Featured post

The West's Overreaction to Nazism

Western civilisation, especially in America, is to a large extent defined and shackled by its OVERREACTION to Nazism and the Holocaust, some...

Monday 30 November 2015

The West's Overreaction to Nazism

Western civilisation, especially in America, is to a large extent defined and shackled by its OVERREACTION to Nazism and the Holocaust, something which, without realising it, the NYT itself warns about in an editorial response, The Price of Fear, to the Islamic terror attacks in Paris earlier this month (LINK to article)):
“In the reaction and overreaction to terrorism [evil] comes the risk that society will lose its way.”
By far the most important example of this was the overreaction to Nazism, which has gone virtually unrecognised for decades, not least, because of its very profoundness, magnitude and all-pervasiveness, and because of the personal, professional and power-political self-interests that quickly became bound up with it.

The Nazis took the natural ethnic/racial basis of national identity and nationhood to criminally insane extremes in their efforts to exploit it for their own evil, power-political purposes. In overreaction to this we, i.e. our parents' and grandparents’, went to the opposite extreme of denying the natural ethnic basis of national identity and nationhood altogether, along with the very existence of race itself, which we are now obliged to believe, is just a “social construct”, only of importance to bigots and racists.

Only race is not a "social construct" (except when you try dividing closely related peoples from the same subcontinent into different races, as the Nazis insanely did), but real and important. Not in the way that racial supremacists, like the Nazis or supporters of Jim Crow or Apartheid, believe it is, but because central to any deep and meaningful sense of both personal and group, i.e. genuine national, identity.

The Nazis also hijacked the half-baked ideas of social Darwinism, which they abused to rationalise and justify their insane racial ideology, eugenics and euthanasia programmes, and wars of aggression, which also resulted in a massive overreaction on the part of a previous generation of academics, who made a taboo of the whole subject of applying Darwinian logic to the human situation, society and civilisation.

This was a tragedy we are still suffering under, because how else are we understand ourselves, our society, civilisation and situation if not from a human-evolutionary, i.e. Darwinian, perspective? Are we not, like other animals, a product of Darwinian evolution? Such a perspective reveals profound insights into the nature of society and the state, which academics have been unable to view objectively or dispassionately, because of their own dependency on it, and which are crying out for our urgent attention.

There will be understandable fears that to remove the taboos would once again lead to the abuse of Darwin’s ideas, which, of course, can’t be ruled out, but we can guard against it by being proactive in developing a rational and humane Darwinian ethics of our own, which is what we urgently need anyway.

Extricating ourselves from these overreactions and taboos is going to be difficult, because over more than half a century they have become deeply imbedded in the very fabric of academia, which is looked upon as a moral and knowledgeable authority, just as the church once was, whose values and attitudes are hugely influential and difficult even to challenge, let alone change.

Challenges to church authority were often condemned, not because they were considered unjustified, but because of fears of the consequences, not just for the church, but for society at large, which, it was feared could descend into anarchy; however, if those fears had been heeded by everyone the Reformation might never have happened and the Catholic Church would have kept its iron grip on western society, much as Islam has kept its grip on the Muslim world.

15 comments:

  1. I'm not sure I really understand your point. However I disagree with you that:
    "race ... is ...central to any deep and meaningful sense of both personal and group, i.e. genuine national, identity."

    I personally don't have a strong identification with whites from northwestern Europe which is where my DNA is from. Nor with Canada or the United States where I have grown up and spent my entire life.

    Although Darwin pointed out the difficulty of humans identifying with anyone beyond the family or tribe (or race or species ...) he pointed out the necessity of us striving to do so.

    Regards,

    Allan Dobbins

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "I personally don't have a strong identification with whites from northwestern Europe which is where my DNA is from. Nor with Canada or the United States where I have grown up and spent my entire life."

      Are you absolutely sure? Maybe your racial impulsess have never been put to the test. Would you honestly feel as comfortable around blacks as you would around whites? I doubt it.

      Delete
    2. "Are you absolutely sure? Maybe your racial impulsess have never been put to the test. Would you honestly feel as comfortable around blacks as you would around whites? I doubt it..."

      WOW. What an incredibly arrogant thing to say.

      You don't know Allan, you've never spent five seconds meeting with him, and yet...you leap to such a huge assumption.

      Delete
  2. You are, of course, free to disagree with my assertion, but that doesn't make it any the less true. The natural basis of national identity and genuine nationhood is race and ethnic origins: fact!

    You can create an artificial, pseudo nation that is multi-racial, which is what most western states have done, for their own mercenary and power-political purposes (see blog in which I elaborate http://philosopherkin.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/method-to-madness-of-post-racial.html ) but within a few generations of intermarriage it will become a single mixed race, thus proving my point.

    Human racial diversity is a consequence of human populations having been more or less isolated from each other in the past. This is how different races formed.

    If you love genuine human diversity, you will want to see these races preserved, especially one's own race, if one has any respect for one's own ancestors, their history and prehistory.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. We didn't choose our diverse disparate natures. Anyone that was born into an isolated ethnic culture was a product of that culture.

