On May 22, 2007, at 11:43 AM, Kevin Joel Berland wrote:

> On Tue, 22 May 2007 00:31:52 -0400  Lyle E. Browning wrote... a  
> detailed reply
> to my recent discussion under the subject heading given above.
>
> Much of today's reply consists of explication of what he says he  
> *meant* to say.
>  This has not really affected my reading of what he actually wrote,  
> though I
> will acknowledge his shrewd assessment of the rhetoric of my  
> opening sally
> (listing what I was not going to discuss).  Otherwise, however, Mr.  
> Browning
> has not really addressed the issues at hand.
Waitaholdit, slick. I said what I meant to say in my first post.  
Period. What I responded to was your mischaracterization of my  
statements in my second post. There was no "meant" in my second post.  
it was a direct response to your statements. Let's set that record  
straight.

> A few points remain:
>
> 1) Merely assigning a reductive label ("PC") to an issue under  
> discussion
> produces heat without light.  I questioned (in passing) the use of  
> the word
> "emasculating" to indicate an endemic problem with gendered  
> language, not
> merely Mr. Browning's usage.  This is a problem because it  
> associates strength
> with masculinity and weakness with the other, and thus indicates a  
> set of
> embedded cultural assumptions.  If this particular usage strikes  
> Mr. Browning
> as  "more evocative," it's because he's employing a common habit of  
> discourse.
> Habits of discourse should be examined.  I did not "infer gender"  
> from his use
> of the word--the word is gendered by definition.  But Mr. Browning  
> is right to
> say this topic is irrelevant to my main points.
And you illustrate my point about the negativity of the PC argument  
brilliantly by your last paragraph. And why use one sentence when ten  
will do? the statement that habits of discourse should be examined,  
layered beneath the larding of the PC phraseology, is very much akin  
to the old communist methodology (no baiting intended) of self- 
criticism. That's all well and good, except that the result of the  
self-criticism was not to reach any other point but exactly what the  
ruling party wanted. If you kept on, you got shot. Here, you merely  
get bombarded with verbosity, innuendo and attribution of statements  
not in evidence.
>
> 2)  When Mr. Browning wrote about the outcome of a culture clash  
> between
> European settlers and indigenous people, he added these words: "To  
> negate that
> also negates  what we became later as in the United States of  
> America.  The end
>  result of had we been PC way back then was that we don't now  
> exist."  While it
> is far from clear what being "PC way back then" means, his argument  
> is clear
> enough: to deny (or negate) the outcome of "domination" somehow  
> denies the
> long-term outcome, the establishment of the United States.
Again, I never said that. You misunderstand completely, again.
> I call this a
> necessitarian argument because it explicitly draws a causal  
> connection between
> a set of historical events and a present outcome, and implicitly  
> states that
> this outcome would have been impossible without this particular set  
> of events.
> Mr. Browning is of course correct to frame the conflict as a clash  
> between
> cultures convinced of their absolute superiority, and he is right that
> technological differences aided the Europeans, though many  
> historians would add
> to the mix the epidemiological issues.  In a number of specific  
> points I have
> no disagreement with Mr. Browning.  Nevertheless, his original  
> message involves
> an argument of necessity--if the conflict had not gone the way it  
> did, the
> nation as we know it would not exist.
However you wish to phrase it, that would be the result. But not  
because it was necessary, but because it happened in the sequence of  
events that actually took place. There is absolutely no way of  
knowing the result of changing any of the major events. This is akin  
to the argument that the Brits had prior to WWII wherein a diplomatic  
corps person was cashiered out of the service for suggesting that he  
could remove Herr Schicklegruber with a .303 as he spoke at one of  
the rallies. From that point on, had it happened, world history would  
have changed and what transpired between then and now would be the  
new history. Necessity isn't part of it, to beat a deceased equid.
>
> 3) I agree with Mr. Browning's proposition that "This nation  
> developed out of
> all of our past events."  Fine.  No problem there (though that's  
> not what he
> said originally).  However, he contradicts himself when he first  
> states that
> "what went on yesterday is generally over for good," and later  
> acknowledges
> that choices and actions produce unintended  consequences."  Why  
> not apply this
> latter principle to the matter at hand?  We are still living with the
> unintended consequences of the invasion of America, the  
> "domination" of
> indigenous people by Europeans and their descendants.
And you would change this how? And would that not cause further  
unintended consequences? And so on?
>
> 4)  Curiously, I find the next point--the one Mr. Browning admits was
> "unexpressed"-- very congenial.
Your talents are wasted in archaeology. Your true calling is in the  
legal profession. Your ability to conscript words I never used in  
order to make your misinterpreted points is a true marveled.  
"Admitting" is a superb way of negatively casting my comments in  
light of yours. Except that I neither made nor inferred any such  
admission.

