A Tricky Philosophy for a Tricky People
By • 2/6/08One of the purposes of my last article, What is the West?">What is the West?, was to explain to whites why they should be interested in preserving the racial integrity of Western nations. The values that are the heart of Western culture, such as individualism, pluralism, and preference for the rule of law, almost certainly have some biological basis. Increasing numbers of non-whites in Western societies will erode these values and may transform our countries into places that are hostile to us.
However, a man going by the name of Irish, who frequently comments on The Inverted World and has written for us, objected to my article’s premise in a comment. Irish believes it is a basic mistake to justify racial self-preservation through argument, as I was doing. Since racial preservation is a natural impulse, it no more needs to be justified than love or hunger. As Irish says:
I think this whole tack you’ve taken is a mistake…
My main problem is that it gives up too much, gives up the essential point that we whites have an inherent right to defend, consolidate, and advance their interests. We have no obligation, and should have no need, to justify our existence or self-advocacy to ourselves or others by somehow proving our worth or uniqueness.
Any animal instinctively seeks to benefit itself or at least its progeny/relatives. All other human racial / ethnic groups, even those with a relative paucity of notable achievement and absence of aptitude, do the same. They know in a way deeper than reason that existence is its own justification, and that the desirability of seeking to benefit oneself and one’s own is self-evident.
That, I think is what we need to get across to whites, our natural right to be who we are, and just to be.
Yes, our women are the most lovely, our philosophy and culture the most admirable and beautiful, our history the most splendid, our science and wealth and might the most awe-inspiring. But they don’t have to be. We don’t have to earn or buy our right to exist and benefit ourselves. That right is already ours.
Irish’s view is very similar to that of Jared Taylor, publisher of American Renaissance, who also thinks racial interests are natural and should not have to be justified. As he says in The Ways of Our People:
How are the white man and his civilization unique? Why do they deserve our loyalty? Why have so many whites lost all racial consciousness?
There is a reason why American Renaissance has never raised these questions: They should never have to be raised. No healthy people ever doubts its own legitimacy — or even its superiority. According to the French proverb, every nation thinks itself better than its neighbors, and every nation is right.
Consequently, American Renaissance has never seriously tackled the question of what makes the West unique—the article I have just quoted is the closest Taylor has come, and he does so only after he has explained that the whole exercise is against his principles.
However, I think Irish’s and Taylor’s view of this issue is a disastrous mistake. It ought to be the absolute priority of white activists to explain why white societies are unique and why they are worth preserving, and the fact that we have not done this so far is one of the reasons for our movement’s failure.
I wonder what Irish means when he says that we should not have to justify racial consciousness. Racial solidarity may be natural, but the power of nature is plainly not strong enough to maintain it intact all the time; else, why would there be so little impulse to racial preservation among whites right now? If instinct is not enough to persuade whites to value their race, then we do in fact have to give them reasons to do so. We may not need to justify our beliefs to God or the law, but we do need to justify them to our target audience, or else they will continue to ignore us.
Besides, acting as though we are so obviously right that we don’t even need to defend our worldview will strike most as unbearably smug and arrogant. After all, multiculturalist whites are human beings too, endowed with reason just as we are. If we don’t pay them the respect of addressing their ideas in a rational manner, they not only will ignore us, but they will be right to.
But there is a deeper reason why Irish and Jared Taylor are wrong. They are both advocating uncritical ethnocentrism, which is the belief that one’s own people is superior to others and has a self-evident right to power. Simply telling whites to be ethnocentric is certain to be a complete failure, as they despise ethnocentrism, which they call “racial prejudice,” “bigotry,” and “fascism,” in their very bones.
And there are some good reasons for this contempt. Even as he advocates ethnocentrism, Taylor makes clear that preference for one’s own race is generally unjustified on objective grounds: “every nation thinks itself better than its neighbors, and every nation is right.” In short, ethnocentrism is normally founded on lies, and debunking your people’s illusions about itself is part of the essential work of reason. Being ethnocentric may be natural, but it is also natural to use one’s reason to critique your people’s assurance of its own superiority and will to power. Western self-critique may have been carried to unhealthy extremes, but there is nothing inherently wrong or unnatural about whites’ recognition that there is no objective reason to consider our race superior to others, or that Asians are smarter than we are, or that we have often behaved barbarously in the past.
