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Togolese representation of a white man (Wikicommons: Collectie Stichting Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen)
In a previous post, I wrote that the recently
published book De quelle couleur sont les
Blancs ? was originally supposed to provide a new perspective on French
race relations. How do the Français de
souche perceive, imagine, and experience their increasingly multiracial
society? What does it mean to be White in France? The “invisible majority”
would thus be brought into the dialogue of race relations and given its own
voice.
In this, the book has failed. From beginning to end,
the Français de souche are objects,
and not subjects. They are commented on, but never allowed to comment. They are
analyzed at length, but given no chance to challenge this analysis. Yet one
cannot hope to understand ethnic relations unless one hears both sides. This one-sidedness
appears in a chapter where a man with Algerian parents recounts his childhood
in Toulouse:
In the neighborhood, we had a
chum who was blond with blue eyes. He was the son of a working man, of a modest
background, like us, but he seemed perfect to us: beautiful, blond, white. We
were subordinate to him. Until the moment when someone from our gang came and
confronted him. When the blond got his first punch in the mouth, he was
demystified. (Cherfi, 2013, p. 61)
It would be interesting to know how their blond “chum”
perceived this demystification. North African boys like to act collectively,
and such collective action takes precedence over individual ties of friendship.
For French boys, individual action is the norm. No white gang comes to the
blond’s defense. This is a recurring pattern, as in a case that Frantz Fanon
took on as a clinical psychiatrist during the Algerian War:
Case no. 1 –
Murder by two young Algerians 13 and 14 years old of their European playmate.
The
13-year-old:
- We weren’t angry with him.
Every Thursday we would go hunting together with slingshots, on the hill above
the village. He was our good buddy. He no longer went to school because he
wanted to become a mason like his father. One day we decided to kill him
because the Europeans wanted to kill all the Arabs. We can’t kill the
“grownups.” But him, as he was our age, we can. We didn’t know how to kill him.
We wanted to throw him into a ditch, but he might have been only injured. So we
took a knife from home and we killed him.
- But why did you choose him?
- Because he played with us. No
other person would’ve gone up with us, up there.
- Yet he was your buddy?
- What about them wanting to kill
us? His father is a militiaman, and he says we should have our throats cut.
- But he [the boy] had said
nothing to you?
- Him? No.
- You know he’s dead now?
- Yes.
- What is death?
- It’s when it’s all over. We go
to heaven.
- Did you kill him?
- Yes.
- Does that do anything to you to
have killed someone?
- No, since they wanted to kill
us, so …
- Does that bother you to be in
prison?
- No. (Fanon, 1970, p. 195)
Over the past millennium, Western Europeans have
created a social environment where the individual is largely free from
collective ties of kinship and ethnicity. Because the State has imposed a
monopoly on the use of violence, there is less need to rely on kinsmen to
safeguard one’s life and property. That’s what the government is for. In many
other societies, however, the State is much more recent and often foreign.
Collective identity still matters most and, when the chips are down, personal
ties of friendship matter little. Your real friends are your “blood.” In any
case, real friendship isn’t just about sharing your recreational activities.
It’s also about risking your life for someone else.
Collective identity likewise trumps the pursuit of
truth. Only when the individual is freed from the collectivity does truth apply
equally to everyone, whether friend or foe. Only then does true science become
feasible. Did the boy’s father really say that all Arabs should have their
throats cut?(1) Does that make sense at a time when the French militias relied
so heavily on Arab auxiliaries?
European individualism comes up in another chapter
of De quelle couleur sont les Blancs ?,
where Mineke Schipper reviews African oral and written literature:
Impatience, love of money,
individualism, all of these traits define Westerners for Africans: “The Whites
don’t stop running, they want to stay ahead of us. We take our time. […] One
day, surely, they will stop. After all, one cannot endlessly run for centuries.
They will understand that two or three weeks of vacation are not enough for the
kind of life they lead.”
[…] According to Matip, African
solidarity is under threat of giving way to the European every-man-for-himself.
In African novels, this counter-discourse is seen in remarks like “the White
man has no friends” or “we aren’t Whites who couldn’t care less about the
misfortunes of others.” (Schipper, 2013, pp. 100-101)
Yet individualism also seems to be part of the White
man’s secret of success. In African literature, the desire to know this secret
is a recurring theme, along with a feeling that Christianity is a false secret,
an attempt to keep the real one hidden:
Their conversion was motivated by
the promise of recompense: the Whites were stronger and the secret of the White
man’s strength could only be his religion. One evening, while Father Dumont
observed that the Africans, who until then had been converting in great
numbers, were now abandoning the faith, his cook Zacharia explained to him:
“The first of us who came rushing to religion, they came as they would to a
revelation… The revelation of your secret, the secret of your strength, the
strength of your planes, new railways, how can I put it … The secret of your
mystery! Instead of that, you began talking to them about God, about the soul,
about eternal life, and so on. Don’t you think they already knew all of that
before, long before you came? Gracious me, they got the impression you were
hiding something from them.” (Schipper, 2013, p. 105)
Africans have some awareness that the White man’s
strengths are related to his weaknesses. Because the White man has no friends,
he doesn’t have to share his wealth with them. He can invest it as he sees fit.
But how can one live without friends? In Africa, you need friends to defend you
and fight for you. Otherwise you’ll still have to share your wealth … but with
a lot of thieving non-friends.
Christianity, too, is part of the White man’s
secret—not the Christianity of the 1st century but the one that developed
during the Middle Ages, the one that supported the State in its effort to punish
the wicked so that the good may live and prosper in peace … in short, by executing
violence-prone individuals on a large scale (see previous post). Only then did
it become possible to create a high-trust society where people could better
themselves through work and trade … and not through theft and plunder. But this
too is both a strength and a weakness. A pacified society is dependent on a
State that may, one day, refuse to do its job.
Note
1. According to the older boy’s testimony, this threat
was not heard directly from the victim’s father or from anyone within the
French community: “In our community (chez
nous), people said that the French had sworn to kill all of us one after
another” (Fanon, 1970, p. 196).
References
Cherfi, M. (2013). “Quand je suis devenu blanc…” in
S. Laurent and T. Leclère (eds.) De
quelle couleur sont les Blancs ? Des « petits Blancs » des colonies
au « racisme anti-Blancs » (pp. 58-64), Paris: La Découverte, 298
p.
Fanon, F. (1970). Les damnés de la terre, Paris: Maspero.
Schipper, M. (2013). « Le Blanc n’a pas
d’amis. » L’Autre européen dans les littératures africaines orales et
écrites, in S. Laurent and T. Leclère (eds.) De quelle couleur sont les Blancs ? Des « petits Blancs » des
colonies au « racisme anti-Blancs » (pp. 98-109), Paris: La
Découverte, 298 p.
I think the secret of the whites is farther back in the paleolithic, and not in medieval christianity.
ReplyDeleteAlso that the white man has no friends is not true. He may be singled out by "jealous" others for his accomplishments and looks, but eventually this is an emotional reaction that is completely spur-of-the-moment and it quickly falls apart after further inspection.
Peter, the United States is an anomaly in your thesis that white people have been pacified by the state. Most of the U.S. is armed, and espouses "stand-your-ground," "every-man-for-himself" principles that harken back to the ancestral past. Moreover, the white people who founded the U.S. were post-Enlightenment. Surely they must have believed in strong government? To this day, as we know, nothing could be further from the truth in America.
