1 post tagged “cultural conservatism”

At Taki's Magazine there has been some recent debate and conversation over the issue of race, "race realism," nationalism, and white nationalism. Like Dr. Paul Gottfried, I am not afraid to talk about these politically incorrect and hence untouchable issues intelligently with intelligent people. And, unlike Mr. Justin Raimondo, I have no direct reason to disassociate with someone like Mr. Jared Taylor, the editor of American Renaissance. If truth be told, once a week I generally scan the website's, typically thought provoking, links. Similarly, I do the same for the website VDare.com, which contains many themes that American Renaissance does.

My goal here is not to go through each and every point that has been made at TakiMag. Instead, among other things, I want to---extensively---show how cultural conservatism, properly speaking, can coexist with what is sometimes called "race realism" (as opposed to "pure white nationalism"), and why it makes sense to be a "realist" when it comes to race. I additionally want to show, more briefly, how cultural conservatism combined with race realism can peacefully live together with anti-state libertarianism, contrary to some of the discordant remarks made by Gottfried.

Some Relevant Articles: "Whiteout" by Jared Taylor; "The Limits of Race" by Paul Gottfried; "Nationalists Without a Nation" by Justin Raimondo; "What Do White Nationalists Want?" by Taylor; "Race, Christianity, and Anarcho-Capitalism" by Gottfried.

It is correct to say that I probably do not view race and racial-genetic inheritance as important, in degree, as Taylor does. The race of a man, or a given group of men, is most certainly not the whole of him, or them. Race is not even close to being "everything." At the same time, however, I would not go as far as Raimondo, who apparently thinks the individual is more or less unshaped, genetically speaking, by his racial makeup. He appears to view it as basically insignificant and null. To me, personally, this is a silly notion when you logically examine it. Albeit I am not an expert on the subject, nor do I desire to be one, the work of Drs. J. Philippe Rushton, Richard Lynn, Michael Levin, Charles Murray, and others cannot just be dismissed as examples of "pseudo-science." That their work shows that you can make categorical and generalized statements about race is clear enough. One cannot, for example, deny the differences in average IQ rates or average crime rates. Neither, for example, can the documented statistics of serum testosterone levels being different among the races be denied. Or, for one more example, it cannot be denied that certain races are more or less susceptible to certain diseases. Why the differences appear is another question, of course. Why some men think that the differences are un-natural or a priori evil as against sameness, too, are separate questions.

Most men do not deny that one's family heredity is significant in shaping the individual. This shaping not only includes personal appearance but such things as intelligence as well. And this shaping is inborn, apart and separate from environmental factors. Understanding this gives explanation to why everyone cannot be a theoretical physicist or a mathematician. What is more, it explains that everyone cannot be a professional football player or basketball player. Now enter the topic of race into this paragraph's discussion. Race can be viewed, in some real sense, as a super-extended family. For this reason it seems improbable to say that race heredity does not, to some extent, have an influence on the individual.

At the time of the publication of The Bell Curve by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray, Murray N. Rothbard (who, from what I am told, was "into" race realism), in an editorial called "Race! That Murray Book," wrote that "everyone, and I mean everyone [knows] in their hearts and in private" that there are "self-evident truths about race, intelligence, and heritability" [emphasis untouched]. This book, he said, allowed (at least for a time) the subject to become open and "mainstream," without too much childish and irrational name-calling or false non sequitur and ad hominem accusations.

There is no denying that environmental factors are significant vis-à-vis the individual, but the same appears to hold true for inborn factors of heredity, as the works of Rushton, Lynn, et al. show. To repeat, it seems foolish to say that changes in the environment can make any newborn individual develop into a Sir Isaac Newton or a Michael Jordan. The individual, with his free-will or volition, can no doubt enormously affect his possible intelligence, his array of knowledge, his athletic abilities, and many other things. To boot, the young individual is immensely influenced by his family upbringing. But there is also an inborn range that limits his endeavors. I can work day and night, but I will not be a Newton or Jordan.

