“Racism”, the late-great philosopher David Stove told us in his gorgeous essay “Racial and Other Antagonisms” (found, e.g., here), is “one of those words which are so perfectly foolish that they are valuable as diagnostics: no sensible person ever uses them, except in quotation marks.”
Why is “racism” an utterly foolish word? For the same reason that “eastism” would be, if we had such a word for the belief that the sun rises in the east. There is no need for a word, and therefore no usefulness in a word, for a belief which everyone knows is true. Least of all is there need for a word which ends in “ism,” since that has precisely the effect of suggesting that not everyone shares the belief in question.
If we are to have “racism,” we ought also to have “healthism,” for the belief that some people’s health is not as good as others’, and that differences in health are sometimes properly made the basis of differences in our behavior towards people. This would have certain advantages: all doctors, for example, would stand convicted ex officio of the crime of healthism. The disadvantage is that there are going to be far too many new words at this rate. We will need “weatherism” for the belief that the weather is worse on some days than on others, and that differences in weather are sometimes properly made the basis of differences in our behavior. We will need “climatism,” for the crime of preferring some climates to others. For the crime (already notorious) of preferring one neighborhood to another, we will need “neighborhoodism.” And so on.
“Racism”, though an idiotic word, is also rational:
“Racism” is the belief that some human races are inferior to others in certain respects, and that it is sometimes proper to make such differences the basis of our behavior towards people. It is this proposition which is nowadays constantly declared to be false, though everyone knows it is true; just as everyone knows it is true that people differ in age, sex, health, etc., and that it is sometimes proper to make these differences the basis of our behavior towards them.
After listing some commonplace differences and antagonisms between races (and really any sustaining groups), none of which are our two favorite ones, which are inevitable when different groups come into contact, and which are the rational reason for sometimes treating people differently because of their group, Stove says
Nor does it affect the truth of the propositions I have listed, if some of the traits in question are more culturally determined than genetically determined. They are still traits which are statistically associated with race, well enough, to make race a rational guide in such areas of policy as recruitment or immigration. It needs to be remembered that genes are a scientific discovery, and a recent one at that. They are the things, we now know, which cause racial differences; but everyone knew of the existence of racial differences long before anyone knew of the existence of genes.
Since everyone knows that it is sometimes rational to treat people differently because of their race, Stove asks “why is it that, in countries like ours, there are constant, belligerent, and almost universal declarations that [“racism”] is false?”
Stove couldn’t discover an answer, but it’s obvious to us that cries of “racism” are a tool of political control. Which are themselves, of course, a consequence of Equality. Which is the theory not that all races are equal, but that some should be more equal than others.
“Racism”, when it can be found, or admitted, in non-whites, is a defect of education, it is thought. Sometimes that’s true for whites, too. But more often whites are thought to be by nature suffering from “whiteness”, the root cause of all “racism”. For which, it can hardly be necessary to state, the only cure is eradication.
But in those other times, it is hoped “education” will eliminate “racism”. This false belief arises because of the notion of the Enlightenment theory of “educationism.”
Educationism has come to us from the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, and more specifically from its Utopian wing. When you read Condorcet, for example, or Godwin, you are encouraged to believe that there is no human evil which education could not in time put right. Not merely all large-scale human antagonisms will be things of the past, but all broken hearts and wooden legs too, once education is put in charge (which in practice means, of course, once Educationists are put in charge). According to these thinkers, even the most inveterate of human bad habits, such as dying, or sexual intercourse, will prove to have depended on nothing more than prejudice, and will vanish in the light of Reason and Truth.
It is needless to enlarge on these absurdities, or on the political horrors to which Utopianism always leads.
Stove didn’t live to see (but would have no problem understanding) that education not only does not cure “racism”, it exacerbates tensions between groups, and delights in doing so, using the turmoil it itself generates as justification for its efforts!
This is all part in our long-running series of attempts to kill the god Equality.
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Stove asks “why is it that, in countries like ours, there are constant, belligerent, and almost universal declarations that [“racism”] is false?”
Good question. Without the answer to “Why is reality demonized?” Normal-Americans waste huge amounts of psychic, emotional, intellectual, and physical energy in a never-ending quest to answer such questions. “Conservative” media is based on the false premise that there is no answer to that question.
The question has been answered. Understanding the answer is fundamental to understanding the opponents of realism and normal-America. See my book, Willing Accomplices (www.willingaccomplices.com) for full details.