ReplyDeleteOr, were they self-selected individuals with lower IQ compared to those who stayed in Europe? In the book "Intelligence Paradox" Satoshi Kanazawa makes the argument that people with higher IQ support big government and socialism. European whites do, but American whites do not.
"Christianity, too, is part of the White man’s secret—not the Christianity of the 1st century but the one that developed during the Middle Ages, the one that supported the State in its effort to punish the wicked so that the good may live and prosper in peace"
ReplyDeleteNot all white people follow that form of Christianity. Protestantism is a rebellion against that form of Christianity. Protestantism also started as a rebellion against the power of the corrupt catholic church over nations. I don't think you can generalize all European people since there are so many different ethnic groups and cultures.
Peter, can you help me again?
ReplyDeleteI read that humans are the only mammals that appear to possess distinct, contrasting irises and 'whites' in our eyes but today on a Tumblr I was reading I noticed that someone blogged photographs of a cat that in their opinion, looked as though it was wearing circle lenses. Of course this is because the cat had clearly visible, contrasting irises and 'whites' just like a human.
Do you (or anyone else) know how common this trait actually is in nonhuman animals or explain why it evolved in humans?
Reader, people ought to remember that European colonists of separate origins settled in different regions of North America. Because of the heterogeneous origins and subsequent regionalism of Euro-Americans, it is misguided to consider white Americans as a whole without considering their differences. Some naturalised North Americans, like the Appalachians I have in mind, are more clannish than others.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea there were white non white racial issues in Europe. This is what i think is the origin of the racial tensions between whites and non whites in the modern world. I my seem raciest to some people but trust me I swear I am not. I am just trying to figure things out and history isn't always politically correct.
ReplyDeleteStarting in the 1400's Europeans basically conquered the world. For all the different European people that conquered areas in America's, Africa, Asia, Australia. Their pale skin was a way to identify themselves and of course they saw themselves as superior to the natives as anyone would.
In Latin America today there is still Spanish and native American racism. Europeans saw that they were much more advanced and powerful than any people in the world so I guess some thought they were naturally superior.
America was originally a British colony most of the people where from Britain not all were English though and other European people came to. Africans were brought for slave labor so not originally were seen as citizens. The Native Americans of course were not apart of Colonial societies and would not have been accepted. I am not being raciest but America was a white country until after the civil war and even until the mid 1900's it was hard for white Americans to accept blacks and other non whites into American society.
I have been taught about modern racism since I was a tiny kid. Most people I think don't understand the back round and origin of it. It is all a result of European imperialism.
There of course was a lot of anger in non whites as a reaction towards being oppressed by whites. You can see that in native peoples they conquered, African slaves, etc. Even in non white people who where never seriously oppressed by whites have similar attitudes. I think they have some of the same anger and feeling of being under dogs because of how powerful the western world is. Non western people have many stero types of western culture which in my opinion was born in the middle ages and Christianity is very important.
There was conflict between what I call early westerns and Middle easterns in the middle ages. And still today people in the Muslim world call Europeans what in their languages means Franks. I will have to study more. But it seems to me modern western culture was created by the descendants of iron age tribes in western Europe mainly Celts, Germans, and Italic's who were conquered(not most Germans) and changed very much by Rome(who were Italic). I know that Greeks and other people are probably very involved and its more complicated then what I am saying. The rapid conversion to Christianity in these people is another big thing that shaped the culture and why it was so successful. And in the middle east I am just guessing that the spread and conquering by Arab Muslims shaped their modern culture.
I think the reason it seems sometimes "The white man has no friends" is because since the 1400's white men have basically conquered the world and oppressed many people. Even though today western's have repented of their past sins and are the most kind people in the world. Non westerns around the world still prejudice and anger towards westerns especially the Muslim world.
ReplyDeleteI think in the western World there is a over reaction to the past sins. People try to find racism and male on female oppression. The Zimmerman case a great example of the western media doing exactly that. I don't know what it is like to be a minority. But I can understand why some may still feel oppressed. The media is vast majority white almost every tv show, commercial, etc. But it is true that over 65% of Americans are white and of course the vast majority of people in Europe.
I get sick of hearing about white man oppression and male on female oppression it gets annoying after a awhile. I think many white Americans still have kind of think America is still a white country. And may get annoyed by people trying to push minority's into everything. I do think there should be support for minorities becoming a bigger part of American society but it is probably pushed to much.
In Europe though in my opinion it is very different. In Europe every TV show and movie does not have to have a black person. Because they are living in the native land of European people unlike America which is a country of immigrants. It is true Africans who's ancestors were brought for slavery in Europe have been oppressed and should be given some help because of that. But if they take up like 2% of the nation they should represent the nation as 2% not 50%.
And government should not get to involved and give them special privileges. I have heard that there are many people from the Muslim world immigrating to Europe. They definitely should not be given special privileges and should only be given the same rights as Europeans.
I have also heard of western on Muslim oppression in America and Europe. I live in a city with 250,000 Muslims I haven't really witnessed any of this oppression and our government definitely isn't involved. It is amazing how nice western people are to allow Muslims into their country with the same rights. Even though so many Muslims nations hate the western world and don't accept us into their countries. A little conflict between westerns and muslim immigrants should be not be a surprise. They are from a whole nother world and recently have been very evil towards the west. I am not saying it is right but I don't think it is that big of a deal.
I live in a city with 250,000 Muslims
ReplyDeleteWhere do you live? New York City has the highest number of Muslims at around 70,000.
"I live in a city with 250,000 Muslims"
ReplyDeleteWhere do you live? New York City has the highest number of Muslims at around 70,000.
The Muslim populations of Beijing and Hong Kong are both around 250,000.
Spaghetti,
ReplyDeleteIt used to be common to believe that human nature assumed its final form in the Paleolithic. The reason was that cultural evolution took over from genetic evolution around that time.
This belief is erroneous. Far from being a brake on genetic evolution, cultural evolution has been an accelerator. The pace of human genetic evolution actually speeded up over a hundred-fold after the Paleolithic.
Reader,
White Americans are a very peaceful folk. Their incidence of personal violence is comparable to that of Western Europeans. If we compare apples with apples, the differences between White Americans and Western Europeans aren't very great.
If we talk about Americans in general, the picture is different. But the term "American" is simply a legal construct.
Barak,
I'm a Protestant, but I think Protestantism threw the baby out with the bath water by rejecting post-Biblical authorities like Thomas Aquinas. Protestantism started an ideological revolution that has had many toxic consequences, like the abolition of the death penalty.
Bones and Behavior,
The iris is an early evolutionary development. In fact, it has evolved independently in vertebrates and octopi.
Barak,
Traditionally, all human societies have had a double standard where they judge the behavior of outsiders by a more severe standard than that of insiders. Western societies are unique in trying to "play fair," i.e., in judging everyone by the same standard.
That kind of system might work if everyone reciprocates, i.e., if everyone judges their own actions as harshly as they judge others. Unfortunately, that isn't the world we live in. Our sense of fairness is being ruthlessly exploited by people who have no intention of playing fair.
I've come to the difficult conclusion that it is normal to judge outsiders by a higher standard, in part because they won't necessarily play fair and in part because we often don't understand what is going on in other societies.
