{"id":723,"date":"2013-01-22T15:54:17","date_gmt":"2013-01-22T20:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=723"},"modified":"2013-01-22T15:54:17","modified_gmt":"2013-01-22T20:54:17","slug":"interview-with-leftist-dr-leon-marlensky-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/01\/interview-with-leftist-dr-leon-marlensky-part-ii.html","title":{"rendered":"Interview With Leftist Dr. Leon Marlensky Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the second part of my interview with Dr. Leon Marlensky, as committed a leftist as any that I have ever encountered. In the interest of promoting the market place of free ideas that I always complain doesn\u2019t exist, I thought it only right to provide Marlensky with this forum to express himself to people who he otherwise would have never been able to reach.<\/strong><\/p>\n

JK: Leon, you are not at all unlike any of your ideological ilk on the left insofar as you believe that racism, sexism, and classism are great evils and <\/em>that, ultimately, they transcend even the best of intentions of individuals.\u00a0 That is, these great evils are \u201cstructural\u201d or \u201cinstitutional,\u201d correct?<\/p>\n

LM: Well, you are partially correct.<\/p>\n

JK: Uh oh.\u00a0<\/p>\n

LM: [Chuckles] Relax, Jack, relax.\u00a0 Yes, it is true, that \u201cthe evils\u201d to which you allude are systemic.\u00a0 Yet it is not <\/em>true that they are evils. <\/em><\/p>\n

JK: What?\u00a0 You have no moral objections to them?<\/p>\n

LM: Now I didn\u2019t say that. What I said is that they are not evil.\u00a0 You see, as Nietzsche correctly noted, \u201cevil\u201d is a concept invented by the champions of the penultimate \u201cslave morality\u201d\u2014Christianity.\u00a0 In blasting this or that as evil, you act no differently than those Christians, like the Crusaders, say, of times past who converted unbelievers to their faith under pain of violence and death.\u00a0 In fact, the continual usage of concepts like that of \u201cevil\u201d is a form of violence.<\/p>\n

JK: Let me make sure that I understand you: it is actually immoral to use \u201cevil\u201d as a synonym for \u201cimmoral\u201d because in doing so, I use a term coined by Christians and, hence, impose Christianity upon those who may not accept it.\u00a0 Is this right?<\/p>\n

LM: By Jack, now you\u2019ve got it!\u00a0<\/p>\n

JK: So, then, racism and the rest are immoral, <\/em>not evil, correct?<\/p>\n

LM: Well\u2026not exactly.<\/p>\n

JK: So racism and sexism and classism, etc. are morally permissible?!<\/p>\n

LM: No, no.\u00a0 Let\u2019s make this simple by focusing on just one thing: say, racism.\u00a0 And what applies to racism will apply to sexism, classism, homophobia, Christocentric bigotry, and so forth, ok?\u00a0<\/p>\n

JK: Uh\u2026ok.<\/p>\n

LM: Why is it widely thought in contemporaryAmericathat racism is immoral?<\/p>\n

JK: Well, racism is thought to be wrong because race is thought to be irrelevant to a person\u2019s true worth, his character.\u00a0 All human beings are created equal by God, we are all His creatures.\u00a0 Ultimately, we are all members of one<\/em> race, the human <\/em>race.<\/p>\n

LM: I think that you are right, that these are the sorts of reasons that people usually come up with to justify their belief that racism is immoral. What they don\u2019t realize is that these reasons embody and, thus, perpetuate racism. And, for the record, they embody and perpetuate sexism and Christocentric bigotry as well.<\/p>\n

JK: Wait\u2026..what?!?!<\/p>\n

LM:\u00a0 You heard me rightly.\u00a0 The idea that racism is immoral turns on the idea of a common humanity.\u00a0 Agreed?<\/p>\n

JK: That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

LM: But the idea of a common or universal<\/em> humanity, the idea that race, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic class, and religion are impertinent to the humanity that one shares with all other members of the human race is itself a Eurocentric, <\/em>specifically Christian, <\/em>construct. As a culturally-particular device posing as universal and neutral, it advances White, Christian, Male dominance while pretending to speak on behalf of all peoples.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

JK: I\u2019m flabbergasted.\u00a0 So, the belief that racism is immoral is itself immoral?!?!<\/p>\n

LM: In short\u2026yes. And, of course, the belief that sexism, classism, homophobia, and Christocentric bigotry are immoral is just as immoral, for it relies upon the Eurocentric idea that there is a common humanity that trumps considerations of race, sex, sexual orientation, socio-economic station, and religion.\u00a0 To reiterate, this idea in turn perpetuates the oppression of women and minorities and the hegemony of white, heterosexual, Christian men.<\/p>\n

JK: But the standard of living for women and minorities of all sorts in the West, and America especially, is far higher than it is for their counterparts elsewhere in the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

LM: \u00a0So?\u00a0 This doesn\u2019t negate anything that I\u2019ve said. What it does show, however, is that women and minorities are just as complicit in the promotion of Eurocentrism as are white men.<\/p>\n

JK: How so?<\/p>\n

LM: America\u2019s unprecedented standard of living derives from its economic system: capitalism.\u00a0 Capitalism not only reduces all<\/em> human beings to commodities or things.\u00a0 It thrived because of its brutal exploitation of Africans [slavery] and its genocidal treatment of \u201cthe New World\u2019s\u201d indigenous peoples.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Simply put, the opportunities and the riches to which Americans of all colors, sexual orientations, religions, and both sexes have access today are the equivalent of \u201cblood money.\u201d\u00a0 If America is illegitimate because it was built on the backs of slaves and the corpses of indigenous peoples, then every single American who continues to benefit from these ghastly crimes is just as guilty as the original perpetrators.<\/p>\n

The third and final part of my interview with Dr. Leon Marlensky will be published soon. <\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the second part of my interview with Dr. Leon Marlensky, as committed a leftist as any that I have ever encountered. In the interest of promoting the market place of free ideas that I always complain doesn\u2019t exist, I thought it only right to provide Marlensky with this forum to express himself to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nInterview With Leftist Dr. Leon Marlensky Part II<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/01\/interview-with-leftist-dr-leon-marlensky-part-ii.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Interview With Leftist Dr. Leon Marlensky Part II\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This is the second part of my interview with Dr. Leon Marlensky, as committed a leftist as any that I have ever encountered. 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