A few hints:
Q: When, in America’s history, did Racism, Sexism, Imperialism, Xenophobia, Homophobia, Capitalism become accusatory epithets against Normal-America?
A: 1920s
Q: Name the cases that introduced demonization of America as a “racist” and “xenophobic” hellhole.
A: Scottsboro Boys; Sacco and Vanzetti
Q: Who/what was behind the massive public relations campaigns (covert influence operations) that created the “astro-turf” organizations and demonstrations supporting the defendants in these cases?
A: The Comintern’s covert influence operation, led by Willi Muenzenberg.
The use of “Racism” as an expletive damning Normal-America as a hellhole was part of the covert influence payload designed and implemented by Muenzenberg, the Bolshevik genius of covert influence operations.
His payload to destroy Normal America was simple and clear, say over, and over again that
America is:
1. Racist
2. Sexist
3. Homophobic
4. Xenophobic
5. Capitalist
6. Imperialist
7. Must be changed.
He created a flurry of front organizations that drew in “right-thinking” Americans to “fight for change.” His genius was to weave the hate-America message into social organizations, making it “cool” to hate Normals.
His only mistake was his timeline. He thought the destruction would take a few years. It ended up taking about 70 years. The seeds of cultural destruction he planted out-lived him (slaughtered by the KGB in 1940), his belief in Bolshevism (he left the Comintern 1939ish), and the communist system he thought would bring about an international utopia (died with the USSR in 1989). The seeds he planted sprouted, spreading underground for decades, until his belief system coagulated into today’s Politically Correct Progressivism. The belief system of the American Democrat party is an exact duplicate of Muenzenberg’s 7-point payload.
That’s why “in countries like ours, there are constant, belligerent, and almost universal declarations…” that Normal-Americans are racist, and must be “educated” (changed).
Briggs, how am I supposed to make stupid internet comments when all you do is post stuff I agree with, hmm? Take this post — not only is racism — recognizing differences — perfectly rational, but it is morally excellent as well, and even commanded by God, who made the races, and made them different. Anti-racism is of the devil.
That said it’s certainly possible for a race to subscribe to an exaggerated sense of its own superiority, even to the point of believing themselves the special chosen of God, and with all other peoples having the moral status of beasts who may be herded like cattle, milked of their labor, and even slaughtered. Now there’s some racism. But that hardly describes the white race, a people so stupid they roll over and wet themselves when falsely accused of racism.
“Preference for people we see as our kin has some morally negative effects. When we see people as non-kin, our biological response ranges from wariness to aggression because they are our evolutionary competitors.
At best, they might use resources that we and our kin need to survive and reproduce. At worst, they might attack us because we are their competitors. That’s the root of racism. The Broadway musical ‘South Pacific’ (1949) assures us that such beliefs aren’t natural, but must be learned:
‘You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a different shade,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.’
Contrary to the song’s reassuring message, racism doesn’t need ‘to be carefully taught.’ It’s biologically hard-wired, with increased activity in the amygdala, part of the brain that regulates fear. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) showed that:
‘… children as young as six years old have the same kind of race-based biases as adults. And, rather amazingly, an IAT developed for monkeys shows that they, too, exhibit implicit preferences for in-group members.’
Read that again: Not just adults. Not just human children. Monkeys have the same kind of response. Monkeys distinguish between in-group and out-group members. It’s biological.
When we react with wariness or hostility toward those who look different from us, act different, speak a different language, or profess different beliefs, we are expressing a deep biological impulse.
We ‘need to be carefully taught’ that such impulses are not necessarily reliable, and even then, we will still have the same impulses. We simply have learned to ignore them. Most people never do, and to assume the contrary is to invite social conflict.”
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0692151559
I’ve long held that nothing in this world is more rational than “white flight.” White ethnomasochists won’t admit this, of course, but continue to gleefully swallow the fatal load that “diversity is our strength.“
Educationism is false because unredeemed reason has no power to deal with the law of sin that we are all born with and that prevents us from being objective (cf. Romans 7:14 thru 8:2).
Jeremiah Alphonsus–That’s the smartest comment I’m likely to read all day. No kidding.
I agree with this:
“You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a different shade,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.’”
God bless, C-Marie
@C-Marie – We don’t need to be taught, apprehension of “the other” is inherent in adults. It’s part of being an adult. On the other hand, schools spend over a decade brainwashing children to believe that this is bad, except when “the other” is white.