Ironically, the critique of our own ethnocentrism is a core part of the Western identity. We Westerners admire ourselves because we have been able to overcome irrational racial bigotry and to learn to treat non-whites in an ethical manner. We have certainly gone much farther in this direction than any other world culture.
For this reason, I recommend exactly the opposite tack. Rather than telling whites to be more ethnocentric, we should justify racial preservation on the grounds of our unique Western capacity to critique ethnocentrism. That is, we present ourselves as the enlightened, self-critical spirits, and other races as uncritically ethnocentric bigots who will seek to dominate us if we let them into our countries. As I argued in a previous article, the West becomes denatured when we admit people into our countries who do not share our capacity for self-criticism. This strategy is also consistent with my idea that race realists should portray themselves as the true defenders of liberal Western values.
Whites are a tricky and paradoxical people: our capacity to criticize ourselves is the source of our greatest pride. I think it will probably take an equally tricky and paradoxical philosophy to persuade whites to become racially conscious.
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I appreciate Ian Jobling’s engaging me on this matter. Although I wasn’t fully conscious of it when I first articulated my view, it’s almost certainly true that the original source of it is indeed Jared Taylor. Either that or least he’s the one who made verbal and concrete for me what was inchoate and half-realized. I’m sure he’d do a much better job at defending the proposition we seem to share. But for what it’s worth:
We whites were, for the vast majority of our history and until recently, very much in touch with this instinct, without painfully working out a justification for it that satisfied sky-high intellectual and moral standards.
What “tricky and paradoxical philosophy” did the white men, movements, and nations now condemned by the Left use as they dared greatly, achieved mighty deeds, conquered nonwhite continents, and expanded our civilization’s reach and our people’s footprint?
It seems to me that the Crusaders, Cortez and Pizarro, the explorers of Africa, the Russians who won Siberia, the men who won India, the whites who made North America, Australia, New Zealand, and (for a time) South Africa new white homelands were acting at least in the most part from motives similar to those we see from others: personal self-aggrandizement (fortune, glory, and fame), or defense or uplift of their own group or culture (patriotism and religious zeal) - the precise motives I mention as normal.
The latter we see in the Muslim breakout from Arabia and the spread of Buddhism across Asia from India. The other goals are evident in nearly every movement of peoples in human history.
Ironically, the general and accelerating collapse among whites of formality and social mores in favor of what is comfortable, casual, and “natural” may be our ally here. If we can consistently compare love of one’s race to the widely accepted, “natural” love of one’s family and more extended kinship groups, the battle is won.
Remember, half of all whites have IQs below 100. And while they take their cues from their intellectual superiors, I think a carefully constructing a philosophy is not the way to reach them.
If we must have a moral reason for self-advocacy, I think pointing out the anti-white double standard, and disavowing Naziism etc. may well suffice. We accept self-advocacy from and among non-whites, including in the absence of whites (such as in their homelands). We deserve no less. Fears of endorsing “hatred” can be evenly replied to by pointing out that, as I believe Taylor has said, our desire to see our children succeed and advance does not require or imply hatred of others’ children, even in zero-sum games such as college admissions or getting the leading part in the school play.
By on 2/6/08 at 9:19 pm
One flaw I see in your argument is that it can be and has been used to undermine ethnic nationalism.
Canada, properly understood, is a nation-state consisting of ethnic natives of the British Isles and ethnic natives of Francophone Europe, together with a few local aboriginals. But ask a Canadian today what Canada is, and he’ll respond with talk of tolerance, democracy, human rights, and so on.
And so would a Swede - Sweden is no longer an expression of the unity and sovereignty of the Swedish ethnicity, but instead an abstract proposition nation dedicated to liberty and social justice.
