Race – Page 10 – Maverick Philosopher

More on Tribalism and the Identitarian Right

This entry continues the discussion with my Right-identitarian interlocutor. My current position is one of rejection of both Left- and Right-identitarianism. I am open, however, to a change of position. That is part of what makes me a philosopher as opposed to an ideologue. I wrote in my critique of Dennis Prager:

"The correct view is that racial differences are real and significant just as sexual and age differences are real and significant, but for purposes of social harmony and political cooperation we had better not identify ourselves racially but in terms of attributes more conducive to comity." My correspondent responds:

I agree with your criticisms of Prager. In a normal society men don't pretend that they're just human beings rather than men (who are also human beings) and women don't pretend that they're just human beings rather than women. Rather, in a normal society the distinctive male and female abilities and interests and ways of being are accepted, and society adapts itself to these differences–these male and female 'identities' in other words. But then, if race is similar to sex and age in this respect, why would it be bad for people to 'identify' in terms of race along with attributes like sex and age? Shouldn't we say instead that this is also reasonable and healthy?

In discussions like these it is always a good idea to seek (and rejoice over) points of agreement. Points of disagreement will emerge soon enough.

One thing we can agree on is that no human being can be just a human being if that implies having no sex or no race or no age or no height, etc. And so if I pretended to be a human being indeterminate with respect to one or more of the above-listed attributes, then my pretense would empty and absurd. My talk of treating people as individuals rather than as tokens of ethnic or racial types does not imply that they are bare individuals bereft of all attributes.

But there is nothing empty or absurd about prescinding from this or that characteristic in certain contexts. Characteristics prescinded from don't matter for the purpose at hand, but they are still there. For example, age and citizenship matter when it comes to voting, but race and sex by current law do not and ought not. But if we don't take into consideration a person's sex when it comes to the right to vote, it does not follow that the person is sexless. In general, if attribute A is instantiated by the members of a given population of individuals, and abstraction is made from A, it does not follow that the members of the population are indeterminate with respect to A.

So far, near-platitudes, unless my opponent questions my voting example which I fear he might. (If he does, then that discussion belongs in a separate thread.) We have yet to locate the bone of contention.

Are there "distinctive male and female abilities and interests"? I would say so, and I would add that they are not merely socially constituted. The biology of the female plays a role in the explanation of why women are more nurturing than men, more cooperative and conciliatory, make better real estate agents, but also why they are more emotional than men and why their political judgment is not as good. (I would argue, however, that the last two points are not reasons to withhold from women full voting rights.) So far, then, no disagreement. No disagreement with my conservative interlocutor, that is. I have already said enough to elicit howls of rage from the lunatic Left. Their howling, however, is music to my ears. Their destructive extremism only galvanizes the resoluteness of my opposition to them.

Does it follow that there are male and female 'identities'? Here is where it gets tricky and sticky. 'Identity' can be used in different ways. What is meant by 'identity 'here ? A stereotype? That is apparently what my sparring partner has in mind. I will assume that he agrees with me that stereotypes, most of them, or at least many of them, have a fundamentum in re and are true in the way that generic statements can be true. (It is surely true, for example, that Germans are more rule-bound and respectful of authority than Italians. See this list of generic statements.) Stereotypes are not, most of them, expressions of mindless bigotry or irrational hatred of the Other. What are truly mindless and irrational are liberal denials of this plain truth.

My opponent is going to agree with me that women as a group are more nurturing, caring, cooperative, conciliatory, averse to heated disagreement, better with children, etc., than men as a group. But that is a positive, accurate stereotype which not all women fit. Women are nurturing and Sally is a woman; it does not follow, however, that Sally is nurturing. 'Women are nurturing' is a generic statement: it cannot be replaced by a universal generalization such as 'Every woman is nurturing.' Sally is a chess-playing, nerdy engineer who works for Google, worships Ayn Rand, enjoys heated debate, and has no interest in children or in taking care of anybody. And all of this without prejudice to her being, and being essentially (as opposed to accidentally), a full-fledged biological female with the 'plumbing' and chromosomal make-up to prove it.

It may be that my opponent is conflating stereotype with identity. In one sense of 'identity,' the identity of a thing is what it is by nature, what it is essentially. Since Sally does not fit the gender stereotype, and yet is essentially biologically female, we ought not conflate identity with stereotype. (I am assuming a distinction between sex, which is a biological reality, and gender which, while it reflects sex, is in part socially determined. Anyone who elides the distinction I would have to consider very foolish indeed.)

My claim is that there are no "male and female 'identities'." There are male and female stereotypes and gender roles but no male and female identities. If there were a female identity or nature that included such stereotypical features as being nurturing, being conciliatory, shying away from heated argument, then every female would fit that identity; Sally does not fit the female identity; ergo, there is no female identity.

And because there is no female identity, if Sally so self-identifies, then her self-identification is a false self-identification. She falsely self-identifies if she so apperceives herself as to be nothing but an instance of that identity. And if we deny Sally her right to be a nerdy, chess-playing, Rand-reading, non-nurturing engineer, then we reduce her to a gender stereotype in violation of her true identity as a free, self-determining person. As an animal, Sally's biological identity or nature is essential to her; as a person, however, she is free to pursue engineering in defiance of the stereotype.