You talked about the "sins" of Western socities. Do you know that the White slave trade was just as extensive, numerically, as the Black slave trade? Are you aware that imperialism has been practiced by many non-European societies? And do you really think that genocide is just something done by White folks?
Peter, I was talking about the contrasting pigmentation between the iris and the 'whites' that is supposed to be unique to humans, not to the iris as an anatomical structure.
ReplyDeletePeter, in a philosophical sense, europeans are categorically different from other people on earth and have for these reasons incited attention towards themselves, sometimes curiosity, sometimes fear, but usually jealous hostility. Most atrocious crimes committed against europeans follow a similar pattern: 1) acquaintance of the other, 2) realization of his mystical superiority 3) A desire to bring down these god. It happened during the mongol invasions when Ghengis Khan explicitly stated his desire to go to the "sunset lands" and see their mysterious spires and cities, and the inhabitants there.
ReplyDeleteIn short, these conflicts are endemic to the way the human races developed over the last 50,000 years (into white, and non-white, basically) and they cannot be easily solved via social engineering methods. The white man has no friends, because he stands apart from others, and always will.
ReplyDeleteOn homicide rates, Western Europeans tend to be about 1.0-0.8 per 100,000. White Americans are around 2-4 per 100,000. White Americans are more comparable to Southeast Asians, Middle Eastern persons and the low end of African variation.
ReplyDeleteWhite Americans have undergone recent violence reduction. White Americans in the 1970s were around as murder prone as Russians are today.
ReplyDeleteIn past eras such as the settling of the West and under segregation, White Americans may been more violence prone than today.
"Western societies are unique in trying to "play fair," i.e., in judging everyone by the same standard."
ReplyDeleteWhat a grotesque statement, considering the hypocrisy and the double standard with which British Empire and USA justified their genocides and slaughtering of tens of millions of people around the globe, until this day and how they are mostly unapologetic about it.
Anon, what's your answer to these:
ReplyDelete"You talked about the "sins" of Western socities. Do you know that the White slave trade was just as extensive, numerically, as the Black slave trade? Are you aware that imperialism has been practiced by many non-European societies? And do you really think that genocide is just something done by White folks?"
Well, white Americans may be a "peaceful folk," but let's not forget the Wild West, for example, where murders were commonplace -- among whites.
ReplyDeleteBut in any event, your thesis is that white people won't defend themselves. That is blatantly not true in America, because white Americans will most definitely defend themselves -- with weapons. The NRA is a White Anglo-Saxon / Western European organization.
....In African literature, the desire to know this secret [of white success] is a recurring theme, along with a feeling that Christianity is a false secret, an attempt to keep the real one hidden...
ReplyDeleteI've heard this from a black guy in the Los Angeles ghetto. If I understood his ramblings correctly, he was of the firm belief that the Christian church of the white man, was a cover for some sort of secret occult power.
Unlike nearly all his peers, he didn't hate me for being white. He knew me to be a Christian and think he hoped I'd tell him the real story.
Meanwhile, I was busily working on my engineering degree.
Spam sighted.
ReplyDeleteAnd the absence of a distinct esoteric-exoteric distinction in Christian religion is atypical so the black guy's misunderstanding of Christianity was actually understandable.
Peter, what are your present views on Congoid origins? By a web search on this subject I found your past opinion on this but it hardly seems likely now we know Central Africa was at the relevant time inhabited by people with archaic traits (Iwo Eluru, Ishango) and they were the ones producing the local stone tools.
ReplyDelete"Western societies are unique in trying to "play fair," i.e., in judging everyone by the same standard."
ReplyDeleteThe Western intelligentsia think that a bad thing. Derrida in White Mythology called the mythos of the white man's (not white women's) idiom "Logocentrism—i.e., the general assumption that there is a realm of truth". So it turns out that trying to be objective is a form of bias and the cause of racism. (Maybe the gaps where the white boy's front teeth were signify opening to the toute autre.)
Liberalism claims to be an independent rational justification for morality to replace stultifying traditions like nationalism and religion. Liberalism is a tradition, but understands itself as wholly rational.
Alistair MacIntyre is good on this. "To MacIntyre, morals and virtues can only be comprehended through their relation to the community in which they come from. Whereas Rawls tells us to conceive of justice through abstracting ourselves from who we are (through the veil of ignorance, for example) MacIntyre disagrees. Running throughout 'After Virtue' is the belief that in order to comprehend who we are, we must understand where we come from".
The Western states is in the hands of those who believe in Christian ideas gone mad, like John Rawls's.
"And the absence of a distinct esoteric-exoteric distinction in Christian religion is atypical so the black guy's misunderstanding of Christianity was actually understandable."
ReplyDeleteThe conclusion he made is just a conspiracy theory with no evidence. Definitely no evidence from the Bible that what he is saying is true.
ReplyDeleteThe Western intelligentsia think that a bad thing. Derrida in "White Mythology called the mythos of the white man's (not white women's) idiom "Logocentrism—i.e., the general assumption that there is a realm of truth". So it turns out that trying to be objective is a form of bias and the cause of racism. (Maybe the gaps where the white boy's front teeth were signify opening to the toute autre.)"
So your saying the western world is assuming there is a realm of truth? And thinks they can create a great society with little unjustice?
I don't see how it is biased or there is anything wrong with trying to be good to people. The modern western world is the greatest society in human history. Europe used to be like Asia, Africa, and Latin America are now but they got sick of oppression done by people like Hitler and Napoleon. Even though the philosophy behind modern western society began in Europe. It was first done successfully in America(France did horrible) and America I think became a model for the rest of the world. Europe was very messed up until after world war two and even after that. No way is the type of philophsy the American founding fathers had have anything to do with modern racism. Actually it is the opposite.
I think the origin of modern western racism. Is European dominance in the world since the 1400's. Europe literally conquered the world and oppressed many people almost all were darker skinned. It is hard to explain but I think different Europeans like Spanish and British developed their racism based alot on skin color separately. Non Europeans were the strange foreigners who were sometimes seen as natural inferior. Imagine how hard it would be for southerners and all Americans after the civil war to accept blacks into American society when you consider their background. There was a very angry reaction and they probably felt their traditions were being threatened. I know I may sound raciest to some people. America was originally a white country vast majority were British(Scottish and English) Protestants. It was very hard for them to accept non whites and immigrants who threatened their traditions. It makes total sense and you see the same type of reaction in similar situations all over the world.
"You talked about the "sins" of Western socities. Do you know that the White slave trade was just as extensive, numerically, as the Black slave trade? Are you aware that imperialism has been practiced by many non-European societies? And do you really think that genocide is just something done by White folks?"
ReplyDeleteOf course sin exists in all humans not just "white" people. It is just that Europe became much more advanced and conquered and oppressed many people. There is still some bad results of that oppression.
"To MacIntyre, morals and virtues can only be comprehended through their relation to the community in which they come from. Whereas Rawls tells us to conceive of justice through abstracting ourselves from who we are (through the veil of ignorance, for example) MacIntyre disagrees. Running throughout 'After Virtue' is the belief that in order to comprehend who we are, we must understand where we come from".
