Impressive and challenging look at the history of racist ideas in U.S.

Epic in scope, this book examines the many different and complex sources of racismThe book is hugely impressive in following the often complex threads of various racist attitudes and sources from pamphlets, pulpits and political discourse to the arts.

The book is hugely impressive in following the often complex threads of various racist attitudes and sources from pamphlets, pulpits and political discourse to the arts.

By Kevin Gildea

Sat, Jul 29, 2017 (irishtimes.com)

This book, epic in scope, is a detailed look at the history of racist and anti-racist ideas in America. It traces their antecedents in the thoughts of Aristotle and Christianity, citing Greek ideas of Greek superiority and the curse theory – Noah’s son Ham as the cursed Black person. Equally the antecedents of anti-racist thinking were also present. “‘The deity gave liberty to all men, and nature created no one a slave,’ wrote Alkidamas, Aristotle’s rival in Athens.”

Before the 1400s the slave trade was in East European Slavs (this is the origin of the word slaves). By the 1400s the Slavs had built better fortifications and Africa became the main area of operation for slave traders. This then allowed the curse theory to be fully activated as now the slaves were exclusively black.

Gomes Eanes de Zurara is credited with writing the first “recorded history of anti-Black racist ideas…” with The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea, in 1453.

Gomes Eanes de Zurara is credited with writing the first “recorded history of anti-Black racist ideas…” with The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea, in 1453. It was a record of the Portuguese slavery trade in the 1440s under Prince Henry. As the author Dr Ibram X Kendi points out, his words were “a product of, not a producer of, Prince Henry’s racist policies…”

Kendi asserts that “…self-interest leads to racist policies, which lead to racist ideas leading to all the ignorance and hate. Racist policies were created out of self-interest.’’

Time and again Kendi illustrates this as in the case of Thomas Jefferson who wrote: “No person living wishes more sincerely than I do…to see racial equality proven”. This from a man whose entire life and comfort relied on the use of slaves (estimated at 600 in his lifetime).

Anti-slavery concerns were often subordinate to other considerations as Abraham Lincoln reveals in this quote: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves I would…”.

Kendi surveys the racist thinking of major figures such as Hegel, Hume and Voltaire, saying that “…most of the leading Enlightenment intellectuals were producers of racist ideas and abolitionist thought”.

Different sources

The book is hugely impressive in following the often complex threads of various racist attitudes and sources from pamphlets, pulpits and political discourse. And in culture, from Shakespeare to Spike Lee. There is a very interesting reading of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 book Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Although it was written to aid the anti-slavery lobby, Kendi identifies a multitude of racist ideas in it including the idea that black people had soul and white people had intellect. Black male activists of the time “united in their distaste of Uncle Tom for disseminating the stereotype of the weak black male”.

Kendi brilliantly lays out chronologically complex and conflicting ideas and actions. In 1851, at a women’s rights conference in Ohio, a sole black woman, Sojourner Truth, got up to speak even though some of the white women tried to prevent her. A series of male ministers had previously outlined the superiority of men over women. Truth said “Ain’t I a woman? I can outwork, out eat, outlast any man!” Thus she struck a blow against sexism and racism.

Kendi is critical of the idea of ‘uplift suasion’, the idea that blacks have to be model people to disprove racist ideas

The author skilfully locates racist and anti-racist ideas in a matrix of race, gender and class, through the Declaration of Independence (“all men are created equal”), the War of Independence, the 1960s civil rights and black power movements (noting at one point the “inverted racism” of the darker the colour of the skin the better) and on through US presidents Richard Nixon, Bush 1, Bill Clinton, Bush 2 and Barack Obama.

He sees the ultimate ending of racism as tied into gender and class equality: he points out that anti-racism ultimately only benefits the top one per cent and that at the height of slavery there was a majority of poor whites in the American south.

Five parts

The book is divided into five parts each with a major figure from the history of the racist/anti-racist struggle as its centre: Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, William Lloyd Garrison, WEB Du Bois and Angela Davis. Kendi calls them “tour guides” and they provide an excellent organisational framework for his material. Kendi also returns to certain key terms again and again in the book: monogenesis, polygenesis, assimilationism, abolitionism; there is also a climate theory that claimed that black people exposed to a moderate climate effectively could become white! In both racist and anti-racist positions Kendi identifies racist tendencies.

