Two stories with one central theme today, the second one being of more import.
Headline one: “Debates Over Buildings Honoring White Supremacists Grow“.
Research shows that many past personages were not everything they could have been, measured ruthlessly against our ever-enlightening sensibilities. Exposing our young to historical racists, sexists, homophobes, transphobes, bigots, and brutal white people could encourage only them to become themselves racists, sexists, homophobes, transphobes, bigots, and brutal white people (people of any race can now self-identify as white if they wish). If kids knew about these bygone blights, the cycle of evil would never end.
Therefore it is only right that these racists, sexists, homophobes, transphobes, bigots, and brutal white people be erased from history and dumped, to coin a phrase, down the memory hole.
Thus there was no such thing as the Confederate States of America, and it had no flag. Nor did this nonexistent government have any generals and thus any statues or images purporting to be these eminences were never in any parks or military academies. There was no such country as Rhodesia named after a chimera called Cecil Rhodes, and neither should there be a lucrative award in the name of a nowhere man.
Yale, alas, still believes there was a fellow names John C. Calhoun, a “white supremacist”. Right-minded activists tried to tell Yale that there was no such person, but Yale resisted. So far. Perhaps in the spirit of conciliation and compromise, Yale did agree to no longer call the Master of any college a “Master”. Because slaves had masters, you see.
Calhoun, who still exists as long as Yale says he does, was a “white supremacist”, they say, because he wasn’t as concerned about slavery as we rightly are.
The good news is that the Taliban and ISIS agree with the vision espoused by enlightenment activists, and are busy eliminating all traces of That Which Offends. Given these groups are not squeamish, they’re much more efficient than pasty-faced college administrators and undergraduates. This latter group is working hard at emulating the more robust techniques of the aforementioned entities, though.
Headline two: “How Anti-White Rhetoric Is Fueling White Nationalism“. This fellow Marcus has noticed elites (especially on campuses) are none too pleased with whites, especially white men. This is odd because many elites are themselves white; but they don’t much like themselves for it, even going so far as to publicly confess to sins they did not commit, like “microaggressions.”
This cajoling from the elite has “turned into an actual belief that white people, specifically white men, are more dangerous and immoral than any other people.” Well, whites are habitual overachievers, you will say, and you’d be right. But that’s not Marcus’s point, which is this: “White people are being asked–or pushed–to take stock of their whiteness and identify with it more.” He finds this “a remarkably bad idea”.
Now those on the opposite side of this will say whites deserve whatever they get, as long as what they get is bad, because whites have a history of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, bigotry, and much more beside. The whites of today must pay, say many, for the crimes of the whites of yesterday and the microcrimes and privileges of today.
The verdict is that whites should be judged on their race and not the content of their character. And instead of bucking this, some whites are saying, “Okay, fine.”
This ready acquiescence flabbergasted those calling for whites to admit their corrupt nature. Whites were not supposed to band together and find pride; instead, they were meant to walk with slumped shoulders and with ever-ready apologies on their lips for making victims out of whomever it is that is designated as the victim of the moment. That instead some whites admitted the central premise of their enemies, that whites are different than other races, was not supposed to happen.
The results is that the whites who, as Marcus says, felt they were pushed into racial pride are now labeled “white supremacists”—in just the same way blacks who are pushed to feel racial pride are not called “black supremacists”. Yet again, what wasn’t foreseen by those who conceived “white supremacist” as an insult was that the term would be embraced and found goal-worthy!
The natural conclusion is that to alleviate the very situation they caused, the enlightened should shut the hell up about race (such a dreary subject!), let people associate with whomever they like, and find something better to do with their time. Well, enlightened is not a synonym of intelligent (and in fact may be a near antonym); so, what is happening is what physicists call a positive feedback.
The more whites are condemned (as a race), the more they band together and become more recognizable in their activities, and thus the greater the pressure on the condemers to condemn what they see as the bad behavior of whites, which increases the desire for whites to band together, which, etc., etc., etc.
Usually, these positive feedbacks dissipate on their own accord (boredom, Super Bowls, and other such like things distract the attention). Yet the enlightened love race as a concept so much that they can’t see how they can exist without it, and unfortunately for elites, it turns out that a good chunk of whites can’t be convinced to hate themselves.
Our forecast, then, is for further fury on both sides (and increases in stories like the first one).
