rushton

kuznar@CVAX.IPFW.INDIANA.EDU
Wed, 19 Oct 1994 13:31:23 EST

I want to thank those anthropologists who have so far offered sound
scientific refutations of Rushton's ideas. Let's keep the discussion
focussed on scientific falsification and not on political agendas.

Here is some more food for thought. The role of history cannot be ignored
in our perceptions of so-called racial differences. Many people who
advocate the racial superiority of whites are white themselves and therefore
probably of mostly northern European descent. There is certrainly nothing
wrong with that. However, they should realize that the consensus of civi

civilization has not always been that north-dwelling populations are as

the
most intelligent. The very northern Europeans who today advocate their
intellectual and moral superiority were once labelled by Greeks and Romans
as barbarians who shared the following characteristics.

- quick temper
- lack of marital structure and stability. Ceasar noted that British Celts
"wives are shared between groups of ten or twelve men" for example.
- not given to religious thought
- inherently violent. Diodorus notes of Celts, "Their aspect is terrifying
... They are very tall in stature with rippling muscles
under clear white skin ... They look like wood demons, their hair thick and
shaggy like a horse's mane"
- unintelligent
- only interested in drinking, music and fighting
- homosexual tendencies as Diodorus writes, "The Celtic women are not only
as tall as the men, but as corageous ... But despite their charm, the men
will have nothing to do with them. They long instead for the embrace
of one of their own sex, lying on animal skins and tumbling around with a
lover on either side. It is particularly surprising that they attach no
value to either dignity or decency, offering their bodies to each other
without further ado"

I want to point out that these characteristics were considered uncivilized
by those adherents to classical civilization (being a cultural relativist,
I see no reason to worry about the morality of these attributes), and to be
racially linked to having light skin, blue eyes and red hair.

How is it that yesterday's barbarians are today's guardians of civilization.
I, for one, doubt that 1500 years of evolution could select out such complex
behavioral characteristics, assuming they are genetically influenced to
begin with. Classical authors would have scoffed at the notion that one day,
northern European powers would dominate the world militarily and economically.
Perhaps, one day, northern Nations will find themselves under the boot of
a tropical civilization, refuting Rushton's ideas in hindsight.

Lawrence A. Kuznar
Dept. Sociology-Anthropology
Indiana-Purdue University at Fort Wayne
Fort Wayne, IN 46805
KUZNAR@CVAX