Tuesday, June 30, 2009

What is "racism?"

(Hat tip: VFR)

Posted by Terry Morris at 1:18 AM

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9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting how Obama referred to Wright's comments as "offending" rather than "offensive".

But I don't favor having a conversation about "racism". It isn't a subject that gets fresher with being aired.

Racism is simply the philosophical implementation of the impulse to promote the welfare of closer genetic relatives at the expense of more distant relatives. It is indeed everywhere. The impulse is everywhere because it is instinctive to all humans, and indeed all chordates. The philosophical implementations are ubiquitous because humans like to rationalize their actions.

Now, the philosophical justifications for this impulse among white people are now very rare in the United States (as one can see from this video series). And the result is clear. The philosophical justification of anti-white prejudice is so pervasive that the raw amount of definite racism has actually increased.

Every culture has and promulgates some theory about why the favored racial group should be favored. Otherwise the culture will not promulgate the favoritism, and it won't persist. Most people in the society don't really care, it's usually not very controversial.

There has never been a human society that didn't have a favored racial group because the impulse to favor closer genetic relatives is universal among humans. And what is with that bimbo who didn't know that Asians are smarter than whites? Sorry, I meant that this tendency concentrates influence along identifiable genetic characteristics, and then someone creates a theory as to why that group should be favored.

And people mostly get on with their lives, doing exactly what they would have done anyway. The predominant culture caters to the predominant population, and subcultures arise to serve the out-groups.

And when you try to upset this perfectly normal dynamic....

Whites in this country no longer have the mental equipment to make a reasoned decision when it comes to matters of race. Blacks have that equipment, but it tends to yield blatantly false judgments.

This is why black people, ordinary black people just trying to escape the chaos of the cities, perhaps willing to barter or work in exchange for help, are going to be shot on sight. Because they're black, and the rural population is predominantly white, and the philosophical justifications that would ordinarily serve to allow whites to address their universal human instinct in favor of those with more genetic commonality without forsaking rational thought have been thoroughly killed.

June 30, 2009 at 12:46 PM
Call Me Mom said...

Interesting. I wonder what responses he would get for socialism.

I watched the whole series and I remember my teachers doing that same exercise with us. The funny thing is that they didn't put up any of the words that didn't advance the point they were trying to make. Words like beauty,(Black Beauty was required reading for our class), velvet or bear with black or sick, pale or hospital with white didn't make it to the board or were discounted because "there were so many of the other types of words".

July 2, 2009 at 4:41 PM
Terry Morris said...

I must have been sick the day they did that exercise in my school. Or maybe I just blocked it out as a self-defense measure. I don't know. The only thing I can be 100% sure of is that I'm white, therefore racist (in the bad sense). But somehow I don't feel the least bit guilty about it. Hmm.

July 3, 2009 at 8:23 AM
Anonymous said...

As a non-white with a limited ability to reliably distinguish American Blacks from Whites, all I can say is that I sometimes feel bad about how much I disliked Japanese people without bothering to get to know anything about them.

But not very often, and not very bad.

After all, I do still think that it was a heck of a good thing that Truman dropped a couple of A-bombs on them. Not only did it save the lives of a couple of million Allied soldiers, it probably saved the lives of several tens of millions of the Japanese. Then again, it might have cost a few million Chinese lives, depending on how one games things out. But it was still a good idea.

The firebombing of Dresden, on the other hand, was truly pointless and accomplished nothing except the total annihilation of a large civilian population. But they were Germans, so I don't much care. Nothing really rates a blip compared with the several hundred million murdered by Communism and Progressivism. The Nazis did their share of that, anyway.

I guess, when it comes right down to it, worrying about racism just doesn't make any sense to me. Even the Arabs, the world leaders in virulent racism since medival times (though American Blacks have done their best to follow suit, and the Nazis were far more effective), are mostly just pathetic as a result. They can't even pump their own oil, for crying out loud.

The bizarre anti-racism of whites is still worrisome, but it seems to be receding under the weight of reality. It was never the really fundamental problem anyway, even if it didn't exactly help things.

July 3, 2009 at 10:09 PM
The_Editrix said...