The irony is that all these nations, in an effort to explain their identity, say the same thing and thus undermine their uniqueness.
By embracing a notion of identity wedded to abstract liberalism, one destroys ethno-racial nationalism in favor of the proposition nation. The proposition nation cannot exclude ethnic aliens who accept its premises (or claim to do so).
After all, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea are reasonably tolerant, open, free societies, are they not? And at least a minority of non-whites, even the most troublesome ones such as blacks and Muslims, embrace our civilization’s principles.
By on 2/6/08 at 10:33 pm
Ian Jobling is right that you have to talk to people where they actually stand at the moment, and not where they “should” be. I think he’s wrong on the specifics, though.
First of all, “the West” is too abstract for most people to care about. Why not America instead, which of course is a Western country? All the Western virtues of tolerance, rule of law, etc., can be framed as American virtues. Even pro-immigrant conservatives and neo-cons, not to mention many liberals, already want to preserve America’s European culture (if not race). They are the natural allies of race realists. They need to be convinced that, for instance, current mass immigration is a real threat to what they already value in America, not “the West”, and that their current faith in “assimilation” etc. is unrealistic.
Second, there is no reason to frame the argument in terms of race, or what Ian called “the racial integrity of Western nations”. Again, meet people where they currently stand—-which is anti-“racist”. If you talk about the cultural threat of mass immigration, etc., then the majority of people will listen to you. Race realists need to learn, not just to teach. Learn from the arguments put forth by people like Heather Mac Donald, who has impeccable mainstream credentials but still talks about the cultural threat of mass immigration. If you talk about the white race, even as the creator and sustainer of Western (or American) culture, you’ve already lost most of your potential listeners. Paradoxically, the way to get a race-realist point of view on immigration across to the mainstream is not to talk about race at all, at least not at first.
By on 2/7/08 at 4:17 am
Ian writes:
The critique of our own ethnocentrism is a core part of the Western identity.
I believe this is true. An unreasoned belief in our racial superiority is susceptible to the propaganda of so-called “liberal” universalism. It also provides grounds of complacent ignorance on which a charismatic leader who abandons discourse of reason, can advance an atavistic cause.
By on 2/7/08 at 9:00 am
The two points of view should not be seen as mutually exclusive, but I tend to think that Irish’s reasoning should take precedence.
“Simply telling whites to be ethnocentric is certain to be a complete failure, as they despise ethnocentrism, which they call “racial prejudice,” “bigotry,” and “fascism,” in their very bones.”
I think Ian has the wrong idea here. It is white supremacy that most whites find abhorent. Since most ethnic groups are ethnocentric, I think most whites would be open to this before they would be open to the idea that they were superior in any objective sense. At the same time, I do not think that the possibility of a genetic basis for IQ and behavior should be completely ignored. It is especially perilous to ignore IQ, for instance. I say keep the genetic argument out there, but don’t overemphasize it.
I expect that East Asians, for instance, have good genes for IQ. They also have been monogamous for many centuries, which may tend to make them more suitable for being integrated into the West. They still have ethnic loyalty, however, and if whites give up their intrinsic right to ethnic loyalty (i.e. non-genetic) while other groups retain theirs then whites are giving up too much, as others have pointed out.
“An unreasoned belief in our racial superiority is susceptible to the propaganda of so-called “liberal” universalism.”
Again, I think this is exactly wrong. It is the biological argument that is a form of universalism. It is our unquestioning attachment to our own ethnic identity that has been lost, and it is this which has to be restored.
By on 2/7/08 at 1:37 pm
Here is a link on how some behavioral traits may be genetic, by the way:
http://the-mouse-trap.blogspot.com/2007/10/fairness-in-your-genes.html
By on 2/7/08 at 1:38 pm
Irish,
The point is that we tell those Canadians and Swedes that non-whites are unlikely to be sympathetic to their liberal values, and that’s the reason to keep them out.
