I am inclined to believe that it stems from a biological inclination which is manifested in multiple cultural phenomena including tribalism and collectivism.
It’s interesting to read those who claim it is a purely a cultural phenomenon. They tend to be Marxists or suffer from the same logical failings that those who do not understand economics have. Here is one such example http://www.bolshevik.org/1917/no12/no12capitalismandracism.html
One interesting quote-
“Racism as an ideology is a form of biological determinism, premised on the idea that different human populations (“races”) have different capacities because of their genetic makeup. Inevitably such categorizations are aimed at rationalizing an existing social hierarchy.”
How is this inevitable? Is classifying birds according to size and color racist? Is it inevitable that this will rationalize a heirarchy?
It’s biological in the sense that our ability to rationalize, subdivide, and think are all results of our biology. Beyond that, there’s not much that saying “racism is biological” can do other than haphazardly or unintentionally justify racism by virtue of its biological inevibtability.
Unless you think our conscious beliefs are subject to some sort of biological determinism, there’s no good reason to argue about the biology behind race for reasons other than understanding the greater biology beyond belief or prejudice. The social implications of racism being a fact of biology are just silly. For one, races themselves are not constant over time, nor can they be scientifically determined, so suggesting that racism defined by anything more specific than simply an ingroup/outgroup dynamic is biological just doesn’t do much.
The results suggest that variation in attitudes toward homosexuality is substantially inherited, and that social environmental influences are relatively minor
Crazy. Of course, I am hesitant to accept the conclusion, as I’m not sure how they can isolate all factors (as it doesn’t appear that the study was a control study but rather a survey).
Good point- how is your mind being affected by a cultural upbringing “not” a biological change? Everything we do and feel is a result of our biology, the mind and its decisions aren’t separate from the body- it is the body.
Porco Rosso is more asking perhaps, is racism completely instinctual or is it something that’s learned. If it is instinctual- why is it in some but not others? Perhaps you could buy a prescription to quell racist tendencies.(or just pop some ecstasy pills).
It doesn’t really have to be that complex. Read Othello (my favorite example). Shakespeare doesn’t write about Othello as if he were subhuman or a different species from the rest of the characters in the play. Apparently, Shakespeare was way ahead of his time or racism towards Africans isn’t a historical constant. Read any contemporary anthropological report. Race just can’t be genetically proven. Most US citizens actually have a higher percentage of genes recently descendant from Africa than is required to legally be considered African American. I’d have to dig through some old papers to find the source on that one though.
If race itself isn’t a biological fact, how can racism be?
It’s kind of irrelevant. Either way, it’s just simple social signaling atavism and tribalism, which is kind of the complete opposite of what the liberal order states is necessary to thrive. Frankly, I think the word gets thrown around in a haphazard manner and in the west is only meant to appeal to certain people in a certain way.
Either way I thin BP is right to say that it may be interesting that it is probable to our biological history, but so what? I think Austrians would say the same thing, this is the type of positivism / scientism Mises railed against.
The reality is - it should only be looked at as a serious thing when it becomes some sort of policy that causes the shit to hit the fan for some unlucky bastards who were in the wrong place at the wrong time - that is to say racism could only be called “as it is happening / shown the capacity to happen”…or something along those lines (I could probably state this better if I have to think about it more) .
It could probably also be used in a customary retrospective verifing showing of events. Ex: I could show pics of Slavs, Jews, Gypsys, or whatever under some pretty crappy conditions due to certain national/ govt/ cultural policies.
My overall point: it is usually a red herring that adds uneccessary fuel to the fire when scientists “do studies” (ex: black women less attractive than white women, etc), left wingers throw out social signaling devices, or right wingers get all reactionary and racist just because. Like all other “fixed ideas”, it is a shit concept, that can lead to some insane results, when used in a theoretical void.
Also, I wonder if it could be looked at as a very specific modern problem to modern man. That is “racism” is more or less ideas gone heywire, and it is a peculiar and bat fuck crazy custom that is kind of unique with the rise of nation-states, the enlightenment, political ideology or something along those lines. To rephrase: it is a very specific way and issue to look at race that really didn’t have much precedence in the past.
I could see a case for that, though that is beyond my capacity to really think about
It’s taught as such by all the commies at university these days. At least I have yet to meet someone with a PhD in anthropology that claims racism existed pre-1600. Ironically, anthropology is the one area of study that is on the forefront of post-race theory now, but started as the study that created racism as we understand it today.
