From: tuff@quads.uchicago.edu (Geoff Tuffli)
Subject: Re: Worldview and european Anti-Africanism 1
Reply-To: tuff@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 01:08:00 GMT

In article <92280.112509SBEHC@CUNYVM.BITNET> <SBEHC@CUNYVM.BITNET> writes:

>==This is seen in the european religion from the greeks to the christians,
>==in european literature and philosophy from Plato and Homer to Marx and
>==Nietzsche.  And most importantly in the european sciences.  This
>=="man"/nature dichotomy is the foundation of all other european dicotomies,
>==and there are many.  This need for the spliting up of everything into linear
>==catergories where one is valued(superior) and the other de-valued(inferior)
>==is a uniquely european enterprise.  *All other* cultures in the world
>==recognize the connection between man and nature(spirit) and seek to form a
>==connection with it in differing degrees.
>==It is the lack of a natural(spiritual) connection and in fact the attempt
>==to negate this connection which marks the european.  It can  infact be said
>==that the europeans have no spirit(soul,rhythm).  Given this, the effects of
>==europen culture are not confusing or characteristic of "hue-manity" they are
>==demonstrable pshyco-historically and culturally.
>-------------
>     The necessary re-education of Blacks and a possible solution of racial
>     crisis can only begin, strangley enougph, only when Blacks fully realize
>     this central fact in their lives:  The white man is their bitter enemy.
>           "The Destruction of Black Civilization"
>                       C.Williams

Macrosocio and cultural dynamics (the broad category with which psychohistory
attempts to manipulate) is both an infant field of study and certainly
subject to the danger of all the "soft" sciences - over generalization.
 
Part of the problem I have with the above posting is that makes a few very
dangerous assumptions, assumptions which are particularly dangerous in a field
like macrosociodynamics (which is my personal field of study.) Paradigms
such as the "man/nature dichotomy" are indeed valid general representations
of a society or culture; however, when dealing with something like a society,
in particular one with the unprecedented social and cultural diffusion that
exists in our own, it is misleading to state something like the above-stated
dichotomy as an overreaching truth.

Paradigms and sociocultural attitudes are nebulous, and flow and fluctuate
with enough vagueness that attempting to base all of European culture upon
a _single_ aspect, in this case, the "man/nature dichotomy", is patently
absurd. Keep in mind such movements as the 60's "back to nature", and the
environmentalist movement today. While this hardly discredits the paradigm,
it does put it in its proper place - a single, limited paradigm among others.

I think very few people would argue that this man/nature dichotomy has
existed in the past and has certainly been one force which has pushed
European society. It also does exist today, but with an increasingly lesser
power than has previously been the case.

It is also misleading to attribute it solely to European society and culture -
a fairer representation might be to make the distinction that _any_
mechanized and technological civilization, particularly one in the initial
stages of development (i.e., this past milennium) is going to exibit these
sorts of characteristics. In fact, current Third World nations now going
through stages of industrialization that the First World went through in
decades past are showing much the dichotomy of man/nature, or, more
specifically, man vs. nature. Keep in mind that it is the First and Second
World nations that are insisting on environmental protections for such
areas as the Congo and the Amazon.

The final point I have to make concerns the .sig at the end of the posting.
The moment we, _we_, as human beings, begin to look at each other as merely
generalizations, in this case, "black" and "white", we cease to look at each
other as individuals. When someone writes that "The white man is their
[blacks'] bitter enemy," I can't help but to feel a twinge of fear for what
our children will face if we cannot learn to look beyond the color of our
skins.
 
		Geoff Tuffli
		The Green Griffin

Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american