And the same goes for race. There are different races as a matter of biological-anthropological fact. (Race is not a mere social construct.) And there are different racial and ethnic stereotypes, accurate stereotypes, i.e., stereotypes with a basis in reality, some negative, some positive. But there is no white identity or black identity or Italian identity or Polish identity. Granted, I am essentially Caucasian and essentially of Italian ancestry; no change is possible in these respects. But there is no white identity that includes stereotypical features since there is no such identity had essentially by every biological white. Bear in mind that 'white' in this context does not refer to skin color but to race. It is a mistake to confuse race with skin color.

So I continue to maintain my thesis that, "for purposes of social harmony and political cooperation we had better not identify ourselves racially but in terms of attributes more conducive to comity." The opponent hasn't given me any good reason to abandon this thesis.

Is a reversion to tribalism, even if inevitable, something to be regretted, or is it healthy?

But then, in my critique of Prager, after listing some candidate attributes, I waxed pessimistic. For example, can we Americans identify for political purposes as Americans, as people committed to the values and principles enshrined in our founding documents? Obviously not. Too many of our fellow 'citizens' have no respect for these documents. The universities of the land are lousy with such people. There are leftist knuckleheads who speak of a 'living constitution,' which, of course, is no constitution at all. And in what sense are these fellow 'citizens' fellow citizens if they don't accept our great Constitution? Think of the liberal-left liberty-haters who call for the elimination of the Second Amendment.

"So I end with a dark thought: in the end tribalism wins."

Again I wonder why this is a dark thought. You seem to be considering the possibility that identities like 'citizen' or 'American' are too weak to form the basis for a healthy society. But suppose that's true. Then it's _good_ that people will eventually reject these identities in favor of some 'tribal' identity which could serve as a better basis for society–something that is more "conducive to comity". Suppose it's not true, and identities like 'citizen' are enough. Then it seems to me that people should be able to get along and share a society simply on the basis of being 'citizens' or 'Americans' while at the same time having distinct racial or tribal identities, just as they can share a society and get along despite having distinct identities based on sex and age.

Amazingly, my opponent thinks that tribalism is good and that tribal identification can unify us. I can't see that this makes any sense at all. So here we find a bone of serious contention! If we can no longer identify as citizens or Americans, it does not follow that tribal self-identification with the resultant Balkanization would be good.

I am saying that we conservatives, through inattention and inaction, have allowed things to get to the point where identities like 'citizen' and 'American' can no longer form the basis of a healthy society and polity. We are now in a very bad state of affairs. But tribalism makes things worse. The reversion to tribalism may be inevitable, but as I see it, it can't be good. Tribalism can't be the basis of comity or social harmony precisely because different tribes with different values and interests oppose one another. Furthermore, when we think and act tribally we fail to see important individual differences. Clearly, there are important differences between Clarence Thomas and Trayvon Martin, Jason Riley and Ta-Nehisi Coates, Walter E. Williams and Michael Brown. Coates is a despicable racist fool and an enemy, but I would love to have Riley and Williams and Thomas as next-door neighbors. No social harmony is likely to ensue if we lump all these blacks together as members of the opposing tribe. It is of course different in war. But we want to avoid war. Don't we?

I am saying that, as a matter of contingent fact, we are no longer united under an umbrella of shared values and principles, and that tribal identification will only make it worse. If, on the other hand, we were united under that 'umbrella,' then of course there would be no problem. We would be united publicly, and privately people could do their tribal thing.

Of course, there is a crucial disanalogy: Human nature is such that differences of sex and age occur naturally and inevitably within a given human community, since these are part of the basic structure of the extended family. By contrast, differences of race and ethnicity do not occur within the natural human community. On the contrary, since the natural community is based on the family and extended family, that kind of community eliminates racial or ethnic differences–any natural community ends up being a single racial-ethnic community.

So it's doubtful that racial difference and racial identity can be accepted as part of the normal structure of society in the way that these others already are. To the extent that racial and ethnic differences exist within a society, that society must be somewhat artificial; it must be made up of sub-cultures that have a stronger claim on the natural loyalties and identities of its members. Racial-ethnic differences are a primordial sign of Otherness, of Not Belonging–of potential danger and competition rather than safety and co-operation. We can try to pretend otherwise, but this is contrary to our own instincts, and it probably won't work in the long run. But, again, is this dark?

Well, intermarriage among different European ethnicities has worked hasn't it?

My opponent seems to be suggesting that racial/ethnic uniformity is essential for a well-functioning society. I don't buy it. Suppose blacks had never been brought as slaves to North America. The other racial and ethnic groups get along tolerably well. But the key is assimilation and commitment to a set of values and principles that transcend blood. Unfortunately, the Melting Pot is a thing of the past never to return. Leftists have destroyed it by exploiting racial tensions to forward their agenda. And of course we no longer agree on values and principles.

Horribile dictu, leftist filth are now attacking free speech!

