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Date:         Mon, 21 Dec 1992 15:58:20 -0600
From:         "VALENTINE M. SMITH" <CDELL@UMKCVAX1.BITNET>
Subject:      I suspect ...

that there is no way to resolve the differences in definition and
viewpoint between Caius and myself, frankly I have not the time nor
the energy to continue the battle on rightism/leftism. I will
continue to use my defintions and labels, though I HAVE taken Caius'
views seriously, and am not particularly aroused at him specifically.

I am puzzled by a phenomena I saw again in this debate that I have
seen before in this forum from our rightist brethern. If you don't
agree with them, you are either dismissed or disparaged, definitely
and often hotly accused of being "wrong," "wrong-headed," misguided
and lacking in proofs even when one offers fairly acceptable
evidence.

I recall a post I read earlier today that stated because "only one
person" espoused a view, that view ought to be ignored. It becomes
hard for to understand if we are in the same universe sometimes. As I
have said before, and redundantly say again, I am not a liberal, or a
conservative, anarchist or libertarian, but a mix of all of those
things. I often disagree with both "left" and "right" views on this
list, more rarely I have agreed with both. I have called myself
"centrist" for lack of a good term, but it revolves around an attempt
to balance the parts of conflicting philosophies I tend to adhere to.

I have no great hostility for "Dr. Pizz," Robert, Travis, Caius or
others that seem to me to be considerably more intolerant of my views
than I am of theirs. I recall Caius saying early today that we are
human, not this or that (I paraphrase, I trust I'm not
"mispresenting" his view here), and that there are "no homosexuals,"
only people. In a sense, I could agree with this if it were so, but I
do not believe this to be so. We ARE all humans, but not one human is
like any other human, and each of us has "baggage," ie identity, that
makes us specifically one kind of a human instead of another. So,
there are blacks, white, Indians, Asians, Hispanics, gays,
"straights," women, men, drug users and Bible-thumpers, each of us IS
a combination of these "labels."

If there are significant groups of humans who do similar things, they
are what I call an "affinity group." There are many, many such
groups. Rarely are any even close to a majority, though women DO
slightly outnumber men, heterosexuals outnumber homosexuals 3-4 to 1,
all the rest becomes more fragmented - I suspect that
right-handedness and brown eyes are "majoritarian phenomena." But,
most of us engage in what I called the other day "minority
behaviors." We are collectors, minimalists, old or young, and so on,
further sub-dividing us into categories - but even there we are
different kinds of whatever it is we're talking about. For example,
my father is a gun-collector and single-shot shooter, and he longs to
an affiinty group of mostly men who are like him. But not one of
those shooters and collectors are the same kind of folks, in most
cases. They, too, are young, old, black, white and so on, and I'm
sure a few are gay. Also as I said before, it's what you do and how
well you do it that is the criteria to "judge" people by, all that
other stuff is secondary.

Lastly, I must confess to a vague prujudice. Like Caius, though by no
means to his degree, believe women slightly superior to me, and I
give them much greater respect than I do many men. When I hired
people, long ago and in a totally different incarnation than I
presently am in the embrace of, I tended to hire middle-aged women to
do things, because I found them the most competent people I
interviewed, and did the best work after I hired them. But, I believe
everybody gets a chance with me, and it is how you are, and what you
do, and how well you do it that tends to be the criteria I "judge"
by. It's not perfect, but it works better than labelling, and
damning, someone because of ONE behavior or another. I have
preferences, we all do, but mine tend to be pretty flexible until you
give me reason to judge you other than I might "normally" do.
I don't want to be judged harshly - who does? - so I try not to judge
harshly in 99% of the people I run across. Diversity is the spice of
life, I've heard it said, I think it to be true. VMS
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