ReplyDeleteThere is a such thing as morals which exists in all humans. It is absolutely idiotic to say virtues can only be understood by the community it came from. The same morals are expressed in different cultures. Even the sickliest pervert will give limits for the same reason the most strict person would. Supporters of gay marriage think people should be given more choose. But I am sure the vast majority would be against sibling and child-parent marriages and also human-animal sexual relations. And they would be against it because they think it is unmoral and perverted same reason some people are against gay marriage.
"Liberalism claims to be an independent rational justification for morality to replace stultifying traditions like nationalism and religion. Liberalism is a tradition, but understands itself as wholly rational."
ReplyDeleteI think it is sick that anyone would through away tradition and nationalism those are very important to all Humans. I care a lot about genetics' and ancestry I think there is nothing wrong with being proud of my ancestry. Learning culture and traditions from others is apart of human nature. No one can claim to be completely open minded. We all have biased because of how we grew up and there is nothing wrong with that.
"....In African literature, the desire to know this secret [of white success] is a recurring theme, along with a feeling that Christianity is a false secret, an attempt to keep the real one hidden..."
ReplyDeleteChristianity was spread in Europe through hundreds of years of work by missionaries. It is not the "white" mans religion. Christianity would be very popular today in the middle east and north Africa if Muslims expansion and conquest never happened. Christianity was centered in Anatolia. There are still Christians in the middle east I heard that in Syria in the 1930 cenus there were actually more Christians than Muslims. The Assyrians are very traditionally Christians. There has been a high amount of Christians in Ethiopia longer than in Scandinavians or slavs.
Christianity started in Israel obviously which culturally and genetically was not connected to the many very different ethnic groups in Europe at that time.
I will have to study this more. If you look at history it is shocking that Christianity became the religion of Europe. How did the Germanic tribes and the extremely remote Irish who were so foreign to Romans and other people around the Meditreaen convert so rapidly to Christianity. Scandinavians and Slavic's didn't convert till the middle ages. Christianity has been a major part of culture in many Europeans for over 1,500 years and over 1,000 years for most of the rest. When Europeans started to completely dominate the world in the 1400's it of course became known as the white mans religion but that is from one perspective it you look at history it is not.
Bones,
ReplyDeleteI'm confused. Many nonhuman species exhibit a contrast in color between the iris and the rest of the eye.
Spaghetti,
I'm not so sure. It wasn't until after the year 1000 that Europe began to pull ahead of the rest of the world (the post-1500 European expansion was really a consequence of a take-off that was already in progress).
Individualism has not always been a characteristic of Europeans. Moreover, not all European societies are equally individualistic. Eastern and Southern Europeans have historically been less individualistic than Western Europeans, and even within Western Europe there are noticeable differences. The beginnings of English individualism have been traced back to the 12th century, and some writers, like hbd-chick, argue that it can be traced back to the Anglo-Saxon period. But this doesn't seem to be a tendency that goes back thousands of years.
Anon,
You're not controlling for the mean age of the population. White Americans have a lower mean age than do most European societies. Similarly, White Americans are much older on average today than they were back in the 1970s. This is an important factor because violent behavior is concentrated among males in the 15 to 25 year age bracket.
If we control for all of these factors, there seems to be a higher level of personal violence among Appalachians and White Southerners. I suspect this is related to the Scots-Irish (who were pacified at a later date than the English).
Anon,
The historical wrongdoings of Eurpean peoples are comparable to those of non-Europeans. Moreover, Europeans actively sought to rectify those wrongdoings. Slavery, for instance, was abolished through the efforts of European abolitionists. There was no comparable movement in the Muslim world.
Huh? The British and Americans are not apologetic about their past wrongs? That certainly isn't my impression. It's also my impression that other societies are much less likely to apologize for their past. Has Turkey ever apologized for the White slave trade? Do the Turks feel ashamed of their own colonial and imperial past? Do the Arabs regret their destruction of indigenous cultures in the Middle East and North Africa? Do Africans feel ashamed of the Bantu expansion? Or is shame just something for White folks?
Reader,
By and large, White Americans defend themselves as individuals, such as by purchasing guns. Otherwise, they hope the government will defend them. They don't exhibit the kind of spontaneous collective defense that we see in other societies.
Bones,
Yes, archaic populations survived in much of Africa until relatively recent times. See my posts:
http://evoandproud.blogspot.ca/2011/09/no-they-arent-pure-either.html
http://evoandproud.blogspot.ca/2012/01/sub-saharan-african-dental-complex.html
http://evoandproud.blogspot.ca/2012/02/encounters-between-modern-humans-and.html
http://evoandproud.blogspot.ca/2012/02/were-there-neanderthals-in-africa.html
Sean,
Unfortunately, Western notions of morality are not sustainable. By trying to play fair with people who are much less inclined to play fair, we will end up destroying ourselves.
Peter, I meant stand-apart in terms of cultural, scientific, philosophical and technological accomplishment. Not in terms of individualism/collectivism.
ReplyDeleteYou're not controlling for the mean age of the population. White Americans have a lower mean age than do most European societies. Similarly, White Americans are much older on average today than they were back in the 1970s. This is an important factor because violent behavior is concentrated among males in the 15 to 25 year age bracket.
ReplyDeleteOK, I'll grant you this and try to control. Bear in mind I'm going to do this briefly with the first sources that come to hand!
Data on the White American homicide rate show that it averages out to about 0.62 of the total rate, between 1980-1960.
It's about this level in any given year.
http://www.mdch.state.mi.us/pha/osr/deaths/Homicdx.asp
International age adjusted homicide rates give the USA death rate at 6.9
http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/34/4/837/T1.expansion.html
So adjusted by the above, I'd expect the White American age adjusted rate to be 4.2. (Of course you could argue that the age adjusted rate would not show the same correlation, but I'm working with what I've got here).
Taking a mixed bag of West European nations for comparison (from the above)
Austria - 0.8, Belgium - 1.6, Denmark - 1.1, France - 0.7, Ireland - 0.8, Italy - 1.1, Netherlands 1.3, Norway - 0.9, Portugal - 1.1, Spain - 0.8, England and Wales 0.6.
Averages out to 1.0. That's fairly comparable to the average for the rest of the Anglosphere (Aus - 1.6, NZ - 1.5, Canada - 1.4 ).
So it seems like White Americans probably do have quite a bit higher homicide rate than Europeans. Not Russian or Estonian high, let alone El Salvador high, but higher.
Of course, as you say there are regional differences in the USA. The lowest homicide states of the USA, in the North central, probably do in fact have White homicide rates comparable to Europeans or the Anglosphere.
"The historical wrongdoings of Eurpean peoples are comparable to those of non-Europeans. Moreover, Europeans actively sought to rectify those wrongdoings. Slavery, for instance, was abolished through the efforts of European abolitionists. There was no comparable movement in the Muslim world.
ReplyDeleteHuh? The British and Americans are not apologetic about their past wrongs? That certainly isn't my impression. It's also my impression that other societies are much less likely to apologize for their past. Has Turkey ever apologized for the White slave trade? Do the Turks feel ashamed of their own colonial and imperial past? Do the Arabs regret their destruction of indigenous cultures in the Middle East and North Africa? Do Africans feel ashamed of the Bantu expansion? Or is shame just something for White folks?"