Is invocation of Blut und Boden dark? I would say so. For one thing, blood ties and racial purity do not insure comity. I have more in common with Korean and Turkish philosophers than with anyone in my family. Consanguinity is no guarantee of spiritual affinity, and spiritual affinity can exist without consanguinity. We are told that "To the extent that racial and ethnic differences exist within a society, that society must be somewhat artificial; it must be made up of sub-cultures that have a stronger claim on the natural loyalties and identities of its members."

This begs the question by assuming what I argued against, namely, that there are ethnic and racial identities. Beside, the emphasis on narrow natural loyalties works against social harmony. That's the mentality of mafiosi. Social harmony requires a commitment to higher loyalties. John Gotti's children should have 'ratted out' their father. The Unabomber's brother was right to turn him in. He was acting under the inspiration of a higher loyalty.

Multi-culturalists and Leftists would say it's 'dark' to imagine shutting down mass immigration of Muslims into Europe–because for them, the attempt to force incompatible cultures together into some kind of incoherent mess seems good! But a conservative doesn't want to force people to live in weird new ways that (we think) go against human nature, so a conservative doesn't think it's 'dark' to imagine Muslims in Muslim lands, Christians in Christian lands, etc. Feminists think it's 'dark' to imagine a world where most women are focused on having kids and staying home to care for them, because they think the ideal is to have women be just like men in all respects; but a conservative thinks it's better to let the sexes live in ways they find natural, and so doesn't think this scenario is 'dark'. Of course, excessive tribalism is possible (and 'dark') but why not allow for some degree of tribalism? A sound conservative position, I think, is that society must provide people with healthy ways of expressing their instincts rather than forcing us to suppress them. Telling people they have to think of themselves as just 'citizens' or 'humans' is telling them to suppress some very powerful instincts. So (I think) conservatives should regard this as an oppressive and unhealthy policy.

We agree that allowing mass immigration of Muslims into Western lands is suicidal. This is because they don't, as a group, share our superior Western values and because they want to replace them with unenlightened Sharia-type values. It is not because of their being Turks or Arabs or whatever. (The few that do share our values can be allowed to immigrate.) And of course there is nothing 'dark' about traditional Muslims staying in their lands.

Nor is there anything 'dark' about women devoting themselves to the noble and difficult task of being good mothers and homemakers. The feminists who attack motherhood have a lot to answer for.

What I see as 'dark' is the racial self-identification on the identitarian Right. It amounts the deliberate erasure of one's unique personhood in favor of being an interchangeable token of an ethnic or racial type. (This has some connection to the Marxist notion of man as Gattungswesen, but I am not in a position to explain it clearly.) How can my identity reside in an attribute shared with billions of others?

My identity is what make me be me and no one else. It is therefore impossible to locate one's identity in being an interchangeable token of a racial type. For every token of a type, qua token of a type, is the same as every other one.

There is also a slippery slope consideration. If you identify as white, then why not as Southern white, and if Southern white, why not rural Southern white, and so on until you identify as a Hatfield or a McCoy?

Furthermore, race is part of my animality. So if I identity racially, then I identify myself as a particular instance of a particular race of animals. But I am more than an animal, and my true self cannot be located in my animality.

But now we move into metaphysics. This is unavoidable in a thorough discussion. But this entry is already too long. Tomorrow's another day.

Are Bourgeois Values an Offense against Authentic Black Culture?

Here

Why Do Leftists Blame the Weapon Over the Wielder?

I spoke of

. . . the bizarre liberal displacement of responsibility for crime onto inanimate objects, guns, as if the weapon, not the wielder, is the source of the evil for which the weapon can be only the instrument.

What explains this displacement? A reader proffers an explanation:

Maybe they displace responsibility here because, if we blame the person shooting the gun, next we have to notice just how often that person is black, and how rarely he is white. And noticing that, for liberals, would be racist. Nothing that makes blacks look bad, or worse than others in any way, can be noticed. It must be a gun problem because otherwise it would be a black problem. (Largely, on the whole — given what a small proportion of the population is black and what a huge proportion of the 'gun problem' consists of black people shooting people for no good reason.)

Right. It is politically incorrect to take note of differences between blacks and other groups when these differences show blacks to be worse in some respects than these other groups.

On the other hand, when once in a while the person shooting the gun is a white person–and, best of all, a white person who just might conceivably be associated with conservatism or even some kind of white consciousness –liberals will find that the problem is, for once, not just a gun problem but also the problem of 'angry white men', 'racists', 'white supremacists' or even just 'white people'… And then we learn that it's those people — those bad white people–who are responsible for this awful gun culture and gun problem. So once again, the liberals are really engaged in race hatred and race baiting and maybe, some day, open race war. So as with so many other things, it seems they don't really believe their own supposed principles, e.g., that the problem is guns not people shooting guns . . . .

My reader's point seems to be that leftists try to have it both ways at once. By blaming the weapons rather than the wielders, leftists can uphold their cherished but plainly false conviction that blacks are no more criminally prone than whites: there is nothing about blacks that makes them more criminally prone; it is the availability of guns! But their real agenda as destructive leftists is to foment racial division. So when a white man goes on a rampage, then they drop the notion that the availability of guns is the problem and play the race card.

