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Subject: [huml] PC-33 -Section 4.4.6-race
- From: Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>
- To: humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org, humanmarkup@lists.oasis-open.org
- Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2002 06:57:45 -0800
Title: PC-33 -Section 4.4.6-race
This discussion extends the issue
PC-32-Section 4.4.6-physicalDescriptors
32. Sylvia Candelaria de Ram, Section 4.4.6 physicalDescriptors, minor
changes in <xs:documentation>
From: "This is a set..."
To:
"The huml term phsycialDescriptors..."
This specific Issue has evolved From Dennis
Hamilton's Weblog:
"Repeat after me: Race is not a physical characteristic. Skin
color, complexion, stature, all kinds of things are physical
characteristics. Race is not one of them. I am not sure
that tattoos and distinguishing marks should be considered physical
characteristics either, but I am not so concerned about that.
And this is not about the assumption of "race" as a concept
about something physical. It is about the illusion of not taking
anything for granted. That conceit is what really scares me.
The inclusion of race as an identifiable physical characteristic that
can be embraced with some kind of discrete coding system is just the
most dramatic symptom that I found in this material.
By the way, if you want to argue about whether or not race is an
objective physical characteristic, fine. What are the distinct
qualities and how are they identified? Remember to include
yourself and all the people in your immediate acquaintance as
demonstration and evidence for the reliability and objectivity of your
proposed classification."
This is not to say that his objections are confined to race and the
alleged conceit/illusion of "not taking anything for granted."
I am confining this specific reply to messages I have received related
to race and which fit into the huml attribute of
physicalDescriptors.
However, before I focus on race, I want to answer the observation that
the alleged conceit/illusion of saying that: "we require better
fundamental descriptions that take nothing for granted," is at
best ingenuous.
This objectionable phrase occurs in Section 4.2.13 in the textual
description of HumanGroup following upon the description of Human. The
objection seems to imply that there should be criteria for
establishing who or what qualifies as Human and thence HumanGroup
(being two or more Humans gathered in an environment by our
definition). This is at best ingenuous?
My answer is simply that is necessarily so. That is quite different
from assuming that it is possible to "take nothing for granted."
It is stated as a requirement that we adopt no a priori exclusionary
conditions. To think otherwise would be to hypothesize that some
acceptable test could be constructed to establish the qualification of
an identity of Human and then of HumanGroup.
Anyone who wishes to do so is certainly
free to attempt that. If Dennis or anyone else returns with a suitable
test in hand, we will give up our naivete and impose it, if it is
shown to achieve adequate reliability and can be proven NOT to
disallow any valid Human, or Human-authorized, interaction-capable
software agent. THAT is an important part of what we mean by taking
nothing for granted. The criticism implies that we somehow SHOULD take
something for granted (in this case the universal reliability and
applicabiity of some test). I submit that this tendency to make such
assumptions (not this particular assumption) is exactly the root cause
of much miscommunication and misunderstanding. That people do take too
much for granted is exactly why we must do our utmost to avoid
that.
race-
As I said in my reply to Dennis, we included race because the term is
used in the arena of public safety and, I will add now, law
enforcement.
We also argued about it in terms of cultural anthropology and included
in that discussion were viewpoints and opinions such as Dennis is
expressing.
We did not include it because we agreed with the use of it, or because
we were asserting it as a valid physical characteristic. As shorthand
for genetic derivation or ethnic derivation the term is also
inadequate. As a cultural descriptor it is also both obsolete and
inaccurate.
We did not include it for any reason of our own, but because we are
attempting to deal with objective world the way the objective world
is, rather than how we would prefer it to be. In this case, the term
and the associated concept of racism, as discredited as they are, are
also indisputably operant in our human world.
I don't think we can claim any measure of objectivity if we start to
exclude terms of which we do not approve. The temptation here is to
attempt one of two basically flawed methods of eliminating an
objectionable concept. Both of these arguments have been put forward
separately in messages to me privately.
1--It is bad public relations to maintain the term because it will
always engender controversy and conflict. Thus it creates a
disagreeable association with our work which might cause public
disapproval.
I agree that the concept of race itself is a misogynistic anachronism.
It is compounded of religion and colonialism in our western historical
context. It was born of completely flawed reasoning in a
self-justifying system that provided great economic advantages through
slavery and appealed to some of the worst aspects of human nature such
as greed, cruelty, willful ignorance and unreasoning fear of the
unknown. It produced disgusting and horrible abuses. It has also,
arguably, been with us in one form or another from blood feud to
crusade, since prehistoric times, explaining the extermination
of neanderthals by our cro--magnon forebearers.
It is an odious, odoriferous and totally disgusting concept and it is
alive and well in our world right now.
We will have to vote on it, I'm afraid. I will go along with the
majority, of course.
However, it will rear its ugly head again
because it is a concept directly related to the way humans describe
themselves. I think it needs to be there. I think it needs to be there
not because it is valid but as a term in the agonizingly slow process
of social and cultural deprecation, that needs to be replaced by two
concepts, genotype and phenotype, as they are currently
used.
It will also occur time and again in any honest description of
cultural groups. Cultural Xenophobia, fear of the outsider, may be one
of the most universal characteristics of humanity, or perhaps it might
be better termed inhumanity, but that it is the fact, like it or not,
is, I have to say, indisputable.
However, one may also hope that we can further the process of retiring
this inaccurate and flawed concept as a concept.
2--If we don't use it, we will help it disappear. This is never
stated, because anyone who actually comes out and says it will
immediate see how immature and naive it truly is. This is the unnamed
and unacknowledged sibling of the Big Lie, of which the propaganda of
Nazi domination in Germany in the 30s and 40s is the prime example.
The Big Lie says that if you repeat a lie often enough and loudly
enough, it will become reality. This implied argument might best be
termed the Ostrich Effect, and be characterized by a belief that if we
refuse to see it, it isn't there.
Well, don't call me subtle. I can't say
that I think any of this is reflective of how I feel. I feel awful.
This is one of the things that makes being a human in this world
difficult to bear at times.
I can't even say that I have fairly
characterized the arguments. This is an emotional quagmire.
DoubleGack. I really don't know what is best to do with this issue. If
I could make it disappear, I would.
My own worst fear is that by not including
it, we invalidate our work in the eyes of a significant
audience--public safety and law enforcement, and public policy, too.
Since that is one of the arenas where we have the best chance to
change policy for the the better by providing more accurate
information, I would consider that a greater loss than the loss of
dignity or comfort I might endure by retaining the odorous hot potato
of race.
I would appreciate it if someone would cast this as a motion to remove
race from the attributeGroup physicalDescriptors.
Ciao,
Rex
--
Rex Brooks
Starbourne Communications Design
1361-A Addison, Berkeley, CA 94702 *510-849-2309
http://www.starbourne.com * rexb@starbourne.com
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