From: morphy@cco.caltech.edu (Jones Maxime Murphy)
Subject: Re: the late unpleasantness subsides (?)
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 22:57:40 GMT

casper@vxcrna.cern.ch (CASPER,DAVI./PPE) writes:

>[note: after following up the rhetorical sniping, this post *actually* refers
>to the Civil War!  Read on!]

>(sigh).  ANCIENT Egypt was a part of Western Civilization, Jones.  ANCIENT
>Greece was part of Western Civilization.  ANCIENT Babylon was part of Western
>Civilization.  Look, I never said Western Civ. started in Western Europe.  All
>these cultures make up the foundation of what is commonly called Western
>Civilization.

...Yes, by Eurocentrists who desire to fit the achievements of other people
under a Western European umbrella. Egypt and Mespotamia may have mae seminal
contributions to Western Civ., but that hardly removes them from Africa or 
the Middle East, from whence they arose.

>  I also never said it was started by people with white skin.

That is a clear-cut insinuation of using the term Western Civilization to
describe them. It would be far more accurate to call Western Civ a derivative
of Mesopatamian and AFrican cultures.

>But I think there is continuity from the Mesopotamians through the Egyptians,
>Greeks, and then the Romans.

I agree.

>>Not for $100, that's for sure.You'll have to pony up a great deal more than
>>that to feast your eyes on my full intellectual penis length. 

>Translation:"My SATs were ah, perfect, yeah perfect, that's the ticket...
>what?  Well, ah, no, I don't have them *with* me..."

No, I don't. Thankfully, high school is a distant memory for me, unlike you.

>I made no claims.  You started by saying your grasp of English "far exceeds"
>mine. I then asked how we could decide.  780V/740M, since you asked.  I was

Your scores aren't too bad at all. You probably might have been as high as
the 50th percentile of the freshman class the the year I went to Caltech.

>a little disappointed with the math.  Now will _you_ post your salary?  (and
>for credibility's sake, why not keep it somewhere below the US GNP?)

Sorry, bank regulations don't allow me to disclose salary information.

>[topical discussion getting closer...]

>>>about Africa's troubles.  You seem to be saying Africans didn't, don't, and
>>>won't ever have the ability to deal with their own problems, since they will
>>>eternally be helpless victims.

>>Now where the hell did that come from? Africans will hardly eternally be 
>>helpless victims. I for one am no one's helpless victim, as those who've tried
>>to victimize me have learned to their chagrin.

>Well you said the condition of Africa today was the fault of the Europeans, and
>that African leaders bore none of the responsibility because they simply
>inherited a fucked up mess.  That sounds like a prescription for perpetuating
>the problems.  I'm not trying to minimize the responsibility of the colonizers.
>I just mean, again, that there are very few things in the world that have one
>sole, easily-identifiable, unqualified cause.

True. The state of Africa, though, is unusually clear.

>[here it is...the question: how much guilt for a society's collective evils,
>built-up over a long history, do individuals bear?]

None. But people who benefit from paoppresion tend to rationalize it, for
obvious reasons.

>>I accept that my slavemaster ancestors were crooks and scoundrels. Now why won't
>>you simply take my word for it?

.........................
>Someone who willingly and knowingly does wrong directly to another when he has
>other alternatives is a lot more culpable than someone who indirectly
>participates in a social system which is doing evil he can't well see or
>understand, much less change.

To the extent that Southerners believed that blacks weren't human, and some did,
you actually have a point.

>Is today's world economy "organized crime", and if so, are we all criminals
>for participating in it?

To the extent that we don't fight to change it, yes. However, the antebellum
crime was much more clear-cut than what we have now. They had far less of an
excuse for not seeing what they were doing, unless they felt that AFricans
were not humans.

>>History is also replete with examples of aggression and expansion fueling
>>economic advantages. I disagree with you.

>Great.  "I disagree with you" sounds a lot better than "I disagree with you,
>you ignorant fool."

Would I ever say something like that? I'm hurt that you'd even contemplate such
an awful prospect.

>[discussion about modern medicine being invented in the West]

>>The most seminal university in Western Civ was in Africa! It was in the city
>>later renamed Alexandria, and that was where the early Greek philosophers and
>>mathematicians studied.

>No argument here.  But they weren't really doing a lot of modern medicine and
>agriculture in Plato's day.

I didn't say they were. But doctors still take the Hippocratic oath, I notice.

>Wow, things are that bad on Wall Street that the investment bankers are being
>retooled into software engineers?  Hard times indeed.  Hope the mortgage on
>that Caribbean home is paid up already Jones...

...thanks for your kind concern, it already is. And I'm no software engineer.
Jones
-- 
Jones M Murphy Jr                                        (212) 602-4375
NatWest Investment Bancorp, National Westminster Bank PLC
100 Wall Street, New York, NY10005                   FAX (212) 269-0113
Newsgroups: alt.war.civil.usa