"The firebombing of Dresden, on the other hand, was truly pointless and accomplished nothing except the total annihilation of a large civilian population. But they were Germans, so I don't much care. Nothing really rates a blip compared with the several hundred million murdered by Communism and Progressivism. The Nazis did their share of that, anyway."

That is a totally morally nihilistic stance with which I strongly disagree. There were hordes of totally innocent people at Dresden, children or Jan Ziniewicz, for example, who didn't deserve to die. The firebombing of Dresden is highly "ideologized" and controversial. Fact is, that the victim count was grossly inflated for propaganda reasons.

I could live with a view saying that it was justified because it finally broke the spirit of the German people, but I can NOT accept something like "the Nazis deserved it anyway".

And talking about all-too-easy solutions, I am starting to get really sick of your rants about "Communism" and particularly "Progressivism" without which we'd presumably all still pig it in some cosy caves. Most of the Christian Faith is *gasp* "Progressivism".

July 5, 2009 at 9:46 AM
The_Editrix said...

Addendum:
Fact is, that the victim count was grossly inflated BY THE GERMANS for propaganda reasons.

July 5, 2009 at 10:40 AM
Anonymous said...

I don't really understand why you keep identifying Christianity as a strain of "Progressivism".

I'm not saying that the Germans deserved Dresden, because of Nazism or anything else. I'm saying that I don't care. Would I have greenlighted such a pointless waste of military resources for what was basically a goofy evil science project? Of course not. Not because of the immorality, though I would no doubt have mentioned it in rejecting the idea, but because it was stupid.

But it was a giant war, and Dresden wasn't the only stupid decision, or even the stupidest. It may well have been the least morally defensible military undertaking of the Allies. I'm not qualified to judge that, partly because it's not something that particularly interests me.

If it hadn't been in the middle of a giant war with Germany (or if the target hadn't been Germans), I might actually have cared. But as it is...I don't.

Back to Christianity. Christianity doesn't take a view which demands social or scientific progress, even though it does happen to foster both. To the believing Christian, 1st century Judea is just as good as 21st century America in the essentially Christian characteristic by which all times and places are judged, the opportunity to take hold on the Atonement of Christ.

Any view of Christianity which fails to recognize the availability of that opportunity as the measure of an age fails to qualify as essentially Christian in viewpoint. Yes, various kinds of social and technological advancement can improve people's opportunities to come unto Christ. But not all, and probably not even most. That person who thinks it better for people to have full bellies than to hear the Gospel cannot be counted as a Christian.

The Christian wants to fill bellies so that those who have been fed may be taught of Christ. If filling bellies will turn people away from Christ, a Christian won't do it. Now you may think this somehow an immoral viewpoint. That just shows that you do not consider the Gospel to be the highest good which humans can receive. If you do not believe the Gospel to be the highest good (or at least a higher good than any possible material desire), then you do not believe Christ.

The Christian rejects conversion by the sword, not because the life of the body is worth more than the life of the soul, but because it turns out that a sword-point conversion isn't worth much in spiritual force. Christ gave men bread to draw them unto Him, then condemned them for heeding the hunger of their bellies rather than the famine of their souls.

Christ explicitly told his disciples not to try and overthrow the injustices of the world, but to seek a kingdom which was not of this world. He wasn't against social justice, but like all things in this life it is a means and not an end. If you treat anything other than eternity as an end, then you have no valid claim on anything as a means to it.

Progressivism, as a philosophy and as a practice, is throughly condemned by Christ. That does not (of itself) imply that it is wrong, merely that it is unchristian.

Christians believe that true progress comes from God. If that means we'd all be living in caves, then a Christian would accept that as the life-style best suited to following Christ. I do not believe this to be the case. My study of human progress strongly indicates that most true advances come from inspiration more than human genius. But regardless of whether or not pure Christianity would have us living in caves, you cannot argue that it would be unchristian to accept that if it were indeed the result of Christianity.

July 6, 2009 at 11:05 AM
Call Me Mom said...

Just a head's up, Pastor Manning is not alone, the video you had posted for this was removed as well.

December 7, 2009 at 6:08 PM
Call Me Mom said...

I take it back, it just in a different place on youtube.

December 7, 2009 at 6:16 PM

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