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Thread: Jews: Why the animosity towards them?

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  1. #1
    In the shadows... Member Vuk's Avatar
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    Default Re: Jews: Why the animosity towards them?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ramses II CP
    They do exist, but they are not seperate! Very important distinction. Intermarriage has always taken place between those groups, but dominant traits tend to carry through. That doesn't mean that you can identify someone with the sickle cell gene as 'African' or 'Black' or any other racial term. There is no one race that carries the sickle cell gene, there is just a large group of people whose heredity and environment have allowed that gene to flourish in their line. There are many, many individuals born of that line who do not carry the gene, and there is no visible, 'racial' method of distinguishing them from any other members of the line.

    If race were a genetic referral term in common useage, which dictionary definitions make clear it is not, that would be a somewhat satisfactory use of the word. That is not the case, however, and your own frequent references to the visible differences between people make it obvious what 'race' is taken to mean; the white, black, blond, brown, yellow, etc. There is no connection between a genetic use of the word race and a visible differences use of the word race. None.

    Just one more example, from Sudan. The conflict there is self characterized as between Arab descended Sudanese and African descended Sudanese. They regard one (This is a broad generalization of 'they') as seperate races, but the distinctions certainly aren't visible. Line up any hundred randomly selected individuals, strip them of their cultural difference, and the apparent visible differences would not distinguish them from one another. Similarly on genetic grounds they are one people, intermarriage has gone on for so long that there is no ability to seperate eastern Sudanese from western. You could break them along family lines, as I've noted, but so little variation would exist genetically that to try to isolate one group as a race would be absurd.

    That's not a unique case either, the same was true in Rwanda where Hutus and Tutsi regarded one another (Generalization alert!) as seperate races, but they were visibly and genetically identical.

    To sum up, go back and look at the definition of race I posted. It is not precise enough to be a useful genetic distinction. It cannot be accurately used on the basis of appearance. So what is left for race to mean? Cultural differences? Isn't that what religious and national identity already do?

    They ARE seperate, but can be mixed, even then you can trace which it is composed of. Just as you can have someone with the genes only for blonde hair and the genes for only black hair marry, and their kids could then have 2 identifiable genes. People DO have differences, and these differences are not bad things, but good things. It is because of these "races" that diseases cannot come that will wipe 90% of the world's population out. Some diseases only affect certain races, or certain races handle certain diseases better than others. Who knows, some day that may end up saving the human species. :P
    Of course you cannot look at a person and determine their genetic make-up, but you can observe certain physical characteristics which can indicate genetic make-up. (this is the dictionary definition)
    While not always correct, this is an easy way for people to recognize people of other races. There is nothing wrong with observing that some people have darker skin than others. It is not a scientific way to determine their genetics, but it is the best we can do at a glance, and can be very useful instead of harmful.

    There, look what you did. I said I was done with this debate and you drew me in again. :P
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    In a racial conflict I'd have no problem popping off some negroes.

  2. #2
    Prince Louis of France (KotF) Member Ramses II CP's Avatar
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    Default Re: Jews: Why the animosity towards them?

    Quote Originally Posted by Vuk
    They ARE seperate, but can be mixed, even then you can trace which it is composed of. Just as you can have someone with the genes only for blonde hair and the genes for only black hair marry, and their kids could then have 2 identifiable genes. People DO have differences, and these differences are not bad things, but good things. It is because of these "races" that diseases cannot come that will wipe 90% of the world's population out. Some diseases only affect certain races, or certain races handle certain diseases better than others. Who knows, some day that may end up saving the human species. :P
    Of course you cannot look at a person and determine their genetic make-up, but you can observe certain physical characteristics which can indicate genetic make-up. (this is the dictionary definition)
    While not always correct, this is an easy way for people to recognize people of other races. There is nothing wrong with observing that some people have darker skin than others. It is not a scientific way to determine their genetics, but it is the best we can do at a glance, and can be very useful instead of harmful.

    There, look what you did. I said I was done with this debate and you drew me in again. :P
    Sorry it took me so long to get back to you, I didn't notice you'd responded because when you said you were out I stopped checking in.

    It actually isn't racial differences that provide the kind of immunity you're referring to (Otherwise we'd be losing races left and right!) it's variation within the types of populations that you're associating as single races. Consider Native Americans, who were genetically isolated and had a low immunity rate to the diseases the Europeans brought, but low does not mean zero. Viable populations of Native Americans survived the plagues without regard to interbreeding with Europeans.

    My whole point really is that you cannot observe physical characteristics that accurately indicate heredity. Flatly cannot. At most four generations of interbreeding in a single direction are required to eradicate any visible remains of an individual's racial background. This has demonstrably occurred in countless millions of cases over the last few hundred years. Introduce one person of African descent into an exclusively 'Norse' population and odds are very strong that his children's children will be indistinquishable from the rest of the population. The following generation is virtually guaranteed of it, but those children undeniably will continue to carry many traits against the presumed racial type. Sickle cell is a good example, as once introduced to a population it will continue to occur at a steady, predictable rate in offspring for a very long period of time.

    So if you visited that presumably isolated 'Norse' population ten generations later there would be absolutely no visible trace of the African individual, but there would be countless traces of his genetic legacy.

    And this isn't an extreme example, this is the face of the modern world. Especially with regard to populations, like the 'race' of Jews, that have undergone frequent diasporas. For close to five hundred years the ease of travel has been spreading genes across our planet, ending the isolation of almost every line of heredity. You could still find highly isolated groups in, for example, Mongolia, or the New Guinea highlands, but over most of the world appearance has no valuable link to heredity. None whatsoever.

    I also don't see how it's possible to say that race identity does more good than harm. What good could it do to balance out repeated incidents of genocide? You could argue that race isn't a true primary cause of genocide, but it's almost inevitably the surface argument in favor of genocide, and that alone indicts it beyond repair. Race is imagined to be an essential part of a person's nature, so when racial conflict erupts the possibility of compromise is far more limited than in, for example, class conflicts.

    Rwanda is an instructive example again, as the 'races' of Tutsi and Hutu were actually just an imaginary constructs of the European colonizers of that nation. They categorized people on the thin pretext of made up physical differentials while actually placing people whose families were traditionally farmers in one group, and people who were herders in a different group, sorting them into 'races.' That's obviously an difference of class rather than race, but just a few generations later the idea had set so firmly in stone that when population and economic pressures neared a maximum the idea of the Tutsi and Hutu 'races' were used by the very members of those imaginary groups to justify slaughter.

    If you were asked to arbitrate a fight between herders and famers that has a whole different context and approach than a fight between, for example, 'whites' and 'blacks.' The ever spiraling population pressure may have created a conflict anyway, but if there were no presumed essential difference between the combatants except the kind of work they did it would be a little easier to find common ground.


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