There have been people trying to explain that to him for days now. It's hopeless. It's like trying to explain the uncertainty principle to a gold fish.

Start thinking. One of these days. Do.

So if a Norwegian person hates Swedes, then he is racist?

Depending on how technical you want to be.

In an everyday discussion, you'd call him a racist. That is, you point out at his determinist view of Swedes as a homogeneous group of which evil is expected. You accuse him of making of "swedes" what a racialist would make of a category he imagines biological. You criticize the way he structures his worldview : with different "essences" of humans, and negative traits attached to the members of a "group", allowing a global judgement. Allowing the reduction of a group to some fantasmagorical archetype. That is how racisms work.

In a historical, anthropological, academic analysis, you'd refine this. You'd dig at the specific rationale behind these categorizations. And you'd distinguish between racialism ("proper" racism, if you want), or culturalism, or methods of categorisations that don't really match this (in which case you'd generally use "racism" with a descriptive : like "class racism", etc). You'd also generally contextualize it in the history of evolution of racisms (in a broad sense) : how the same essentialist worldview got rationalized by different mechanisms (for instance the current shift of discourses from "biological racism" to "cultural racism").

In other words, to a given "hey isn't he being racist" you can nitpick "well actually no, he is technically culturalist", but chances are this distinction will miss the point that was being made, or not change much to the actual meaning of the accusation ("racist" as in "essentializing and stigmatizing a human population"). But it can also be used as a diversion : "no, he is culturalist" expecting "oh okay, nevermind then". This would be a dishonest usage of the distinction, capitalizing on the lack of stigma of less familiar terms which still describe the same thought process.

As I pointed out earlier, you have the same ambiguity with other words such as "animal" :

a) "Stop being racist" - "i'm not racist i'm culturalist" - "oh sorry, carry on".

b) "Stop treating her like an animal" - "humans ARE animals" - "oh sorry, carry on".

Both are fallacies intrumentalizing the narrower (more technically accurate) meaning that a word takes in other discussion contexts, in order to avoid the point being made.

======

In other words. Wait for gulf war 3 and me going all "damn warmongering yankees" in a fit of rage. Tell me I'm a racist for that (point out how diverse the american populaton is, how often progressive, point out US's inner disagreements, the fact that all decisions are taken upon 51% vs 49% votes, remind me of the american antiwar protests, and how many intellectuals I refer to in my very protests are either american or influenced by very institutional american thinkers). I'll probably first nitpick "well, first of all, i wasn't being racist, mind you, because it is not a race" for the form, but then I'd concide "but yeah, i see what you mean, i was being an ass there". I would not have deflected your accusation. Because, in that general popular usage, "racism" makes a valid point that no other word would have done. I would have been actually racist in the broader sense. And it would have been a bad thing. Saying otherwise would have been, from me, a dishonest rhetorical way to seek an escape door and not face the implications of my discourse.

Only no one here expressed such thought process. Finding fault with, and even expressing vehement disagreement with a countries/nations/ it's goverment(s) actions and decisions in recent years is no way, shape or form the same thing as considering a race or nation inherently inferior or "bad".

It's like if you heard someone say to a guy "George, you're acting like an idiot" and interpreted it as "that guy hates George! it must be because George is black and that guy is a racist!". Only George is not black, and the other guy does not hate him, he just thinks George was acting like an idiot just now. Maybe he is right, maybe not, but he certainly is not racist.

So what you are saying is, a Norwegian who hates Swedes is no different from a racist? But what if he hates Swedes because he hates their culture? Then he still being no different than a racist, right? And so you think, the right thing to do is to call him, a racist?

I guess one valid reductionism is that this is mostly about money.

Who gets/pays what amount to whom else at which times and then has/has not something left and for which reasons.

On state levels this is a fairly complicated matter. Even on corporation levels this is difficult. On a personal level this is kind of severe but there are established rules.

So maybe just for the future of Europe it would be best to a) have a political and economical union and b) avoid governmental debt at all costs (i.e. have an effective constitutional debt lock in every member country). That way big distortions are less of a problem (like in the US or in China or in ...) and money problems are more on the personal levels were they are still severe but less complex.

Out of curiosity, are greek users still able to purchase GOG games?

The difference comes from the fact that George is alone. "Greeks are idiots" is another thing. There is the ambiguity of "I mean not all Greeks but most of them" (which you can find in racist discourses : "blacks are lazy criminals, i mean, not all blacks, but most of them, and i even have a black friend so I am not racist"), but then again there is a temporal distinction : a difference between "they are acting like idiots right now" and "they are idiots", the latter implying some intemporal essence. By the way, we should be also careful about the danger of saying "he is a racist" instead of "he is being racist here", when the distinction has to be done.

But a problem, that really demands attention here, is how easily one slips from one type of discourse to another, once such statements are being uttered. In a same sentence, "they" can mean "the government", "the voters", "the current population", "the a-historical category", etc, without the listeners to notice the slip, and often (outside political manipulative discourses) without the speaker himself to realise this slip. And this leads to fallacies with racist undertones.

In this current context, we are being bombarded with crypto-racist narratives by politicians and medias, narratives that we easily endorse because they simplify the moral issue a lot (how responsible are we supposed to feel towards an evil population ?). Narratives about greeks being corrupt (implying morally corrupt), improductive (implying lazy), or deliberately leeching on EU funds. These narratives make us see an evil The Greek archetype, supposedly representative, and symbolic of the country as a whole. This allows for "punitive" rhetorics aimed at the whole population : "they have to suffer for their sins". The archetype becomes They. As our minds also stops at the first intellectually satisfying explanaton, this sort of racist narrative also spares us more complex understandings of the situations, its causes, its stakes. It's the same rhetorical trick that is being used against asylum seekers and the moral conundrum of international asylum rights : assimilating them to a fraud stereotype lifts the moral duty of solidarity and conveniently allows mass rejection (or default hostility) without impacting self-esteem.

