Joe K’s claim has nothing to do with unbiased evaluation. It’s nothing but bias.
Science has amply demonstrated that the concept of ‘race’ as it is generally applied has no biological or genetic meaning. It’s neither racist nor bigoted to investigate the possibility that specific traits are more common in groups of relatively-closely related people.
But suggesting that adolescent males are genetically predisposed to take an interest in cars, or that there’s something innate about the “black experience” that white people will never comprehend, or that making matzoh or reading from the Torah somehow comes naturally to “Jewish people”, is something else again.
Reality check: Malcolm X was a racist, who held racist views, for the majority of his public life. He was also a brilliant and intelligent individual who did and said what he thought was right.
That idiot who posted in the OT, claiming that non-Jews opinions meant nothing to Judaism and that science had proved the validity of the tradition of descent? He’s a racist. Sure, it’s a pro-Judaic racism, but it’s still racism.
People who support traditions virtually always believe that they’re somehow inherently “good” or “valuable”. Claiming that one is inherently predisposed to seek out and appreciate these traditions is claiming a form of superiority.
Well, ultimately, it seems like this becomes a question of free will. If one were to have enough info about the structure of a person - be it to the gene, the protein, the atom, the quark - could they then predict their every move? Are we just machines responding to stimulus? I have not seen any conclusive evidence that there is any more to us then mechanics, so the possibility that ALL of our tastes and decisions could be understood mechanically is a possibility. If there is no free will, if we are just biological machines, then everything we do is genetically pre-disposed.
At this point I’m reasonably convinced that the term “race” is useless and meaningless biologically. That does not, however, preclude the possibility of genetically similar individuals sharing a predisposition towards certain cultures. Jung hints at as much with his “group subconcious” theories of mind. It is possible.
Suspecting that one is inherently predisposed to seek out and appreciate these traditions is not neccesarily claiming a form of superiority.
Had Joe K said that he was good with money, never bathed, and rode a bicycle and therefore he must be Jewish because all Jews have those attributes you might have a case for racism. But in that case the accusation of racism would be entirely unrelated to his connection (genetic or emotional) to Judaism. In the event, Joe didn’t ascribe any particular attributes to Jews in general, and I’d like a cite if you disagree.
Let’s break this down a little. Say I told you that I had an unconscious identification with Judaism and was considering learning more about it. That wouldn’t be racist, I assume, since race/genetics hasn’t entered into it yet. Then I tell you that I did some research into my family tree and it turns out that I have some Jewish ancestry. Again, I assume stating a fact like that hasn’t made me a racist. Then I note that this is an interesting coincidence. I’m still in the clear. Then I begin to wonder whether it’s more than coincidence and whether there might be some connection; since I’m not aware of any explicit cultural link passed down to me, it seems as if it would have to be a physiological/genetic connection. Now I’m a racist because I’ve postulated that in one very limited case (since I’m speaking only about myself and haven’t drawn any larger implications at all) there might be a connection between genetics and personal preferences.
It hardly seems a good idea to start calling people names based on a hypothesis. Stifling intellectual inquiry seems counterproductive on a board dedicated to fighting ignorance. A simple “there’s no proven basis for assuming heritability of religious preference” might have sufficed.
Aren’t you being a bit presumptuous in declaring that Joe’s assertion that there may be some subconscious link between his draw to certain things Jewish and his heritage is Racism?
Give me a fucking break TVAA, and give Joe a break, too.
Joe, ignore the asshole, and learn. Learning is emphasized in the religion/culture you just found out you belong to.*
Sam
*-To make things clear for TVAA, it doesn’t make you Jewish to have a love of learning…I wouldn’t want to be branded a reverse-racist with my above comment. :rolleyes:
Looking at all of JoeK’s posts in that thread and this one, I can find no place where he implied a superiority on the part of himself or the Jews. He stated that he had always felt a “fondness for things Jewish” and wondered if such a coincidence could be a result of genetic predisposition. No claim to the capital-T-truth, just a wondering if such a connection was possible or likely. He attempted to collect more data points by asking if anyone else had experienced something similar. No assumption of speriority. It would be possible for the Jewish person to be attracted to Jewish tradition, and the Irish person to Catholic traditions without the tenets of either traditions being correct.
Once we get past the “there is no such thing as race” part, we can rephrase the question to take into account our lack of understanding regarding the human design:
Is it possible that closely related groups of people would be predisposed towards certain cultural tastes?
