical scientific "data". And yet (and here’s the kicker) your entire theory is grounded in metaphysics!!! So again, tell me, you wonderful man of science you (or is it faith?), where is the "data" which suggests that God exists? What is the "testable" hypothesis whereby we could test the objective existence of God?
Speaking of the "Oreo", where does she figure in this interpersonal communion of yours? Tell me, if "communion" is defined as "common participation in a mental or emotional experience", what is the process whereby one is labeled an "Oreo", and is therefore excluded in a sense from "common participation in a mental or emotional experience"? (You're going to say: "NR, Oreos and people who are frequently accused of acting White often exclude themselves willingly from Black interpersonal communion." But as you said yourself in the podcast, it usually has more to do with subjective elements of "style".) Both of our theories are "corrective" theories insofar as they call for a type of cultural consensus. But you are totally blind to the ways in which race attains metaphysical depth because you demand that all metaphysical claims with regard to race be back by empirical "data". "Black" as interpersonal communion is not the universal connotation of "Black". "Black" as not a way of Being is not the universal connotation of "Black". If these were the universally accepted meanings of "Black", we could not observe people saying such things as, "She's White on the inside but Black on the outside"; because such a statement undermines the applications and aims of genuine Christian praxis and points towards the existence of a singular Black way of Being. As corrective cultural theories, your theory is no more "right" or "wrong" than mine. But where I wound seek to eliminate moral judgments deriving from cultural "standards" of phenotypical Blackness, you would make them with impunity. In fact, this is just what you do. I stumbled upon this little gem of yours:
"These jackleg prosperity pimps are anti-Chrisitan filth. Their churches filled with melanated folks have NOTHING in common with the black church which gave rise to MLK and others. Either socially or spiritually. When you get down to the brass tacks of genuine Christian praxis, the social is the spiritual - they are indistinguishable - anything you see calling itself Christian but not exemplifying this fundamental understanding - is anti-Christian.
genuine blackness = genuine Christian praxis"
Wow. Just….Wow.
Everything you say is so chock-full of over-zealous objectivism that it makes conversing with you almost painful.
You sound so much like those German moralists who asserted so long ago that the only "authentic" German was that which had its cultural root in the Lutheran Christian praxis. And even though Nietzsche despised Christianity, none of us in our right mind would ever consider him any less a German than we would Luther.
You say: "NR, you gots no arguments, no testable hypothesis, no data to support your opinions, and now you're getting out of dodge before you run the risk of letting some implacable brothers infect your dubious theoretical construct with a degree of uncertainty that will likely bring it crashing to the ground."
Again….Wow. My position that Black isn't a way of Being is located squarely in the realm of metaphysics. There is no way to objectively "test" a metaphysical hypothesis. How would you "test" the statement: "God exists"?; which is a metaphysical claim. Where would you find the "data" to support the opinion that God exists?
"Implacable brothers"? This is nothing more that objectivist, realist, scientific, positivist grandstanding. Given your objectivist, realist, scientific, positivist leanings; which obviously run counter to my theoretical sentiments, I was willing to cease this exercise. However, you were still unsatisfied. So I'm willing to sit here while we poke holes in each others theories for as long as it takes for you to see that the best theory of Blackness is the one in which race/ethnicity/Black has no metaphysical depth. We need not make moral judgments along racial lines Craig. That is all I'm saying. Making pronouncements about what is/isn't genuine/disingenuous Blackness is doing just that. What part of this are you not understanding? This is the same procedure that Whites used to determine that “Blacks” could not be qualified for "authentic" personhood. Just because you define "genuine" Blackness in terms of genuine Orthodox Christian praxis, does not make it so.
Here is what Temple3 said in the other comment thread:
"Small minds are essentially bullies - and to conflate the notion that there is no authentic, dynamic blackness with the tactics of bullies is to suggest that even our social constructions have no context - when in fact, social constructions must necessarily have a context. Just because a cultural bully or any other kind of bully attempts to define something does not make it so."