General: Everything the Left says is ultimately code for, “Obey or else!”
Now much of that teaching of which you write is going forward, but not everywhere. Also, I know for a fact that that which is called racism was not in our Academy at which we wnt to school with many girls with differently colored skins, and no one taught or carried on about anyone’s skin coloring. Apprehension of people with different coloring of skins is not inherent in many adults.
God bless, C-Marie
Jeremiah Alphonsus – Excellent comment. I have migrated from Africa to Australia 15 years ago. “diversity is our strength.“ has become Australia’s weakness. Cultural enrichment as some may define this European or Western civilisation destruction. I am seriously considering going back to Africa where a woman could NEVER become a man and visa versa.
Sure, el racismo is rational, but you want to know what’s really rational? — el sexismo!
@C-Marie: To not be apprehensive of people who are observably not of your tribe/clan/nation is irrational in functional adults. The older you get, the more you realize this is true for remarkably good reasons. Children are not of the age of reason and know no better, because they don’t compete for the survival of their families, clans, tribes and nations.
We have an English word for people who advocate for opening the gates to invaders: traitor.
We will never be equal until the sun rises and sets equally at the same time in the West as well as the East and shines with yhe same intensity in both the north and the south.
The solution is to flatten the Earth or to live together under perpetual nightfall where our only sourves of light are artificial ones allotted to us by the government, or surgeries whereas we become trans-fireflies.
As for all this race-nonsense, progress is already taking care of it.
The MIXED RACE is the RACE OF THE FUTURE!
So begin cross-breeding bigots, or the government can assign you a partner. We’d castrate the whites, but our plans to block out the sun would mean genetic adaptation to less melanin, increasing fairer skins would be the fly in the ointment of our mixed race goals.
Something must be done about this. We have considered redefining what means to be “white.” Perjaps trans-racial surgery or melanin-enhancement medication starting from child-birth where we will assign race , but not gender. More studies and research must be cartied out. Therefore we need more funding.
Sigh, people. Again, barring developmental accidents and/or differing melanin types, white people do *not* have less melanin than black people. The difference is literally skin deep. Black people have melanin throughout the skin depth. White people have it only along the basement membrane. Tan folk have the depths in between. And, there’s only one race: human.
CDQ:
Huh? Your exasperated, sighing statement of your “truth” is internally contradictory. And false.
“Sigh, people. Again, barring developmental accidents and/or differing melanin types, white people do *not* have less melanin than black people.”
Just a little research reveals the exact opposite of your assertion is true–black people have more melanin than white-skinned or brown-skinned people.
“How are race, melanin…connected?
Asian individuals have, on average, two-fold more melanin than Caucasian people, while Africans have around three to six-fold more melanin [than white-skinned people]….”
https://skincancer.net/clinical/melanin-risk-factors
“Since everyone knows that it is sometimes rational to treat people differently because of their race….”
Barring genetically related medical conditions like the likelihood of sickle-cell anaemia diagnosis, I would be interested to hear an example of such a situation. In my experience the vast majority of “reasonable” racial discrimination turns out to be about class, culture or behavior, not ethnicity per se.
And if “racism” is a foolish term, what alternative term should be used to describe the motivating belief systems of groups like the KKK, the NSDAP or the Interahamwe?
Kent, I’ve looked at skin sections; so I doubt this research you cite.
CDQ,
Ok, how do you interpret the results in Pigment-focused journals that report variation in melanin content by race/ethnicity?
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11936268/
“Ethnic variation in melanin content
We have examined the quantity and composition of melanin in both photoprotected (volar upper arm) and chronically photoexposed (dorsal forearm) skin from a range of different ethnic skin types including African, Indian, Mexican, Chinese and European. The most lightly pigmented (European, Chinese and Mexican) skin types have approximately half as much epidermal melanin as the most darkly pigmented (African and Indian) skin types.”
Seems like they’re looking at skin sections and counting melanin.
It surely seems counter-intuitive that dark pigment appears in the same quantities in white and black skin.
A quick look: key word here is *epidermal*, meaning only the outermost layer. No surprise there. Depth of distribution is a main difference, beyond varying melanin types and the usual wide within subgroup variations.
As someone who has *looked*, it isn’t nearly as counter-intuitive as it may appear. Total skin amount versus where in the skin you find it. Dark skin will have melanin, and not just bound within vesicles, throughout the depth. Light skin will not. That does not mean that the lighter skin necessarily has less total amount.
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