All people are able to do evil things. Just European dominance of the world since the 1400's. Has been more pointed towards one people. I doubt Turks slave trade was as directed towards white people as European slave trade in Africa. In our world recently it has been Europeans who have been the oppressors. That is why everyone talks about them. I do get sick of people talking about minority and female oppression though.
"So it seems like White Americans probably do have quite a bit higher homicide rate than Europeans. Not Russian or Estonian high, let alone El Salvador high, but higher.
ReplyDeleteOf course, as you say there are regional differences in the USA. The lowest homicide states of the USA, in the North central, probably do in fact have White homicide rates comparable to Europeans or the Anglosphere."
Those statistic's only repsent recent culture in those people. I am happy I know some stuff about very ancient people. Because I get sick of it when modern people assume culture of certain ethnic groups is their instinct. African Americans ancestors in west Africa hadn't always had the same traits there so known for in America. Europeans haven't always been stereotypes as proper and advanced. Unlike what so many Americans think Black people are not naturally anymore aggressive. It is just the culture and situation certain people have been put in recently.
Yes Peter but those archaics in Africa cannot be ancestral to Congoids except in the sense that they provided a source of admixture. Your former idea was that blacks evolved from people living in the rainforest but now we know that the people in the rainforest were too archaic - as makes sense because 'living fossils' linger in the western and central African forests.
ReplyDeleteReturning to eyes, if you look at the eyes of a chimp or a dog the 'whites' are not noticeable around the iris.
Finally about the rise of individualism. HBD*Chick was forced to rationalise away the fact that Anglo-Saxon kinship resembles that of the Iranians, so as to fit her own, theory-driven interpretation. The similarity between Iranian and AS kinship shouldn't really be surprising to anyone because the pre-Migration Germanic world was close to the Scythians in both location and culture, and so it might be thought of as a seminomadic adaptation of a steppe pastoralist society to the central European forests.
"Huh? The British and Americans are not apologetic about their past wrongs? That certainly isn't my impression."
ReplyDeleteThen you live in a filter bubble. The jingoism and chauvinism prevalent in Anglo societies prevent views from outsiders from getting heard.
When Americans remember the Vietnam war, I read them mourning only their 60000+ own deaths, they never waste a thought on the millions of slaughtered Vietnamese and of their devastated country. There has never been an apology for the Iraq war. When the Syria war was planned, most American people I met were gung-ho about it, parrotted the lies given out by their government etc. Just some examples.
"It's also my impression that other societies are much less likely to apologize for their past."
Now you are trying to deflect guilt by pointing at others. You should own up to the deeds of the people you identify with.
I don't know if it is wise for nations to apologize for their past, but Germans have done so, and, to my knowledge, the Dutch, too.
"Has Turkey ever apologized for the White slave trade? Do the Turks feel ashamed of their own colonial and imperial past? Do the Arabs regret their destruction of indigenous cultures in the Middle East and North Africa?"
You cherry-pick your examples. I do not think highly of these people, either, but then they don't lecture the world about human rights as much as Americans do.
"Or is shame just something for White folks?"
This is not a race issue. Americans - white or not - are hardly ashamed of anything. They kill and loot at will all over the world in order to satisfy their insatiable greed, they lie and hypocritically lecture other people about their moral failures and then they have the audacity to cry how unfair and ungrateful the world is to them.
Sadly too many of your posts are an example for the last. You just try to spin it into a Whites vs. PoC issue.
Is this link of interest? The authors didn't include humans in their analysis, but the subject matter provides a wider context for human differences.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nature.com/ncomms/2013/131111/ncomms3765/full/ncomms3765.html
Off topic, but there was some debate before on this blog between Peter Frost and Jason Mallow about male-skewed sex-ratios and their implications. I think Peter was arguing that a high male skew leads to greater male conflict and instability, while Jason argued that to the contrary, it leads to more straight laced, male provisioning type behavior.
ReplyDeleteA new study suggests that, at least in China, the male skew may be partly responsible for China's high trade surplus and savings rates:
http://www.businessinsider.com/chinas-sex-ratio-affects-trade-surplus-2013-11
"This gender imbalance has caused young men and their parents to increase their savings. From the paper:
"This imbalance has caused young men, and especially their parents, to raise their savings rate in order to compete better in the marriage market. The same force has also contributed to a rise in the corporate savings because more parents with an unmarried son and more young men themselves have chosen to be entrepreneurs. Given the difficulty in getting a bank loan, new entrepreneurs and small firms must rely on self-savings to finance their operation and expansion. Wei and Zhang (2011) and Du and Wei (2013) estimate that this force has accounted for another one-third of the current account surplus...because the sex ratio imbalance is going to rise over the next decade, the part of the surplus due to this factor is not going away any time soon""
Of course what's true in China may not be true elsewhere, and Peter has written about the importance of the state's monopoly on violence. Where this monopoly does not exist or is not exercised effectively, a male skew may have different effects.
ReplyDeleteI imagine that whether a male skew
ReplyDeleteleads to either male provisioning or increased conflict depends upon relatedness. Its true that the modern human LCA was polyandrous, but those males were (usually) related to one another as well as being guaranteed reproductive access to females. And those males were protecting those reproductive rights against less related, unapproved males. I don't see how an increased gender imbalance can be good for a country such as China.
Perhaps...
ReplyDeleteIn evolutionary / cultural contexts where males compete by offering provisioning, more male competition will result in more provisioning behavior. (China?)
In evolutionary / cultural contexts where males compete by display (music, style, braggadocio and machismo etc.) and violence (and provisioning is handled by females), more male competition will result in more display and violence. (Nigeria?)
No culture or population is purely one nor the other. In both cultures, opt out behavior will also rise with increases in competition. Female provisioning effort or display effort may also fall in compensation.
Anon,
ReplyDeleteYou're ignoring the changing ethnic and racial demographics of the U.S. If you calculate the White American homicide rate as a fixed proportion of the national homicide rate on the basis of the 1960-1980 period, you will overestimate the White American contribution. In 1960, White Americans made up almost 90% of the total population. Now, they're down to two-thirds, perhaps less.
It would be difficult to adjust for these effects of age change and ethnic/racial change because the two are confounded. The African American and Hispanic American populations are younger on average than the White American population.
Bones and Behavior,
We don't know when those archaic groups died out in sub-Saharan Africa. At some point, they were replaced by modern humans, while leaving some admixture.
I don't use the term 'Congoid' because the Congo region was inhabited by pygmy hunter-gatherers as recently as 2,000-3,000 years ago. Black Africans have their origins in a demic expansion of farming peoples that seems to have originated in West Africa and probably around the headwaters of the Niger.
Gnito,
How can I be "deflecting guilt" about my ancestors when I feel no guilt whatsoever? In my opinion, my ancestors behaved honorably.
I'm just saying that if you want to play the game of stigmatizing ancestors, you shouldn't be singling out white folks. You see, white folks have a strong moral sense, and if you make them feel too guilty, they'll do the honorable thing and commit collective suicide.
By the way, I'm not an American. I've known many Americans, and almost all of them were very good people. More to the point, most of them felt guilty about their past, and about a quarter of them felt profoundly guilty. Voting for Obama was a way of expiating this sense of guilt.
Of course, it may be that I move in different circles than you do.
"Then you live in a filter bubble. The jingoism and chauvinism prevalent in Anglo societies prevent views from outsiders from getting heard.