Doesn't this make you out to be a type of high-minded cultural bully with regard to Blackness? The Black atheist does not cease to be "genuinely" Black Craig. The Black agnostic does not have a special race-changing ability whereby he ceases to be “genuinely” Black once he begins to believe in agnosticism.
In communication, when "Black" (the signifier) attains metaphysical depth in what is signified, it necessarily runs the risk of internally undermining the application and aims of genuine Christian praxis in a society which is racially integrated, in such way that the act of communication undermines religious communion and community. This is how the community lost its "leaven" Craig. This is how "niggers", "wiggers", "white renegades", "white negroes", "uncle toms", sambos", "race traitors", and "oreos" came into exist in our cultural language in the first place. And the only reason that you are so seemingly obsessed with "data" is because you, like most modern men, think that the purpose of writing is to make ideas intelligible to the masses. Nietzsche wrote some of the greatest books ever without ever citing stats and figures.
I agree with what Cobb said a few days ago: "I want people to leave Blackness alone". And I tend to think you would agree with this too. But in order to go about actualizing this, you would tap Black people on the shoulder and say, "Hey, 'Black' is interpersonal communion. Come learn about the 'genuine' Blackness"; whereas I would simply tell them, "Be free, 'Black' isn't a way of Being; it’s a social categorization used is used to determine the social order in a racialized social ontology." It seems as if we are aiming at the same target, but the angles from which we are aiming are a thousand leagues apart.
I said: “Everything you say about Black is normative because you speak from the standard of a hegemonic group experience; an experience that not all of us share. Our ages are too far apart to understand each other.”
Then you said: “I don't draw my cue from the black protestant church, nor do I consider that epiphenomenal aspect of blackness to be even remotely hegemonic.”
Now compare this with: “These jackleg prosperity pimps are anti-Chrisitan filth. Their churches filled with melanated folks have NOTHING in common with the black church which gave rise to MLK and others. Either socially or spiritually. When you get down to the brass tacks of genuine Christian praxis, the social is the spiritual - they are indistinguishable - anything you see calling itself Christian but not exemplifying this fundamental understanding - is anti-Christian.”
Pre-movement Black Church as a type of hegemonic group experience + Orthodox Christian praxis as the cultural standard = one normative theory of Blackness in which Craig Nulan still thinks its perfectly OK to make moral judgments across phenotypical lines, and does so with impunity. …So much for “One Love”; ay Temple3?
Your turn.
Dayum! Where have I been? "genuine blackness = genuine Christian praxis". That's fucking bloody brilliant.
I'll read all this later, but the idea that the black experience boils down to and exemplifies the kernel of liberation theology in the christian church is a world historical idea. It's so totally Old School that it's scary. This is, in my opinion, one of the deepest things we could be talking about anywhere.
Posted by: Cobb at June 24, 2005 02:53 PMIt embodies much else besides...,
Without further elaboration, I can assure you that implementation of this formulation would prove memetically invincible in every practical application you might contemplate.
Posted by: cnulan at June 24, 2005 05:15 PMcnu,
I guess you scurrred ery'bdy away with all that "memetically invincible" talk.
Posted by: Temple3 at June 28, 2005 08:40 AMPeople are still here. Its just that they're waiting on an actual response. cnu came off like an anime character in that last comment. I picture him standing up from his keyboard with his fist clenched high in the air screaming, "MEMETICALLY INVINCIBLEEEEEEEE!!!!!!"
Posted by: Negrorage at June 29, 2005 09:39 AMShould that be mImetically invincible?
Posted by: Temple3 at June 29, 2005 10:31 AMShould that be mImetically invincible?
Posted by: Temple3 at June 29, 2005 10:31 AMhmmm....
memetic (noun Biology): "an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means."
mimetic: "relating to, constituting, or habitually practicing mimesis"
mimesis: imitation, in particular
1) representation of the real world in art and in literature.
2) the deliberate imitation of the behavior of one group of people by another as a factor in social change
3) Zoology. another term for mimicry
*shrug* I'm sure he meant it how he said. But the mImesis angle would be interesting.
Posted by: Negrorage at June 29, 2005 11:40 AM
Nulan,
Are you going to answer the question: Are race and ontology one in the same?