Andrew Sullivan on Tribalism

This is a very good article. There is plenty to disagree with, but I agree entirely with this excerpt:

Or take the current promiscuous use of the term “white supremacist.” We used to know what that meant. It meant advocates and practitioners of slavery, believers in the right of white people to rule over all others, subscribers to a theory of a master race, Jim Crow supporters, George Wallace voters. But it is now routinely used on the left to mean, simply, racism in a multicultural America, in which European-Americans are a fast-evaporating ethnic majority. It’s a term that implies there is no difference in race relations between America today and America in, say, the 1830s or the 1930s. This rhetoric is not just untrue, it is dangerous. It wins no converts, and when actual white supremacists march in the streets, you have no language left to describe them as any different from, say, all Trump supporters, including the 13 percent of black men who voted for him.

Compare my Is Every Racist a White Supremacist?

Sullivan also deserves praise for pointing out the excesses of Ta-Nehisi Coates:

He remains a vital voice, but in more recent years, a somewhat different one. His mood has become much gloomier. He calls the Obama presidency a “tragedy,” and describes many Trump supporters as “not so different from those same Americans who grin back at us in lynching photos.” He’s written about how watching cops and firefighters enter the smoldering World Trade Center instantly reminded him of cops mistreating blacks: They “were not human to me.” In his latest essay in the Atlantic, analyzing why Donald Trump won the last election, he dismisses any notion that economic distress might have played a role as “empty” and ignores other factors, such as Hillary Clinton’s terrible candidacy, the populist revolt against immigration that had become a potent force across the West, and the possibility that the pace of social change might have triggered a backlash among traditionalists. No, there was one meaningful explanation only: white supremacism. And those who accept, as I do, that racism was indeed a big part of the equation but also saw other factors at work were simply luxuriating in our own white privilege because we are never under “racism’s boot.”

What Do Gun Violence and Systemic Racism Have in Common?

Neither exist.

(William Tingley calls me "the pithy Maverick." How are you doing these days, Bill?)

Dennis Prager on Liberalism, Leftism, and Race

Dennis Prager insists on a distinction between leftism and liberalism. "The two have almost nothing in common," he tells us. He points to a number of differences. I will comment on just one:

Race: This is perhaps the most obvious of the many moral differences between liberalism and leftism. The essence of the liberal position on race was that the color of one’s skin is insignificant. To liberals of a generation ago, only racists believed that race is intrinsically significant. However, to the left, the notion that race is insignificant is itself racist. Thus, the University of California officially regards the statement “There is only one race, the human race” as racist. For that reason, liberals were passionately committed to racial integration. Liberals should be sickened by the existence of black dormitories and separate black graduations on university campuses.

a) A minor point: while color of skin is a phenotypical manifestation of race, race is not the same as skin color. Otherwise, how do you explain the differences in attitudes towards blacks and people from India, many of whom are very dark in color? It is their behavior, not skin color, that determines attitudes toward blacks, and behavior is a better indicator of race than skin color. Most white liberals would not think of buying a house in a predominantly black area. Is that because of skin color or typical behavior patterns? The question answers itself.

On second thought, my "minor point" is not so minor. To speak of race in terms of something as superficial as skin color is to assume that race is of no significance. But this is a question that ought not be begged. Is sex also of no significance? I say No and Prager says the same.

How can Prager hold that race is of no significance when he also holds, rightly, that sex is of great significance and that the behavioral differences of men and women are rooted in biological differences and are not just a matter of socialization? Is it at all plausible to think that gender differences are rooted in biological differences while racial differences are not so rooted? No, it is not.

b) What is it for race to be significant or insignificant? Is the idea that race has no explanatory connection to any behavioral attributes? But that cannot be right. How explain the 'over-representation' of blacks in the NBA and NFL? Why are blacks, as a group, so much better than other groups at basketball and football? Even if part of the explanation is social and cultural, surely part of its has to do with the biological realities of race.

Consider parallel questions about sex. Are men and women equally capable of being competent fire fighters? Of course not. That fact cannot be explained by differential socialization such as a lack of toy fire trucks in the nurseries of little girls. The explanation must invoke biological realities having to so with muscle mass, upper body strength, etc.

Race, like sex, does matter. Why is it 'racist' to point this out? It can't be racist since it is true. Is it 'ageist' to point out that there is a good reason why one cannot enlist in the U. S. Army if one is over 40 years of age?

Is it 'discriminatory' in a pejorative sense to require that enlistees be in good health, be fluent in English, and have a high school diploma or equivalent? Of course not. Only a liberal knucklehead could think otherwise.

Is age a mere social construct? Of course not. Age, as it relates to activities like schlepping heavy packs and climbing over obstacles is related to ageing, the latter being a biological process.

c) Since Prager is a sex realist he ought to be a race realist as well. Just as it would be absurd for him to say that there is only one sex, the human sex, it is absurd for him to say that there is only one race, the human race.

But surely it is not racist to say this as crazed leftists think. On the contrary, it expresses the salutary desire to get beyond racial differences and find common ground in our common humanity. That can't be bad! So why do leftists think that it is racist to to say that there is only one race, the human race?

It is because they think it implies a denial of black identity.

