What Have We Learned?

As I post this, I recognize that nowadays I'd edit it a bit differently. I don't think I'd substantially change the message, though.

What Have We Learned?
by Earl Dunovant
Copyright © 1995

Mathematics is often presented as a way to train the mind to think rationally. It exists, though, because it's useful; you can solve practical problems with it. But there's a class of equations that are unsolvable by the techniques you learn up through high school, equations like 8 - 4x2 = 0, where you need the square root of a negative number. Engineers needed to solve such problems, so it was resolved that a number, the square root of -1, existed, and calculations were carried on as per usual from that point. In other words, a rule was created to allow the problems to be solved. This is one of two general methods for proceeding past an intellectual deadlock:

  • reexamine the rule that caused the event that generated the deadlock
  • create a new rule that accepts the deadlock as a genuine event, essentially legitimizing it
This came to mind as I was thinking about the relationship between us and the mainstream society. Specifically I was thinking about why the things we tried from the 60s until now got such bittersweet results. I came to the conclusion that we expected people to react one way, and they reacted entirely differently (brilliant deduction, hey?). So I asked, "What were we expecting?" The answer: we expected that once we were close enough for white folks to see the decent people we know we are, they would realize their rules against and legends about us were wrong.

We wanted a reexamination of the old rules. We got new rules added to the old viewpoint. Busing, court ordered integration of schools, housing, all that was creating new rules that can be followed, new checkpoints to satisfy as you proceed to the same destination.

An evil perversion of the intent of the law, right?

I don't think this is evil, but I do think it's real.

It's now obvious to me that this is the general mode American culture operates in…even in science and math, where the philosophy is to let go of ideas when better ones are found, there's always a terrible battle to legitimate any view that's not merely a refinement of the accepted view.

As regards social interactions, white folks have their eyes on the prize and the rules are binding, but not motivating. And internally…I know you've seen this happen before your eyes and wondered how the hell can someone do that…when a contradiction arises, they bring forth a refined version of the old model that doesn't disallow what they see before them. Like, "Niggers are blahblahblah", "Yeah? Then how come blahBLAHblah?" "Oh, uh, because…BECAUSE…they bababababa!" And because it's a mental model, there's generally no way to thoroughly test, and thereby successfully challenge, it. More, when a real challenge does force action, the action is the minimum change from the model that is necessary.

All this is to say that I think the fundamental difference between what the mainstream culture is, and Black culture is, is that we want to look at causes to address a problem and the mainstream wants another rule to address the shortcoming in their world view. We want to change the world, they want to change how they see the world. The important part of the world to the mainstream culture is the rules to navigate by, not the planet you navigate on. White people's greatest thinkers were abstractors, Black people's greatest thinkers have always sought concrete effects. That's one reason we keep looking for a plan to change things and white folks keep telling us rules by which they say we can get to different points in their world. White people's weakest thinkers create causality our of whole cloth, exhibiting the classic "Don't confuse me with the facts" attitude. Black people's weakest thinkers will wait for the world recognize and correct all the flaws that they sees so clearly before acting.

There's also a difference in the way we deal with rules and laws. A common statement among Black folks is that as soon as we learn the rules, the rules change. I think it's more subtle than that. The problem is that there's a split in how they are interpreted by Blacks and whites (another subtle thought!). For white folks, the rule for applying rules is: That which is not forbidden is allowed. For Black folks, the rule for applying rules is: That which is not allowed is forbidden. White folks are punished for breaking the law; Black folks are punished for failure to follow the law. When law tells white folks what they can't do, it tells Black folks what we can do. When law tells white folks what they can do, it tells Blacks what we must do.

This is a pretty standard relationship between owner and property. The slave laws had it that Africans couldn't make up their own mind, that their will was to be directed by their master. And slavery ended, but to the southern white man, that didn't mean they wuzn't niggras, that mean they wuz niggras whut has ta pay me for food (a new rule). After a while, they was niggras what has to pay me for food, and I has ta let'm go to school. And I has ta at let'em vote. And I has ta hire enuf of'em ta keep the feds off my back.