As I demonstrated in What is the West, white societies have always been distinguished by their individualism, pluralism, tolerance, and so forth. We were never blond beasts driven by simple desire for self-aggrandizement that you think we were. Whites have traditionally been aware that they were morally different from other races. Think of the phrase, “That’s awful white of you.” Think of the “white man’s burden” as well that required we justify domination by helping out the subjected populations.
Take up the White Man’s burden— The savage wars of peace— Fill full the mouth of Famine And bid the sickness cease.
The Western values that you mock are most whites’ greatest pride. We aren’t going to win whites over by telling them their values are worthless and that they really ought to live and think like Muslims or Asians.
You want whites to save themselves by jettisoning everything that makes them white. Such a paradoxical project is unlikely to appeal even to our paradoxical people.
By on 2/7/08 at 6:41 pm
To put it more succinctly:
If you don’t think whites are any different from Muslims and Asians, what makes whites worth saving? Why should we mind if the world is handed over to other races?
If you don’t value the cultures whites create, why should you mind if those cultures vanish from the earth?
Is it just that you have an aesthetic preference for white skin? Or are you like a football player who just wants his team to win?
By on 2/7/08 at 7:11 pm
“Why should we mind if the world is handed over to other races?”
Since I have been following this thread I will go ahead and answer. Think in terms of a family or the bonds of kinship. Think in terms of the love that parents have for their children or that any individual would have for relatives instead of the fondness of a football fan for a team. As someone said recently, parents don’t dump underperforming children in favor of someone else’s children.
By on 2/7/08 at 7:31 pm
Yes, the analogy between racial solidarity and family love is another old Jared Taylor standby. The comparison is illegitimate though.
If racial solidarity really were an instinct like family love is, it would be impossible for people to lose it as whites have done. Normal human beings are incapable of being indifferent to their children, but they are perfectly capable of being indifferent to their race.
Also, the very existence of American Renaissance magazine proves the two feelings are dissimilar. You don’t need to exhort people to be concerned with their families, but you do need to exhort them to be concerned with their race. And AR proves something else: even if you tell whites to love their race, they may very well not listen. If they do, they’re likely to think you’re cuckoo.
The idea that we have an instinct to care about our race flies in the face of all the facts. It’s just a fantasy cooked up by white nationalists to provide a simple answer to a problem that is vastly more complex.
I don’t know exactly the genesis of humans’ highly sporadic and unreliable urge to racial solidarity, but I suspect that it’s just an expression of self-interest. People probably care about their race precisely to the extent that it is in their own self-interest to do so. The reason blacks have such a powerful sense of racial solidarity is that it pays off for them individually in terms of affirmative action and other benefits.
We need to persuade whites that racial solidarity is in their own self-interest. Because if you tell them they should love their own kind because it’s natural for them to do so, they’ll stare at you in disbelief and might even have the wit to ask: “Why would someone have to tell me to do something that it’s natural for me to do?” And they’ll be right.
By on 2/7/08 at 8:19 pm
I think racial solidarity is most definitely an instinct. Generally, it’s stronger than love of humanity as a whole, but weaker than love of one’s ethnicity, which is weaker than love of one’s extended family, which is weaker than love of one’s nuclear family.
Even the latter, most powerful of instincts can be overruled by an urge of emotion or an act of will, or weakened, even eliminated by other circumstances. Any police officer, ER doctor, clergyman, psychiatrist, or social worker, can confirm that in overwhelming and depressing detail.
From the Bible to Dr. Phil, we have needed constant exhortations to love, honor, serve, and be loyal to our nuclear families.
By on 2/7/08 at 9:32 pm
I’ve never known of anyone who got converted to our cause because someone told him that racial loyalty was an instinct. People come to us because they think non-whites are wreaking havoc on our society or because they have disagreeable encounters with non-whites. They come to us, in short, because they feel that there is a deep difference in values between whites and non-whites that makes the latter destructive to our societies. AR has published a number of “how I saw the light” stories. Go read them and see if it is not as I say. I’ll bet you none of the writers say that they became realists because someone convinced him racial loyalty was an instinct.
I’m just trying to define what exactly the differences in values between whites and non-whites are.