ReplyDeleteWhen Americans remember the Vietnam war, I read them mourning only their 60000+ own deaths, they never waste a thought on the millions of slaughtered Vietnamese and of their devastated country. There has never been an apology for the Iraq war. When the Syria war was planned, most American people I met were gung-ho about it, parrotted the lies given out by their government etc. Just some examples."
Gnito Americans and westerns are very regretful for any wrong thing they have done in the past. The Iraq and Vietnam war were not wrong. Why is America always painted as the bad guy in Veitnam. Is it because that was the begging of modern liberalism and liberals rule our media and country. America's intention was good stop the oppressive soviet supported north Vietmanese from conquering the south Veitmanese. It was also for stopping any Soviet communist power from spreading and spreading democracy. America actually kicked butt(unlike what our media tells us) against north Vietnam if you look at the statics.
But we did not go in there to win we were never ready to invade and end the war. I think It was smart to start it but we should have left right away and explain were not leaving because of cowardice but because there is no end to this war without ww3.
Gnito how is taking down an evil dictator in Iraq and trying to save the people from violent terrorist wrong. I am sick of America being shown as a bad guy. The main reason the left is against American wars. Is because they have a prejudice mind that will always see the western white man as evil. If America makes any type of major oppressive mistake I will be the first to protest against it. If you really think about it America's military since ww2 has helped many people or attempted to help.
I live in Chicago which is very diverse and has many immigrants. Many refuges came because their people are being slaughtered. There is genocide happening allover the world right now. People are getting their heads cut off and many terrible evil things. WHY THE HECK IS EUROPE NOT DOING ANYTHING.
Why was the United Nations formed? A big reason was to stop the type of stuff that happened in world war 2. But it seems only America is following up with it. I am so sick of Europe. Sure they are in my opinion good guys unlike China and most of the rest of the world. But their lazy and only care about their wellbeing. Over 100,000 people in Syria have died. Why is no one doing anything? We are just watching so many people around the world being killed.
The west needs to remember when it was them going through that stuff like in world war 2(just 70 years ago) and many other past wars. We need to help these people and end all oppressive governments.
"How can I be "deflecting guilt" about my ancestors when I feel no guilt whatsoever? In my opinion, my ancestors behaved honorably.
ReplyDeleteI'm just saying that if you want to play the game of stigmatizing ancestors, you shouldn't be singling out white folks. You see, white folks have a strong moral sense, and if you make them feel too guilty, they'll do the honorable thing and commit collective suicide.
I totally agree with you Peter. Europe basically conquered the world starting in the 1400's and oppressed many people. But guilt of ancestors doesn't only go on white people. Which is what many Americans who have a recent view of history assume. I get annoyed by white guilt in America and it seems some do think collective suicide is the answer. Overall I would say white guilt is not that major of a problem in America but sometimes is. When race comes in the subject it can become a problem. I think it is mainly a problem within white Americans. Voting for Obama was defintley partly because of that guilt. Why do around 95% of blacks in America vote for Obama because he is half black. Race is still an issue in America but it is more complicated than before. The way our media reported the Zimmerman case and brainwashed Americans reactions is another example of a race problem in America. I think it is mainly far left and far right who are pushing post civil rights movement race issues from opposite sides.
Most people I have grown up with are not white besides family. They don't treat me any differently really ever because I am white. Even if I am playing basketball with all inner city black kids.
When I was in 2nd grade I had a teacher were all we learned about was the evil white man. When my brother was in his class and talked about our great great ..... grand father who came from England in the 1600's she said he was probably a terrible man. I was a outcast partly because I was white and the others kids who were brainwashed told me that directly. I remember many times not being allowed to play with other kids because I was white and they said white people are bad.
I don't understand why Arabs in the middle east feel no doubt for committing equally evil things to the middle east.
Why don't Anglo Saxons feel huge guilt for conquering and killing off the native Britons as badly as Spanish did in Latin America. You don't see a huge amount of guilt in English(mixed Anglo Saxon and Briton) or in people in the areas of mainland Europe they originated. Welsh, Cornish, Irish, Britanny, and Scots don't passionately hate the English and Germanic Scots.
Did ancient empires like Rome and others feel guilt for killing so so so so many people. It is very sad reading about how Rome oppressed so many people like Jews and Gauls.
Most people including Americans know very little about history. If they learn about human history. They will see all over the world there is always someone oppressing someone else. War after war after war after war after war it never ends and never will. Oppression from Europeans since the 1400's is one example of many in history and probably many many more in pre history.
"We don't know when those archaic groups died out in sub-Saharan Africa. At some point, they were replaced by modern humans, while leaving some admixture.
ReplyDeleteI don't use the term 'Congoid' because the Congo region was inhabited by pygmy hunter-gatherers as recently as 2,000-3,000 years ago. Black Africans have their origins in a demic expansion of farming peoples that seems to have originated in West Africa and probably around the headwaters of the Niger."
I have learned a lot about the history of ethnic groups and cultures in west Eurasia mainly Indo Europeans. I have always wonders what the history in sub Sahara Africa and the rest of the world is. There is no doubt in my mind sub Saharan Africa represent the descendants of a branch of the human family tree which is split from all non Sub Saharan Africans and never left Africa(still possibly common ancestral family did not originate in Africa).
But they also may have huge amount of ancestry of a ancient(over 50,000 years ago) back migration to Africa connected with y DNA E. There is a long history of over 100,000 years of many ethnic groups and migrations. I have heard of isolated people like San who are from a pure very unmixed line going back 50,000 years or so. It is the most diverse place and in the world and has the longest history of humans there is a lot to learn about the history of all the different people there.
The Western intelligentsia think that a bad thing. Derrida in White Mythology called the mythos of the white man's (not white women's) idiom "Logocentrism—i.e., the general assumption that there is a realm of truth". So it turns out that trying to be objective is a form of bias and the cause of racism. (Maybe the gaps where the white boy's front teeth were signify opening to the toute autre.)
ReplyDeleteDerrida was Jewish.
The Western states is in the hands of those who believe in Christian ideas gone mad, like John Rawls's.
Rawls argued for restricting immigration:
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2013/10/john-rawls-immigration-restrictionist.html
After learning the young date of the Iwo Eluru and Ishango hominins, and even more so discovering from reading Schwartz and Tattersall that South African fossils such as Boskop and Fish Hoek are slightly outside the hypodigm of fully modern humans and therefore peripheral to the modern human expansion. This is bad for the 'Out of Africa' theory because archaic phenotypes ought not have survived so late south of the Sahara were the theory true.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it could be argued that the rainforests of the central and western Afrotropical realm do provide a refuge for relict fauna (ie. anomalure 'squirrels', potamogaline tenrecs, perodictine primates etc), there is no such distinctiveness for southern Africa according to Holt et al's update of Wallace's zoogeographic regions nor according to Linder et al. There is no faunal equivalent of the Cape floristic kingdom and the high species diversity of southern Africa does not affect large mammals (such as man.) Therefore the obvious conclusion is that southern Africa was geographically distant from the centre of modern human origins.
barakobama said:
ReplyDelete"I don't use the term 'Congoid' because the Congo region was inhabited by pygmy hunter-gatherers as recently as 2,000-3,000 years ago. Black Africans have their origins in a demic expansion of farming peoples that seems to have originated in West Africa and probably around the headwaters of the Niger."