The question is not racist in my book. The answer may well be no, but no one has presented me with any evidence that would forbid such a corralation. I would be willing to consider any studies which debunk such possibilities, but I’m not going to dismiss the ideas without good reason, and I’m certainly not going to call them racist. Since this gets to the core of the “what makes a person a person” and “freewill” debates, I do not see this issue as clean-cut. Is there a relationship between our behaivior/tastes and our physical structure? To answer we need to know the physical basis of self, and we are far from that point. It does not seem unreasonable to me that people built similarly would perhaps have similar likes/dislikes.
I imagine identical twins seperated at birth and raised in diffferent types of environments would be a good group to study to get some answers.
Joe K stated that he had a liking/inclination towards certain cultural traditions and practices. He said that his having a grandmother who was Jewish was sufficient to explain this. Thus, he was attributing his liking of those traditions and practices to his having a Jewish grandparent. This grandparent didn’t pass down traditions or practices – Joe K only lately found out that she was Jewish – so that can’t be sufficient to explain things. What’s left? The genetic relationship.
Joe K is suggesting that the 25% of his genetic makeup that he inherited from his maternal grandmother is sufficient to explain his liking of and identification with a whole host of cultural aspects. It reasonably follows from this assertion that other people with at least as much of a genetic relationship will also have the same inclination towards the same cultural practices as he does.
Voila! Whether he intended to or not, Joe K has implied that Jewish tradition and culture is the result of geneology.
** I’d say you’re a liar, since if you had an unconscious identification with Judaism, you wouldn’t be telling me about it.
** So far, so good.
** Not at all. Given our current understanding of genetics and inheritance, it’s extremely improbable that genetics provides an explanation for your interest, but you haven’t claimed that – you’re merely considering a hypothetical.
Now, if you claimed that your geneology was responsible for your interest, you would be claiming that your preferred culture was genetically determined (and on a relatively weak genetic basis, as well). That most certainly is racist.
He didn’t generate a hypothesis, he made a claim. Even as a hypothesis, the idea is a poor one, and it absolutely sucks as a claim.
I don’t see any claims. Looks like a hypothesis to me. Notice use of the word “seems” instead of “is”. Then the appeal to see if there is any evidence (in the form of the experience of others) to confirm or refute this hypothesis. While it may be a totally incorrect hypothesis, it certainly isn’t a claim about anything (aside from his subjective feelings), there is , likewise, no claim that one religion or race is superior to any other, and therefore there is no racism here.
Yes, well. It’s nice that you disagree. But I asked for a cite. I don’t see anywhere where Joe K claims to have the (as dj aptly put it) Big T Truth. If you intend to support a claim of racism, you need to be clear about what was said that caused offence. Because right now it looks like you’re very close to putting words in someone else’s mouth.
Maybe. I can’t find anywhere where he specified what aspects of Jewish tradition and culture he was referring to besides an affinity for Judaism. Unless you have a direct line on some Truth that the rest of us are not privy to, you can’t prove that no aspects of Jewish culture have any basis in genetics. And it seems like that’s the mountain you’ll have to climb if you want to defend your charge of racism.
And that would go to show that you have a penchant for calling people names instead of actually engaging in discussion. There’s a difference between unconscious and secret. Pay attention before you earn yourself a good name-calling.
If you had said that in the first place instead of calling names, we wouldn’t be here in the pit. I suppose I must leave it to you to determine whether your course achieved the desired results.
Wrong wrong wrong. I would be asserting a genetic basis for my self-identification. If that’s racist, then believing that homosexuality is genetic is homophobic.
Now you’re really reaching. At least, it looks like you’re reaching, which is merely a hypothesis and not an actual claim.
And Joe K’s statements about his like for things Jewish and his identification with Jews wasn’t being offered as evidence. He clearly mentioned it for no obvious reason.
It’s his feelings that were the evidence here, dalovindj.
The available evidence suggests that homosexuality (which is a relatively simple trait) may be inborn (not genetically determined).
Being “Jewish” is vastly more complicated than just being gay.
I think part of the problem here is that most of you have no idea what it means to say that a trait may be inherent, or that it may be genetically related.
Well, clearly this could. But dalovindj has already addressed this point.
So you mean to say that it is entirely impossible that an affinity for people of similar background could have a genetic basis? So far out of the realm of possibility that it merits a charge of racism?
I do. Do you?
There is a difference. I don’t think Joe K asserted anything, I think he considered. I used ‘assert’ here as a sop to you. Even if I stated categorically and without proof (the definition of assert) that I had a self-identification based on genetics, I still wouldn’t be a racist. Do you feel that someone who identifies as homosexual and belives that his/her preference is genetically determined is a homophobe?
But would the belief that it is genetic be per se homophobic?