Related post: Black And White Homicide Rates: Who’s Killing Whom? Needless admission: some people of every race hate people of other races.
It’s a subtle effect suffered by enlightened people from playing chess on a black & white board. We should only play chinese checkers with its greater variety of colours. Diversity & equality rooools.
Well, in that picture, you have some Jews, and they weren’t exactly considered white people, or even people, by many white people back then, and still some today.
I would never espouse forgetting the past, but I wouldn’t suggest honoring Confederate figures or the Confederacy itself. What is there to honor?
JMJ
Maybe a little levity would help? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RovF1zsDoeM
Sort of makes you last point.
Irony is lost on moral relativists.
JMJ: “I wouldn’t suggest honoring Confederate figures or the Confederacy itself” So you’re only for honoring winners? Who cares about those who died defending what they believed to be right? They were wrong so they’re just garbage that is thrown out? You’re a real humanitarian. Love the winner, stomp the losers into the dust. That’s what losers deserve. Oh, wait, that is the progressive way, isn’t it? Only people who agree with you deserve any respect whatsoever. Then you complain when those stomped on rise up and fight back. If only there was tolerance…..
We shouldn’t have any monuments for Native Americans either. They were Losers. Stomp them into the dirt while you’ve got those human-stomping boots on. If they had shared their land, there would have been no war. They were just so greedy and nasty. No more monuments for them. Or are there only monuments for people YOU agree with????
(How do you feel about the extremely racist progressives out there that tried desperately to keep blacks down and are still doing so? It’s okay to treat blacks and others as subhuman as long as you smile and say you care? Keeps you in power and the subhumans in poverty, right? So much easier to control that way. Seriously, you have a real problem with caring about human beings. You see race everywhere. Not human beings, but race. Then you have the audacity to call others racists. You disgust me—you really do. How can you care so little about people and lie and say you do?)
Nice try, Sheri, (for an adolescent), but my comment had nothing to do with winners and losers. Are you a supporter of the old Confederacy, Sheri? Do you regret the South lost?
JMJ
JMJ: Thank you for calling me an adolescent! It’s been years since anyone mistook me for a teenager. I bet you’d card me at a bar, too! At least there’s one thing I can like about you. The only one, of course.
I am a supporter of human beings. Not blacks, whites, hispanics and so forth as you are. I don’t see color—I see people. You see color. That makes you racist as they come.
I didn’t see any other reason for you not wanting the South to have its memorials besides that they lost. Maybe you should have been a bit more clear. It lost, plain and simple. And I would remind you that the LAW at the time was slavery was legal. Only that twit Lincoln dared to question the LAW and try to free the slaves. You know, like the twit conservatives try to end the LAW about gay marriage and transgenders. So I assume you hate Lincoln for his having the audacity to change a law. The LAW is the LAW, right? Also, if tolerance were practiced, the South would have been allowed to sucede and all would have been well. It was that intolerant Lincoln again, wasn’t it? Couldn’t let people have their own beliefs.
Who won or who lost a war in the past is IRRELEVENT now. As irrelevent as it comes. The past is OVER—in caps, in case your progressive mind tries to skip over that part. It’s over and what was was. If someone wants a confederate flag, fine. There are two being flown in my development right now. Yes, there are bigots in my development, but I don’t know if they are the ones flying the flags. Bigots have as much right to exist as anyone else. Or do you want to turn all the people you consider bigots into Soylent Green? You don’t see them as human? I’d be willing to bet you are just as bigoted as those you claim to dislike for their bigotry. You just won’t admit it. I actually have more respect for bigots who don’t lie and hide behind “caring” to hid their bigotry—you know, like you do.
wow,
“They were wrong so they’re just garbage that is thrown out? You’re a real humanitarian.”
Actually yes, slave owners were garbage that needed to be thrown out, and nothing of that society should provide any reason to be proud. White supremacy created by a militaristic that lasted from the defeat of Napoleon in Waterloo till the defeat of Hitler.
The US Civil war, like World War I is an unfinished war. Germany was not destroyed at the end of the WW1 which is the primary cause of WW2. The North should have annihilated the South before the end of the Civil War.
What is called by Briggs “the Confederate flag” as been debunked as an insignificant battle flag use by one battalion of the Confederate army. It resurfaced only 100 years later where the south idiots, not knowing their history, took it as the flag of the confederacy during the civil right struggle.
