I don't see any body of evidence to support that conclusion. Inter-communal problems certainly persist around the world, but division by 'race' is by no means a key issue in most of them. Indeed, in many places it's completely absent.
Maybe if you were on this side of the world, you wouldn't be so sure. Yes, open racism is no longer as fashionable. But in some ways interracial relations were better here in the past than now, especially after the erosion of solidarity brought about by 20th-century decolonialist nationalism.
Winston Hughes said:
Absolutely not. In some cases it is the only option. But I will always resist the defence of violence as a principled stance - down that road lies terror. It should never be treated as something more righteous than a pragmatic measure born of necessity: something we turn to only with reluctance and regret.
I've never said otherwise. But you were pretty adamant that violence is not an answer. Well, according to what you're saying now, it
can be an answer, as I've maintained all this time.
Winston Hughes said:
My essential point here is that we should be very wary indeed of jumping into more aggressive postures by default, and especially when doing so serves the aims of our opponents more than our own.
And my point is that the opposite is often true as well: People who should be standing up for a good cause fail to make an impression on anyone because they make their case with so much hand-wringing with the intention of making themselves appear less oppositional. I believe this is partly why liberals have failed to present themselves as significant challengers to the moneyed interests that stand for conservatism, who will never willingly relinquish their dominance.
Winston Hughes said:
But, and here's the crux of the matter, they were always striving to be - and thus to appear - fundamentally reasonable. It's well-established in social psychology that the most effective way to change people's minds is to appear more reasonable and coherent than those who seek to resist that change.
I don't know about that, since Gandhi was viewed by some of his compatriots, for example, as an extremist when it comes to
satyagraha. While non-violence is generally a good thing, his advocacy for it any price
is extreme and quite unreasonable, and it certainly set some moderates to grumbling.
Winston Hughes said:
What Gandhi in particular argued was that violence can only impose changes that must then be sustained by continued violence. Whilst I don't think he was quite right there - in fact, my suspicion is that he held to that line because the more nuanced one is less powerful rhetorically - the essential point holds that only by changing people's minds can you achieve ends that do not require continued violence and repression to sustain them. That is to say, even if violence is unavoidable in a given moment, it is only by sticking to the reasonable approach whenever possible that we can create the conditions in which our aims can be sustained peacefully in the long run.
I think you've inadvertently hit on what I'm trying to say in my recent posts. 'Reasonable', moderate responses tend not to impress anyone except those who are already inclined to agree with you. I think there is a principle that can be applied across different areas of the human experience: Don't be afraid to stand up for what you believe in, even if it's unpopular, and people may eventually flock to you.
Commitment towards at least nominally good causes command respect, and I firmly believe that respect (as distinct from fear - the traditional Machiavellian choice) is a more widely-traded currency than intellectual agreement. Your most die-hard opponents might never respect you, but others might if you consistently stand up strongly for what you believe in, even if it makes you someone's enemy.
Winston Hughes said:
I agree with you entirely here, except with regards to the last sentence. The liberal idea of the public sphere is mythical only where its present conception is held up as the last word in social and political evolution. Where it's treated as a set of tools, which can be augmented or replaced as new options become available, I believe that, for the time being at least, it still has much to offer.
This is the same view I have of conflict and opposition. There will always be the zealous ones under any banner; I choose to see them as having a part to play rather than as internal enemies to combat.
Winston Hughes said:
As per my comments earlier in the thread, what I regard as the most dangerous of all developments is the narrowing of our collective view to any internally-coherent ideology. Faced by a reality too complex to be appreciated from a particular perspective, I believe it's essential that we keep looking at it from many different angles, using many different lenses, and then chewing over the results of what we find in an ongoing process of reasoned debate and discussion. Until I see viable alternatives to those aspects of liberalism which preserve a space, however imperfect, for that to happen, my support for them will continue.
Edit: Just to be absolutely clear, the need to sustain diversity of opinion does not mean that all opinions should be treated as equally valid. That view would be even more foolish than holding that one opinion is uniquely valid.
I don't disagree with this. But if you can't show how far you're willing to go to stand up for what you believe in, then I believe you will lose everything.
Put him in there with Gandhi and MLK, neither of which I think were moderates either. They just had a broad enough appeal to not alienate all of the non-radicals. They took the cool ideas and mainstreamed them with more success than, say, the John Browns(who were far more pure in their arguments and senses of justice)