> He says, "We now criticize past actions from
> our current perspective without ever fully understanding what  
> caused those
> events to take place."  Exactly.  This is a classic crux of  
> historiography.
> How can we observe, analyze, praise, or criticize the historical  
> past free from
> the assumptions of our current culture (what hermeneutical  
> theorists call "the
> horizon of understanding")?  We can't.  These assumptions govern  
> the way we
> explain things, the normative values we embrace explicitly or  
> implicitly, and
> even the way we select evidence (and the kinds of evidence we view as
> significant) to construct our interpretive arguments.
Hyper-relativism at it's best. We can know nothing, etc. Paralysis by  
analysis again. Sorry to disagree, but life involves making  
decisions. Thoreau said it best: "Everyone needs something to believe  
in. I believe I'll go fishing."


> And Mr. Browning is also
> right to suggest that historical causation is more complicated than  
> the
> single-event theory.
>
> 5) And then Mr. Browning simply reverses the terms of my  
> argument:"What is
> fallacious is to infer that if we had either done or not done some  
> bit of
> history, and you take your pick, that the rest of our history would  
> have
> resulted in us being who we are."  As I read this passage, Mr.  
> Browning is now
> saying that it is impossible to determine whether different  
> historical actions
> could have produced the same results (would we exist as a nation  
> if...?).
No bubba, that's what I have said from the beginning.
> If
> he will acknowledge that we cannot be certain they wouldn't, I will  
> concede
> that we cannot be certain that they would.
It's a dorm room argument without resolution. What's the point of it?
>   Moreover, his argument begs the
> question: are we to assume that it would necessarily be a bad thing  
> if American
> history had taken a different tack in regard to various events  
> (supplanting the
> indigenous people, slavery, prohibition, etc.)?
It is again an idealized concept with no basis in reality. I have  
thought of the hereafter in those terms, where whatever one wishes to  
know is seen and understood. I have to wonder just how many of our  
archaeological positions will turn out to be so much silliness?  
Perhaps in some variant of an afterlife, all is made clear, but for  
us still dragging around in this one, that's an argument for folks  
with way too much time on their hands.
>
> 6)  I enjoyed Mr. Browning's brief foray into the area of  
> counterfactual history
> and historical fiction.  It does not alter my reading of his  
> original comment
> as necessitarian.
If you must persist in calling the statement necessitarian, please do  
proceed, despite my assertion that it was not over two posts, but if  
you must, you may. But you're still misinterpreting what I said.
>
> 7)  Mr. Browning's more nuanced explanation of his view of the  
> cultural conflict
> is interesting, and removes most of my objections to what appeared  
> in his
> original statement as oversimplification.
There's an old joke about a "good ole boy" and a sheriff who went  
fishing out on a lake in a boat. GOB has a satchel and takes out a  
stick of dynamite and puts a fuse into one end, lights it and tosses  
it overboard. When it goes off, he rows over and picks up the fish  
with his net. The sheriff says that what he's done is illegal and  
dangerous, and not fair to the fish, taking a long way around to get  
to his point. GOB says nothing but takes the second half of the stick  
of dynamite, puts the fuse in it, lights it, hands it to the sheriff  
and asks "Are you talking or fishing?" Simplification is often to the  
good. It's called synthesis in archaeology. More data/chaos comes in  
and we simplify. Concept level thinking is good for clarity.
>
> 8)  My comment about the complexities of colonial and First Nations  
> cultures
> stands.  There were many native cultures, some of which could  
> accommodate
> change, and others could not.  There were many settler cultures,  
> not all of
> which took the same approach to native cultures.  This does not  
> require a "time
> machine" to determine, nor does it contradict the  
> "reality...generally and
> broadly accepted"--not according to my reading of the historical and
> ethnohistorical literature.  I do not quarrel with your premise  
> that both sides
> viewed the other as inferior (in a sense, I suspect they were both  
> right about
> that).  But the contention that Euro-American technological  
> superiority
> mandated precisely the outcome that occurred is, I think, overly  
> simple.
I never said that. Please stop with the A/C approach to the issue,  
it's tiresome.