He is critical of the idea of “uplift suasion”, the idea that blacks have to be model people to disprove racist ideas: “Individual blacks are not race representatives”. Besides, Kendi maintains that racism persists despite any rational evidence – just look at the crazy Birther accusations levelled at Obama.The hugely impressive figure of Obama could be seen as the ultimate model person. However, Kendi accuses Obama of dealing in racist attitudes: he criticises Obama’s NAACP speech in 2009, saying that Obama’s call that black people needed to “free themselves from their ‘internalised sense of limitation’” was promoting a racist view that there is something wrong with black people. There are points in the book where what seems to be an attempt to name damage that black people have suffered at the hands of centuries of racism is unfairly named as racism by Kendi. Or perhaps that’s a racist observation on my part.

This is a powerful book, bracingly challenging and impressive in its scholarship and the brilliant organisation of its substantial material. Its message is one for all of us: “Black is beautiful and ugly, intelligent and unintelligent, law-abiding and law-breaking, industrious and lazy – and it is those imperfections that make black people human, make black people equal to all other imperfectly human groups.”

In a way it is a call to arms (“power will never self-sacrifice away from its self-interest”) but more than that, a call to human evolvement.

Book: “Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It”

Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It

Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It

by Gabor Maté 

Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) has quickly become a controversial topic in recent years. Whereas other books on the subject describe the condition as inherited, Dr. Gabor Maté believes that our social and emotional environments play a key role in both the cause of and cure for this condition. In Scattered, he describes the painful realities of ADD and its effect on children as well as on career and social paths in adults. While acknowledging that genetics may indeed play a part in predisposing a person toward ADD, Dr. Maté moves beyond that to focus on the things we can control: changes in environment, family dynamics, and parenting choices. He draws heavily on his own experience with the disorder, as both an ADD sufferer and the parent of three diagnosed children. Providing a thorough overview of ADD and its treatments, Scattered is essential and life-changing reading for the millions of ADD sufferers in North America today.

(Goodreads.com)

“Cancer is not a disease of the individual.”

“Cancer is not a disease of the individual. It reflects a lifelong set of relationships with yourself and your environment.”

–Gabor Maté

Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) Presenting at the March 2016 Perinatal Services BC Healthy Mothers & Healthy Babies conference, renowned speaker and author Dr.Gabor Maté illuminates the sources of developmental challenges, childhood and adult mental disorders, and physical health issues as originating in the prenatal, perinatal, and early childhood periods. Based on Dr. Maté’s bestselling books and on current neuroscientific and developmental research, the presentation focuses on how we can prevent maldevelopment through attuned parenting and restore and foster resilience in children already facing developmental challenges.

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Prosperos Community Update

 
Community Update
June 2021 HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING!
Summer Class Series:
The Prosperos is pleased to invite you to join our continuing summer series of online classes! To learn more about each class, and to register, please visit our website at https://www.theprosperos.org/events, and click on the calendar date for the class you want. We look forward to seeing you in class!
TRANSLATION
June 25-26, 2021 – Al Haferkamp, H.W., M.
This practical technique—also called “Straight Thinking in the Abstract“—shows how to reduce every appearance, and every problem, back to underlying Wholeness. It offers a system of thought which releases the immortal, whole, perfect identity of mankind, as Consciousness.
RELEASING THE HIDDEN SPLENDOUR
July 17-18, 2021 – Anne Bollman, H.W.,M., monitor
This essential technique gives you a safe and systematic method of re-perceiving the past, freeing yourself from negative emotions, conflicting memories, and self-defeating habit patterns. This presentation was originally recorded by Thane.
 SELF-ENCOUNTER
July 31, 2021 – Rick Thomas, H.W.,M.
An adjunct to Releasing the Hidden Splendour, this class provides fast techniques for uncovering the origin of self-defeating attitudes in order to allow your true Self to flourish.Sunday Meetings Presenting Prosperos Mentors and inspiring guests, these online events are open to all who are interested. There is no charge, although we do encourage contributions.

Coming this month:

SUNDAY, JUNE 20 (11:00 am PDT) – “Finding ‘Right’”
William Fennie, H.W., M., examines the underlying Reality Self, ever-present for each of us, that offers guidance and the key to meaningful engagement.
SUNDAY, JUNE 27 (11:00 am PDT) – “Conversations with Calvin”
Calvin Harris, H.W., M., continues his series of compelling interviews with fascinating, accomplished people from all walks of life.Have you missed a meeting? Recordings of selected Sunday Meetings areavailable; for information, please contact us at info@theprosperos.org.

