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re marlon's encouragement to move from non- to anti-racism
the belief in ‘categories’ as independently-existing things-in-themselves entities [yes, 'spooks'] such as ‘races’ is the great folly of Western culture. they are the product of the architecture of noun-and-verb Indo-European/scientific language-and-grammar. by contrast, the languages of indigenous aboriginals have a relational architecture which employs verbs where we use nouns.
when long standing relational tensions between Euro-American colonizers and colonized indigenous peoples [e.g. peoples of the Middle East] erupt in violence [‘when those who have been pushed around push back’ as native american spokesperson Ward Churchill put it the day after 9/11], this relational activity [verb] is transformed into a noun; i.e. long-standing relational tensions VENT through individuals who we then categorize, label and tag as ‘terrorists’, creating the noun ‘terrorist’ that, by inflecting a transitive verb, can be portrayed as the author of the activity of ‘terrorism’, so that the tensioned relations which in reality sourced the activity, disappear. this is what nietzsche calls ‘an error of grammar’;
“Our judgement has us conclude that every change must have an author”;–but this conclusion is already mythology: it separates that which effects from the effecting. If I say “lightning flashes,” I have posited the flash once as an activity and a second time as a subject, and thus added to the event a being that is not one with the event but is rather fixed, “is” and does not “become.”–To regard an event as an “effecting,” and this as being, that is the double error, or interpretation, of which we are guilty.” – Nietzsche, ‘Will to Power’, 531
marlon james makes use of the term ‘rapist’ to make his 'racism' point in his video, which is another category, akin to ‘terrorist’, that interprets a relational activity by imputing authorship to a noun-subject. as with ‘terrorist’ so also with 'rapist', this is not to say that the person standing there holding his smoking gun, does not have to be addressed in the restoring of balance and harmony in the relational social dynamic, ... but it is to say that he is not the jumpstart author of the activity; i.e. the upstream source of the activity is the relational social dynamic and the tensions that arise therein.
by shifting our focus from relational dynamics [verbs] to those through whom the relational dynamics manifest, we create a world of spooks, notional ‘independent beings’ who become the surrogate jumpstart authors of unfolding developments.
these ‘spooks/categories’ are not really ‘things-in-themselves’ as language and grammar portray them, but in treating them as if they are, we can only make use of our own observations and experiences as material for ‘projective identification’ to construct our impression of ‘what these notional 'things-in-themselves' are’.
"You don't see the world as it is, you see it, as you are."
a classic case is with respect to gays. forensic psychology has shown that the observer bases his judgements of the actions of another on how he would feel performing that action, thus a 'straight' feels massive repulsion for sodomy with another male, and the penalty for sodomy was hanging [it still is in some countries]. the projective identification is typically put into an unnatural precedence over the physical experience of the gays, wherein no harm resulted from the act.
so, the problem begins with the belief in the existence of ‘things-in-themselves’ [there is no such thing in the physical reality of our natural experience], artefacts of noun-and-verb language, that we can only use ‘projective identification’ to flesh out what these ‘things-in-themselves are’.
so what would marlon james say about ‘terrorists’? it is not enough to be non-terrorists, we must be anti-terrorists.
and what would ward churchill say about 'terrorists'? he already has said that they are spooks that arise from our denial of the relational source of the eruptions of violence. indigenous aboriginal 'restorative justice' accepts the relational social dynamic as the authoring source of 'rape' and 'terrorism'.
so, here we go again, chasing spooks in our denial that we live in a relational world and that terrorism is a push-back activity stemming from abuse of power. racism similarly comes from 'projective identification' where we start from assuming the existence of 'things-in-themselves' and then use our own raw materials (observations and experiences) to flesh out 'what they are'.
of course it is convenient to have the word ‘tornado’ to give a point of focus to relational tensions that are locally venting but which are in no way locally sourced by the venting feature, and of course we need to try to minimize injury associated with the venting, but there is no reason to suppose that the tornado is ‘really’ the local jumpstart-authoring source of ‘its’ actions as noun-and-verb language-and-grammar present it. ‘the atmospheric flow is funneling’ would be an alternative relational [verb-based] way of expressing the tornado dynamic without reducing the authoring source to a subject-based [noun-based] pole. in the same way, the verb-based expression; ‘tensions in the global relational social dynamic are venting in terrorizing eruptions of violence’. the authoring source in these 'verb'-based relational expressions is 'indefinitely deferred' as in Derrida's 'différance'.
following the same verb-based relationa mode of expression, "the transforming relational continuum is spawning a diverse multiplicity of relational human forms, distinguishable by their black, white, yellow and red appearances. these easily distinguishable forms are NOT things-in-themselves, but noun-and-verb grammar makes them out to be, and this prompts us to use ‘projective identification’ to mentally flesh out these ‘spooks’ as if they were things-in-themselves, although we have no reference materials for fleshing them out other than our own experiences.
