Was A.J Nock a racist?

Economics Political Theory
1

I started reading “Memoirs of a Superflous Man” just recently, and have been somewhat disturbed by several connotations and commentaries of Nock in his book.

When talking about his ancestors, in the first couple of chapters, he insists for pages and pages about the pride of belonging to the old-european blood line. Here, I let it pass, I thought: maybe he means something else.

Then, he kept going, praising the ‘White Anglo-Saxon’ people (‘true people’, he says, even mentioning Mark Twain in a paragrah I still do not fully understand). But what really made me stop reading was a reference to ‘good breeding’.

Some quotes:

“My grandfather’s forebears were ec/ií-English English out of the original Saxon stock that landed at Ebbsfleet;” p19

In the context of praising the community where had moved with his family and grown up he says: “These people were all of the Anglo-Saxon breed,”

"Certain inhabitants of our town seemed strangely above their station; above it in education, breeding, culture, views of life. " p60

“Another misplaced person was of a military type somewhat gone to seed, and well on the far side of middle age; tall, large, extremely handsome, and speaking the true pure German of the Hanoverian aristocracy. Whether or not a titular aristocrat, he had every mark betokening generations of good breeding.” p61

I hope I am completely wrong, please prove it. I would truly appreciate it.

2

It’ll be interesting to see responses to this, but in the first place this does not make him racist in the sense of being hostile to members of other races, and in the second place I really am not one who sees merit in judging authors from earlier periods (such as the 19th century) through modern lenses.

-Jon

3

Would you consider African pride racist? What about Asian pride? Hispanic pride?

I think that sort of pride is ridiculous, but not racist.

4

Those passages strike me more as aristocratic than modern racism.

This paragraph from Wikipedia gives the same impression:

And here’s another passage by Nock on ill-breeding (taken from Tucker’s essay on Nock):

The following remark about patriotism suggests he wouldn’t be prejudiced against someone merely for an accident of birth:

5

I thought they landed somewhere in Sussex in 470AD. My girlfriend’s father lives in the same village that his family has lived in at least since the Domesday book was published after the Norman invasion. My family in Norway has never been known to have arrived where they are at, and archealogical digs in the area have found that people have lived there since at least 1AD. My girlfriend’s father is quite proud of that. I am quite proud of my heritage and duration from an area as well. Definately not a sign of racism.

My family is of hearty Nordic stock. People of all races and all origins have the right to be complimentary of their origins.

Sounds to me like he was complimenting people. Saying that their station in life did not reflect their intelect. “Breeding” in those days was often used as a reference to their family and their family reputation and not a Eugenics program.

Again…I think this is a compliment that is misinterpreted in this day and age.

I think you are wrong. For an example check out some of the racists…undoubtably racist writings of the era when Nock was active. You will find open calls for Eugenics programs, Adolf Hitler (becomeing wealthy after writing Mein Kampf) and Margaret Sanger. Also the KKK had a very active publishing house in Indiana during that period and I am certain you will find they use the word “breeding” in a very different way than Nock does.

6

I’m going to give my opinion here, having never read anything from Nock. Now, this post might come back to bite my ass later on in life but oh well. The choices we make.

Who cares?! Seriously, who cares if someone of one race doesn’t like someone of the other? I’ve never understood why that is a big issue. Now, I’m no racist and never understood the racist mind – hating someone just because of their skin color – but in the grand scheme of things what those people think doesn’t really matter at all.