I suggest that the correct view lies between Prager's race irrealism according to which race is just skin color and to that extent insignificant, and the identitarian view, found both on the Left and on the Alt-Right, that race is constitutive of who one is at a very deep level.

The correct view is that racial differences are real and significant just as sexual and age differences are real and significant, but that for purposes of social harmony and political cooperation we had better not identify ourselves racially but in terms of attributes more conducive to comity. And what might these be?

Some candidates: fellow citizen, rational animal, American (for Americans), child of God.

I will leave it to the reader to explain why each of these candidates has become in recent decades highly problematic. For example, if you believe in the nonsense of a 'living constitution' which is in reality no constitution at all, then you are not an American in the sense required to secure some common ground.

So I end with a dark thought: in the end tribalism wins.

Race Obsession

Is Good Faith Dialogue Possible with Leftists?

Arguably not:

Our “mainstream conservative” is a pathetic hostage to the Left. He somehow hasn’t yet realized that the Left is hell-bent on branding everything “racist” regardless of whether the label has any basis whatsoever in either reason or reality. Things are so bad that a progressive merely has to threaten to play the “you’re a racist” card, and our “mainstream conservative” will do anything, including betray his own staff, to save face with a crowd that has already decided that he is irredeemable: nothing more than the political and moral equivalent of white supremacists and neo-Nazi fascists. He hasn’t developed sufficient contempt for this judgment, I suppose, or perhaps he really believes that he can change it by engaging with them in good faith. He cannot.

Indeed. Conservatives need to realize that leftists are enemies, not co-inhabitants of the plane of reasoned dialog. They will do anything to win. An indication of this is the ever more prevalent use of 'white supremacist' to smear conservatives. Traditional conservative values prevent too many of us from replying in kind and giving the scumbags a taste of their own medicine.

But the times they are are a'changing. A good indication thereof is the election of Donald J. Trump. He knows how to punch back, and decorum be damned. Civility is for the civil. There comes a time for incivility assuming you care to preserve a space in which such values as civility can flourish.

………………………

Reader RP writes,

Solzhenitsyn wrote in November 1916, "By his own experience, Colonel Vorotyntsev comes to realize that 'educated people were more cowardly when confronted by left-wing loudmouths than in face of machine guns.'”

The " mainstream conservative" is no different.

Will the Culture War Issue in Civil War?

John Davidson:

[. . .]

For all their shortcomings, conservatives at least have a limiting principle for politics. Most of them believe, for example, in the principles enshrined in the Constitution and maintain that no matter how bad things are, the Bill of Rights is a necessary bulwark, sometimes the only bulwark, against tyranny and violence. In contrast, here’s Timothy Egan of The New York Times arguing unabashedly for the repeal of the Second and Fifth Amendments.

The rapid radicalization of Democrats along these lines follows a ruthless logic about the entire premise of the American constitutional order. If you believe, as progressives increasingly do, that America was founded under false pretenses and built on racial oppression, then why bother conserving it? And why bother trying to compromise with those on the other side, especially if they reject progressives’ unifying theory that America is forever cursed by its original sin of slavery, which nothing can expiate?

Before you scoff, understand that this view of race and America is increasingly mainstream on the American Left. To read someone like Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose recent article in The Atlantic is a manifesto of racial identity politics that argues Trump’s presidency is based on white supremacy, is to realize that progressive elites no longer believe they can share a republic with conservatives, or really anyone with whom they disagree.

Coates has attained near god-like status among progressives with his oracular writings on race and politics, which take for granted the immutability of race and racial animus. So it’s deeply disturbing when he writes, as he does in a new collection of essays, that “should white supremacy fall, the means by which that happens might be unthinkable to those of us bound by present realities and politics.”

What does Coates mean by that? It isn’t hard to guess, and lately Coates isn’t trying too hard to disguise it. In a recent interview with Ezra Klein of Vox, Coates expanded on this idea. Writes Klein:

When he tries to describe the events that would erase America’s wealth gap, that would see the end of white supremacy, his thoughts flicker to the French Revolution, to the executions and the terror. ‘It’s very easy for me to see myself being contemporary with processes that might make for an equal world, more equality, and maybe the complete abolition of race as a construct, and being horrified by the process, maybe even attacking the process. I think these things don’t tend to happen peacefully.’

This is the circuitous, stumbling language of man who knows precisely what he wants to say but isn’t sure if he should come right out and say it. Coates isn’t alone in feinting toward violence as a means—perhaps the only means, if Coates is to be taken at his word—of achieving social justice. On college campuses, progressive activists increasingly don’t even bother mincing words, they just forcibly silence anyone who disagrees with them, as a Black Lives Matter group did recently during an event featuring the American Civil Liberties Union at the College of William and Mary. (Ironically, the talk was supposed to be about students and the First Amendment.)

For a sincere progressive, almost everything that happened in the past is a crime against the present, and the only greatness America can attain is by repudiating its past and shaming—or silencing, if possible—all those who believe preserving our constitutional order is the best way for all of us to get along.

Seen in that light, the radicalization of Democrats is something qualitatively different, and much more dangerous, than the radicalization of Republicans. It means, among other things, that the culture war is now going to encompass everything, and that it will never end.

