Which one should I pick? I am a member of two (I think) races, have background in several ethnicities, don't have any strong regional loyalties because I've moved around too much, and if I picked one ethnicity that I belonged to and worked my way back, I'd find myself a member of two rival clans.

Basing my loyalties on any of those would be crazy.

"When the oil runs out" is meaningless. Had we the political will, we could build an energy infrastructure based almost entirely on renewable, clean energy sources in the next 10 to 20 years.

And the world has surely but slowly been moving AWAY from violence for hundreds if not thousands of years. There's just a lot more coverage of it now, so maybe it seems like more.

I, for one, don't see a Mad Max future for humanity.

I can answer your question. It doesn't matter to me because I don't resonate any more deeply with people of my own ethnicity (WASP) than those outside my ethnicity. My wife is Pakistani. I've traveled all over the world. I have friends in many different countries, with friendships based on more significant elements of one's character than the color of their skin.

I look at the terrible behavior of some muslim extremists as portrayed in the news, and if I placed huge significance on ethnicity to the exclusion of all else, I might conclude that they're inferior to me as a race. However, fortunately, I've met enough excellent Muslims to know that such a generalization is meaningless. Not to mention, my fellow WASPs benefit from this too: I've seen some truly deplorable behavior coming from my own ethnic group, but fortunately have met enough excellent WASPs to know that a generalization would be meaningless.

So, back to the original question: Why does race matter so much to you? Perhaps you haven't met many people of other ethnicities that you were able to make a good connection with?

Which of course leads to violence. As soon as you start inculcating people with the belief that their differences are special, they tend to believe they are more special than anyone else.

It's just like that episode where one guy's black on the left side, white on the right; the other guy vice versa. I loved the comment one makes to Spock, something like "can't you see he's obviously inferior? He's black on the RIGHT side!"

Of course Star Trek's point was not that we'll "always be fighting cuz it's our nature" but that we fight for stupid, irrational reasons. And hopefully that will change one day.

Reading the Philip Pullman teen fantasy book, "The Golden Compass," he has a part where he describes how the Oxford kids choose up sides for their kiddie wars. The groupings and alliances are quite complex--and totally human IMHO. Hey, we're a herd species. We build groups based on affinities--and we always will. All this political correctness bosh about multi-race and multi-culti is a hopeless mess. When all is said and done, we're going to be clannish.

Once the Industrial Rev is over, once the cheap oil is gone, we'll be back to feudalism, and warring and killing will once again be closer to the old territorialisms of our distant aboriginal ancestors: largely symbolic and relatively harmless compared to today's genocidal, apocalyptical war scenarios. Today we're locked into a vicious cycle of unnatural forced peace and phoney harmony...suddenly overturned into horrendous mass genocide. I'd rather go back to nobody loving/accepting anyone they don't want to...and clans feuding, fighting, killing, personally.

I honestly think we'll always feud and fight and kill: your group against mine--hopefully never too many of us. But modern McMedia-driven top-down multi-race/multi-culti only postpones and builds up the pressure on the inevitable. And when I get the question, "Why does race matter so much to you?" I simply reverse the question and ask it right back: "Why DOESN'T race, ethnicity, clan, matter to you?"

Have you ever noticed how so many peoples have warriors as heroes, while the modern Western intelligentsia worship "men of peace?" Odd that. The Sioux venerate Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. They were freedom fighters--fighting imperialist consolodation efforts. Odd how we--I mean we of white diaspora--don't have any freedom fighter/warrior heroes. We love Jimmy Carter and Ghandi and ML King Jr. Maybe that's because we're still the oppressors and we have terrible consciences and really just want to further consolodate our gains....

In honor of Mr. vonnegut's passing, I have been rereading Breakfast of Champions. It is particularly fitting in the context of the VA Tech shootings. Here is one passage in particular:

I had become more and more enraged and mystified by the idiot decisions made by my countrymen. And then I came suddenly to pity them, for I understood how innocent and natural it was for them to behave so abominably, and with such abominable results: They were doing their best to live like people in story books. This was the reason Americans shot each other so often: It was a convenient literary device for ending short stories and books.

Why were so many Americans treated by their government as though their lives were as disposable as paper facial tissues? Because that was the way authors customarily treated bit-part players in their made up tales.

And so on.

Ted Geisel nailed it years ago with "The Butter Battle Book". Ken just nailed it again. Just as relevant as ever, and just as bitingly accurate. Thanks, Mr. Fisher.