I am inclined to frown at attempts to pathologise tribalism by liking it to racism.
I am inclined to think racism has the most to do with narcissism — a common trait among people eager to pat themselves on the back for being cosmopolitan and non-tribal.
Can you restate that sentence please, I’m not reading it right.
Are you saying commies are saying that racism didn’t really exist pre 1600?
If so that is interesting and the commies may have a point. My hunch was it was specfic cultural strands that really made the concept manifest (either for or against) somewhere around that time.
Note: “commies” is a bit tongue in cheek. Though a friend of mine that’s a Marxist history professor is one of the folks I’m talking about.
Generally, anthro and history departments are teaching that racism wasn’t a codified or easily recognizable social phenomenon before around the 1600s with the publication of the first anthropological study that classified humans into (I think) 5 different hierarchized subspecies. Foucault was saying, essentially, the same thing about sexuality (that it’s codification gave rise to its discourse and, therefore, the oppressive side effects of that discourse).
It’s a point that’s quite worthwhile. While throughout all history there tends to be disdain for invading forces and other tribes with feuds, there wasn’t anything that came near a modern understanding of race, let alone racism. And anthro PhDs will tell you race cannot be biologically identified, which, as far as I can tell, is true. It seems as though it’s an enlightenment idea to start defining people biologically and then codifying policy about how each group fits into society.
Another interesting point from a US history friend is that after Bacon’s Rebellion, since those in charge of suppressing the rebellion had a hard time figuring out which Europeans were indentured servants, and possibly rebels, and which weren’t, there was a conscious decision to use Africans as the labor population in Virginia. I can’t verify that by myself, however.
A racist will look at both, biological and cultural, to make a case. Biological will be along the lines of human development to something like brain density/size and goes into anthropology. The cultural looks at various groups (or races) cultural output in the area of industry and the arts.
Generally the above will be articulated and initiated in debate by a more sophisticated person, because you have two types of racist. A low level racist, who can’t make the argument well defined, and a high level (or upper class) racist, the one who may even see the low level racist as embarrassing trash as well. This is how I’ve seen it.
This leads to someone generally making the argument of human development and output over time based on different ages and how each race or population reached that area of output. One may say the Greeks were at the height of civilization, and at the time were superior in the arts and infra structure. Go 1,500 years ahead. Someone may say that Germany reached a height of superior output, they’ll look at art, philosophy, industry, etc. and contrast it with other races at the same time.
Can’t find it, but there’s a quote from The Republic that talks about the roles of the guardians, and leads to, “…and above all, the purity of race.” There must have been some idea of racial differences, whether it can be biologically found, even then. There was a site (was bookmarked, can’t find it) that would classify different European sub-races (or classify Europeans into sub-races) based heavily on bone structure and facial characteristics. Beyond perhaps structure and brain density/size, I haven’t found anything else biologically that differentiates between race, it mainly seems cultural.
I’ve located Linnaeus’ Systema Naturea as the basis for the five subspecies of humans (and also realized it was 1700, not 1600), but I cannot locate the contemporary history of Anthropology that critiques his, and many others, work regarding anthropological racism.
Barbara J Fields’ essay “Slavery, Race, and Ideology in the United States of America” is a good read regarding the prominence of race as a justification for slavery. I can only find it on journals that cost money online, but a library should have it if you’re interested. If not your regular old library, definitely a public university one, which shouldn’t be a problem as long as you’re not checking it out.
Yeah, I figured “commies” was a joke. It’s a fun word to say.
Overall, I think I agree with what you posted based off my intuition and knowledge of things, including the Foucoult thing.
As far as the biologically identifiable thing, that’s probably true when you really look at what reproduction is and where we came from, and how people just adapt physically differently to different environments. I mean to say there is a “Chinese gene” or whatever is kind of insane. Race really does becomes a bit of a red herring.
Based off of what you are saying, my hunch is the major disagreement than between liberals and left wingers it would be what codifying is and the nature of it. Or not, Foucault desreves more serious attention than I think he has been given.
I don’t think you can use the word “racist” that way. Like it or not, I think the word inherently carries a different connotation to it, and perhaps even inherently negative. I do not think the word is even an academically positive/neutrzl word (like Aryan for example) ,nor do I even know if it ever was.
If you are trying to put a positive spin on something, what is the difference between your positive spin and what an anthropologist / historian/ archaeologist is?