Wrong! The Nilo Saharans of Chad C.A.R. North and South Sudan, Uganda and Kenya are very much "Black African". Yet they are quite distinct genetically to West Africans. In fact Nilo Saharan peoples are more related to the Hadza, Cushitics, Omotics, Sandawe and Twa pygmies of Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda and these mentioned SSA peoples are genetically East African.
barakobama said:
"But they also may have huge amount of ancestry of a ancient(over 50,000 years ago) back migration to Africa connected with y DNA E."
Hahahahahahahahahaha! Y-dna haplogroup E emerged in Sub-Saharan Africa. The was no back migration of Y-DNA E. Africa has the most diverse Y-dna haplogroup E clades, while the Middle East mainly downstream subclades of E-M78 or E clades that they got from the Arab slave trade. If Y-dna haplogroup E emerged outside Africa why does Africa hold much more basal diversity of Y-dna haplogroup E?
You need to stop reading hack amateur geneticists like Dienekes!
@barakobama:
ReplyDeleteYour comments give away the lies that
1. Whites feel guilty about their wrongdoings.
2. Whites "play fair".
3. Whites try to be objective.
None of which is true for Americans.
What you are doing here is not science, it is wallowing in self-glorification and self-pity.
I'm not saying we should try to make non-European societies feel guilty about their pasts. First, the idea is impractical. How could Turkey apologize for the White slave trade and pay reparations? Who would get paid? The descendants of those White slaves? But almost all of them are now Turks, Persians, or Arabs.
ReplyDeleteSecond, we need to accept that our notions of fairness cannot be extended indefinitely over time and space. These notions were originally created to settle disputes within a single society and a single time period (usually, the lifetimes of the parties involved).
The Neanderthals were robbed of their territory and driven to extinction through a process that can only be called genocide. Was that wrong? Should we feel guilty over what happened? The question is absurd. It's like asking whether a cat is guilty of murder when it kills a mouse.
I'm not an American, but I don't think the U.S. should try to be the policeman of the world. Yes, Saddam was a dictator, but his country was not ready for the kind of democracy we consider normal. The same goes for other countries in the region. If you overthrow an authoritarian secular regime, you end up with an Islamist theocracy that makes life tough for Christian minorities. Is that progress? Why not leave well enough alone?
Anon,
Because of the skewed sex ratio, China is moving from a dowry society to a brideprice society. If you want a wife, you and your parents will have to provide her with a new home. A similar process is under way in the U.S. If you want a wife, you'll have to pay off her credit card debt.
Of course, this doesn't change the skewed sex ratio. When the music stops, the same number of men are left without chairs to sit on. Lonely Chinese men will do what lonely South Korean men are doing. They'll look overseas for marriage partners.
Check out:
http://ethiovision.com/love-story-between-an-ethiopian-woman-and-a-chinese-man/
Gnito
ReplyDeleteObviously you have something against the white west and Americans. I have noticed for my whole life white American guilt. I myself have felt it before. If you in anyway say white guilt is bad or accusing someone of disliking white people because their white you are called a raciest. Something I have noticed and felt my whole life. Is that more right winged white people are under control of a very liberal and reverse raciest establishment. I was seriously taught in 2nd grade that white people are evil.
I remember a Mexican kid asked my teacher are Mexicans good like native Americans and blacks not bad like white people. My teacher took it seriously and said no they are not bad like whites. I was right there!!!
As old as 8th grade when learning about oppressive things done by white people. A student said she is ashamed of having German-Welsh or just plain European ancestry because of that. My teacher who was white supported her. As a freshman a Hispanic kid(who had pale skin and definitely majority Spanish ancestry) was saying negative things about white people towards white people. A white girl didn't even defend her Polish ancestry(oppressed no non whites in their history) her defense was she was part Puerto Rican.
Growing up as a little kid I had a conflict within myself. If white people(I knew i was white) were evil and weak. I remember having arguments with my brothers when I was 5 that black people are not stronger than white people. I sensed even as a little kid reverse racism.
You can see in our media(Zimmerman case is a good example) a white guilt philosophy. The history of white racism is repeated so many times in American life. I gave you some extreme examples. Reverse racism really did effect me as a little kid. I had no background in modern social or political issues. I knew it was a wrong reaction to white oppression even as a tiny kid.
I also had a bad reaction to it as a little kid which I guess you can call it a reverse revere racist reaction. I would like white athletes more because they were white. I defended the white people in the past who oppressed non whites and tried to find problems with native Americans, African Americans, etc.
I remember in 6th grade during the 2008 election. A lot of the strong support for Obama was because he was not white. When we had a for fun vote. A Asian kid said he was voting for Obama because all non whites are united. None of the white kids in the class confronted him except me and voted for Obama anyways.
I knew some but little about Politics back then my parents especially my dad were Republican(not radical like you might assume) so I agreed more with them. I(was much more radical then my parents) saw democrats as reverse raciest, anti military, soft, and against many basic human morals. As the only Republican kid in the class after the election. I was somewhat disappointed and a Hispanic kid said to me are you sad because a rich white person didn't win.
I and other white Americans Have felt a sense of guilt and reverse racism. We just have to respond to it in the right way. I have showed you extreme examples. Like is said overall at least recently I have noticed race doesn't effect anything in social stuff. The vast majority of Americans I have known are not raciest in pretty much anyway. I have noticed that inner city blacks and Hispanics are much more friendly to me than white people. I also want to say the majority of minority's are not raciest towards whites.
I will not lie though that there is no reverse racism on white people or white guilt. I am sure there is racism for different reasons on many people. Black people I have heard feel they cant achieve the same economic and political things white's can. They feel like underdogs because of their history. Every ethnic group in America has some type of weight they feel on their back because of the ethnic group or mix of ethnic groups they are.
Peter: You're ignoring the changing ethnic and racial demographics of the U.S. If you calculate the White American homicide rate as a fixed proportion of the national homicide rate on the basis of the 1960-1980 period, you will overestimate the White American contribution. In 1960, White Americans made up almost 90% of the total population. Now, they're down to two-thirds, perhaps less.
ReplyDeleteIt would be difficult to adjust for these effects of age change and ethnic/racial change because the two are confounded. The African American and Hispanic American populations are younger on average than the White American population.
Sorry I was wrong to state 1980-1960. Rather annoying when a minor error derails my point.
The first link I've posted breaks out White and Black homicide rates separately across the United States between Whites and Blacks across time but from 1980 to 2009.
The White homicide rate is 0.62 of the total in 2009 and 0.64 of the total in 1980.
If Whites have aged relative to Blacks in this period (again, 1980-2009), and this would have reduced their homicide rates, then this does not show in their proportional homicide rate compared to the total (which has reduced, but proportionately no more than is has for Blacks).
If we compare this fairly static proportional rate to the age adjusted American homicide rate, on international comparison data (from the mid 1990s), it suggests White Americans are a bit more homicidal than White West Europeans or other Anglosphere peoples.
Not massively, White Americans only being 4 times more likely to commit homicide than a similar aged West European (rate 4.2 per 100,000 vs 1.0 per 100,000).
Again not hugely, but enough that European (and Canadian and Australian) anecdotal evidence that White Americans are relatively violent people compared to Whites from their countries basically stands.