Unless they are mentally ill, mothers don’t need Dr. Phil to tell them to feed their babies. That’s because the urge to feed your baby is a real instinct. You’re just logic-chopping to avoid the point.
By on 2/7/08 at 9:44 pm
White racial solidarity has been suppressed through conditioning. The capacity is still there, but people are receiving the message from a young age that it is wrong, so they suppress it out of conscientiousness.
I think it is in any group’s interest to have group solidarity. This is how so many immigrant groups manage to do well in the U.S. The reason group solidarity is not in the interest of whites is because of their culture, so it is the culture that must be changed.
My suggestion is to create communities based on kinship rather than universalist religions and ideals. The people in these communities will support each other, and group solidarity will spread out into the general white population from there.
By on 2/7/08 at 9:44 pm
So there’s a vast conspiracy brainwashing us to deny the call of nature, is there? Nonsense. There is no dark, alien agency creating our culture. We ourselves create our culture, and it reflects the desires and impulses of the majority. The people who create TV shows have no incentive to show us anything we don’t want to see; rather, their incentive is to appeal to as many people as possible so they can charge more for advertising. A campaign of indoctrination that contradicted human nature is not feasible in a capitalist society because it would draw no advertising dollars.
My suggestion is to create communities based on kinship rather than universalist religions and ideals. The people in these communities will support each other, and group solidarity will spread out into the general white population from there.
Well, you go out and try to create those communities, Hal K. After people scorn and ridicule your corny theories about fictitious instincts and fake conspiracies, maybe you’ll come back here a sadder and wiser man, ready for serious thought.
By on 2/7/08 at 10:15 pm
I have not suggested any vast conspiracy. I think of it more as a shared delusion brought about by historical circumstances. I do not know why it has worked out this way, and I agree that part of it could be due to innate tendencies. These days whites live and breathe universalism. They have universalism coming out of their ears. It has not always been this way, and it does not have to continue to be this way. You are just wrong when you say the instincts are fictitious. In centuries past whites lived in clans.
It was of economic advantage for whites to drop ethnic loyalties in the past couple hundred years or so. Now immigration and globalization are turning the advantage into a fatal flaw. Part of the problem is that the rapidity with which demographic changes can occur in modern times is overwhelming the ability of whites to adapt in time to stop the changes.
By on 2/7/08 at 10:57 pm
Ian Jobling notes, in his exchange with Irish that:
“I’ll bet you none of the writers say that they became realists because someone convinced him racial loyalty was an instinct.
I’m just trying to define what exactly the differences in values between whites and non-whites are.
Unless they are mentally ill, mothers don’t need Dr. Phil to tell them to feed their babies. That’s because the urge to feed your baby is a real instinct. You’re just logic-chopping to avoid the point.”
Ironically Dr. Jobling and Irish, for one such as myself, who is often so strident and almost even truculent in my racial views, I find myself falling right smack in the middle of you both in this debate! Personally, I do see a great degree of legitimate interest in both appealing to the values and instincts of other whites, in this cause of ours for the general benefits of our civilization and people as a whole in the long term. Just what are we, and even more importantly those who will come after us, our children (even if not born yet) going to lose?
To answer that question, one need only ask this: What have we lost in comparison to our parents and grandparents?
Dr. Jobling, you are correct in noting that: “I’ll bet you none of the writers say that they became realists because someone convinced him racial loyalty was an instinct.”
However, underneath that bet, holds a distinctively negative fact/question that most whites can barely grasp, just yet. This fact/question is, ‘but what about when there are more of them then us?’ Most whites do not think in terms of demographics or our other issues; most whites seem to think that like manna from Heaven, for every nonwhite added to this country, between 50 and 100 whites are also added somehow as if dropping from the sky. I have seen this time and again, when I play out the logic of what is so fashionable in the media’s and other elites’ speech about ’diversity” and “tolerance.”
