Please put comments on racism, systemic racism, and police brutality in the US, along with the public reaction to these phenomena, here. — Baden

This will be a long and rambling post, but since the rest of this thread is long and rambling, I figure it fits here.

(N.B: I am not an American, and far less a victim of the type of systemic racism being discussed. I don't think this discounts my opinion, nor do I think it makes it valuable. I simply offer this information for those who may be trying to understand where I am coming from.)

I spent September and October reading Taylor Branch's 3 volume biography of Martin Luther King Jr. It was an intense couple of months, and at certain points had me feeling like I was living through the most tumultuous parts of the 60s. There are many, many things I took away from this bio. The most important is:

The intense tragedy of America. I almost said 'of the MLK story', I could have said 'of the black story' - but this is untrue. What I feel the most is a sense of tragedy for all of the USA, and maybe the rest of us too. Here was the best we had - a man out of his mind, life on the line, beset on all sides by violence, disillusionment, political grievances both major and minor... wound up dead on a motel balcony in his 30s. That's what you get, in America. America loves to have its heroes but what it loves even more than idolising them is killing them. And part of the tragedy is that King so clearly foresaw this. He hated the violence of American culture, he knew he was one of its victims. He also knew that peaceful protest of the sort he engaged in relies on violence in order to be effective. His Christianity however prevented him from being the perpetrator of that violence. It is a portrait of a man being swallowed up by the earth and donating his final sounded spit to the watering of a seed. And the worst part is, by 1968 King was a broken man. He knew, he just knew, that America was fucked. Even he could not overcome nihilism, the man who spent his life tirelessly fighting nihilism.

Why is this important now? Because we are all living in Dr. King's nightmare. The civil rights movement won victories, important victories, hard-won victories. But the goals of the late 60s King are further away now than they were in his lifetime. The end of poverty, of war, of inequality, of discrimination... And so we will go on quoting MLK because the terrifying conditions he spoke out against will continue to assault us. History is a nightmare from which we are trying to awake.

I have no doubt in my mind that the people protesting our 2020 version of a lynching are trying to wake us up from that dream. But I do not see America escaping its cycle of violence any time soon. 2020 will be more bloody than 1968. There are no illusions left, there is nothing to hold onto anymore. A black man has made it to the Presidency now, the glass ceiling has been reached. There is now more space for people to bash their heads into, over and over again...

I would like to say something of hope. I would like to be like King was. But we can't be like that anymore, because King is dead and getting deader. I'm sorry America, you entered the wrong timeline... I can offer solidarity with the protesters, but I don't even know what such a solidarity would mean. All that is left is inchoate anger, as evidenced by this thread including this post. Those of you who are saner than me, I respect but I cannot trust fully. You will, quite rightfully, debate the finer points of strategy and moral philosophy, you will work out a way to get your shining moment in the sun. I wish you all luck. If you can improve another person's life for even a moment you are doing the right thing. All I can say for myself is that I feel utterly powerless, and I am not half as powerless as those on the streets right now. Perhaps I'm getting old... or soft. Perhaps it is a dreadful admission of privilege. All I know is, America is a tragedy and we must keep watching up to the final curtain. Please prove me wrong.

I'm always curious about the certainty with which people predict the outcomes of elections. In the event that you're mistaken, how would the re-election of Trump change your worldview?

one may always fall back on what hasn't changed, the constants that ground all human activity - our biology and human nature. — TheMadFool

The point is precisely that what you are calling 'human nature' has in fact changed over time and this is well-documented by historians.

The problem with your posts, Fool, is that they're completely lacking in history. They are just-so stories unencumbered by the insights of several decades of research on the topic of how racism originated. So, I propose a short reading list:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1s62iy/europe_had_normal_diplomatic_relations_with/ (plus a bibliography at the end)
https://kenanmalik.com/2013/02/17/the-making-of-the-idea-of-race/ (Malik has also written a very good book on the topic called Strange Fruit)

FWIW, anti-semitism is actually paradigmatic in terms of how hatreds were formed, felt and observed. Historically speaking it follows the pattern of observed religious/cultural difference only becoming biological in the modern (in fact 19th century) period.

Why is protecting people from harming each other (because immorality means bringing harm to another) totalitarian? — Agustino

All heavy-handed state measures are justified under the banner of 'protection'. This is what sets the Leviathan going - we ask the state to harm us instead of us harming each other...

Passing legislation on absolutely everything perceived as immoral simply codifies the prevailing norms and replaces individual agency with coercion. Think of the calamity of 1920s prohibition, now apply it to every social ill you can think of. It probably harms somebody to call them fat, or a dirty liar, etc. Would you like this to be illegal? If so, you're welcome to your police state.

Immoral acts should be criminal (even though currently they may not be) - that is why the law exists, as an approximation for morality. — Agustino

If you really believe this, your ideal state would be several shades more totalitarian than North Korea.

I pity anybody who has never experienced a woman (or a gay person) in love. Women love all the time, even when it serves them no purpose, and does them no good. That is the way desire works. Those who have never seen this first hand are impoverished, and have likely been transformed into resentful chauvinists due to their frustrations in love.

(The above is also descriptive and contains no value judgements...)

I'm talking about history as a process, not as a discourse. — photographer

Then you'll have to do a better job at explaining what you mean, because I don't understood how the 'process' of history is exclusive to the West.

