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Re: The Jewish Woman Shortage

Posted by SilverFox on Sat Jun 24 01:53:18 2006, in response to Re: The Jewish Woman Shortage, posted by RonInBayside on Fri Jun 23 07:01:48 2006.


That's one of the worst things a parent can do to a child. Disowning someone because of whom he/she chooses to marry

Put me down as agreeing with you as well on this point, but with one reservation. I don't think that labeling it outright as cruel is the answer, as I feel there is a great deal of latent reasoning behind it that must be overcome rather than castigated.

I think the answer lies somewhere between the logic of your statement and the emotion of Brian's. As we both know, humans are neither 100% logical nor 100% emotional, and there is a good deal of benefit to be had from both properties.

We live in a society becoming far more liberal (small L) in its social values. It's no longer taboo to interact with people of other groups than yourself. The direct effect of that is far greater openness in choosing a mate, having children, and the actions being openly endorsed by most everybody. The globe has become smaller, and so we have become largely closer. Not a bad thing.

Anthropologically speaking, we are hard-wired toward seeking a mate with our attributes, as this is what we were used to for over 50,000 years of existence if not by desire, then definitely by default. One rarely found a mate outside a small radius of where they were born, and chances were overwhelming that those within that radius were much like yourself. It was only in the last fifty or 75 years that automobiles, much less airplanes, have made it easier for us to expand our sphere of eligible mates.

The problem arises when there are those of more "traditional" values or upbringing not wishing to become a part of this changing tide. And this is quite understandable, although you or others may decry this as "racism" or "closed-mindedness." Compacted into the period of a day, we were mixing freely as a species for only about two minutes, and naturally there are many people, peoples, cultures, societies, etc. who are afraid that in the new order of things, their way of life will become subjugated if not made extinct. Racism, or self-preservation?

Do you want an example of this that has nothing to do with "Western" or "White" imperialism or colonialism? Well, I recently watched a National Geographic (or otherwise Patrician science program) discussing tribes in Africa. You know, the ones with the plates in their lips and the drooping earlobes. To make a long story short, this tribe of African natives recently had a road built beside their village, opening them up to the "outside." Almost immediately, most of the women of the tribe left the village for other opportunities, eschewing the plate in the lip. Soon after, it has been decreed by the tribal leader that this practice will no longer take place within the tribe, as travelers on the road may find it odd, and bring the tribe all manner of bad publicity.

To the "Save Africa" crowd, that must be a shame, although if someone laments a black and a white miscegenating in this country, or that the white race is rapidly degenerating, it's "racism." But I digress. This is a culture, primitive by any yardstick, but anthropologically significant nonetheless, that has become extinct.

Does the logic of your comment extend toward the want to preserve as many anthropological distinctions as possible, regardless of their "value" or "merit" or how many children become yoked into its maintenance; or do you feel that society doesn't need any plate-lipped primitive African tribespeople and it is good that they have become assimilated into, at least, the African "mainstream?"

Should the Jewish/Islamic/White/Black/Chinese/Japanese/Hindu "Causes" be maintained as anthropologically pedigree, or should all of these distinguishing characteristics and pedigrees fall by the wayside in favor of "one humanity" without any references?

It's a fence I am sitting squarely and painfully between. How about you?

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