The reality only hits, when I point out that the USA isn’t 90% or even 75% white anymore; the reality hits, when I note that it is “at best” 65% white and going to be shrinking to under 50% in 20 years or less. That and another hard fact, which is that we could jump from our “strained” population of about 310 million people to an overpopulated 400 million people, in the same eye blink.
That is where Irish, holds some of the most basic truths; there instincts (not cultural or racial, but simple basic survival ones) do begin to hit the others where it really hurts, right in the guts, or even the nuts. That is after all, how I wiped the cocky smirk off of Dr. White Privilege’s face in his assumed “reeducation” session with me, that I mentioned in another post here on IW. After that basic lesson in survival’s commonsense or instincts, do Dr. Jobling’s legitimate points about “why” justifying Western Civilization and its uniqueness to the whites who created it become more logical and (or dare I say it) sustainable?
Or put another way, the Titanic is sinking; should we not first patch the holes and then worry about and explain the “why it happened and should never happen again” issues?
By on 2/7/08 at 11:17 pm
John PM,
You fail to grasp my point, as everyone else seems to. Whites will only be motivated to resist demographic eclipse when they realize non-whites don’t share their values. Defining our values is not some airy-fairy effort divorced from practical reality. Rather, it’s the only plausible basis for practical action. The reason why the white racial consciousness movement has been such a failure is that we’ve never been able to explain to whites why they should be interested in racial preservation. Telling whites they should seek to preserve their race just because it’s natural to form clans or some such thing is certain to have no impact at all.
By on 2/7/08 at 11:42 pm
I really shouldn’t have called Hal K.’s ideas “corny” and torn into him that way. Temper, temper!
By on 2/8/08 at 12:23 am
You fail to grasp my point, as everyone else seems to. Whites will only be motivated to resist demographic eclipse when they realize non-whites don’t share their values.
A minority of Whites do realize that non-whites don’t share their values - the problem is to raise consciousness about cultural sabotage and demographic eclipse among the unenlightened multitude. That will not be accomplished by ideas circulated on the internet.
A reasoned belief in cultural superiority is impervious (as a rule) to the slogans of diversity enthusiasts. It’s much more likely that an unthinking or “jingo” allegiance can be subverted: one set of unexamined assumptions are exchanged for another.
By on 2/8/08 at 4:54 am
Telling whites they should seek to preserve their race just because it’s natural to form clans or some such thing is certain to have no impact at all.
I was thinking more in terms of leading by example than just advertising to whites that they should want to form clans. I do think it is natural for people to want to value their ethnic identity. If the right sorts of groups are formed then they will gain members and have an effect on the public at large. This could be national groups, as well as clans formed at a local level.
A reasoned belief in cultural superiority is impervious (as a rule) to the slogans of diversity enthusiasts. It’s much more likely that an unthinking or “jingo” allegiance can be subverted: one set of unexamined assumptions are exchanged for another.
Again, I don’t understand where you are coming from. How can white ethnocentrism be subverted into white self-defeatism? It is the approach based on objective standards (e.g. IQ) that can be subverted to the advantage of other groups, especially in regard to immigration policy.
By on 2/8/08 at 5:33 pm
“Whites will only be motivated to resist demographic eclipse when they realize non-whites don’t share their values.”
Or to put a slight variation on your premise:
Whites will only be motivated to resist demographic eclipse when they finally realize non-whites cannot be made to share, or conform to, our Western/White values.
By on 2/8/08 at 7:12 pm
The way things are progressing, I am afraid that Whites will only be motivated to resist demographic eclipse when non-whites outnumber them, by which point it may be too late for a satisfactory solution.
By on 2/8/08 at 8:27 pm
I can think of five arguments, (one can be formulated as more an assertion than an argument), that can be employed in support of white racial nationalism.
- The value of diversity.
Diversity is a “good thing”. It is a good thing, for example, that there are many types of birds and insects, and we all think it is a pity when this or that bird or insect becomes extinct, having evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, especially when its demise is caused by the actions of human beings.
