Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Undertoad
Wait wait wait, I found this post from BigV on August 3, 1952. It was on the backups:
Quote:
|
If only we study the Klan, and let them air their greivances, perhaps they will not be been so violent and outraged. We must understand that there are some valid reasons why they hate the negro. Perhaps if we are open to them we can help them understand the differences of the negro. Anyway, the most important answer to their lynchings is to completely understand their different culture. At least, if we do, we will stop shooting at them in return when they show up on our lawns.
|
|
UT: A couple of points...
1 -- First off, that's pretty funny. 1952. hehehe. Nice to have a little laugh, even if only to take the edge off.
2 -- Pertinent. Nice tie-in. Good job avoiding the easy/wrong blunder of casting this in religious tones.
4 -- I have got to learn to type faster. At this pace, I put knots in the thread. Sorry.
3 -- Thanks for helping me understand that I have been unclear in my earlier posts. I wish to revise and extend my remarks. I have been freely mixing two different related ideas and the results has been to muddy my expression of both ideas.
The first idea is that greater understanding of each other leads to less violence.
The second idea is that there is an important distinction between what has happened already, and what can be done in the present to improve the situation in the future.
My first idea (peace love and understanding) is squarely aimed at the prospect of reducing and preventing future violence. I see nothing in your post, artful though it is, that inclines me to change my mind. I should say that there are limits, however. Sometimes this approach does not work. I believe that those limits are human limits, not limits on the effectiveness and usefulness of this strategy. Have you ever heard the aphorism: a conclusion is where you got tired of thinking? I believe that violence is where you got tired of understanding. Because trying to understand is work. It's tiring. People give up. And if that surrender happens before the understanding equals the grievances, then ignorance will fill the gap, and violence is the product ignorance.
Your illustration is instructive. Let's follow it a little while. I would say that the KKK lynched negroes about whom they understood very little. Understanding breeds compassion, not homicidal violence. I can imagine the mental conversations of a lynch-er "I've seen enough. Hang'im." A closed mind. A closed mind admits no further understanding.
When you put words in my mouth: "If only
we understood them more,
they would blah blah blah...", get them right. I am saying that if I understand more, I am less violent. If the Klanmember's understanding were to increase, his tendency toward violence would diminish. I believe there is a level of understanding among men that would eliminate violence. I think that level is beyond my limits sometimes, beyond the limits of many men. But those limits can be increased, and what exercise raises the limitations of ignorance? Understanding. Striving. Compassion. Cause when those run dry for me, all I have left is this rock, this gun, this bomb. The more I increase the former, the less I rely on the latter.
How do I know this is a good idea? What about a contrarian view? Why don't we just kill all the offenders? There are difficulties in that route, fatal difficulties. Like, how will you know who to kill? What if you kill the wrong person? What effect will that have on the people close to the person you killed? What if you kill the right person? What effect will that have on the dead killer's surviving comrades? What if you kill all the right ones? What effect do you think that will have on the people who knew the ones you killed. Don't you think that all this killing is likely to incite the survivors to greater hatred? Why would you propose a strategy that makes more killers more desparate killers? There doesn't seem to be a deterrent effect given that many of these people
already behave as though they have nothing to lose.
I would clarify my second point, regarding the past, what has already happened. For those whose actions brought death to innocent people, no amount of understanding is possible to change the past. Our society has successfully coped with killers, for a long time. There are institutions and structures to serve justice, if not our hunger for retribution. Let those systems continue to work. It is hard work, and I support those dedicated individuals that do the work.
As to the second point regarding future violence. Let's look at your example again. Were the lynchings stopped because we carpet bombed the south? Because we made sweeps of neighborhoods and rounded up all the crackers and squeezed them until the squealled? Did we just shoot first and ask questions later? No. They stopped because our society's understanding of what was right and wrong reached a saturation point and crystallized into action. Whites and Blacks together decried the injustices, and worked within the bounds of our system to make it illegal then worked in their own communities to make it unpopular. Community shame was a powerful motivator, good ol' peer pressure, backed by the force of law. Upheld by people who believed in laws. Not because we just imprisoned indiscriminately or killed freely those who "looked like the perps".
Understanding is a UNIVERSAL HUMAN NEED. There is no man or woman that does not yearn to be understood. This understanding is not a finite resource. This is not a zero sum game. Understanding is like love, the more you give, the more you have. Like a wick kindled from a flame, one becomes two, and the light increases.