A Version of Alt-Right Identitarianism

My right-wing identitarian sparring partner makes a good response to my attempt, earlier today, to locate a common root of both right-and left-wing identitarianism. My responses are in blue.

……………..

Wouldn't you agree, on reflection, that the bolded passage [from a NYT article] is a straw man?

"Both sides eagerly reduce people to abstract color categories, all the while feeding off of and legitimizing each other, while those of us searching for gray areas and common ground get devoured twice. Both sides mystify racial identity, interpreting it as something fixed, determinative and almost supernatural."

A typical 'alt-right' identitarian in Europe or America believes things like this:

(a) race is real,

(b) race is an important part of human identity, and a natural basis for organizing society,

(c) racial differences have important political consequences,

(d) whites have the right to act in their own interest, e.g., by stopping immigration or defending the dominance of white European culture and norms in white European societies . . .

I accept, with qualifications, all four of these propositions. Much depends, of course, on what exactly they are taken to mean.

As for the first proposition, I accept it as it stands if it is the negation of the claim that racial differences are wholly a matter of social construction. Racial theories and classifications are of course social constructs; but these theories and classifications are attempts to understand an underlying biological reality. That there are biological differences between the races is as obvious as that there are such differences between men and women. These biological realities make it impossible for a person to change his race. See my response to Rebecca Tuvel's "In Defense of Transracialism."

As for the second proposition, I can accept it, but only with serious qualifications. I hold that a human being is a spiritual animal, and therefore not just an animal. My opponent will probably not accept this; my impression is that he is a naturalist. My theistic personalism is a version of anti-naturalism. As a personalist I maintain that race bears only upon my animal identity, WHAT I am as a bit of the world's fauna; not upon WHO I am as a person. Furthermore, my identity as a person trumps my identity as an animal. Part of what this means is that it would be a false self-identification were I to identify myself as a member of a racial or ethnic group or subgroup. For if a person identifies himself as a white male or a black female, then he reduces himself to what fundamentally he is not, namely, an animal, when what he fundamentally and most truly is is a person. See Is There a Defensible Sense in which Human Beings are Equal?

Of course, I don't expect my interlocutor to accept any of this if he is a naturalist. But then the discussion shifts to naturalism which comprises a set of questions logically prior to the present set.

With respect to the first half of (b), I would say that race is not an important part of my identity as a person, because it is not any part of my identity as a person, even though it is essential to my identity as an animal: I am not accidentally Caucasian any more than I am accidentally male. (Thus even if I pulled a Bruce Jenner and donned 'superdrag' apparel complete with surgically fabricated vagina, mammaries, etc, I would still remain biologically male. I would just be parading around in 'superdrag.' ) My opponent, if he is a naturalist who sees himself as identical to a living human animal, is committed not only to saying that race is an important part of human identity, but is essential to human identity.

The second half of (b) also requires qualification. First of all it is not clear what it means to say that race is a natural basis for organizing society. Is this supposed to rule out a 'proposition nation'? And what exactly is a 'proposition nation'? The Alt-Right seems adamantly opposed to such a thing. But the unity of the USA is not the unity of a tribe but the unity of a set of ideas. Those who accept these ideas are Americans regardless of whether they come from England or Germany or Italy, or Greece — or China. I grant, of course that certain ethnic groups are better equipped to implement American values and ideals than others. But that is consistent with the USA being a 'proposition nation.'

As for the third and fourth propositions, I agree. Racial differences do have political consequences, and immigration policy must be to the benefit of the host country and its culture. It would therefore be national suicide to allow the immigration into Western nations of sharia-supporting Muslims. But what about educated secular Turks who are religiously Muslim to about the same extent as a Boston Unitarian is Christian and bear some of the innocuous cultural marks of Muslims such as the valuing of modesty in women and an aversion to the consumption of alcohol? What could justify excluding them from immigrating?

An Identitarian is an Identitarian, Left or Alt-Right

And a pox on both houses, say I. What strikes me is what they have in common. Here is something from the NYT that makes sense (emphasis added):

In the most memorable sentence in “The First White President,” Mr. Coates declares, “Whereas his forebears carried whiteness like an ancestral talisman, Trump cracked the glowing amulet open, releasing its eldritch energies.” I have spent the past six months poring over the literature of European and American white nationalism, in the process interviewing noxious identitarians like the alt-right founder Richard Spencer. The most shocking aspect of Mr. Coates’s wording here is the extent to which it mirrors ideas of race — specifically the specialness of whiteness — that white supremacist thinkers cherish.

This, more than anything, is what is so unsettling about Mr. Coates’s recent writing and the tenor of the leftist “woke” discourse he epitomizes. Though it is not at all morally equivalent, it is nonetheless in sync with the toxic premises of white supremacism. Both sides eagerly reduce people to abstract color categories, all the while feeding off of and legitimizing each other, while those of us searching for gray areas and common ground get devoured twice. Both sides mystify racial identity, interpreting it as something fixed, determinative and almost supernatural. For Mr. Coates, whiteness is a “talisman,” an “amulet” of “eldritch energies” that explains all injustice; for the abysmal early-20th-century Italian fascist and racist icon Julius Evola, it was a “meta-biological force,” a collective mind-spirit that justifies all inequality. In either case, whites are preordained to walk that special path. It is a dangerous vision of life we should refuse no matter who is doing the conjuring

I am not so sure the febrile, destructive bullshit of millionaire celebrity Coates is morally superior to white supremacism, but the bolded passage gets at the truth of the matter.