I can understand the South memorializing and honoring the soldiers who fought in the Civil War, but I will never for the life of me understand why we would honor and memorialize the leaders. In Europe there are plenty of memorials for those who fought WWII, but you don’t see statues of NAZI leaders standing around.
JMJ
JMJ: So you’re saying slave holders are Nazis? There was human experimentation, people baked to death, death trains, eugenics and a world war started by the South? I must have missed that in history.
Again, you see memorials to Native Americans. Why them and not the South, besides the fact that you don’t like the South personally and probably do like the idea of Native Americans being victims. Keeps ’em line so you can keep them like pets. The South wouldn’t be your pet—only the blacks fell for the “victim” status. We have memorials to Native Americans who tried to keep America from happening in the first place, so I see no reason to not allow the South the same privilege. Again, they were following the LAW at the time.
You are a deeply immoral person, Sheri.
JMJ
Coming from you, JMJ, I consider that the highest compliment. If you think what I do is immoral, it just confirms my belief you are a deplorable being who hates humanity. Thank you for the conformation.
By the way, I love it that progressives are incapable of defending their so-called morals and always reduce things to insults. Should you ever grow a spine, get back to me and we can go point by point. In the meantime, you remain an invertebrate who cannot or will not defend what they supposedly believe. Sad, very sad.
The error that many make about the past is to impose a stereotype on it. The monocausal fallacy. There were several million people in the secessionist states, and they did not all have the same motives for supporting secession. Indeed, every state in the Confederacy sent regiments to the Union Army. Some, like East Tennessee were virtually Union statelets within a Confederate state. (So crushing the South would mean crushing northern Alabama, eastern Tennessee, et al.)
The Cotton South seceded because they feared the Republicans would eliminate slavery by decree; essentially, a form of economic warfare, inasmuch as cotton farming was economically vital — not only to the South, but to England and France as well. (One reason why those two countries supported the Confederacy.)
However, the Upper South did not secede until Lincoln called up troops to suppress the Lower South. In those state, the issue was more states’ rights than it was slavery per se. In fact, slavery was faltering in the Upper South. One of the intriguing things about many of the southern leaders, at least the military ones, is that they personally opposed slavery, and in some instances opposed secession, but fought to defend their homes from invasion. A monument to Lee is a different matter than a monument to Davis.
But by all means, let us paint everyone with the same brush. The Late Modern seems incapable of thought more nuanced than a chantable three-word slogan.
YOS, Today’s progressive thinks and speaks in tweetable chunks.
The South, the powers that were there then, fought against the everything the US came to stand for. There was no honor in that. And they still remain backwards. Nothing good came from what they did, or are still doing.
JMJ
@JMJ
that’s ridiculous. First because nobody at that time knew what the USA would become later. Amd secondly, because the USA is seen differently by different peoples.
Essentially you are claiming that the South fought against the USA becoming the country that invaded Irak on fabricated evidence during Bush the second. Because that is the kind of country the USA is nowadays in the eyes of most people.
Which makes the South heroes.
If it wasn’t for the idiocy of the South, I doubt we would have ever invaded Iraq in the first place.
JMJ
McJones,
Don’t bother with history… it’s never convenient to fashionable fads. Eugenics was an official policy of the USA in the late 1930’s. Your antecedents in the “humanitarian” Materialist ideology had their own version of “racial cleansing” practically identical to that of the Nazis except that they didn’t include Jews, Gypsies, some Orientals and sexual deviants in the list of “undesirables”.
These days your mob is still following the same agenda except that the “undesirables” are what is left of Christendom. Christendom is expected to suicide because of a barrage of specious accusations.
The Civil War that resulted in the USA was not about slavery… it was about who gets to create the money. The slaves in North America other than the few indentured to cruel racial supremacists (survival-of-the-fittest devotees) were vastly better off than their brothers in Africa. I would challenge anyone who disagrees to go and “identify” as a black African in Nigeria or Somalia for example. Of course, the “better off” does not apply to when the hapless people were in the hands of the Muslims, Jews and degenerate European “transporters”.
Jersy! you imagine that you are beyond criticism because you parrot fashionable fads. I contend that fashionable fads cannot survive the scrutiny of history and reason.