      However, you don't account for language. The propensity for language is natural and evolved. A specific language is learned - and place any infant into a language environment different from their parents and the new language will become their natural first language.

      Other cultural differences apply. I grew up in North West England were black soul music was a natural and pleasurable as any other - more so than the crap folk music that others in the region seemed to like.

      How do you think children of mixed race couples grow up? How about if a parent has a 6-month baby of her ethnicity by someone of her ethnicity, then marries and raises the child with someone of another ethnicity. The child's ethnic identity is more likely to arise only when told to them by racists.

      We are adaptable. I have a far greater affiliation with atheists of all ethnicities than I do for religious nuts of my own.

      "If you love genuine human diversity, you will want to see these races preserved"

      That sounds sort of nice. But why can't I also like extra diversity? Instead of black and white why can't I add a mixture of ethnicity?

      "if one has any respect for one's own ancestors, their history and prehistory"

      I can enjoy the history even if it no longer applies; and even if I totally reject the morals of those times now. I can celebrate Churchill's performace in WWII, and regret totally his supremicism regarding Empire. My Celtic background can regret William the Conqueror's victory over the English, and yet value everything about the Norman heritage that remains.

      And I can value my black ancestry from my African origins which spread out to form the diversity we have now.

      I have no fear of that black ancestry. And I have no fear of a future melting pot where Homo spiens becomes one 'race' ... but hold on, let's address race in the face of ancestry :

      Look back to your mother, and her mother, ... keep going back into a time of pre-humans. At every pair of mother-child along that route mother & child were of the same species. And yet take someone far back enough and bring them to today and they won't only be of a different 'race' they'll be of a different species.

      I value all my ancestry, and all my relations, all my cousins of various 'races' and distant cousins of different species.

      " especially one's own race"

      Ah. Now we come to it. You're a racist. It was as simple as that all along.

      Delete
    2. That was a ridiculously obtuse way to say what all Midwits say when they are confronted with uncomfortable observeable facts regarding race and ethnicity. Try calling him hitler . That'll show him real good I bet.

      Delete
    3. Thanks for coming my defence, Nigel. Ironically, in calling me a "racist", Ron is behaving like the hateful individual he is accusing me of being. Racists are assumed to be hateful, so calling someone a racist is a way of demonising and dehumanising them.

      However, I think Ron makes some interesting points, before dismissing me as "racist", which I took to mean that he had no interest in discussing the issue further.

      He is arguing as someone of mixed race (whether he actually is or not; perhaps he has mixed-race children) and is frightened of the implications of my views on this account, in which case, I have a lot of sympathy for him.

      I have less sympathy for those who demonise my views simply because it puts them on the side of state ideology (and power), thereby giving them a sense of their own moral superiority.

      My views contradict state racial ideology, on which its claim to multi-ethnic nationhood rests, which is why it demonises them, just as it demonises anything that threatens its power.

      In order to understand my views on race, and that they are not in any way hateful, you need to understand my views about the nature and purpose of the state, which I elaborate on in other blogs.

      Delete
    4. Roger, I have sympathy for your views on the state, however I find your assertion of unproven theories of evolution combined with the fact that you must realize that many of those that would support your views are in fact white supremacists or all out nutters, scary.

      I can take your words at face value and have some interest in a discussion because I seem to lack intellectual fellow travelers. I do not love the state, but also loathe violence, and intellectual dishonesty.

      Despite your understandable misgivings with the state, I can see no reason to think that what is happening now is not the natural order of evolution. I think quite a fair argument can be made that a decreasing diversity of races is inevitable in a shrinking world. While we know decreased genetic diversity comes with its downsides, I would say that we are still perhaps hundreds of years away from that point where our lack of genetic diversity will make us susceptible to destruction by microbes. I would say violence against each other is a bigger threat at this point.

      Delete
  3. Roger, I find your assertions ironic given that you suggest we all examine our own ideologies more closely. Re-asserting your assertion about 'the natural basis' of national identity is not an argument; it's simply a re-assertion. Moreover, using ideologically driven words like 'natural' and authorative words like 'fact!' without (at the very least) pointing to your research leaves you sounding like a propagandist.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Many thanks for your comment, Roger. Because wars are tribalistic and tend to deplete the most virile individuals of our species, do you view them as an evolutionary error like the beaching of whales?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I see civilisation itself as an evolutionary cul-de-sac, because based on society's self-exploitation to the personal advantage of its ruling elites and favoured clients, at the expense, and ultimate self-destruction, of society at large.

      I elaborate on this in my blog, On the Perverted Darwinian Nature of Civilisation, which I link to above.

      Delete
  5. Overreaction is a result of the Anglo hypermasculinity. In order to feel secure in fighting anyone, they must demonize them as devils rather than opponents.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is a very primitive aspect of our inherent tribal nature, which the British army, I believe, makes a point of exploiting in the service of the British state, which deceitfully poses as a tribe or nation it is not.

      Delete
  6. 'And no, I am not a racist, white supremacist or neo-Nazi, but will elaborate on this issue in my blogs.' With a qualifier like this, you KNOW reading further is pointless. Face your fears-LOSER.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is you, my friend, who needs to face his fears. I'm not a loser & nor need you be.

      Delete