By the way, the bums at the NYT have made it difficult to copy from their articles, but here are two work-arounds. I just now employed the first and it is not too much of a pain.

Is It ‘Racist’ to Hose Dog Droppings off Sidewalk?

Thanks to 'liberals,' we live in an age of race obsession. Almost everyone and everything is 'racist' these days.

Story here (and it is no joke):

According to the [Seattle] Times, Councilmember Larry Gossett “said he didn’t like the idea of power-washing the sidewalks because it brought back images of the use of hoses against civil-rights activists.”

The article did not reveal Gossett's race. It turns out he's black.

Isn't it profoundly racist for the the author not to mention Gossett's race so that blacks can get the credit they deserve for having among them a man of his great sensitivity and compassion?

Bourgeois Norms and Race

This from an alt-right correspondent. My responses in blue. For the record, I am not alt-right, neo-reactionary, or dissident right (except for my contempt for the yap-and-scribble, do-nothing, anti-Trump, elitist, bow-tie brigade).

…………………..

As part of my ongoing attempt to nudge you further to the right . . . consider these "life-enhancing bourgeois values preached by Amy Wax". In your earlier entry on this topic you say:

Now let me see if I understand this. The bourgeois values and norms are 'racist' because blacks are incapable of studying, working hard, deferring gratification, controlling their exuberance, respecting legitimate authority and the like? But surely blacks are capable of these things. So who are the 'racists' here? The conservatives who want to help blacks by teaching them values that are not specifically white, but universal in their usefulness, or the leftists who think blacks incapable of assimilating such values?

I'm sure that almost all blacks are capable of deferred gratification and hard work (etc.) to some degree. And I'm sure that many are capable of being 'bourgeois' to pretty much the same degree as typical white people. But is it sure that blacks as a group, on the whole, are capable of exhibiting these virtues and being inspired by these bourgeois values to the same degree as whites, on the whole?

BV: But I didn't say that blacks as a group are equally as capable as whites as a group at deferring gratification, saving and investing, avoiding drugs and crime, etc. I don't believe that this is the case as a matter of empirical fact at the present time. I merely said that they are capable of these things, and in fairly large numbers. So I'd say you are attacking a straw man here. My present view is that blacks as a group are capable of deferring gratification, etc. but not to the same degree as whites, and that for this very reason it is important to preach the values that Amy Wax and her colleague preach.

I assume that people of good will want every group to do as well as it can.

My question is why leftists object so ferociously to Wax and Co. What explains this? My reader has an explanation. He begins with the fact that blacks are not as good as whites at implementing the bourgeois values that make for success. Given this fact,

. . . it might also be 'racist' in a sense to demand that all groups embrace these bourgeois values. Maybe it just doesn't come naturally, or as naturally, to all of these groups. It's not 'racist' in the idiotic SJW sense, of course. But maybe a proper respect for distinct varieties of human nature does require us to let different groups live in the ways that they find natural and comfortable and reasonable. An analogy with sex differences might help. It's not 'sexist' to have different expectations for men and women in many areas of life. Just because we expect men to support themselves and protect their families, and we tend to look down on men who won't or can't do these things, it doesn't follow that we should have the same expectations of women–or that we should never tell men to 'be a man about it' or 'man up' (or whatever) just because we don't talk that way to women. Just because we expect women to be nurturing and empathetic, and we frown on women who don't want to spend lots of time with their young children, it doesn't follow that we should have exactly the same expectations of men. Since they tend to have different abilities and interests, a reasonable society allows for some differences in expectations and norms appropriate to their different strengths and weaknesses.

BV: The idea that my correspondent is floating seems to be that it is 'racist' to demand or even suggest to a racial group that it behave in ways that don't come all that naturally to it even if those ways of behaving would benefit them enormously. My suggestion, above, was the opposite, namely, that it is 'racist' not to suggest that they behave in these 'bourgeois' ways. For then you are falsely denying, on racial grounds, that they can improve their lot by implementing life-enhancing values.

This brings me back to one of my standard complaints: people sling the world 'racism' around with no preliminary clarification as to what it is supposed to mean.

Still it's true that if people are going to live in a bourgeois society where these particular virtues and values are pretty important, and often necessary for having a decent life, then everyone will have to act like a typical bourgeois white European. And yet, if my hypothesis about group differences is true, this would be especially hard for some groups–a problem or obstacle that only some groups have to deal with. Maybe a more humane and sustainable policy would be to let these groups live differently, let them have their own societies, where different norms are accepted. These societies wouldn't have to be purely race- or ethnic-based. You could have an explicitly bourgeois society, where it's understood that people who just won't or can't live by these particular values are not wanted; you could have some other, non-bourgeois society with a different understanding. But inevitably the first one would be predominantly white (with some north Asians). Is this a rejection of 'universal values' in your view? I'm not sure. In a sense, yes it is–but then rejection of 'universal values' in that sense seems reasonable, or just as reasonable as rejection of 'universal values' with respect to the sexes. What do you think?

