[lit-ideas] Re: Ethnic Pride, Black Truck Style

  • From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2007 19:08:52 -0230

Quoting Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>:

> John McCreery wrote:
> 
> "Could it be an individual whose behavior is not restricted by some
> outside authority, the ultimate monadic individual?"
> 
> Could be, except I find it impossible to imagine such a person.  The
> vast majority of our lives are constrained by outside authority, and I
> think that is a good thing.  We are born from certain parents, raised
> by particular people, associate with these particular groups of
> people, and hold those kinds of jobs.  We have our particular
> preferences and tastes which guide us in the clothes we wear, the food
> we eat, the books we read, the music we listen to.  In other words, we
> are utterly historical beings.
> 

How is it that we have this need to utter transcendental claims such as the one
in Phil's final sentence, despite the local particularity of our
socio-historical identities - a particularity clearly articulated in the rest
of Phil's post?

Walter O.
MUN

P.S. Please, my taste in clothes, food, pony-tails, books, forms of
gouvernement, philosophical argument and music is quite cosmopolitan, and has
nothing to do with "outside authority." If anybody refuses to recognize the
univeralizable qualities of chow mein with black bean sauce, well ... my spade
is turned.



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