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The Paradoxes of Racism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

John Dunn
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Extract

IN ITS MOST ELABORATELY ARTICULATED FORM RACISM IS AN array of theoretical views about the epistemic clarity and human import of the practice of individuating human populations in terms of their presumed biological descent. In this form the term can refer with some precision, and largely independently of context, to a quite specific body of beliefs. In far more diffuse and far less theoretical forms, however, and in forms which are also far more widely distributed in human history, it can and does refer just as readily to the highlighting of distinctions which are certainly at least as much cultural as they are genetic, and which are inextricably located in a context of more or less intimate and painful confrontation between human groups. In this second form there cannot in principle be anything comparably determinate for the term racism to refer to.

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Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , 01 October 1993 , pp. 512 - 525
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1993

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References

1 Compare the contribution by Guido Modiano to Girolamo Inbruglia (ed.), II Razzismo e le sue stone, Naples, Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1992.

2 Finley, M. I., Ancient Slavery and Modem Ideology, London, Chatto & Windus, 1980;Google Scholar Pagden, Anthony, The Fall of Natural Man, 2nd ed., Cambridge, Cambridge University, Press, 1986;Google Scholar and the contributions by Pagden and Adriano Prosperi to G. Inbruglia (ed.) II Razzismo e le sue storie, op. cit.

3 Cf. Dworkin, Ronald, ‘What is Equality?’, Parts 1 & 2, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 10, Nos 3 & 4, 1981, pp. 185–246, 283–345.Google Scholar

4 Dunn, John, ‘Trust and Political Agency’, in Gambetta, Diego (ed.), Trust, Oxford, Blackwell, 1988;Google ScholarPubMed Bobbio, Norberto, Una Guerra giusta? Sul conflitto delgolfo, Venice, Marsilio, 1991.Google Scholar

5 For a powerful and surprising example see Przeworski, Adam, Capitalism and Social Democracy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1985.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Dunn, John, ‘Political Obligation’, in Held, David (ed.), Political Theory Today, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1991 Google Scholar and Dunn, J., Political Obligation in its Historical Context, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1980, Conclusion.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Compare Dunn, John, Locke, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1984, ch. 2.Google Scholar

8 Compare Dunn, John, Interpreting Political Responsibility, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1990, ch. 12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Financial Times, London, 17 June 1991, p. 2.

10 Compare Adam, Heribert and Moodley, Kogila, South Africa without Apartheid: Dismantling Racial Domination, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1986.Google Scholar

11 Marshall, T. H., Citizenship and Social Class, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1950, pp. 1–85.Google Scholar

12 Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1972 Google Scholar. Compare Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State and Utopia, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1974 Google Scholar and Barry, Brian, Theories of Justice, Hassocks, Harvester Press, 1989.Google Scholar

13 For a balanced and appropriately urgent judgment see the contribution by Enrico Pugliese to G. Inbruglia (ed.), Il Razzismo e U sue slorie, op. cit.

14 Cf. Scruton, Roger, The Meaning of Conservatism, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1980.Google Scholar

15 Compare the assessment of the ‘repugnant conclusion’ in Parfit, Derek, Reasons and Persons, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1984.Google Scholar

16 Dunn, John, Rethinking Modern Political Theory, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1985, ch. 6.Google Scholar

17 Compare Dunn, ‘Political Obligation’, in Held (ed.), op. cit.

18 Compare Dunn, Interpreting Political Responsibility, ch. 12.

19 Cf. Emile Durkheim, Socialism, ed. A. W. Gouldner, New York, Collier Books, 1962, p. 41. (The translation is less than ideal.).

20 This article was initially prepared for the conference on Racism and its History at the Rocca Malatestiana in August 1991. An Italian translation has appeared in /Razziamo e Ic sue storie, op. cit.