Prometheus 6

Once I was into creating terminology. Not new words, just phrases that defined my intent clearly enough to communicate it accurately. The terminology worked; therefore there were immediate efforts to undermine the meaning of the phrases I assembled.

For example: I never felt integration, assimilation and separatism fully defined Black people's options in the USofA. While actually considering it, I ran into Claude McKay's autobiography. Mr. McKay was a Harlem Renaissance era poet; being a poet probably helped him compose this gem of precision.

"Negroes do not understand the difference between group segregation and group aggregation. And their leaders do not enlighten them, because they too do not choose to understand."

Light bulb. I began describing my position as "aggregationist." This is actually the seed from which my Black Partisan terminology grew.

I started considering this while discussing my position with some Conservative types on a BBS network. I explained, he poked and jabbed and found nothing to legitimately complain about. Then he asked me, and this was funny as hell to me, he ask me, "Are you sure you're using the word correctly?" I said, "I invented the word...of course I'm using it correctly." His response was typically amusing: "Good one...I shouldn't have let you get away with introducing the word," to which I responded, "I'm not going to let you get away with thinking you have that much juice with me."

Another significant seed of my behavior.

"Aggregationist" served me well enough. In fact, it still has its uses. But when The Atlantic Monthly published Harvard professor Randall Kennedy's My Race Problem - and Ours (I found a pdf of the article online; get it before the copyright cops find out), I reflexively coined a term I felt would resonate better with Prof. Kennedy's intended audience than "assimilationist" while responding to the issues he raised in the article: Black partisan.

I am a Black partisan--one of those people that actively choose to accept racial kinship. My position is simple and straightforward-every event that affects Black people affects me. Therefore there is a connection between myself and other Black people that I must respond to in some fashion. What the mainstream thinks of Black people in general becomes my starting point in any new situation. My feelings of kinship with Black folks represents my recognition that my fate is linked to that of everyone else of visible African descent and my feelings of loyalty represents my recognition that the fate of everyone else of visible African descent is linked to mine.

That's it. That's what a Black partisan does. A HUGE amount of variance is possible while staying within that paradigm.

Now, I was specifically told my terminology was to be hijacked (so as not to stress folks unnecessarily because that's not my intent, there's no link).

While I appreciate the originality of your coinage P6, I've appropriated and repurposed it with the same ruthless piratical aplomb with which I've appropriated and repurposed boxen worldwide. All that remains to be seen is whose version proliferates more broadly and enduringly. That's evolution in the memetic sphere.

The particular person's practice has been to pummel people. If one understands the impact of that sort of thing, one cannot call the practitioner a partisan for those people. It is yet possible this person believes in his own partisanship so I don't chase around behind him. I was just reminded of all this by a couple of those Cobb posts that occasionally draw me out of lurking on his site.

The Underclass Question

Is there a black underclass? If so, how large is it and where does it or does it not intersect with the folks that Cosby admonishes? How do we use the term and what do we mean by it?

By underclass, I would mean a dynamic set of people who are socially indigent. That by their behaviors and beliefs, that by their lack of assets, both personal and material, that they are fundamentally incapable of upward mobility in American society.

and the long one,

Individual vs Collective Sovereignty

In this piece I'd like to respond to Craig Nulan's question regarding Corporate Sovereignty. But I find that in doing so I'm circling around some very important first principles.

..I'm curious to know whether your actual core advocacy is for the rule of law per se, or, for the rule of law as a necessary environmental substrate for corporate sovereignty?

Is your political philosophy rooted in the ideals of corporate sovereignty or individual sovereignty? Which governance model do you consider most conducive to advancing the cause of Black partisanship?

I'm going to take a long time to answer that and go some important places along the way. Please bear with me. But first let me address the reasons I have used the term 'collective' instead of 'corporate', one is to telegraph the answers one should expect of a conservative and the other is that I recognize the aspect of the collaborative in all human social activity is the same.

I had to drop a snark into The Underclass Question, but I also had to ask questions that will likely trip up every Black Conservative in the world.

You just detailed a bunch of inaccurate perceptions, cross-race. Do you think the way to correct those perceptions is for the incorrectly perceived party to take responsibility for the error, to change one's behavior as though that perception were true?

I mean, assuming you're already law-abiding what more can you do?

Do you think the incorrect perceptions can be corrected?

"You" in this case, is not Cobb himself, but he attempted an answer:

I recognize that people act as if race were something more than it is - racial scapegoating becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. So how should we deal with the fact of social associations that are not under your control?