But back to it,
I don't expect to get very far with you in these recent debates of ours. Our rival set of experiences are contradictory rather than complementary. I am not so arrogant so as to expect you to accept my alternative description of your experienced reality; despite your claims to the contrary which point to my unbridled "ego". I understand you more than you think. You say: "Black is a communion of persons participating in the emergent interpersonal properties arising from our unique protective and developmental psychological adaptation and social configuration in America."
communion:
the sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, esp. when the exchange is on a mental or spiritual level.
ecology:
1) a branch of science concerned with the interrelationship of organisms and their environments
2) a totality or pattern of relations between organisms and their environment
I suspect that your definition of "Black" is rooted in a type of hegemonic group experience. You, like many others, define "Black" as a type of ecology; "a totality or pattern of relations between organisms and their environment"; and it is most likely that you would say that this totality or pattern of relations has historically found its ultimate cultural expression in and through the Black Church. Am I right so far? For you, the "pattern of relations" which finds expression in the Black Church and the inevitable psychological adaptation which resulted from American racism, sets the terms for a type of hegemonic group experience in which those who have NOT experienced it are likely to have a "distorted" sense of Black History. Right? For you, the Black Church is to a hegemonic group experience of Black life as Gospel is to Black music.
'264.
It cannot be effaced from a man's soul what his ancestors have preferably and most constantly done: whether they were perhaps diligent economisers attached to a desk and a cash-box, modest and citizen-like in their desires, modest also in their virtues; or whether they were accustomed to commanding from morning till night, fond of rude pleasures and probably of still ruder duties and responsibilities; or whether, finally, at one time or another, they have sacrificed old privileges of birth and possession, in order to live wholly for their faith--for their "God,"--as men of an inexorable and sensitive conscience, which blushes at every compromise. It is quite impossible for a man not to have the qualities and predilections of his parents and ancestors in his constitution, whatever appearances. may suggest to the contrary. This is the problem of race.'
Nietzsche might understand what "Black" is, but he would also know the problems associated with it. Here is what you don't see: "Black" is a totality. The meaning of "Black" in your "communion of persons" is such that the "Black" Church (religion) could be co-opted by the "Black" Power movement (politics); and in fact WAS co-opted by that famous political movement, to the detriment of Christian principles. Personally, I see nothing "wrong" with your definition. But not everyone shares your definition of "Black". If "Black" was universally understood as a "a communion of persons participating in.." then we could not say such things as "so-called Black-folk".
Oddly enough, my "hollow exercise in verbal logic" has lead me to the same conclusions you have regarding the historical role of suffering in Black life and the fragmentation of Blackness into the market. You must acknowledge the similarities here. You say that the community has lost its "leaven", while I say that they would have to seek suffering out in a sense to get the same level of unity. I am simply pointing at the old from a new angle; singing Amazing Grace to the tune of Gilligan's Island as someone once put it. When I attempt to give an alternative description of your experienced reality, it is bound to be met with "cold" skepticism; hence the reason that ALL of you responded with an immediate demand for "data" to corroborate my 'wild' "aggregate level" claims, when in truth, what I was saying with regard to ontological Blackness was really quite simple. Here is what I am saying: quite apart from being understood universally as "a communion of persons", "Black" has been understood heretofore as a way of Being. Your construction of Blackness is normative and idealistic, mine is descriptive and epistemologically challenging.
There are good reasons why we are unlikely to see eye to eye, or reach some sort of "synthesis" with regard to any of this:
...'psychological obstacles ("hot" mechanisms) stand in the way of acceptance of redescriptions that cast interpersonal transactions in terms of coercion and oppression, quite apart from the ("cold") skepticism that arises from the intrinsic incongruity of these reports with one's own hegemonic group experience." Mills, Charles W. On Race and Philosophy. Alternative Epistemologies p.29
Everything you say about Black is normative because you speak from the standard of a hegemonic group experience; an experience that not all of us share. Our ages are too far apart to understand each other.
Posted by: Negrorage at June 21, 2005 04:31 PM