Now that I have learned a lot more about history. I see that oppression done by whites mainly in the 1400-1800's was not unique. Many people all over the world throughout human history have done just as bad. Human history is so complicated that it can not fit how Americans assumption(based on modern racism) view of origin of people around the world is. It is not as simple as white, black, and east Asian. They base race on skin color when that is sometimes one of many results of different ancestry.
ReplyDeleteThey assume that different races have naturally different personality traits. It is possibly that is somewhat true. But it probably does not fit how certain ethnic groups act in their modern culture.
2,500 years ago west Europeans ancestors the main ones who conquered and oppressed the world starting in the 1400's. Where not the stereotypical intellectual and civilized white person. I can give you many examples from Romans, Greeks, and Jews in ancient times. Describing them as I quote "uncivilized, barbaric, primitive, and sabotage". Historians in the 1800's used ancient Celtic and Germanic, Turkic, and Mongol tribes as their example of a barbarian. They shaped our idea of what that word means in many ways.
I can give you examples of ancient and modern east Asian people who don't fit modern stereotypes. Many are still stone age hunter gathers not math nerds which I have heard some people say is natural for Asians. Some of the most "barbaric and wild" ancient people were east Asian. Like the Turkic tribes for example Huns and also Mongols. I can defy modern western stereotypes of every "race"(its a lot more complicated).
You see, white folks have a strong moral sense, and if you make them feel too guilty, they'll do the honorable thing and commit collective suicide.
ReplyDeleteWho's been making them feel guilty, Peter?
And how can it be "suicide" if someone is inducing their death by making them feel guilty? That sounds like homicide to me, Peter.
"Who's been making them feel guilty, Peter?"
ReplyDeleteMainly white people are making white people feel guilty. The source of it is European I guess imperialism starting in the 1400's. Why the heck do some people try to ignore that there is a such thing as white guilt!!
I wasn't asking you. But why don't you elaborate. Who exactly are these "white people" who are inducing the death of white people by making them feel guilty? Note that if they're inducing the death of white people by making them feel guilty, it's not collective suicide, it's collective homicide i.e. genocide. So explain: who are these "white people" that are committing genocide against white people?
ReplyDelete"Over the past millennium, Western Europeans have created a social environment where the individual is largely free from collective ties of kinship and ethnicity. Because the State has imposed a monopoly on the use of violence, there is less need to rely on kinsmen to safeguard one’s life and property. That’s what the government is for."
ReplyDeletewrote a little comment on this:
kinship, the state, and violence
(^_^)
"Western societies are unique in trying to "play fair," i.e., in judging everyone by the same standard.
ReplyDelete...
Has Turkey ever apologized for the White slave trade? Do the Turks feel ashamed of their own colonial and imperial past? Do the Arabs regret their destruction of indigenous cultures in the Middle East and North Africa? Do Africans feel ashamed of the Bantu expansion? Or is shame just something for White folks?
...
How can I be "deflecting guilt" about my ancestors when I feel no guilt whatsoever? In my opinion, my ancestors behaved honorably.
...
I'm just saying that if you want to play the game of stigmatizing ancestors, you shouldn't be singling out white folks. You see, white folks have a strong moral sense, and if you make them feel too guilty, they'll do the honorable thing and commit collective suicide."
ROFL. Keep bringing the laughs, Peter. Good riddance to white folks, btw.
Peter, you ought to IP ban trolls like the Anonymous above. They are obviously uninterested in discussions.
ReplyDeleteBones and Behaviours...
ReplyDeleteYou call Anoymous a troll because he has a different opinon than you. Why should you ban him any ways do you believe in freedom of speech and are all opinions that aren't yours though of by trolls? I have seen the same type of thinking as you have by to many modern western people. Who think that if you don't have their opinon your a terrible person and should not be allowed to publicly show your opinon.
It is the reason why the American establishment is very left winged liberal.
bones Behaviours...
ReplyDeleteWhat has Anonymous said that makes him deserve to be called a troll? It seems to me he is just making the point. That the type of crimes European powers have committed since mainly the 1400's. Are not unique to Europe at all, which is very true.
I think Anonymous has seen what I have seen for my whole life WHITE GUILT. He makes a good point that we should not just hate on the history of Europeans since the 1400's. Many people who were not European throughout history have done just as terrible things.
He is right that we should not be looking at the people with the most guilty ancestors. I think that will cause many people around the world(mainly the winners around the world) to very extremely guilty.
You people on this blog who dis agree with me and Anonymous. Have many mistakes in the way you think about this. You guys obviously ignore the truth of white guilt.
ReplyDeleteYou ignore that today western nations are the most just nations in the world. In a major way Europeans have repented to their past sins. In a way many conquers and oppressors like Arabs and Chinese have not.
Of course there is some white racism but it is a minority. That does not have any support by western nations establishments. I think you guys are overreacting to modern white racism.
Maybe some of you have the idea that because I have defended white people that makes me raciest. I think that type of prejudice thinking is a form of reverse racism that does exist in the western world. I am not a raciest at all and I am totally against calling another people group inferior or superior.
Since I have learned about modern race issues. I have this feeling that if anyway I claim something is reverse raciest I am raciest. Or if I critze the MLB trying to bring in specifically more black players, critize how our media treated the Zimmerman case, or critize how people over react to successful minority's and women.
I think that it's wrong that our society has made me think like that. There is also nothing wrong with me being proud of my German, Norwegian, English, Cornish, Scottish, Swiss, and Prussian ancestors. There is nothing wrong with me saying I am proud of my European ancestors. That would shock a lot of American's and I would be pre judged as a raciest.
I THINK THE REASON SOME OF YOU MAYBE SEE ME AS RACIEST IS BECAUSE I DONT LET WHITE GUILT BURDEN ME. I admit to all the terrible things European powers have done since mainly the 1400's. I have absolutely nothing against non white people. I am also proud of my ancestors.
"Of course, as you say there are regional differences in the USA. The lowest homicide states of the USA, in the North central, probably do in fact have White homicide rates comparable to Europeans or the Anglosphere."
ReplyDeleteNotwithstanding the other points made it seems to me that if you have an expanding frontier then if the population at the start point of that expansion has a homicide rate of n it seems very unsurprising to me that the population on the crest of the expansion might have a homicide rate of 2n.
I'd have thought frontiers would always select for more aggressive males.
Pacification can go into reverse under the right pressure and then forwards again afterwards.
"HBD*Chick was forced to rationalise away the fact that Anglo-Saxon kinship resembles that of the Iranians, so as to fit her own, theory-driven interpretation."
ReplyDeleteThe main plank of HBDchick's theory is the long-term effect of the Catholic Church's ban on cousin marriage. The AS kindred model potentially supports the theory indirectly because as people who weren't culturally tied to first cousin marriage resistance to a ban on it would be less than in parts of Europe where close cousin marriage was the norm.
"Off topic, but there was some debate before on this blog between Peter Frost and Jason Mallow about male-skewed sex-ratios and their implications. I think Peter was arguing that a high male skew leads to greater male conflict and instability, while Jason argued that to the contrary, it leads to more straight laced, male provisioning type behavior."
ReplyDeleteI think it depends on the males.
The more r a population is the more a skewed gender ratio leads to massive amounts of violence - especially gang and sexual violence.
The more k the males of a population are the more competition to be lawyers and doctors increases.