We are in a situation where trains of thoughts can easily be derailed by racist discourses which designate the greek population as responsible of EU's problems due to intrinsic moral flaws. Discourses that enable moral stances (a humanitarian crisis here is no big deal) that would not sound just otherwise. And discourses that provide cheap simple explanations (crisis is caused by greek evils, the rest is fine) that short circuits reflexions on all the mechanisms and collective responsabilities we should take in account. We have to be extremely careful about these rhetorics, and what they imply in terms of representations and consequences.

In short, a sentence like "fuck the greeks they deserved it" is being racist, because of the actual content of the blurry "they". It flickers between "past governments", "current government", "population", "decision makers", etc. But the "they" who get what the "they" deserve is the whle of today's population. And in this (often deliberately) foggy usage of categories lies the idea that the whole population's suffering is justified.

If we intend to avoid endorsing racist logics, we have to be very scrupulous on the statements we endorse. And we have to be attentive to the racist fallacies that sneak into them through their usual rhatorical devices. That's a requisite for a clearer view of the situation.


Yes. Culturalism is functionally equivalent to (racialist) racism. Culturalists and racists hate the same thing : the supposedly determined behaviour and abilities of a human group considered as homogeneous. The difference is only on how they "explain" it, but they "explain" the very same thing.

Some day, culturalism will be a dirty word in the same way as racism. People will realise it evokes the same attitudes. That day, the "i am not a racist because no races" line of defense will be moot.

But the same essentialist and discriminatory attitudes will happen towards categories that are neither cultures nor races, and we'll still have to juggle with these terms in order to designate them (if we don't want to use sentence-long terms that require paragraph-long explanation each time).

No. But never mind. If all goes well (well for those of us who want these things to happen), which is leaving euro and eurozone for good, i will turn my drachmas (or whatever the new coin is) into dollars, so i can buy new games here, again.

If i will have the option to, i am NEVER going to use a SINGLE euro EVER again!

Argument from authority. Unfortunately they are not unclouded by ideology. For instance Krugman has a strong anti-globalization view on things. I have read that piece from Krugman, it is highly colored with his leftist ideology, like how he claims EU and IMF have a hidden agenda to drive Tsipras out of office.

That is just his unfounded opinion, not some kind of undeniable truth. Just like your insane blabbing about "gangster economics".

If you had actually read my message, I already mentioned "cut the debt", so right back at you. What else? Specifically, should Greece stop negotiations with EU and IMF, and should Greece exit the eurozone?. I already asked that, silence from you.

They don't mention anything about that. Krugman at least presents it as one possibility, but fears to make an actual opinion on that. Like I said, if these people think Greece should exit the eurozone, then they should convince Greece and Tsipras of that, not the other EU countries. The other countries have no power to decide whether Greece can be in euro, only Greece can decide to leave.

Could you next link to some article in Cantonese, ok? It would be about as useful.

So, did they suggest Greece should leave the eurozone? Yes or no?

"Establishment"? Can you also say "fascist peeeegs!"? What are you, some home-grown wannabe-anarchist? I usually hear that kind of ideological bullshit from those guys.

Apparently you don't believe a country can be held accountable for their spending and decisions. Again the argument of an irresponsible infant in a candy store: all countries are like irresponsible infants which can't be held accountable, so it is the bad bad candy store who should get all the blame.

Oh really? Then that must make you a rapist, right?

If you had actually read what I wrote, I mentioned no one, me included, really seemed to understand what the referendum was all about, and to what the "no" was for (apparently I was racist towards all people).

For the expired offer by the troika? Whether Greece will leave the eurozone? Whether Greece will continue negotiations with the troika, but will automatically get a better deal than before (because obviously the heads of other EU countries don't have to heed their own citizens, but only the Greek referendum)? Whether Greece's debts will be forgiven? Hard to say, and even harder for those Greeks who can't read English as the question in the referendum was partly in Greek, and partly in English.

Also as I explained, I was quoting an article. That local person must be a racist because she claimed many (that she discussed with) seemed to think it is about forgiving Greece's debts.

Unlike you ?

I have a honest question. Do you personally believe the IMF is driven by ideology or not ?

You surprise me - one time you are smart, another child-level naive.
I'd like to use Ukraine as an example "How Greece crisis was made"

Poroshenko, who you think is the leader of independent Ukraine is controlled by Rothschild
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150605/1022991881.html

Rothschild controls US and IMF too.

So, we have Rothschild's man taking credits from Rothschild's IMF... Where these money go?

Not so long ago Poroshenko revealed result of "police reform":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=35&v=eef7NhdYCkY

I think everyone have seen "Police academy" and can spot familiar uniform.
Yes, Poroshenko took credits from US to purchase uniform in US
And not only uniforms http://rian.com.ua/politics/20150410/366092609.html

Instead of spending money on resurrection of own Ukrainian plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZAZ
country is forced to buy spare parts for US cars forever.

After Poroshenko, ukrainian Tsipras would face situation - Rothschild moved money from IMF to whoever owns these plants(probably him, lol), Ukraine is just being used as garbage bin.

Let's distinguish - educated people see US banksters as root of all evil. Like Rothschild above - he's gaining profit at the expense of deaths of ukrainians over matter which exists only on paper.

Common folks in US are the same people like everywhere else. Good, bad, bigots and saints.
There are tons of signs that they are hostages of bank system. Suicides over unpayable student loans...They deserve pity and need help.
They ARE asking for help.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-30356539