Thanks for the clarification. My original posting was only meant as an intervention of sorts, so as not to allow the perceived attacks upon you to mitigate against the real challenges being posed. Clearly, you are aware of those challenges and their realities, and are thinking through them. That, I think, is all that Dave Belcher was calling for.

And thank you for your kind words about my book. I do hope that you find it helpful. And I am sorry about your head.

There is no doubt that racism (egoism/geoism) is at play in the stratification of “power” in the world; I would not deny that, at all. I am not sure how what I said is any different than what Evan said here (sorry Evan ;-):

“African warlords, Shahs, Ayatollahs and what have you” may very well be the result of globalized U.S./U.K. power, but is it therefore an indictment of coercive state authority in its own right? Or even of the authority of the U.S. and the U.K. in particular? Why couldn’t it just be an indictment of particular failures of justice within a state that has failed to exercise perfect, or even especially good, stewardship of its God-given authority?

Now, Evan carefully qualifies what he said (what I have emboldened); but my intention was really never to say anything different than what Evan was getting at (his unemboldened section from above seems pretty consonant with exactly what I was after). Like I said, what I said was sloppy and not as careful as it should’ve been; but to imbue some “unrealized” (on my part) racist-logic as the informing apparatus through which I think is certainly troubling to me . . . and it should be, if it was a sound reading off of what I had truly intended (but it is not).

Like I said to Halden, above, I do have more to think about here; so thanks for the engagement.

peace.

P.S. Your book is quite good (although it hurts my head to read at points ;-)

Fair enough. It does appear to me, however, that d barber and then certainly Charlie in his post above have articulated well why your generic use of the phrase “these states” as such is not so obviously benign as you have suggested, and that the continued insistence to the contrary is part of the racist problematic that is the Western legacy.

I am just interested in how you respond to that challenge. I really am not trying to caricature you here. I do not think that anyone is. I just think that we are trying to probe the logical underpinning and assumptions underlying the statement. I also understands the limits of the blog format. I understand your frustration as well. I was just simply trying to reiterate Dave Belcher’s call for genuine conversation and debate, rather than evasion of such debate on the basis of accusuations of ad hominem attack. It was not my intent to perpetuate such accusations and attack, but to suggest that in this case I really do think they are perceived rather than real. And that those perceptions seem to continue to obscure the critical issues at stake here.

So maybe what I’m saying is that I need more time to process and then formulate responses to at least Charlie’s critique of what I first said. I do sense some sort of moral incumbency to respond to the substance of any kind of critique of what I said; but I want to make sure that there is a genuine reciprocity present before I commit to an serious response (which means time, which is precious). And the sense I originally perceived from d barber’s first comment didn’t seem to be all that genuine . . . but maybe I’m just too sensitive (but then again others seemed able to pick up on the sense of what I was trying to get at).

And if I didn’t necessarily agree with Halden’s points in the first place, and Charlie assumed those points (in his critique of what I said); then why should I feel compelled to defend “my racist” logic under those conditions?

My points originally were trying to get at the apparent politics of victimization that I perceived at work in Halden’s original post; and that is what I was getting at, it had nothing to do with “race” (per se). What I was trying to articulate is that, so called illegitimate States actually just may bear some responsibility themselves (for a multitude of complex reasons, race not being one of those). That’s it, Nate!

I’m just not willing to submit to the reframing of what I said at d barber, Charlie’s, your’s or anybodies whim; just because it makes it easier for you all to “deal” with me. Give me a chance to clarify, before you caricature me; and then maybe an actual debate could’ve occurred (well maybe, this is a blog after all).

Peace.

What if what I said was just a result of communicating in sloppy ways — which it was — don’t you think it would’ve been more prudent for d barber to make sure that that was what I was intending? And then maybe allowing me the chance to try and rephrase (with more clarity) what I was trying to communicate?

I’ll admit it, I did become “defensive” . . . since, though, I was the one apparently espousing (and thus speaking out of) and theoretical/lingusitic framework that is racist; then where would you draw the distinction between the objective/subjective aspects — so that what you’re saying is distinct is actually distinct?

I’m not trying to avoid anything, Nate; the reality is, is that I’m probably not prepared to discuss these things at the “level” appropriate to these complex issues. That does not mean I don’t have justified beliefs here, it’s just an admission that I might not know how to “justify” them — yet.

There is a distinct difference between saying that a certain linguistic or theoretical move is logically or inherently racist, and calling someone a “racist.” It does not appear to me that d barber has directly called anyone a racist. He was simply suggesting that the statement made sounded racist, and then went on in subsequent comments (along with Charlie Collier) to demonstrate the inherently racist underpinnings of the statement as logically conceived.

The burden is now upon you not to dismiss d barber’s statement as ad hominem attack but rather to take seriously and to rebut the challenge that he and Charlie have well-articulated as to the racist logic at work. To insist that you don’t have to because you perceive d barber as having called you a “racist” (which he did not) is to shirk that burden and is an evasion of that challenge.

And to be honest I could care less about Badiou’s Ethics or Lacan’s/Zizek’s “senses;” not because what they say isn’t pertinent (necessarily), but because I really have no idea who they are (except that Zizek is an popular atheist).

d barber’s “labeling” is classic ad hominen . . . there is no confusion here, Dave!

The notion of genocide condoned (and necessitated) by “legitimate authority” is obviously crucial to the study of colonialism and the way in which the nation-state operates. Genocide (according to the pro-life position) infiltrates colonial culture as far as the moment of conception, and those who recognize it are those compelled, by their own logic, to permit it.

The only way this part of the chapter makes sense is if a true “ruler,” and thus true “authority” “instituted by God,” possesses some kind of moral legitimacy, from which it can lapse. Otherwise, what are we to make of the Hebrew prophetic tradition?

Also, I’ve been reading the “It’s so Personal” vignettes that Andrew Sullivan has been posting over at The Daily Dish. They have not changed my mind about the problematic nature of abortion, but the stories definitely challenge the simplistic reduction of each and every abortion to some sort of premeditated first-degree murder. This would seem to be a problem with the abstract debates around when life begins—this way of determining the moral question loses contact with the specificity of the decisions women (and men!) are making when they choose (or choose not) to abort. In a court of law, there’s a great deal of difference between manslaughter and murder, between first and second degree murder, etc., and rightly so. Yet the rhetoric of hard-core pro-lifers depends very much on denying these distinctions when it comes to abortions. Tell me there is no difference between a couple who terminates a pregnancy so that they can keep their plans to go hiking in Europe, and the husband and wife who decide to abort because they cannot bear the grief of watching another seriously malformed baby live only a few hours before dying a certain death. I might well still believe that, in the latter case, the Christian thing to do is to suffer the greater loss and resist the temptation to abort. But I will not equate these two abortions and tar both sets of parents with the label “murderers”.