As for breeding, let me tell you something – breeding has a lot to do with how a person turns out. I work in a liquor store so I see both the well bred and the poorly bred. I see the highest levels of society (in the town I live in) and the lowest. As a people watcher I can tell just by the way a person carries their self, the clothes they where and the manor in which they speak what part of society they belong to. And it comes from breeding. People are animals biologically and I always say you can breed a person just like you can breed a dog. If you have two dogs that come from an exception breed you will generally have exceptional offspring. If you have dogs that come from a long line of muts you are going to get more muts. That’s just natures way. But the great thing about humans is that we can rise above our “breeding.” We have the mental capacity to do such things. You can take someone that comes from a long time of crack addicts, thieves and vagabonds, teach them a skill or a trade or send them to school and you can produce an exceptional doctor or financial wizard. Breeding involves more than just who your mom and dad are. It also involved the environment you were raised in. I’ve never seen a doctor come into my liquor store and ask for a case Bud Ice 40’s. But I’ve seen plenty of people I affectionately call “white trash” do it (more my type of people anyway). The doctor always gets wine or an expensive liquor. Now, the lower class folk will buy wine occasionally but it is usually MD 20/20 or Boone’s Farm (good ol’ Boone’s! Great for a cheap drunk).

So in conclusion I wouldn’t worry about it. Racist or not who really cares. In the long run what a racist thinks about another race isn’t going to change your life or make life any worse for you. Racist tend to stick to their own kind so the likely hood someone of the opposite race would have any dealings with them are limited anyway. Not to mention a person has the right to think ill of whomever they want.

7

I, too, have never read (nor remember hearing of) A.J. Nock - but I’ll chime in, too.

A focus on ‘breeding’ was used as a rationale for the class of nobility, or nobles. In brief, it assumed that the product of two superior people would be children who were also expected to be superior. Even after the nobles were stripped of much of their authority in Europe (or their heads, in France), it was a quality that had some level of popular regard. At the time he (apparently) wrote, this theory was fairly wide-spread - you can find many references to it, and writings where it’s an underlying precept.

It was not, in itself, racist - a person of good breeding from Frank stock was not necessarily to be viewed as ‘lesser than’ a person of common breeding of Saxon stock, or vice versa. It did lean heavily on family background, however, and it was not egalitarian.

It has come to be that discussion of this theory as regards human is impolite, or even politically incorrect, though in livestock, bloodlines are often seen as very important and relevant. Someone writing about “good breeding” now would be seen as rude, at best - though the families who are descendents of ‘good breeding’ do tend to marry within what they see as that class.

This, in my opinion, does not invalidate anything that Nock may have to say. An awareness of this may make it easier for you to understand what he says, giving you a better understanding of the basic precepts he took for granted, even if you disagree with those precepts.

Even a rabid, irrational racist may have good things to say - though they should be viewed through a lens that acknowledges that precept. Recent books have pointed toward the social flaws in A. Einstein, but nobody has said that we should ignore his mathematics because he was a lousy parent, or ignore his failures as a parent because of his expertise in math.

To decline to listen to what they have to say, even if you may disagree with it, serves nobody. To understand their precepts makes understanding what they say easier.

Heck - I’ve even read one of Al Gore’s books. To condemn them without listening to what they have to say seems arbitrary, doesn’t it?

Danno

8

oh I know this work well. It’s just the way people talked back then - and only the slightest look into any other literary works of the period show it. Breeding means how you are raised. Means nothing else. Moreover, there is no sense in reading this material with the eyes of today’s media culture. I promise you that it won’t pass muster.

9

Yes, yes , and yes. Anyone who claims responsibility for other people’s accomplishments shouldn’t complain when they are blaimed for other people’s failures. In other words people who have “X pride” don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to condemning racism.

10

Thank you all for your responses, specially Mr Tucker, whose opinion I consider of great value: maybe I can understand the ‘breeding’ references in terms of quality of education.

However, I do not see why we shouldn’t be entitled to an opinion in regards to a writer or his/her ideas simply because he/she lived in a time and society that regarded them as ‘politically correct’. Just as we would judge with no restrain whomever defended slavery for centuries to the happy ears and eyes of their contemporaries, Nock is no exception, as much as we like his "Our Enemy, The State’. What would then be of the analysis of the history of ideas if when it comes to ethics we are to take them as a result of society and not principle? This, BTW, was Nock’s justification in writing his memoirs, the history of his ideological evolution.

As for his praise to the anglo-saxon race, I find no other justification, and can only lean in the same direction as Solid_Choke to regard Nock as the worst type of collectivist, the one that sees merit (and fault) when no authentic reason exist: family origin (tribe), nobility (blood-line) or race. As a libertarian, I obviously respect everybody’s right to discriminate, but I have almost lost all respect for Nock and his ideas.

