Article Notes - Berkeley

L&G,

A friend of mine sent me an article that I thought was interesting. I think it goes right to the point of a certain aspect of what I'm trying to say in general. Forgive the circuitous nature of my argument here, but as I say, it's necessary. The article is called, "Little Asia on the Hill", referring to the [over]representation of smart people in this ethnic group after prop 209 banned Affirmative Action (AA)*, an amendment passed during my junior year. Berkeley is the nation's premier public university and it has been referred to as "Harvard on the hill" by some academics. On Berkeley as a meritocracy after AA:


"We shouldn't be calling these studying habits that help so many kids get into good schools 'Asian values,' " says Mr. Liu, himself a product of Yale College and Harvard Law School. "These are values that used to be called Jewish values or Anglo-Saxon work-ethic values. The bottom line message from the family is the same: work hard, defer gratification, share sacrifice and focus on the big goal."



*For those of you who are unaware, AA is a program that discriminates against 'white' males (and, ostensibly, high performing 'Asians' on the basis of general performance in math and the sciences) in favor of the generally less high academic performers – i.e., 'blacks' and 'hispanics', etc. As an aside, 'white' is a skin color and 'Asian' actually refers to a geographical location. I'm not sure how we've come to defer to these [superficial] discriminations the way we do. And I don't think it's correct to refer to people or people groups based on color of skin or geographical location or language for that matter, but I guess the whole point is to correct this. Furthermore, the racial and gender preference for women v. men applies only to 'white' skin color (i.e., 'Asian' men are not discriminated against to allow for 'Asian' women – for the record).

The burden is completely on our shoulders. And I am going to [re]prove that self-evident truth although it has been uprooted and displaced in the minds of the masses by hateful demagogues using class, gender, and race warfare – promoting tensions in civil society by pointing out reinforcing cleavages. The order of the day is disorder for those who have created this society and there is order – rather power, in nonconformance and non-assimilation for those who have been ostensibly 'wronged'. But justice is a relative term. How can 'justice' be served w/in the context of parallel or relative moralities? The answer is: It cannot. The only way to serve the greatest number w/ the greatest good is by establishing one order, one rule and one way. And justice must be served based on universal standards, universal norms, and universal values.

If we don't do it God's way, we lose. To the extent which demagogues can uproot our tradition, they will supplant it w/ their own. Don't be fooled by false believers who talk big and loud and get in your face about 'righteousness' it's nothing more than chauvinism meant to provoke you and turn you away from the truth. And please discern duplicity from sincere, unambiguous service to the will of almighty God. There is an easy way to tell the difference: People who are insincere about their faith will be suspicious of [you] as they act suspiciously themselves. Morality is written on our hearts. When people act in defiance to [natural] morality, it will cause a tugging feeling on your heart by way of individual conscience. And that will nag you forever if you can't justify your actions. So when people commit obviously indecent acts (meanness, committing crimes, etc.) and when they try to justify their actions by playing a 'victim' role (e.g., 'life is unfair, I'm just trying to survive), don't buy into it.

People act according to their belief systems. If they really are Christian, they will espouse Christian values, they will walk and talk Christian. Christians, although very often persecuted, do not go around acting like 'victims'; that is not our character. We strive and are persistent in longsuffering. We overcome obstacles by appeal to an all- powerful God. We do not go around complaining about our circumstances and trying to appeal to other people to give us 'hand-outs'. We do not take advantage of others' gentle sensitivities and use them for wealth and advantage. We do not creep into the lives of our neighbors and stab them in the back once they give us an opportunity by making themselves vulnerable. We do not prey on the natural openness and forthrightness of honest people by accusations.

The entire discussion comes down to one thing to the exclusion of all other things. That is, in a word, values. And I will stop there.




P.S. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I love you.



L&G-

When I referred to reproving that it is 'our' burden, I was referring, as you're probably aware of the Christians' burden. It has been traditionally referred to as the "White Man's Burden", but I don't think that accurately captures the nature of the struggle @ all. It's lazy talk to refer to people by their skin color and those things b/c, as I've previously stated, you can't know anthing about behavioral norms, ergo morality, by these superficial discriminations in the present day. So many things have changed; value systems have had an opportunity to cut across all people groups regardless of ethnicity, language or geographical location. For the record, I think "White" has been used for simplicity throughout [modern] history because Christianity has traditionally been the "White" man's value system.

I think the real reason for our tendency to refer to ourselves as 'white' comes from the fact that our forebears were the ancient Greeks (radical democracy of Athens, the Western world, etc.) and it is our desire to have continuity w/ those roots. We all care about that, right? However, fortunately or unfortunately, I think skin color differentiation has outgrown its useful life. We have to understand our differences based on value systems, i.e., on character. That way, we can get to the bottom of things and solve all of our problems. Yes there will always be trouble brewing somewhere across the globe because of the fallen state of man*. He is a sinner. I'll get to that.



*species, not gender



L&G-

One thing I noticed about the message about the Puritan colony, when I said: "And where civil society ends, tribalism begins..." That is a funny thing because (b/c) of the impossible nature of defining a society's boundaries that is anything other than civil ( e.g. tribal). The undercurrent of 'white shame' in media and academia reflected in reparations-style public policy in Anglo Saxon Christian societies (e.g. AA-type programs in the USA and UK) stems, at least in part, from the notion of 'unjustified displacement' of [tribal] societies ( e.g. British Quakers come to settle in North America, ergo Native Americans are confronted w/ a new reality of sharing land w/ people unlike themselves) from their indigenous territories. Herein lies the conundrum:

How do you define territory? If Native Americans roamed across the country and did not set up any demarcated boundaries and if they did not tend to the land they lived upon, how could they possibly ever hope to claim it? And what did they claim, everything? That sounds awfully odd to me. What happens if other people come (demographics and net influxes of new peoples every day) and need to share the land? How do you mitigate that? I guess the natives never really considered the possibility that there would ever be anyone besides themselves. And this gets me to thinking...