This statement suffers from a serious lack of specificity in the definition of terms. But, regardless, it’s beside the point. We’re only discussing self-identification. If Joe had claimed to have inherited any specific attributes, you might begin to have some tenuous sort of point. But the only thing he even suggests he inherited is a self-identification.
No, the problem here is…wait, I already told you off for name calling. As I said before, if you had simply said there was no current scientific basis for his belief you would have been both right and not a jerk.
And you’re getting your quotes on science from some sort of video game character?
** It’s entirely possible that a person might be genetically programmed to respond to a specific stimulus – for example, skin color – as a determining factor in their self-identify.
Given current knowlege about human genetics and psychology, it would be a ludicrous hypothesis, but it’s not impossible.
But claiming that a person is genetically destined to feel an affinity with an entire culture? With the clear implication that the members of that culture are similarly predisposed to acting likewise?
No, a person who believes that his/her homosexual preferences are genetically determined is almost completely ignorant of the available scientific knowledge.
A person who claimed that traits culturally determined to be “male” or “female” are actually genetically determined, and that since gays manifest one trait generally associated with the opposite sex, they must manifest all of them, would be grossly ignorant.
Homosexuality is defined by a single trait. There are plenty of “masculine” male homosexuals, just as there are plenty of heterosexual men who are more “feminine” than the traditional stereotype.
A ‘homophobe’ is one who’s afraid of homosexuals. You don’t need to be afraid of homosexuals to hold prejudiced beliefs about them – you don’t even need to hold negative beliefs. You don’t need to hold negative beliefs about a culture to have racist, prejudiced beliefs about it.
A quick look on the net suggests that studies done on twins by Thomas Brouchard seperated at birth support the idea that there is a physical basis for persoanl tastes"
Not conclusive, but it seems to suggest that there may be a physical component to personality. While describing this as a genetic difference may be a misnomer, the idea of a physical basis for behaivior has evidence in support. Not only have I seen no racism, I have not seen any evidence that would lead me to conclude that a physical basis for cultural taste is impossible or even unlikely. The evidence seems to point the other way if you ask me.
‘Homophobia’ is not the correct comparison to make, BTW.
** Grossly wrong.
He claimed to not only feel a sense of familiarity, but to have a liking for Jewish traditions.
** But with what I said, I’m already both right and not a jerk. Going by his statements, Joe K believes that cultural identification and preferences are genetically determined. That is racism, pure and simple: he’s focusing on genetic background as the defining element of a person’s personality.
Sadly, that computer game character had a much more profound grasp of genetics than you. I’ll let you think about that for a while.
Please stop putting up this particular strawman. Unless you can point to even one instance where Joe K referenced a culturally determined trait, this avenue of argument is dead.
We’re not talking about similarities between two people who not only share identical genotypes, but similar in utero environments.
We’re talking about people from an “ethnic group” and suggesting that they share a common culture because they share certain genes.
Not only is there a tremendous amount of diversity within ethnic groups, but the level of genetic similarity that would be necessary for genetic influences to have such an effect would require massive inbreeding.
There’s no such thing as a “Jewish genome”, any more than there’s a “black genome” or “Polish genome”.
I would say that he SUSPECTS that this MAY be the case. Not that he BELIEVES that it MUST be the case. He asked a question. His question about whether there may be a physical basis for cultural preferences was based on his subjective experience. His theory (suspicion) is somewhat supported by studies done on twins seperated at birth.
There is no racism, no claim to superiority, no unsubstantiated assertions. Merely curiosity based on personal experience. The racist/bigot label gets used way too loosely around here sometimes.
Well, the heart of the debate, as I see it, is whether personality traits/tastes have a physical basis, or are they purely regulated by environment (including the pre-birth in-utero environment). I have not seen a conclusive case made for either side of that argument. I suspect it is a bit of both - physical structure + environment = person. Now, if any physical difference or similarity in people can be shown to effect their personality in predictable ways we are brought to the next part of the debate: Whether or not such a corralation could be described as “genetic”.
Fair enough. That’s a fine argument to make - especially if you back it up with cites. Simply pointing this out (and supporting it) would have been a proper answer. It might have led to a Great Debate. An accusation of racism is totally unwarranted. A debate about what genetics can and can’t tell us would be appropriate. A debate about whether a physical basis for certain behaivior could be described as “genetic” would have been on par. An explanation about the difficulties involved in classifying people into races (getically or otherwise) would have been right on.
The accusation of racism is totally unfounded IMO. That’s not to say that Joe K isn’t a racist, I don’t know him. I’m just saying that there is no evidence that has been presented in this or the other thread that would lead me to that conclusion. A potentially interesting and informative thread was all fucked up because of the unnecesary accusation of racism. Shame.