Absolute nonsense. Non-european historical texts are well documented all over the place, from Al-Mas'udi from the Islamic Golden Age to Han Dynasty-era Sima Qian. The amount of Eurocentrism on this thread is ridiculous.

Women rights activists in Egypt manage to argue their case within the concepts, history and writings of Islam. That should at least raise the question whether secularisation is really necessary. — Benkei

While there are indeed women's rights activists in Egypt who are religious, someone like Aliaa Magda Elmahdy would laugh in your face for suggesting that secularisation is not needed. As well she should, since she has suffered the most from its scarcity. You essentially have two options: side with the conservative establishment that tries to paint her politics as an insult to Islam, or stand up for what she believes in, which is removing religious influence from public and social life. You cannot maintain one rule for Europeans and one rule for Egyptians, not while there are Egyptian women who are crying out and dying for some of the things European women have. Show some solidarity. Don't sweep these peoples' problems under the rug based on some spurious and racist notion that the East is different from the West. As long as people like her exist in the world, we should continue to support them, regardless of which country they're in.

if you look carefully you'll notice that the use of light bulbs is more widespread than the believe in these western values. Which is part of the point when I said we shouldn't be enforcing our narrative on other cultures. For instance, African pre-colonial dispute settlement has nothing to do with judges and courts and the introduction of courts to replace traditional settlement is one of the reasons that contribute to a high level of corruption in, for instance, Nigeria (or Niger, I forget)...

In addition, I don't believe in universal values any more. It's quite clearly a luxury only rich countries can afford - and that only in a limited and incomplete fashion.

I don't see why either 'western' light-bulbs or 'western' values need to be enforced to work. Iranian feminists, Indian anti-corruption campaigners and Kenyan gay rights activists etc. are only seeking to 'enforce' change within their own societies. To claim that the things they are fighting for are 'Western' and therefore not appropriate to their environment is a slap in the face to everything they stand for, which are legitimately universal aspirations, not in the sense that 'everyone agrees this is good' but in the sense that 'these ideas contribute to human flourishing everywhere'. Nazi Germany had a different idea of justice and social order too, does that mean the Allies were wrong to dismantle it? That sort of moral relativism doesn't even make it past the front door.

There is much we can learn from enlightenment ideas, just as there is much we can learn from traditional settlement societies. But painting one or the other as 'western', not just in a historical sense, but as a way of maintaining culture boundaries, as if it were a moral duty to prevent good ideas from spreading - a sort of 'we don't take kindly to your types in here' response - is the very definition of illiberalism. It is quite shocking to hear it advocated by someone on the left.

I still really think you ought to read C.L.R. James. It's a fantastic counterpoint to the odious tendency in the left today to disparage enlightenment ideas as 'western'. The story of a slave colony which straight away not only realised, but furthered the ideas of their colonial oppressors, in order to free themselves. Today's poor Haitians might well ask themselves "and what did the revolution do for me?" But they do not.

Light-bulbs were invented in a western country too. Does this mean they only operate exclusively in the domain of the west?

P.S: See C.L.R James' 'The Black Jacobins' for an explanation of why the above idea might be bullshit in historical terms.

In October 1985, specialist operators from the KGB's Group "A" (Alpha) were dispatched to Beirut, Lebanon. The Kremlin had been informed of the kidnapping of four Soviet diplomats by the militant group, the Islamic Liberation Organization (a radical offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood). It was believed that this was retaliation for the Soviet support of Syrian involvement in the Lebanese Civil War. However, by the time Alpha arrived, one of the hostages had already been killed. It is alleged that through a network of supporting KGB operatives, members of the task force identified each of the perpetrators involved in the crisis; once these had been identified, the team began to take relatives of these militants as hostages. Following the standard Soviet policy of not negotiating with terrorists, some of the hostages taken by Alpha were dismembered, and their body parts sent to the militants. The warning was clear: more would follow unless the remaining hostages were released immediately. The show of force worked, and for a period of 20 years no Soviet or Russian officials were taken captive, until the 2006 abduction and murder of four Russian embassy staff in Iraq.

However, the veracity of this story has been brought into question. Another version says that the release of the Soviet hostages was the result of extensive diplomatic negotiations with the spiritual leader of Hezbollah, Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, who appealed to King Hussein of Jordan, and the leaders of Libya and Iran, to use their influence on the kidnappers.

I post this story as a challenge, since it posits a way of dealing with terrorism most of us would find brutal and savage, and against all notions of human rights. Those of you who demand a 'response' might want to start with this one, since it is the most extreme I have heard.

As well as being funny, this is a good representation of what most Australians think of the American gun issue.

Anyway, great to see you here coolazice. It was a loss when you left old PF.

I never actually left! I stopped posting for the most part, but I did still read the threads... I found my favourite posters' thinking to be deeper than my own... but it's very nice of you to say so.

For me, the discussions were more fun precisely because there were few enough people that I could actually read a whole thread instead of having to skim 10 pages super-quick. And it was possible to get a good back and forth going with someone. Why bother to post if there are going to be too many replies to engage with?

I totally agree with this. It seems to me this new site would do well to keep things small and quality-focused. Why do we need to push for new members if all our favourites are here already? I haven't posted on PF a lot for several years, largely for the reasons Paul mentions. Sure, we might get accused of being elitists, but which philosophers haven't? ;)

Ain't no party like a PF party 'cause a PF party don't stop!