Plan Now for Assembly 2022!LABOR DAY WEEKEND, SEPT. 2-5, 2022 – COLORADO
We are really looking forward to next year’s gathering! Won’t you join us? We’re planning interesting and inspiring presentations, activities and experiences, and of course, friendship and lots of ALOHA! So, clear your calendar and start saving up for that trip to gorgeous Colorado!

Watch this space for more information….  MAY WE HELP YOU?

High Watch Translation Service
Need help with a problem? You can request Translation for any issue: illness, relationships, professional difficulties, etc. Members of The Prosperos High Watch—students who have shown their understanding of Translation—will work to reveal the Truth behind the appearance. Contributions are welcome; all information is confidential. Please post your request at: http://TheProsperos.org/community/hwts.

Personal Counseling
Prosperos Mentors (Teacher/Counselors) are available for personal counseling, using the principles taught through the School. If you wish to arrange for personal counseling, or need questions answered about the techniques, or just want to talk, Prosperos Mentors are ready to help. For counselor names and contact information, please contact us at info@theprosperos.org.

Volunteer Opportunities 
WEBSITE ASSISTANCE: We are currently seeking volunteers with experience in web design and social media. To offer your services, or request more information on how you can help, please write to info@theprosperos.org. Thank you!

FOR MORE INFORMATION…We invite you to visit our websites for information about the School, as well as for descriptions of our wide selection of printed, recorded, and online resources (many are free; others are available for purchase).
General Information – For our calendar, newsletter, blogs and other articles and information, please visit https://TheProsperos.org.
 Audio Center – This site offers free podcasts, talks and lectures, and a wealth of other recorded material for our students and friends. To see what’s available, please visit https://TheProsperos.com.

Bio: Friedrich Hayek

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Friedrich Hayek
CH FBA
BornFriedrich August von Hayek
8 May 1899
ViennaCisleithaniaAustria-Hungary
Died23 March 1992 (aged 92)
Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
CitizenshipAustrian (1899–1938)
British (1938–1992)
Institution1931–1950 London School of Economics1950–1962 University of Chicago1962–1968 University of Freiburg
FieldEconomicsPolitical scienceLawPhilosophyPsychology
School or
tradition
Austrian School
Alma materUniversity of Vienna
(Dr. jur., 1921; Dr. rer. pol, 1923)
InfluencesActonBöhm-BawerkBurkeEuckenFergusonFetterHumeLockeMachMandevilleMengerMillMisesPopperSchmittSidneySmithSpannTocquevilleTuckerWicksellWieserWittgenstein
ContributionsEconomic calculation problemCatallaxyDispersed knowledgePrice signalSpontaneous orderAustrian Business Cycle TheoryHayek–Hebb model
Awards1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences1984 Companion of Honour1991 Presidential Medal of Freedom
Information at IDEAS / RePEc
Signature
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Friedrich August von Hayek CH FBA (/ˈhaɪək/ HY-əkGerman: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈʔaʊɡʊst ˈhaɪɛk] (listen); 8 May 1899 – 23 March 1992), often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian-British economist and philosopher who is best known for his defence of classical liberalism.[1] Hayek shared the 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Gunnar Myrdal for his work on economics.[2] His account of how changing prices communicate information that helps individuals coordinate their plans is widely regarded as an important achievement in economics, leading to his prize.[3][4][5]

Hayek served in World War I during his teenage years and said that this experience in the war and his desire to help avoid the mistakes that had led to the war drew him into economics.[6][7] At the University of Vienna, he studied economics, eventually receiving his doctoral degrees in law in 1921 and in political science in 1923.[6][8] He subsequently lived and worked in Austria, Great Britain, the United States, and Germany; he became a British subject in 1938.[9] Hayek’s academic life was mostly spent at the London School of Economics, and later at the University of Chicago, and the University of Freiburg. Although he is widely considered a leader of the Austrian School of Economics, he also had close connections with the Chicago School of Economics.[6][10][11][12] Hayek was also a major social theorist and political philosopher of the 20th century and as the co-founder of Mont Pelerin Society he contributed to the revival of classical liberalism in the post-war era.[13] His most popular work, The Road to Serfdom, has sold over 2.25 million copies (as of 2020).[14][15]

Hayek was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1984 for his academic contributions to economics.[16][17] He was the first recipient of the Hanns Martin Schleyer Prize in 1984.[18] He also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991 from President George H. W. Bush.[19] In 2011, his article The Use of Knowledge in Society was selected as one of the top 20 articles published in The American Economic Review during its first 100 years.[20]

