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Re: Is white racism nec. all bad?
Frank Forman (Forman@ix.netcom.com)
13 Apr 1995 23:53:26 GMT
In <3mih22$5l3@ixnews4.ix.netcom.com> lsd@ix.netcom.com (Lane Singer)
writes:
>
>In <3mhjnl$6eg@ixnews3.ix.netcom.com> Forman@ix.netcom.com (Frank
Forman) writes:
>
>>>> Supply me with a definition ...
>>>>
>>>Fact is, I have given my simple definition of racism about 50 times
>>>on this thread alone. Something tells me you can quote it back to
>>>me!
>>>
>>Give it once more, please, and illustrate it by naming some people who
>>are racists and who are not racists. If you use the word race in your
>>definition of racist, you'd better define "race" also.
>
>
>A Webster's unabridged (c1966) gives the following definition for the
>English word "racism":
>
>1: The assumption that psycocultural traits and capacities are
>determined by biological race, and that races differ decisively
>from one another, which is usually coupled with a belief in the
>inherent superiority of a particular race and its right to dominate
>over others 2a:a doctrine or political program based on the
>assumption of racism and designed to execute its principles
>b:a political or social system founded on racism 3:RACIALISM 1:
I believe that psychocultural traits are *shaped*, not totally
determined, by biological factors and that these factors are unevenly
distributed among different populations. In evidence, I offer J.
Philippe Rushton, _Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History
Perspective_ (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1995).
I believe that the differences are often decisive. I do not
believe that Australoids, Congoids, or Capoids would ever have come up
with science on their own. They lack the necessary intelligence, or
rather a critical mass of intelligent members of those races would never
have assembled.
Superiority is a tricky word. The cultures of whites (here
defined as the descendants of Roman Catholics of 1500 A.D.) have
produced far more things that the rest of the world wants that the rest
of the world has produced that whites want. I suppose this means
superiority.
For me, the chief contributions of whites to themsevles and the
rest of the world is science (including philosophy), liberty, and music.
Though Mongoloids seem to have higher average intelligence than whites,
the standard deviation of intelligence is lower (it's 12 for IQ tests of
Japanese), resulting in a lower proportion of very top geniuses. But
also important is temperament, which I also believe to be hightly
hereditary. The temperament of whites is more individualistic than that
of Mongoloids; this I think is the crucial difference. These beliefs are
more hypothetical than those regarding differences in intelligence, as
is all speculation on the processes of history.
I do not believe in the right of domination. To say that you or
a group of others has a right is to say that I (or my group) has a duty
not to interfere. I'm a metaethical egoist (this means I demand an
answer to the question "why be moral?"), and such duties can be shown to
the extent that harm ultimately comes to those who violate the duties.
In the case at hand, I believe domination harms the dominator as well as
the dominated. (Hegel argued this.) Note that I'm not calling for a
definition of domination here.
I have no political program based upon any right of domination.
My politics are federalist, since morality itself is federated (this
will take some going into!), and allow for secession pretty much ad
libitum, including racial secession. But I think we are going to be
supplanted by robots, or uploaded into computers, within a couple of
hundred years and, long before that, that biotechnology will soon be
developed and used to upgrade everyone's children faster than
race-mixing and within-race dumbing down is occurring.
What is happening already is that a larger and larger percent of
the population is being marginalized due to increased minimal
intelligence required to function productively in society at all. This
effects some races more than others. If there are any duties on the part
of the superior races to the inferior ones at all (consistent with
metaethical egoism, this means that neglect of the duties ultimately
harms the superior races), one is to foster birth control among members
of inferior races whose children are likely to lead miserable,
sub-marginal lives.
I think the evidence of such books as Rushton's is sufficiently
compelling, esp. in the utter absense of evidence for the opposite (as I
tried to elicit in my thread, "Evidence FOR racial equality?"), that
those who encourage breeding of the inferior races have real suffering
on their hands and share much of the blame. Humanitarians do not want to
encourage the reproduction of low human capital, and they should not
want to, even if they are racial egalitarians, unless they have some
feasible plan for redressing the problem with environmental measures.
I've never seen anything but a laundry list of complaints, not something
like regression equations showing how to allocate scarce resources to
improve education most efficiently. This sort of complaining constitutes
a morality racket. But even if such a plan for redressing the disparate
educational and economic outcomes were produced and shown to be
feasible, I'm not convinced present generations should be taxed pay for
it. I have not heard a compelling case for political obligation for even
a minimal state, though I believe one can be built on better knowledge
of social psychology.
Have I given you an honest answer about my beliefs?
Frank
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