BV: I stick to my assertion that bourgeois virtues and values are universal in the sense that all people of whatever race can profit by their acquisition and implementation. But it doesn't follow that all groups are equally good at their acquisition and implementation. What I oppose is the notion that these virtues and values are inherently white, whatever that might mean. Do whites own them? Does 'whitey' own them such that if a black studies, improves himself, works hard, saves, invests, buys a house, etc. then he is guilty of 'cultural appropriation' in some pejorative sense?

I say the virtues and values in question are no more white than the theorem of Pythagoras of Samos is 'Samosian.'

The True and the Good are universal.

Time to Defund the NFL

Some important points re: the NFL flag and anthem controversy.

1) In its third clause, the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution states, "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging freedom of speech or of the press." This protects the U. S. citizen from any attempt from the side of the U. S. government to squelch free expression. It does not protect a citizen who is in the employ of a private concern from attempts by the employer to limit speech or expression. The kneeling football players while on the field of play have no First Amendment free speech rights. Their employers may fire them just as Google was within its legal rights when it fired James Damore.

The difference is that Google was morally wrong for firing an engineer who spoke the politically incorrect truth, while the club owners are morally wrong if they do not fire the overpaid, disrespectful football players.

2) What the kneelers appear to be protesting is imaginary. Jason Riley:

The players have said they are protesting the unjust treatment of blacks by law enforcement and cite the spate of police shootings that have come to light in recent years. Team owners and NFL officials will have to decide whether to continue indulging such behavior on company time, but the larger question is whether what is being protested has some basis in reality beyond anecdotes and viral videos on social media.

Hard data, however, shows that the protests are hollow. Heather Mac Donald:

The FBI released its official crime tally for 2016 today [25 September 2017], and the data flies in the face of the rhetoric that professional athletes rehearsed in revived Black Lives Matter protests over the weekend. Nearly 900 additional blacks were killed in 2016 compared with 2015, bringing the black homicide-victim total to 7,881. Those 7,881 “black bodies,” in the parlance of Ta-Nehisi Coates, are 1,305 more than the number of white victims (which in this case includes most Hispanics) for the same period, though blacks are only 13 percent of the nation’s population. The increase in black homicide deaths last year comes on top of a previous 900-victim increase between 2014 and 2015.

3) Whether or not the kneelers have anything real to protest, they of course have a right to their opinion. They ought to express it in the proper venue. They also have a moral obligation to get the facts straight and form correct opinions, an obligation they are not fulfilling.

4) Just as the kneelers have a right to their opinion, as foolish and destructive as it is, President Trump has a right to his sane and reasonable one: "Fire the sons of bitches!" My thought exactly. His expression is harsh but justified. There is such a thing as righteous anger.

5) The vicious and destructive Left promotes the lie that Trump's call for a firing of the louts is 'racist.' Not at all. If you believe that lie, you are not only stupid, but vile and deserve moral condemnation.

The kneelers are both white and black, and even if they were all black, race doesn't come into it. The kneelers are being condemned for their lack of civility, their disrespect for the USA, it values, its flag, its anthem, its war heroes, and for injecting politics into what ought to be an apolitical event.

There was a jackass on Tucker Carlson's show the other night who absurdly claimed that 'Fire the sons of bitches" is code for 'Fire the niggers." That is beneath refutation, but it does indicate what scum leftists are.

6) There is also the issue of federal, state, and local subsidies of football franchises using tax dollars. And it is not just the misuse of public funds to build stadiums. The NFL gets billions in subsidies from U. S. taxpayers. That ought to anger you even if you are a football fan. Football is of interest only to some people, does not serve the common good, lowers the general level of a culture, and its subsidy to the benefit of some is not part of the legitimate functions of government.

7) The NFL and the scumbags of the Left don't care what you think and will ignore what you have to say, no matter how reasonable. The only effective way to punish this collection of bastards is by defunding them. Boycott the games and don't buy the merchandise. If you really must watch the game of football, watch the college variety.

Is Every Racist a White Supremacist?

'White supremacist' is becoming the Left's smear word of choice eclipsing even 'racist.' This leads to an interesting question: Is every racist a white supremacist? That depends on what you think a racist is.

On one definition, a member of a race is a racist if he harbors an irrational hatred of the members of some other race just in virtue of their membership in that other race. It follows that blacks who harbor an irrational hatred of whites just in virtue of their being white are racists. But presumably few if any of them would count as white supremacists, on any reasonable definition of the latter.

To answer the title question: it is not the case that every racist is a white supremacist; with few exceptions black racists are not white supremacists.

Now what I have just written has a tongue-in-cheek flavor. I am not seriously trying to straighten out any 'progressive' loon. For surely it would be absurd to invoke reason in the Left's lunatic asylum. It would be absurd to point out to a race-obsessed 'progressive' that 'racist' and 'white supremacist' have different meanings.

Race obsession is a cognitive aberration of leftist group-thinkers. These sick people need therapy, not refutation or calm analysis.