Life

Early life

An ethno-linguistic map of Austria–Hungary, 1910

Friedrich August von Hayek was born in Vienna to August von Hayek and Felicitas Hayek (née von Juraschek). His father, born in 1871 also in Vienna, was a medical doctor employed by the municipal ministry of health.[21] August was a part-time botany lecturer at the University of Vienna.[2] Friedrich was the oldest of three brothers, Heinrich (1900–1969) and Erich (1904–1986), who were one-and-a-half and five years younger than he was.[22]

His father’s career as a university professor influenced Hayek’s goals later in life.[23] Both of his grandfathers, who lived long enough for Hayek to know them, were scholars.[24] Franz von Juraschek was a leading economist in Austria-Hungary and a close friend of Eugen Böhm von Bawerk, one of the founders of the Austrian School of Economics.[25] Hayek’s paternal grandfather, Gustav Edler von Hayek, taught natural sciences at the Imperial Realobergymnasium (secondary school) in Vienna. He wrote works in the field of biological systematics, some of which are relatively well known.[26]

On his mother’s side, Hayek was second cousin to the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.[27] His mother often played with Wittgenstein’s sisters and had known him well. As a result of their family relationship, Hayek became one of the first to read Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus when the book was published in its original German edition in 1921.[28] Although he met Wittgenstein on only a few occasions, Hayek said that Wittgenstein’s philosophy and methods of analysis had a profound influence on his own life and thought.[29] In his later years, Hayek recalled a discussion of philosophy with Wittgenstein when both were officers during World War I.[30] After Wittgenstein’s death, Hayek had intended to write a biography of Wittgenstein and worked on collecting family materials and later assisted biographers of Wittgenstein.[31] He was related to Wittgenstein on the non-Jewish side of the Wittgenstein family. Since his youth, Hayek frequently socialized with Jewish intellectuals and he mentions that people often speculated whether he was also of Jewish ancestry. That made him curious, so he spent some time researching his ancestors and found out that he has no Jewish ancestors within five generations.[32] The surname Hayek uses the German spelling of the Czech surname Hájek.[17]

Hayek displayed an intellectual and academic bent from a very young age.[9] He read fluently and frequently before going to school.[33]He was at the bottom of his class in most subjects, and once received three failing grades, in Latin, Greek and mathematics.[34] He was very interested in theater, even attempting to write some tragedies, and biology, regularly helping his father with his botanical work.[35] At his father’s suggestion, as a teenager he read the genetic and evolutionary works of Hugo de Vries and August Weismann and the philosophical works of Ludwig Feuerbach.[36] He noted Goethe as the greatest early intellectual influence.[35] In school, Hayek was much taken by one instructor’s lectures on Aristotle’s ethics.[37] In his unpublished autobiographical notes, Hayek recalled a division between him and his younger brothers who were only a few years younger than him, but he believed that they were somehow of a different generation. He preferred to associate with adults.[33]Austro-Hungarian artillery unit appearing in The Illustrated London News in 1914

In 1917, Hayek joined an artillery regiment in the Austro-Hungarian Army and fought on the Italian front.[38] Hayek suffered damage to his hearing in his left ear during the war[39] and was decorated for bravery. During this time, Hayek also survived the 1918 flu pandemic.[40]

Hayek then decided to pursue an academic career, determined to help avoid the mistakes that had led to the war. Hayek said of his experience: “The decisive influence was really World War I. It’s bound to draw your attention to the problems of political organization”. He vowed to work for a better world.[41]

More at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek

Bio: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Portrait by Jakob Schlesinger, 1831
Born27 August 1770
StuttgartDuchy of Württemberg
Died14 November 1831 (aged 61)
BerlinKingdom of Prussia
NationalityGerman
EducationGymnasium illustre zu StuttgartTübinger StiftUniversity of Tübingen (MA, 1790)[1]University of Jena (PhD, 1801)
Era19th-century philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
SchoolContinental philosophyGerman idealismObjective idealismAbsolute idealismHegelianismHistoricism[2]NaturphilosophieEpistemic coherentism[3]Conceptualism[4]Empirical realism[5]Coherence theory of truth[6]
InstitutionsUniversity of Jena
(1801–1806)University of Heidelberg
(1816–1818)University of Berlin
(1818–1831)
ThesisDissertatio Philosophica de Orbitis Planetarium (Philosophical Dissertation on the Orbits of the Planets) (1801)
Academic advisorsJohann Friedrich LeBret [de(MA advisor)[7]
Notable studentsJohann Eduard Erdmann
Main interestsMetaphysicsEpistemologyNaturphilosophiePhilosophy of historyEthicsPolitical philosophyLogicAesthetics
Notable ideasshow 
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Signature