Nobody can know somebody’s character or should claim to from reading a few blog comments much as the illusion seems to imply that this is true. Comments are but a small glimpse through a very unusual prism.
YOS, Yes, history does matter.
The comment is far more representative of the reality of what happens in all civil war situations. I knew JMJ’s point was incorrect because people don’t fight over that kind of thing. Infantry soldiers who are regular recruits are soldiers by nature or choice, taking up arms is quite another thing. People take up arms for different reasons which then have a common purpose of defeating a common enemy. I’m glad someone came and set the record straight.
In England slavery was abolished in 1833, The slave trade act was in 1807.
Slaves that were already existent continued to be slaves until 1833 for all of the British empire.
Britain’s empire lead the way in this endeavour. One could and will say the concept that it is immoral to hold a slave is an entirely British invention, The notion was originated from a christian perspective. In terms of political history it is a matter of fact. History does have objectivity as well as subjectivity. Some things DID happen on a given day and those things are beyond doubt. (The first man on the moon was the first, to argue that he was only the first because xyz is churlish.)
The remark implies that England and France should have operated a ‘fair trade’ policy and not have done business with the US because of the slave labour used in the cotton industry. This is the basis of the argument for globalisation and nations imposing their moral values on other nations? If I had my way we’d only do business with our true friends and the others can do the other thing. Kissenger said, however,
“America doesn’t have permanent friends or enemies, it has interests.” Obama’s been showing this is absolutely true.
JMJ,
WW2 wasn’t fought over the matter of death camps or treatment of Jews (artists, objectors, homosexuals, disabled people etc don’t forget).
Nor from our perspective was it all about England, that was our end of the war. Every country involved have their own picture. Germany and Russia was the real centre of gravity and for reasons most westerners don’t know or understand. Peter Hitchens speaks about this and it certainly makes more sense when understanding current affairs in Europe to realise that this old battle line goes back a long way. It’s not all about Germany and France. GERMANY is the common denominator. One of the US’s best allies. The best and most successful politicians who manage and control war situations have the best grasp of history, not just the version served by gossip, misinformation, propaganda back in the day and mainstream media now.
The guys who wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence asserted that the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitled them to dissolve the political bands which connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, a separate and equal station. In other words, they claimed to have a right to secede from the current government.
When the states of the Confederacy tried to exercise that right, Lincoln waged a bloody war to prevent them from doing so, to “preserve the union.”
If the citizens of the UK decide to secede from the European Union, will the powers that be in the EU wage a similar war to “preserve the union”?
Geezer,
Absolutely. It first takes political form wherein Europe tells us to go back and vote again like they did with the others. Then they stall for a while. Turn the knife and ask if we want to vote again. Failing that and meanwhile they unleash more immigrants to swell the yes vote.
I’m not getting my hopes up that the vote will go the right way am looking at the longer game wherein Europe collapses under it’s own weight. It won’t be long. The problem we’ve got is that some of the population still believe the lie that nations need to be tied together to prevent another world war.
There will be civil war all over ‘Europe unless sense prevails soon. It’s looking more and more likely.
This was predicted by some of the soldiers before anyone had even heard of the migrant crisis. One who argued that it was right for us to be involved in the middle East did so because he said if we are out there then the battle ground is out there otherwise they come home and the battle is fought at home. Why? because the politicians don’t want to do anything about our borders or preserving our culture. Somebody on this blog also predicted this several years ago and he was bang on. I thought it was far fetched, it was very sharp. He predicted a rise in far right politics of the sort we thought was a matter of history and of the sort that Mr Briggs predicts with this post.
“The EU is the Continuation of Germany By Other Means (Peter Hitchens).”
Years ago when I worked in Brazil I visited a little town outside Sao Paulo named Americana. It was founded by southerners that moved to Brazil after the civil war. In Brazil slavery wasn’t abolished until 1888. The population of Brazil is about 80% black so there were a lot of slaves in Brazil.
JMJ: How ludicrous—the South made us invade Iraq?
Can you get any more ridiculous? No wonder you never can defend your beliefs. The beliefs are indefensible.
Geezer: It’s quite possible the EU would wage war against the UK if it suited their purpose. Currently, my bet is they’ll just wait till the invaders from the Middle East take over and let them do it, but it’s hard to say.
