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From: chabot@amber.DEC (Lisa Chabot)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: re: envi-ornament
Message-ID: <1415@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 12-Jun-84 15:16:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: decwrl.1415
Posted: Tue Jun 12 15:16:48 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 13-Jun-84 23:53:57 EDT
Organization: DEC Engineering Network
Lines: 89

Said by Mario Vietri at Princeton University Astrophysics(astrovax!mario):

> Just one comment aimed at Lisa Chabot when she says that W.Hughes's original
> only mistake was to have suggested that everybody is unfair .
> There are only two ways in which this statement would be understandable:
> first, if we could accept that only a scientific issue was being raised here.
> ... The only other possibility is that there were no history,
> if humankind had no collective memory to remember the crimes committed in the
> name of biological determinism . 

Ah, the scope of my criticism is being take to be too large!
Before I continue, I said the letter contained something "offensive", not a 
"mistake".
What I was trying to express is (and I'll admit, these two aims have at times
been garbled together when I try to express them) 

  1)  In one light I could read Hughes's original letter as accusing us
	net.women readers personally of not being open-minded about pure
	research, and I found this offensive since most hadn't yet expressed
	anything about the matter.

  2)  In the more global light, it has been more often that such research
	has been embraced than rejected; and I find this straight denial
	of history to be offensive.

Heavens!  I know everyone is not fair.

Gould is a compelling author, and again I will urge all to read his books.
I did read the Epilogue in __The Mismeasure of Man__, in fact, just after
I started reading the book (it was back by the index (where I was looking
to see where it specifically talked about women), see, and it looked
interesting).  I cried.  I collared friends and shook them and read it to them.
(It's okay, they know about me and are used to it by now.)

> Ignorance is no excuse . Asking that we keep an open mind on such issues,
> is exactly the equivalent of demanding that we keep an
> open mind on the responsibilities of German war criminals in the carrying
> out of the Holocaust . 

I wouldn't have made this analogy, so probably I'm one of those pinko liberals,
meaning I'm wishy-washy.  This should also be evident by the fact that I
have refrained from stating a position on the issue of whether or not the
research should be done; I fume aylot about whether or not the research could
be done, and whether or not it would be pure, untainted by social influences
or the predispositions of the researchers.

Ignorance may not be an excuse, but it may be a reason.  I had no idea about
the atrocious law in Virginia, I don't know if such exist in other states, and
while it's easy for me to cry, it's less easy to know what to do get things 
changed (don't say "write your congressman" because I think that may be a 
beginning but alone it's too passive).

Blinders, those things to keep horses looking straight ahead, are not
an excuse nor a very good reason, because you'd think the horses at least 
would eventually decide that something disturbing was being hidden from them.
The hype about isolating an inferior race or intellect hides the atrocities
being committed on human beings: accepting the hype is accepting the blinders.

It's more appealing to label as evil the creators of the hype than it is to
make any blame to stick to those who just accepted it, mostly because it is
easier to live with blaming a monster than to become reconciled to the fact
that there may be a bit of monster in each of us: the part that accepts the
hype, the part whose self-esteem is built up by the hype (that's the part
that wants to hear how it's part of the superior race), the part that agrees
with the hype. 

But the fact remains, that each and every one of us who lives with the hype
without fighting it, is supporting the hype, and is hoping to be supported by
it. 

For an example of sarcasm about the theory that we have to sterilize the 
dummies or they'll out-breed us and degrade society, I recommend the short
story "The Marching Morons" (and its sequel) by Cyril Kornbluth (yes, it's
science fiction).  [What! You took the story  s e r i o u s l y !]

> (In fact, in 'Not in our genes', you can find quoted
> a passage (with references) by Medicine Nobel Prize winner Konrad Lorenz
> justifying the Holocaust on genetic grounds ). 

Hoo-boy.  (I guess we can list Lorenz over there with Papa Schockley)  Well, do
I remember right--is Lorenz one of those who believes violence is inherent?  Or
is he enlightened enough to say that the capability for violence is inherent? 

	"Would you buy it for a quarter?!"
	Lisa Chabot

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