"You don't see the world as it is, you see it, as you are."
the action needed to deal with 'racism' is NOT to shift from 'non-racism' to 'anti-racism' but to stop believing in spooks [i.e. to stop believing in categories as independently-existing 'things-in-themselves']
it is common for people to flip-flop from one set of assumptions to another in developing their propositional narrative. i am just wondering if you are doing some of this in regard to your 'one and the many' relational assumptions. i.e. you say, in your interesting comment on multi-culturalism;
" . . . states are homogenizing forces even when they don’t explicitly aim to shape visible aspects of culture like dress, language, or religious practice."
in my view, states do not exist so they can't be homogenizing forces. people who believe in the existence of states [the necessary mind-conditioning device (secularized theological concept) for European colonial expansion] agree to the language-based rules and regulations issued by a central authority that create the illusion of a 'state'. this reduces 'organization' as a verb to 'organization' as a noun [the independent structure known as 'the state']. this has the collective of believers seeing their collective as a closed form system-in-itself [disregarding their habitat-inhabitant relation].
the conflict between diversity and the state which you describe incorporates a logical contradiction, as follows, where you say;
"Let’s imagine all sorts of people, speaking all different languages, having all sorts of different philosophies about how the world works .... In sum, a diffuse, multicultural, and anarchistic society. ...
This is, thus far, an image of diversity on the face of it – but there is at least one homogenous substrate to it. ... it is certain that this image can only make sense if there is, just below the superficial level, a generalized refusal of centralized authority, of states."
what your 'diversity' imagery is describing is a pre-lingual community [a multilingual community does not orchestrate its relational social dynamic on the basis of rational agreements;; i.e. a multi-lingual community [a natural ecosystem] is able to sustain balance and harmony without putting thought and language based reason into an unnatural precedence over relational experience.
the state is not a homogenizing force and the mixing of many different influences within many different forms is not homogenization, but relational transformation. the influence of an imagined central authority that gives noun-based meaning to 'organization' gives unnatural primacy to reason over intuition and this is the 'melting pot' effect, rather than 'multi-culturalism' [ultimately, the diverse participants morph into fully compliant 'parts' of the state machinery.
the word 'multi' in any multi-category context goes against the relational view of Schroedinger, Mach et al who contend that the physical world is given only once as an energy-charged unum that undergoes continuing relational transformation. in derrida's terms 'there is nothing outside of relational context'.
the 'multiplicity of diverse entities' is thus 'appearances' as with storm-cells [relational forms] within a common flow [a transforming relational continuum]. this contrasts with your evident acceptance of 'multiplicity' which portrays the multiple beings as resisting the unity imposed by the state;
"This is, thus far, an image of diversity on the face of it – but there is at least one homogenous substrate to it. ... Though we might imagine that people also adhere to the Golden Rule or something, it is certain that this image can only make sense if there is, just below the superficial level, a generalized refusal of centralized authority, of states.
only if one first assumes the 'realness' of the 'multiplicity' [ the relational forms in the transforming relational continuum as a collection of independently existing categories interacting in euclidian space] does one have to have them 'opposing' the state; i.e. you say;
" it is clear that bottom-up multiculturalism and states are, to at least some degree, opposed to one another."
neither 'multiple categories' nor 'states' exist in the physical reality of our natural experience.
for the indigenous anarchist culture [organization as a verb; i.e. as a relational way], which operates more like your imagery of diversity with multiple languages, categories such as 'states' do not exist and there is no need to be opposed to them [leave the intellectual belief switch turned off]. the belief in the secularized theological concept of the sovereign state arises together with the belief that the diversity of relational forms being directed by the central authority of the state is a multiplicity [of independent categories] rather than an evolving matrix of interdependent relational forms [a transforming relational continuum].
in my view, i do not regard 'multiple categories' as real [they are a convenient way of organizing observations], nor do i regard the state as real, therefore i do not struggle with the concept of conflict as arising between 'the one' and 'the many', seeing this instead as intellectual illusion [semantic reality] that is popularized as Western civilization. of course, as with indigenous aboriginal peoples, i acknowledge the difficulties of living in a social relational dynamic whose relational forms see themselves and their 'organizations' in such categorical [common property rather than relation-based] terms. the problem, in this pre-lingual anarchist view, is not 'the state', but the elevating of language-based reason and moral judgement to an unnatural precedence over our pre-lingual experience and intuitive tendency to the cultivating, restoring and sustaining of balance and harmony within the transforming relational continuum.
