In my post on Empire and Albion I used the word 'racist' which I normally try to avoid since it carries so many assumptions that I don't necessarily agree with. It's become the worst of epithets with which to brand someone, and expressing horror at it is a means of displaying one's perfect moral integrity. But is it actually a real thing?
What I mean is that much that is called racist would really better be described as culturist. I am not denying that some people do discriminate (another word I'm not happy using in this context since discrimination is generally a good thing) purely on the basis of an individual's skin colour, and some do regard other groups from a position of prejudice. But unless this leads to ill treatment and injustice (which, again, I'm not denying it often has), it is not that evil a thing. It just shows that humanity is basically tribal and mostly prefers its own sort. That may not be the most enlightened of attitudes but nor is it the worst of sins. Practically all our grandparents would be described as racist by modern standards. Are we really better than them?
But the true issue I believe is cultural. It is natural, and probably healthy, to prefer one's own culture to others. People like the familiar. Is that so terrible? But live and let live, you might say. It's fine to like your own culture but you must give other cultures equal consideration and not regard yours as superior. This is where I would part company with you. Certainly, everyone can learn from others and no one should be dismissed but, at the same time, some cultures really are better than others in the sense of more evolved and truer to higher things. It is folly to pretend otherwise. For if you do, you are giving a child sacrificing cult the same validity as Christianity, and I don't imagine many people, even on the left, are quite prepared to do that just yet.
I believe that as long as you respect human dignity and regard all people as sons and daughters of God then racism, or, to be more precise, what is often called racism, is not the wicked sin it is made out to be. If you deny basic human brotherhood, in thought or by your actions, that is a different matter but racism now means that you must give everyone completely equal consideration, and regard all groups and all cultures as more or less equivalent. That simply is not true and it is only ideology that demands we pretend that it is.
We are all sons and daughters of the one Father which is where the anti-racists have it right. But there is no reason to think that all peoples have equal capacities in all things. Inevitably prejudices and injustices of the past have led to an over-reaction today but we have to find the point of truth which is based on what is real not on what we might like to think. Scientists tell us that modern homo sapiens evolved in Africa and spread across the globe around 70,000 years ago but subsequent evolution has taken place since then and brought us to where we are now. Moreover, we do not know what spiritual factors might be involved that are not detectable by modern scientific methods or DNA analysis. And it may be that God provides different bodies for souls to learn different lessons. He likes variety and he is not a slave to the egalitarian dogma. I repeat, because I have to, if racism means treating people with injustice then clearly any reasonable person is against it, but if it simply means recognising that there are differences between peoples of different ethnic backgrounds, what is the problem?
Souls have no race as conceived in earthly terms. And all souls are working towards the same end which is the realisation of God. That is the primary truth. But in this world God expresses himself in multiple ways not all of which are always equal in all ways. That is the consequence of the dual reality of the one and the many which is the hallmark of creation.
I am aware that anything which argues along these lines can be misused and twisted into saying what it is not saying. But you cannot dismiss something because it can be distorted into something else. The perversion of a rule is not a valid way of judging the rule. So let me emphasise with St Paul that there is no Jew nor Greek in Jesus Christ. However that does not mean there is no Jew nor Greek at all. It simply means that we are all one in God. What is more, it does rather depend on the fact of turning to Jesus Christ since the oneness is in Christ not anywhere else.
Could anti-racism, as it is increasingly interpreted, be yet another way that the powers behind the modern left are using to remould human beings into something that is separated from its source in the reality of the spiritual world? Is it another way that they attempt to indoctrinate and control minds and make all people the same but the same in their preferred way rather than God's? So we are not all one in Jesus Christ but all one in a materialistic form which denies the reality and truth of God? Is the attack on racism, so called, actually part of an attack on humanity?
7 comments:
People who make the argument that "all cultures are equal" never seem to notice that they have removed the only good reason to take an interest in cultures other than one's own. Unless one is just a cultural dilettante, the interest of other cultures is that they might contain something that is in some way superior to what one's own culture provides. But this, of course, cuts both ways. The argument is also inhuman since it must ignore the fact that one of the many cultures has the property of being my culture. All men are created equal, but one those men is my father, my son, etc. I know that a cosmopolitan will claim that all cultures are equally his. This seems to me as sensible as saying that every woman is his wife.
It is in the logic of monism to erase all distinctions, which are held to be passing illusions and the cause of all sorrows. And monism has penetrated everywhere, so that even University English departments teach deconstructionism, e.g. Shakespeare's poetry is in no way superior to Maya Angelou's. The absurdity of the claim is plain, but cannot plainly be said without dire consequences to the one who says it. It seems that when we abandon the supernatural, the natural assumes what has been cast off, and the fact that all souls are created in the image and likeness of God comes to mean that all men should be regarded as equal in every respect. And so we live in a world in which the most preposterous lies and stupidities are officially imposed upon all public discourse and to dissent is "racist" and fatal to the dissenter, at least to his career and reputation. We live in the tyranny of cultural egalitarianism that is anything but egalitarian: it always favors the victim of "racism" and vilifies the racist as morally inferior and a kind of subspecies to be eradicated. You are right: racism is a weapon manufactured by the Left and used selectively and illogically against its chosen enemy of the moment. Heaven help us.
Yes, I believe anti-racism is an inversed attack on humanity itself. Because it reduces us to superficial and interchangeable meatbags disguised in "we're all one" platitudes. In reality, we are much deeper Beings and different cultures have different collective consciousnesses and myths. You can't just strip that away and make everyone conform into a global shopping mall while turning the entire planet into a tourist attraction. That destroys what we are and makes us cling onto ego.
I've never understood what's so taboo about recognizing racial differences anyway. As you say, if everyone realized we're differentiated manifestations of God, there is no need to become allergic if one race is better at something than another race, since it's God, not us, who expresses himself. It's when you start becoming egoistic, holding on to your body and reduce everything into a human-centric view that the problems begin. At the root lies also the absolutist collectivism of the left. Since they don't recognize the sovereign holiness of the individual, group mentality is the only thing they know and register. Therefore, since they identify on a group basis, inequality between groups really scares them although it says nothing about the intrinstic value of the individual which they neglect since the group is all that matters. Personally I can't think of anything more racist than defining people in terms of their external attributes. Anti-racism is therefore also inversed racism.
Good comments all, thank you. I do seriously believe that there is a supernatural attempt now to deconstruct and then reconstruct humanity not in the image of God but in the form of a completely material being with no spiritual background. To this end anti-racism and anti-sexism are brought into play. Evil or, at any rate, falsehood becomes good and good evil. Unfortunately most of us are so deracinated nowadays that we go along with this thinking we are on the side of the angels. So we may be but it's the fallen angels we are following.
It is clearly legitimate to have a preference for one's own family -- which does not entail "hating" other families -- and the concept still applies at the macro level, with the very large extended families called races. And it's perfectly natural and acceptable to think of your own father as the "world's best dad," but not to engage in childish my-dad's-taller-than-your-dad arguments with members of other families.
I'm not sure the parallel is exact but if it is applicable you would have to remember that some fathers really are taller or better off or whatever it might be than others. Obviously you don't brag about it but you can't deny it either.
Well supposedly the word itself only dates back to the 1920s. If this is true, then both my grandfathers are older than “racism.”
Somehow civilization managed to exist for thousands of years without the need for this word.
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