Thanks to all, again, and happy mother day!

11

Um…I’m guessing you haven’t read much of Nock if you can so easily say not merely that he’s a collectivist but the worst type. I don’t think he can even be called a collectivist at all. Does he praise the Anglo-Saxon race as such? Or does he praise members of the Anglo-Saxon race with good breeding?

12

On a personal level, I care because I find it to be irrational and therefore I would like to educate others so that they do not hold such irrational and collectivist views. And while it is probably highly unlikely that I will convince the hardcore racist themself to change their views, I can point out their irrationality and the results thereof to others so that such a ridiculous ideology is discouraged with respect to future generations of people.

And I most certainly would care to the extent that it negatively effects me as an individual. I most certainly would not like to be discriminated against or persecuted or have my character misrepresented based on my racial origins. Putting myself in the shoes of people who have historically been discriminated against and generally persecuted in mass, I can totally understand why they would care. Why shouldn’t they care?

On a political level, when we think of it in much more broad terms than merely what people think, I care to the extent that the racist advocates initiating force or coercion in the name of achieving their ends and, by extension, the extent to which racism is manifested in state policy. I care to the extent that the state racially discriminates using other people’s resources and generally that political means are used in the name of a racist agenda.

Does this mean that I would support political means such as anti-discrimination laws in the name of combating racism? Of course not, and in fact I find such methods to be entirely counterproductive. I would advocate social or economic means - mass boycotts, outcompeting the racists, minority groups forming their own institutions and taking the initiative for themselves, civil disobedience, education, and so on.

13

Well, Geoffrey Allan Plauche, I would never claim to be an expert on Nock, if that is what you mean, otherwise I wouldn’t have asked the question on this thread. I read Our Enemy: The State. There, as in other extracts I’ve read, he is not as personal as he is in his Memoirs, and it has really made me look at him differently.

You say: “Does he praise the Anglo-Saxon race as such? Or does he praise members of the Anglo-Saxon race with good breeding?”

Is there really a difference or are you simply trying to justify him because you like him?
Why on earth should the fact that anybody is of a race whatever relevant for any praise or criticism? And before you come with some sort of laboratory exception in Jupiter with Marsians establishing a community, the straight rational and principled answer is NONE.

14

another way to look at it is to come to understand how people of that time and that class thought and wrote – none can wholly and entirely escape the language and biases of one’s time, and perhaps we shouldn’t want to since, of course, we are writing to explain things to others of our own time. What is important is to learn, and Nock offers more than just about any 20th century author in that respect.

15

People often confuse racism with ethnocentrism.

16

Perhaps it’s a good distinction to draw. Nock seems more ethnocentric than racist, if he is at all. I definitely see no problem with the former.

-Jon

17

Yes, there is a difference and I should think it is fairly clear. Also, you seem to have ignored the points that he seems more aristocratic and ethnocentric (culture, education and upbringing) than racist.* Moreover, have you found any passages in which he says something really negative about someone purely because of their skin color or race? Or something really negative about a race purely because of biology?

Obviously racism is a particularly important issue to you, but I disagree with you that racism is the worst form of collectivism: the worst forms of collectivism are statist and one can be a racist without being a statist. Have you found any passages in which Nock advocates any statist policy?

~*~

* Check out the 4th and 5th definitions of breeding on dictionary.com:

4. training; nurture: He is a man of good breeding.
5. the result of upbringing or training as shown in behavior and manners; manners, esp. good manners: You can tell when a person has breeding.
18

It doesn’t matter whether you call it “statism” or not; if someone uses force to act upon collectivist beliefs, it’s evil. Otherwise, it’s not.

19

Statism has a particular meaning. But you’re right, a person can be a racist without imposing his racist views by threatening or using initiatory physical force as an individual or as part of a non-state group too.

20

I disagree abotu statism; what’s the difference between someone using force in the name of “a state” and someone using force in the name of "racism"?