Thanks for the compliments, CB, but this isn't about me and it isn't about you. It's about groups, the way we define them, the importance we give to them, the 'platitudes' we teach about them. When the platitudes involve exquisite sensitivity to certain ethno-religious groups, but a de rigeur badmouthing of our own groups, something different is going on. Something political, in fact. Fonte describes it in his article on transnational progressivism:
The key concepts of transnational progressivism could be described as follows:
The ascribed group over the individual citizen. The key political unit is not the individual citizen, who forms voluntary associations and works with fellow citizens regardless of race, sex, or national origin, but the ascriptive group (racial, ethnic, or gender) into which one is born.
A dichotomy of groups: Oppressor vs. victim groups, with immigrant groups designated as victims. Transnational ideologists have incorporated the essentially Hegelian Marxist "privileged vs. marginalized" dichotomy.
http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/archives_roll/2002_04-06/fonte_ideological/fonte_ideological.html
It is because of the importance of the group that suffering, say by Arab-Americans suffering a backlash from 9/11, is toted up by group, not individually. The Hegelian Marxist influence also makes the suffering of Muslims, as 3rd worlders, more "worthy" than the suffering of "unworthy" victim groups, such as the white farmers of Zimbabwe, who are being ethnically cleansed without a peep of protest from the Left.
Now, I don't mean to say that the NEA put all this in intentionally. But this is where the "platitudes" derive from. |