Similarly, it is a good thing that there are many different human societies and cultures throughout the world. The fact that Australian Aborigines experience the world in a way that is different to an Englishman is something to rejoice about, and we all wish that the various folkways of indigenous cultures could be saved, (although obviously the participants in the culture need to be consulted!). But white society is just as warranted, for the sake of diversity, as Aborigine society. Indeed, even if whites were hunting their dinner with spears, whilst Aborigines were building colonies on Mars, nevertheless the world would still be poorer if white society was to be swamped by Aborigines bringing their Aborigine culture and values, and the world was to lose its white history and white way of giving meaning to life.
- Even-handedness argument.
It is inequitable that white children and white children alone should be dispossessed of their ancestral homelands. Yet it does indeed appear that multiculturalism and diversity is for white nations only. In fifty years time, if present trends continue Nigeria will be managed and controlled by ethnic Nigerians, China by ethnic Chinese, Japan by ethnic Japanese, Mexico by ethnic Mexicans, India by ethnic Indians, and so on throughout the non-white world (and good luck to them, I would not wish it differently), but our white children and grandchildren will have lost the freedom, security, and identity that comes from possessing their own historical homeland. This is manifestly unfair.
Tribal argument.
It is normal and healthy for a man to want to live and thrive. Similarly, if he is connected to his society and culture in a normal, healthy way, then he would want that to flourish too. What kind of man would express indifference when learning that his own community is dying, and will in time be replaced by an alien one? Since I am white, I naturally ally myself with white causes and, where possible, take the white side in any argument, because white society and culture is my society and culture. My tribe, if you like.
I cannot, and do not need, to cite reasons to justify my racial preferences. The only explanation that is possible to give is a causal explanation referencing my natural inclinations, to do with an inevitable preference towards people who are similar in temperament and character to me.
- Argument from Values.
Only in white countries are issues like human rights and animal welfare taken seriously. In non-white countries such concerns usually only come to the attention of rulers because of pressure by Western nations. Just recently in the UK there has been an outcry about Japanese whaling in the Antarctic, (the animal rights people on the boat were 100% white middle class, obviously), and wanton cruelty in Chinese zoos. It is at the very least a reasonable hypothesis that such “progressive” issues as animal welfare would never have seen the light of day were it not for the diligence and character of white people. If there are no white countries left, if white people are no longer in positions of power and influence, then it is at the very least a reasonable hypothesis that the world will embark upon a very illiberal course, with few rights for women and minorities, and less concern for animals and the environment. The scientific enterprise might even go down the toilet, leading to a return to an age of magic and superstition.
- Argument from Accomplishments.
White people have created societies that are, in many respects, superior to non-white societies. On all the internationally recognised indices of social assets: wealth, democracy, honesty in public life, human rights, quality of life, and so on, white nations are always massively overrepresented at the top. Not to mention the immense contributions that white people have made to the quality of life of everyone through their discoveries and inventions in medicine, technology, and science. If these facts were insufficient proof of the superiority of white societies, then non-whites prove it all the time, through their desire to emigrate to white countries. Maybe it is an accident that white societies happen to be so desirable, relative to the rest of the world. Who knows? But the historical evidence does seem to suggest to any balanced observer that it is at the very least a reasonable hypothesis that stable and rich nations (that people want to emigrate to) are created only when whites are in the majority. Why therefore take chances with non-white immigration? Do the benefits really outweigh the risks?
Two comments.
It has been suggested that white should take a leaf out of the blacks’ book and use the tribal argument. But surely the reason why the tribal argument is so popular with non whites is that they have little else to use. Blacks can hardly use the Argument from Accomplishments or Argument from Values, can they!
Furthermore, a few weeks ago a white p o s tradesman conned about £500.00 out of a mentally ill and clearly hard up lady I know. On the other hand, in the course of business I occasionally trade with an African black, who has always been honest and straightforward in our dealings. Tell me, am I expected to feel “something in common” with this wretched white p o s, and to prefer him to the black man. This is what the tribal argument would seem to imply.
By on 2/8/08 at 8:33 pm
Ian Jobling,
Your view that “a campaign of indoctrination that contradicted human nature is not feasible in a capitalist society because it would draw no advertising dollars” is simplistic.