Sheri,
Without Britain there is no EU.
The Hitchens quote is a youtube speech.
If we pretend that people in the past should be forgotten because they were not like us in outlook, we can just get rid of any mention of the Roman Empire . It was powered by Slavery.
Joy,
“There will be civil war all over ‘Europe unless sense prevails soon. It’s looking more and more likely.”
WW1 and the European theater of WW2 were the European civil war. WW2 annhilated the extreme right of Germany. Although there is a progression in right extremist in Europe their number are still very low and any future conflict are far ahead.
Contratry to Europe, the American civil war did not annhilate the right extremist which we can now observe in the Republican party. The USA are at the dawn of a new civil war because the white older man cannot accept that they cannot control women and blacks like they used too.
Sylvain,
“WW1 and the European theater of WW2 were the European civil war.”
There was no European Union, only continental Europe with respect to physical geography at that time of the world wars.
To refer to it as civil war is inaccurate. Civil war occurs within a nations border, between people of that same nation.
There are no notable comparisons of the American civil war with the first or second world war. There are comparisons now that there IS an EU with the current US. Enormous land masses with people who don’t want to be in the same country because their cultures are incompatible: in the US the situation developed over time, in the EU we don’t have that excuse! We were hoodwinked, many saw it coming but were powerless to act. We were offered a common market, many didn’t even vote for that (a suspicious result at the time) Then a European commission and a European court. Thank God we didn’t join the Euro.
“Although there is a progression in right extremist in Europe their number are still very low and any future conflict are far ahead.” Which paper do you read? Stop listening to the BBC News! If you have satellite listen to many different sources of the worst and best spin. Problems is they often all rely on the same original outlet.
In England you would find yourself in a minority on the topic of the muslim immigration. 20%DON”T think immigration is problem. With respect to the argument of this post it is immigration which poses the greatest danger to our culture and national identity. I was against immigration from mainland Europe before we had the migrant crisis. We should not have to share our labour market with the lowest standards of the worst Eastern Europe OR western Europe has to offer. The politicians have managed to spread a lie also that if we leave the EU immigration will be unstoppable! Nonsense, if our border agencies, police, and army can’t deal with that then it’s a very poor show. People can be put back on the next boat, plane or train to Bandaseribegawan, Antananarivo, or Abasinistabistan or France!
This is the effect of years of forced idealism. The type which you assert makes for a modern and enlightened society. What is happening is the polar opposite of what you predict. (If indeed, the masses are in any way important that is.) They were not important in Germany.
One might think, foolishly, the ideal matters more than the people. Violence and uprising will always prove that to be wrong. This comes back to the point about nationhood and that countries are the largest group of people who can live together under the same cultural rules, laws, religion, ideals without conflict; whether this is managed by dictatorship or democracy, the only two realistic choices.
Enforced political ideals by means of using civil law and criminal law have no place in a free world.
There will be trouble, eventually and total respect for the law will be lost as Churchill famously said.
“If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.”
“If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.”
Joy, or as Tacitus said:
“When the state is most corrupt, then the laws are most multiplied.”
Projection is such a lovely thing. Keeps people guilt-free even while they are the ones destroying the society. Brave New World.
“Projection is such a lovely thing. Keeps people guilt-free even while they are the ones destroying society. Brave New World.
Sheri, A little soma doesn’t hurt either. 😉
Why would people want to self-identify as that most wretched of human creatures… the whites? Do I need a sarc tag?
I find it bemusing that people can morally judge a people without having lived their experience first hand. That goes for anyone. No one here lived during the US civil war period, so no one here has a full grasp of the social and political reality of living in that society. Just as very few commentators had much of an understanding of South Africa during Apartheid. Black folk from neighbouring countries came to South Africa looking for jobs, despite the wretchedness of their white-dominated society.
Real life is for more complex than a tweet or blog comment. Fair enough to say that ain’t how we do things now… totally silly to try an erase one’s history. I’d have said whitewash, but… yeah. Anyone see that Chinese commercial? :p
PS> I recall Michael Sandel having a video lecture at Harvard (Justice series) dealing with these questions. It is funny how he brought students around to unwittingly arguing the case for the right to be bigotted. Ultimately everyone favours some group over others, even if it is the family unit. It’s a grey scale, not black and white.
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