January 16, 2016
What You Mean "WE" Pale-face?
By L. Reichard White
Did you ever question “The majority rules?”
Why not?
It’s the most famous example of what we can call for convenience, “The Collective Fallacy.” With the help of it’s more subliminal offspring, this fallacy has twisted Western cultures into tormented shapes inimical to life and human nature.
In the case of “The majority rules,” even the U.S. founders were aware of the dangers – – –
- “Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as
tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots.” –U.S. “Founding Father” John
Adams
- “An elective despotism was not the government we fought for” –Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIII, 1782. ME 2:163
- “An elective despotism was not the government we fought for” –Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIII, 1782. ME 2:163
Clearly “The majority rules” is a meme we should avoid.
And such winner-take-all situations are only one of the most obvious problems created by The Collective Fallacy.
Strangely enough, “The majority rules” is just an artifact of what might be called “lazy languages.” And, there’s a cure.
The bed-rock foundation of The Majority Rules is the deceptively harmless word, “we” and the variant pronouns, “us” and “our.”
The problem with “we” and family?
They automatically include folks who may not know they’re being included, don’t take inclusion seriously, don’t understand the implications of inclusion, or worse, they have no control over the outcome and may not want to be included in, say, that one-flavor trip to the ice-cream parlor.
But, because of the lazy language effect, such involuntary “majority-rules, winner-takes-all” inclusions are ubiquitous in modern cultures and traditionally and subliminally accepted, not only by the perpetrators which may be “ memetic machines” such as corporations and governments but also by the victims.
For example, are “we” Americans responsible for what “our” government does?
If so, “we” have recently bombed a couple of Doctors Without Borders hospitals, one in Afghanistan and another in Yemen. “We” not only torture people in Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, Kandahar, and many other “black sites,” etc. but “we” also torture people here at home.
And according to former Clinton Sec. of State Madeleine Albright as verified by U.N. Ambassador and one-time New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson “ we ” are responsible for the deaths of half-a-million (500,000) kids.
So are “we” indeed responsible for “our” government bombing hospitals, torturing people, the deaths of half-a-million kids, and, incidentally, possibly nuking out all life on earth, etc.?
There’s a different way of looking at things – – –
- Among the other clever gadgets I have glimpsed in the grammars of
so-called primitive groups, the complex Cherokee pronoun system seems
especially handy. It distinguishes among “you and I,” “another person and
I,” “several other people and I,” and “you, one or more other persons,
and I,” which English crudely collapses into the all-purpose pronoun
“we.” -Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct, p.28
Their more complex pronouns keep these folks from subliminally and/or inadvertently shanghaiing unwary and/or unwilling folks into things they may know little or nothing about, may not take seriously, may have no control over, or may even dislike and/or oppose.
More importantly, those hard-working primitive pronouns also keep the folks armed with them from blindly accepting such subliminal, dishonest, and unwanted inclusion.
Here’s an example of how that works – – –
- “People [native Americans] who do not vote for an issue whether
they abstain or vote against it often resent having to abide by it and
insist that they should not be affected by the final decision since they
did not themselves affirm it. A number of Indian groups such as the
Hopis here in the Southwest are still divided over the issue of their
constitution, those who voted against it or who did not participate in
the constitutional election, insisting that they should not be bound by
the vote of the others.”
–James
E. Officer, Journal of American Indian Education, VOTE?
- Lone Ranger: “Well, old friend, it looks like we are done
for.”
- Tonto: “What you mean ‘we,’ pale-face?”
- Tonto: “What you mean ‘we,’ pale-face?”
- “The [U.S.] Constitution… has no authority or obligation at all,
unless as a contract between man and man. …And it can be supposed to have
been a contract then only between persons who had already come to years
of discretion, so as to be competent to make reasonable and obligatory
contracts. Furthermore, we know, historically, that only a small portion
even of the people then existing were consulted on the subject, or asked,
or permitted to express either their consent or dissent in any formal
manner. Those persons, if any, who did give their consent formally, are
all dead now. …And the constitution, so far as it was their contract,
died with them. They had no natural power or right to make it obligatory
upon their children.”
–Lysander Spooner, No
Treason, No. VI: The Constitution of No Authority [1870]
I know, this totally violates the way “we” have learned to think. Or, more accurately, we have not been able to easily think this way because of the deficiencies in our lazy-language pronoun system. Maybe we should reconsider a few of the things “we” have bought into and always think at least twice before “we” uncritically and unwarily buy into The Collective Fallacy via “we,” “us,” and “our” – – –
- Lone Ranger: “Looks like we killed 500,000 kids, Tonto.”
- Tonto: “What you mean ‘we,’ pale-face? I didn’t kill any kids.
- Tonto: “What you mean ‘we,’ pale-face? I didn’t kill any kids.
The nuclear arms race has, since the 1960s, threatened to extinguish all life on earth except, perhaps, cockroaches. According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, as of November, 2015, we are once again within 3 minutes of midnight. Did “we” create this situation?
So, are “we” indeed responsible for “our” government bombing hospitals, torturing people, the deaths of half-a-million kids, and possibly nuking out all life on earth, etc.?
Who do you suppose has the most nukes on hair trigger?
But maybe, somehow, you and I or perhaps you, one or more other persons, and I just might be able to do something about this irrational situation – – -
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/01/l-reichard-white/mean-paleface/ --
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "PoliticalForum" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected].
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