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (/ˈheɪɡəl/;[28][29] German: [ˈɡeːɔʁk ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈheːɡl̩];[29][30] 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher and is considered one of the most important figures in German idealism.[31] He is also considered one of the fundamental figures of Western philosophy, with his influence extending to the entire range of contemporary philosophical issues, from aesthetics to ontology to politics, both in the analytic and continental tradition.[31][32]

Hegel’s principal achievement was his development of a distinctive articulation of idealism, sometimes termed absolute idealism,[33] in which the dualisms of, for instance, mind and nature and subject and object are overcome. His philosophy of spirit conceptually integrates psychologythe statehistoryartreligion and philosophy. His master–slave dialectic has been influential, especially in 20th-century France.[34] Of special importance is his concept of spirit (Geist, sometimes also translated as “mind”) as the historical manifestation of the logical concept – and the “sublation” (Aufhebung, integration without elimination or reduction) – of seemingly contradictory or opposing factors: examples include the apparent opposition between necessity and freedom and between immanence and transcendence. (Hegel has been seen in the twentieth century as the originator of the thesis, antithesis, synthesis triad,[35] but as an explicit phrase it originated with Johann Gottlieb Fichte.)[36][a]

Hegel has influenced many thinkers and writers whose own positions vary widely.[37] For example, Paul Tillich wrote that the historical dialectical thought of Hegel “has influenced world history more profoundly than any other structural analysis.”[38] Karl Barth described Hegel as a “Protestant Aquinas[39] while Maurice Merleau-Ponty wrote that “all the great philosophical ideas of the past century—the philosophies of Marx and Nietzschephenomenology, German existentialism, and psychoanalysis—had their beginnings in Hegel.”[40] Michael Hardt has highlighted that the roots of post-structuralism and its unifying basis lies, in large part, in a general opposition not to the philosophical tradition tout court but specifically to the “Hegelian tradition” dominating philosophy in the twentieth century prior to post-structuralism.[41]

Hegel’s work has been considered the “completion of philosophy”[42][43][44] by multiple of the most influential thinkers in existentialismpost-structuralism, and twentieth-century theology.[45][46][43][47][44][48] Derrida wrote of Hegel in his work Of Grammatology that “he undoubtedly summed up the entire philosophy of the logos. He determined ontology as absolute logic; he assembled all the delimitations of philosophy as presence,” later remarking that Hegel is thus “the last philosopher of the book and the first philosopher of writing,” indicating the relation of Hegel to post-structural thought by stating “if there were a definition of Différance, it would be precisely the limit, the interruption, the destruction of the Hegelian dialectical synthesis wherever it operates.”[49] In his work Systematic Theology, theologian Paul Tillich referred to Hegel’s work as “perfect essentialism,” later writing “essentialism was in Hegel’s system fulfilled.”[48] Martin Heidegger observed in his 1969 work Identity and Difference and in his personal Black Notebooks that Hegel’s system in an important respect “consummates western philosophy”[42][43][44] by completing the idea of the logos, the self-grounding ground, in thinking through the identification of Being and beings, which is “the theme of logic”, writing “[I]t is… incontestable that Hegel, faithful to tradition, sees the matter of thinking in beings as such and as a whole, in the movement of Being from its emptiness to its developed fullness.”[43][44] Heidegger in various places further stated Hegel’s thinking to be “the most powerful thinking of modern times.”[50][51]

More at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Hegel

Book: “The Open Society and Its Enemies”

The Open Society and Its Enemies

The Open Society and Its Enemies

(The Open Society and its Enemies #1+2)

by Karl Popper 

Written in political exile in New Zealand during the Second World War and published in two volumes in 1945, The Open Society and its Enemies was hailed by Bertrand Russell as a ‘vigorous and profound defence of democracy’. This legendary attack on the philosophies of Plato, Hegel and Marx prophesied the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and exposed the fatal flaws of socially engineered political systems. It remains highly readable, erudite and lucid and as essential reading today as on publication in 1945. It is available here in a special centenary single-volume edition.

(Goodreads.com)

Other Nations…

“We patronize the animals for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they are more finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other Nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”

– Henry Beston (June 1, 1888 – April 15, 1968) was an American writer and naturalist, best known as the author of The Outermost House, written in 1928. Wikipedia

(Contributed by Gwyllm Llwydd)

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