Unfortunately, he did not give one.

The Individual vs Collective Sovereignty post is more interesting. He spends about third or so of it in a tolerably tight set up. It gets wobbly in the middle of a paragraph

The individual solution to being a victim of the inevitable conflicts and crashes of all collective endeavors was limited loyalty. If one leads a life of liberty, one became relatively safe. I think this is demonstrably true.Out of ignorance or choice, all of us have limited loyalties to all of the institutions. So I have always believed that individual freedom to adhere to or oppose or ignore any institution or collective endeavor is a fundamental necessity. To deny this choice of the individual is to lock them to the fate of the collective, which will inevitably fail. This is essentially predestination, and we simply can't have that, it's slavery. Even when we don't and can't see how an institution or collective endeavor is distined to conflict or fail, we Americans are fundamentally opposed to permanent associations. Nobody could have predicted how Enron might fail, and though it was a complete catastrophe we wouldn't force those employees all to go down with the Enron ship and be permanently unemployable by any other company. We assume their limited loyalty, we assume their liberty.

It's wobbly because

1. Some of those collective endeavors have lasted for centuries
2. You cannot, as a human, opt out of society...the quintessential collective endeavor
3. The underlined bit is just silly

Then he says we aren't totally free because we can't defy the laws of physics.

And yet I believe that there are limits to whose bounds we are irrevocably wed whether we want to be or not. No human can defy the laws of physics. In fact our very existence depends on them - and yet we live under them ceaselessly. Not only that, but the the laws of physics are never unenforced. Yet because of the way we behave (despite fantastic wishes to travel faster than light or travel through time) we do not feel particularly encumbered by the restraint placed upon us.

sigh

So when he goes TOTALLY wrong on the nature of Black Partisanship:

Black Partisanship is very much like corporate lobbying. But it assumes racial and therefore permanent fidelity. You will always hear people talking about the 'permanent interests' of African Americans as inviolable axioms of black politics. In fact blackfolks are black when they want to be and so demonstrate their limited loyalty to these black poltics. In otherwords, they refuse to be spoken for and daily prove that black unity operates only in theory.

I wasn't surprised, but had to correct him.

Black Partisanship is very much like corporate lobbying. But it assumes racial and therefore permanent fidelity. You will always hear people talking about the 'permanent interests' of African Americans as inviolable axioms of black politics.

You will not hear an intelligent Black Partisan make such statements. Other than the permanent interest in living free and thriving.

In fact blackfolks are black when they want to be and so demonstrate their limited loyalty to these black poltics.

Pure projection.

When he advocates a self-contradictory position

My political philosophy is rooted in defense of the individual's right to defy any and all institutions. I expect him to enter into social contracts and business contracts and sacrifice freedom in exchange for protections and relative liberty. And I expect the individual to respect those contracts but have the right to arbitrarily terminate them and exercise limited loyalty.

...it's actually strangely consistent with Big L Libertarianism. And by the time I got to this

During this time of destabilizing transition between the 20th Century nation-state and globalization, I am increasingly authoritarian, which is to say that aspects of my conservatism are hedges against the dissonance of anarchy. Interestingly, I do so because I firmly believe that somewhere on Maslowe's pyramid is place where the evolved and stable institutions of government and religion and cultural associations with land/turf are strong fallback positions.

I just felt there was no point in explaining the only place it CAN fall on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow posited a hierarchy of human needs based on two groupings: deficiency needs and growth needs. Within the deficiency needs, each lower need must be met before moving to the next higher level. Once each of these needs has been satisfied, if at some future time a deficiency is detected, the individual will act to remove the deficiency. The first four levels are:

1. Physiological: hunger, thirst, bodily comforts, etc.;
2. Safety/security: out of danger;
3. Belongingness and Love: affiliate with others, be accepted; and
4. Esteem: to achieve, be competent, gain approval and recognition.

According to Maslow, an individual is ready to act upon the growth needs if and only if the deficiency needs are met…

1. Cognitive: to know, to understand, and explore;
2. Aesthetic: symmetry, order, and beauty;
3. Self-actualization: to find self-fulfillment and realize one's potential; and
4. Self-transcendence: to connect to something beyond the ego or to help others find self-fulfillment and realize their potential.

...is at the very bottom. Especially given his "limited loyalty" thesis.

But I'll tell y'all because I had to get it out of my system