there are no palestinians, nor americans except as ideas
there is a lot of confusion, evidently, on the topic of categories [race, nationality etc]. categories are not physical things, they are words that are subjectively defined on the basis of common properties. as with all words, they have no meaning other than by popular agreement/belief. categories are used to construct a 'semantic reality' wherein, for example 'the germans are doing this' the french are doing this', 'the british are doing that', and the 'americans' are doing the other. none of these subjective constructions are dealing with physical reality and those versions of semantic reality that become popular get to influence individual and collective behaviour in a big way.
in the animal world, or should we say in 'pre-lingual social dynamics', physical experience is the basis for developing shared understanding. physical experience does not depend on the inventing of categories; e.g. indigenous aboriginal languages are flow/verb-based and do not use categories; i.e. the do not abstractly separate out relational forms out of the transforming relational continuum and give them meaning on the basis of their 'common properties' rather than on the basis of relational context. what is an 'american'? the common properties of an 'american' or a 'black' as selected by a frenchman or a white, are going to differ. there is no 'correct answer', just as there is no correct answer to which historical account of colonization is most truthful, that given by colonizers or that given by colonized indigenous peoples. people who associate themselves with the category they are defining are likely to be more generous with the selection of common properties. what crony category doesn't write a résumé for their group that brings forth the most flattering properties?.
the worldview that is popularized in the media has nothing to do with the physical reality of the world dynamic, it is a synthetic 'semantic reality' that has won popular support. there is no 'correct' or 'true' semantic reality since they are all subjective and based on abstractions.
e.g. the dividing up of the global terrain into 'independent sovereign states' is a language game. it is the only game in town at the moment, as it has been pushed to global dominance by the colonial approach to organizing. those people living in the region called palestine want some of what those other people are having, recognition as a sovereign nation whose citizens can proudly call themselves 'palestinians'.
this is a stupid game to play, but what is one to do? ... i.e. there are practical issues here; i.e. palestine is kind of like the loser in a game of musical chairs, ... the whole surface of the globe got 'tiled' with sovereign states, and palestine is a non-descript 'remainder' [this difficulty of tiling on a sphere (because of reciprocal disposition) is a classic mathematical problem; i.e. see Einstein's essay 'Geometry and Experience'].
the sane thing would be to get everyone else to abandon this absurd language game called sovereigntism and/or racism; i.e. the game of categorization. it is all semantic buffoonery backed up by military force.
people with relational language architectures use relational-experiential context to developed shared understanding. this means putting intuition and balance-restoring into their natural precedence over reason and moral judgement based on categories and their logical/grammatical manipulation.
spinning stories that give long term historical meaning to a 'category' such as 'palestinian' and 'jew' is another type of petitio principii, or 'circular reasoning', ... "i exist as a separate entity because i have a long history and i can show you all the things i did over the course of time". "sure, sure, Katrina, i have heard about how you devastated New Orleans and have seen the 'records' of your space and time trajectory and the milestone events that define you, but some say that you are nothing other than a member of a category defined by common properties, that we can use in subject-verb-predicate representations to construct a semantic reality based on 'appearances' that obscures the deeper, unified relational sourcing of things."
semantic reality is subjective shadow boxing based on the logically fallacious concept of 'category' [step one, presuppose there is such a category, step two, round up some prospective members to extract the defining common properties that determine what qualifies as a member. as poincare notes, this is like using a few datapoints to define a curve which can then be interpolated to define an infinite number of other points that are members of the same set/category. how many common properties does it take, and which ones, for donald trump to construct the set/category 'muslim'?
as poincare said, "cantorism [defining sets which allow infinite membership] is a disease from which mathematics will have to recover"].
conclusion: semantic reality based on 'categories' given meaning by 'common properties' such as 'races', 'nations', 'species' are a means of ordering our observations which is radically different from the physical reality of our actual experience. The narratives we concoct from the categories are subjectively put together in an ego-biased manner. the problem is NOT with 'palestinians NOT having a state of their own and a category of their own', ... the problem is with everyone else having a state of their own and a category of their own. the aphorism, 'if you can't beat em, join em' is what is operative here, which cultural anthropologists such as Jules Henry ('Culture Against Man') describe as learning to live with the absurdity of Western culture, as the normative condition'.
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