The media and Hollywood are considerably more liberal than the general population. In the 1950s and 1960s they sympathized strongly with the civil rights movement ignoring the public opinion. Anti-war movies have been financial disasters yet Hollywood still produces them to advance the liberal agenda.
By on 2/10/08 at 2:35 pm
JAB,
Sure, the media can sway our view of the world, but they have no hope for success if they try to indoctrinate us with ideas that are contrary to our instincts. There is no way that Hollywood could mount a successful campaign to convince women not to care about their children or men to find 40-year-old women more attractive than 20-year-olds. Our instincts impose limitations on indoctrination. Consequently, the success of multiculturalist movies and TV shows indicates that we probably have no instinct for racial solidarity; if we did, why would so many watch and enjoy movies that undermine it?
By on 2/11/08 at 7:24 pm
The reason why so many people watch and enjoy “multicultural” movies that undermine racial solidarity is because human beings are not models of consistent behaviour. Cognitive dissonance and complexity of attitude may account for the success of entertainments that seem to subvert Western values (or American values, if you prefer).
By on 2/12/08 at 4:09 am
martin_uk,
I’ve just been rereading your comment and I find that it is an excellent summary of the different justifications for white racial preservation. In fact, I’d like to use it as a separate blog post some day. If you’d like to clean it up before I post it, please contact me.
By on 2/12/08 at 4:49 pm
Ian Jobling,
The success of multiculturalist movies and TV shows shows that the instinct for racial preservation is relatively weak. It does exist, however. Interracial marriages are still relatively rare in America despite decades of “anti-racist” indoctrination. In 2007 4.6% of married Blacks marry whites, and 0.4% of married whites marry blacks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracialmarriage#Blackand_White
Interracial relationships are against human nature in the same way communism is against human nature: they conflict with basic human instincts as sociobiologists have shown. Communist societies can work to a degree (the Soviet Union was a superpower) and the majority of their population might even genuinely believe in socialism. Multiculturalist societies can be compared to them.
By on 2/12/08 at 7:32 pm
Ian Jobling notes:
“Rather than telling whites to be more ethnocentric, we should justify racial preservation on the grounds of our unique Western capacity to critique ethnocentrism. That is, we present ourselves as the enlightened, self-critical spirits, and other races as uncritically ethnocentric bigots who will seek to dominate us if we let them into our countries.”
While I find this to be an interesting line of reasoning, I fear that it might be too cerebral and unfortunately late in the game (in terms of demographics) for it to make an impact. If this were the 1980s and the country still about 84% white, I think it would have a better chance of succeeding. This would be because, that by the 1990s we would still have a majority of 75% or better; this is not the case now, we currently only hold a majority of 65% that is rapidly dwindling. In another decade, where will we be at? By my calculations, about 59% to 54% of the population. Thus, demographics might very well be pushing whites (at least ones with any brains at all) into our corner, simply out of base survival instincts and needs.
Secondly, to be mildly critical, I think that your position is mainly directed at winning over the best educated and economically advantaged classes in the white population. This by your own admissions in previous articles, is the hardest demographic group to persuade toward our way of thinking. This, at least I believe, is due largely to the ability of this group to smugly isolate itself from the impacts of diversity’s “enrichments,” while forcing it upon the more financially insecure members of our people, in order to sanctimoniously feel good about themselves. While I find such self-serving arrogance disgusting, I do understand its befits and because of this, do not expect the class that practices it to change its patterns of behavior anytime soon.
Again, here I think that demographics will eventually change this comfortable arrangement for the educated and economically advantaged groups in our society and push them closer to our way of thinking on race, but at that point will such complicated educational explanations be needed? Probably not, simply because anger directed (ironically for this group) at nonwhites themselves and the savagery they are sinking the country into will be the primary sociopolitical motivator at that point in time.
In the end, I am not trying to discourage you in your position on this point of yours, only to put it into the context of the present (and likely future) demographic situation.
By John PM on 2/6/08 at 9:10 pm