> In
> New England, for instance, the native population was clearly superior
> technologically but succumbed to European disease.  The Powhatans  
> were superior
> to Smith's English, and so forth.
Please explain those, please.

>   There were other issues, especially the
> degree to which the European belief that the native population were  
> sub-human
> licensed inconsistent diplomacy and violence--and the degree to  
> which native
> belief in the superiority of their way of life led them to defend it.
>
> 9) While I must acknowledge that Mr. Browning did not explicitly  
> pursue the
> argument of historical necessity to the extent of overtly accepting  
> "the
> Jacksonian view that the resistance of indigenous people to  
> assimilation places
> them outside the bounds" of justice, I am still convinced that his
> necessaritarian view of history is the same view that produced the  
> historical
> outcomes I mentioned.  To state that the "domination" of indigenous  
> culture
> *had* to happen *the way it did happen* is to place the destiny of  
> the new
> nation above all other considerations.  It is not speculative  
> history or
> fantasy-making to question or criticize both the actions taken by  
> our forebears
> and the logic underpinning these actions.
I never said that. Please stop inventing out of whole cloth something  
I never said or inferred. I'm starting to feel like Foghorn Leghorn  
whacking that dog with a 2x4 saying "Boy, you're just not payin'  
attention", to continue the alleged cartoonish analogy.
>
> 10) Though Mr. Browning now acknowledges the complexities of  
> historical
> causation
Never denied it, never said I didn't, never felt I didn't, even as a  
little tad before I knew what real complexity was all about.

> --"Events follow one upon another for an absurdly large number of
> reasons. The flow is called history. I make no relation between  
> sequence and
> causation, none whatsoever. History is seldom logical"--he still  
> maintains the
> same necessitarian position as he did in the original message.  I  
> suggest that
> other approaches might have produced different outcomes, a  
> suggestion he first
> rejects with contemptuous analogies and then with dismissing the  
> suggestion as
> science fiction.  My point was not to suggest that other approaches  
> might have
> been better (though they *might* have been), but to demonstrate  
> that the
> necessitarian approach assumes things happened in the way they  
> *had* to happen.
The necessitarian approach is not part of my thought process. Are we  
having two separate arguments here or what? Are you Jim Bowles on  
speed or what? Is there a time warp? No, Kafka was probably correct.
>
> 11)  Mr. Browning concedes that "Criticism is hardly ever wrong, in  
> and of
> itself."  But then he adds that this principle only applies when he  
> agrees with
> the criticism.  He explains, "The PC worldview is narrow,  
> circumscribed,
> agenda-ridden and intellectually stultifying. That emasculates, not  
> criticism."
>  The principal argument of those he dismisses as "PC" is that the  
> world-view
> they criticize is itself agenda-ridden--it's just that the agenda  
> is assumed
> and accepted uncritically.  How narrow and circumscribed is it to  
> dismiss a
> body of thought and a method of inquiry by dismissing it all with a
> contemptuous term?  How intellectually stultifying is it to substitute
> name-calling for engagement with discussing ideas?
IF you are seriously claiming that PC is a body of thought and a  
method of enquiry then you need say no more. You have proved my point  
far more than I might ever have done. Thank you.

> Mr. Browning claims that
> "Political correctness is in itself a form of censorship and as  
> such undercuts
> the free exchange of ideas, unless phrased in such a way as to give  
> no offense
> to anyone."  In fact, he has used the term "PC" repeatedly to  
> dismiss ideas, to
> characterize careful attention to language as censorship, and to close
> discussions.  This stance allows him to claim the privilege of  
> silencing others
> while at the same time complaining about being censored.
A wonderfully circular argument, without substance. What has happened  
is that you have taken my short statement completely out of context,  
created misinterpretations out of whole cloth and constructed various  
fallacious "straw men" (oh dear, another genderized construct). It is  
a nasty little rhetorical device wherein one is labeled with various  
"isms" as if the definition itself damns the target. In the end, we  
agree to disagree on some points and perhaps agree on others. Life  
goes on.
>
> 12)  Finally, I'd like to suggest another overlooked issue--the  
> contention made
> by a number of First Nations in North America.  They say, "We're  
> still here."
And so is everybody else. The point being....?



Lyle Browning