And they never stopped being niggras.

The greatest resistance was in the south, of course. But elsewhere, it was perhaps more insidious because Africans and African Americans were held in low esteem in the most tolerant of societies at the time. History will bear out that it wasn't necessary for southern whites to change their minds about Blacks in order to integrate sufficiently to satisfy the courts. How much less would Northern whites, with their dispassionate view of Blacks and the Civil Rights movement as a southern phenomenon, have to change? In their view, not at all. And since this subtler form of racism can't be legislated against, it's now all the rage.

The net result of this combination of attitudes…make a new rule instead of changing the old one, and feeling that anything that's not specifically outlawed is okay…is an absolute invulnerability to externally imposed change. In other words, white folks are gonna be white folks until they decide to be otherwise, and they won't make that decision until they feel it's in their benefit.

If that's the case, and I believe it is and has always been, the question of Black empowerment changes from "How do we get white folks to accept us so we can advance?" to "How do we advance, knowing white folks won't accept us?"

Posted by Prometheus 6 on September 6, 2003 - 5:38am :: Race and Identity
 
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This is an excellent post. You should definately refine it into something bigger. I bet, from your later post, that you've read Flatland. I think one of the biggest shifts that American needs to undergo is in its perspectivism. Clearly a "pragmatic" approach isn't cutting it. There is a need to radically reject our assumed places and confront perspectives with a sharper sense of reality. For instance, for about 30 or 40 years, anthropological theory has been attempting to see culture from the point of view of the "other" - allowing an awareness of either insider(etic) or outsider(emic) perspectives. It was felt that this sort of pragmatic "i understand i have a perspective, therefore I can avoid applying it to my observations" would solve the problem of the horrific past of anthropology.However, this cultural pragmatism had to ignore the innaccuracy of a cultural tabula rosa. Few improvements were made in the field. Further, this attempt has lead to dangerous productions such as cultural relativism (in the strictest sense.) In response to this "lazy" anthropology, a major push has appeared (from those who were once the "subjects" of cultural anthropology) towards a living anthropology. With the understanding that there is no objectivism, the anthopologist is no longer required to take a hands-off approach. Exactly what they are supposed to do is still under major dispute. Some transformed anthropology into an art of sharing, others into a science of advocacy. But this movement is the sharper (drastic? radical?) perspectivism i think you are pushing towards. Anthropology had moved from an us/them view (ie black/white view) into consideration of emic/etic forms of study (as you were saying, these are simply new rules added to the old points of view). But all of this needed to be radically rejected. It can no longer be an argument over what perspetive from which culture should be studied. It has to become an argument as to whether culture CAN be studied - whether anthropology should in fact become a participatory experience of culture (where culture is no longer an empirical expression but a phenomonal one.) This movement, as you have suggested, could not have come without the subjects of anthropology becoming the "anthropologists." And their changes could not have been brought about without an empowerment similar to what you suggested. It was not the anthropolgists that called for the radical change to anthropology; it was the subjects of anthropology who rejected the culture of the anthropologist. The subjects of anthropology had to change their question from "how do we get the anthropologists to say good things about us?" to "how do we reject anthropology completely?"

Posted by  Yvelle (not verified) on September 6, 2003 - 11:07am.

I bet, from your later post, that you've read FlatlandI've read Flatland and found it both enjoyable and useful, but I wrote these before reading that. It was Godel, Escher, Bach An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter was the most immediate mathematical influence on me at that time (interestingly enough, Amazon has a review of GEB:EGB that sounds a lot like something I'd write by someone whose handle is Earl D).There is a need to radically reject our assumed places and confront perspectives with a sharper sense of reality. Unfortunately, that's not likely to happen. On the one hand, how do you get the winner to stop doing what made him win? Especially when he believes the rules describe reality? On the other hand, people prefer predictability to comfort. I find that bizarre…personally I only find probabilities.

Posted by  P6 (not verified) on September 6, 2003 - 1:28pm.