It actually makes sense to be able to make racial-collective judgments. The classic example is a man who has two ways to walk to his destination. On one side the man sees a group of white men and on the other side he sees a group of black men. Which side should he walk on for safety concerns (with all other things being equal)? The answer is obvious. The man's knowledge is finite and hence incomplete. His choices in walking to his destination are finite. Therefore, he must economize in these kinds of situations. Having collectivistic judgments, even of a racial nature, is for that reason rational. The probability of greater safety on the side which has the white men might turn out to be incorrect, of course. After all, the man does not know the individuals in question. But it is for that reason that it is rational to use collective reasoning, which on average holds true. The man who is 100% "color-blind" will more likely get into trouble than the man who is not.

In the very same way, it makes rational sense to make collective judgments on sex. The above example can be changed so as to have women on one of the two sides. Or, we can think about the hiring of a private bodyguard. Would you hire from a company that employed all women or one that employed all men? I hope it is needless to say, sexual-collective judgments make sense for an infinite range of examples.

In After Liberalism, the brilliant scholar Paul Gottfried writes that left-liberals "are so preoccupied with the role of prejudice in creating hostile environments that they perpetually deny the obvious,"

that stereotypes are rough generalizations about groups derived from long-term observation. Such generalizations are usually correct in describing group tendencies and in predicting certain collective actions, even if they do not adequately account for differences among individuals.

Now Raimondo is right when he writes that each individual has a soul and is unique. I definitely agree with him on this. (Nonetheless, this does not inescapably mean that the individual is racially empty.) Respect for individual life is paramount. Those that say otherwise are on a slippery slope to despotism and tyranny. Taylor's unfortunate statement on the importance of not placing "libertarianism before the preservation of race or heritage" can thus be viewed in this light. That is to say, the word "libertarianism" can be substituted with the words ethics or morality. He argues, loosely speaking, that to save libertarianism one must abandon it. That for man to obtain a more ethical society he must, or might need to, leave behind ethics and become un-ethical. This argumentative reasoning is contradictive from the libertarian point of view. And, to note here too, if Taylor's philosophy truly is "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," then he is surely mistaken.

In Raimondo's article, he refers to Mr. Patrick Buchanan. Unless I am in serious, serious error, Buchanan would certainly not say that the individual is but an atom detached from his race or racial mixture. Moreover, again, collectivism is not per se bad or per se wrong. The world would exist in chaos if man could not make categorical, group, or collectivistic statements about things, man as a being included. The very fact that insurance can exist proves, economically, that one can make collectivistic statements. And, because it can be potentially used in insuring groups of individuals and their risks, it shows that we can make statements of a collective nature about man. As Dr. Hans Hoppe has spoken about, insurance, in itself, cannot say anything about individual risks (because otherwise these individual risks would not be insurable), but it can say something systematic (because otherwise the complete random uncertainty would have relatively no correlation and would not be insurable) about the risks of the group (and that's why these risks are insurable).

Please allow me to go on a slight tangent. Language, for example, we can, in many ways, call a nationalistic-collectivistic concept. A "concept," furthermore, that is non-relativistic so as to have an objective identity to be usable. It is not something that is "given" in the nature of the physical world but a creation in the minds of men. Thus it is social and cultural forces that are the forces at work that shape, both in a progressive and retrogressive sense, language. Clearly enough, language is hence a highly "conservative" thing. Naturally, then, tradition and continuity are intimately related to a society's language. In addition, it is based on the usages of generalizations and even stereotypes. (Richard Weaver, who I will come to later in this essay, said that there are those that dislike this unbreakable truth about language because "it is felt that 'typing' anything that is real distorts the thing by presenting it in something less than its full individuality and concreteness." But these men do not understand: "For it is true that the word conveys something less than the fullness of the thing signified, it is also true that it conveys something more. A word in this role is a generalization. The value of a generalization is that while it leaves out the specific features that are of the individual or of the moment, it expresses features that are general to a class and may be lacking or imperfect in the single instance ...  In order to make statements that will have applicability over a period of time or in the occurrence of many instances, we have to avail ourselves of these classifiers." [Source: In Defense of Tradition.]) Consequently, man cannot try to individualize and atomize language without destroying it. And, in turn, a large group of individual men cannot just "free" themselves from language by breaking their ties and roots with it. That would be suicidal for any healthy and productive society. That form of "individualism," or expression of individualism, is not something to be looked upon happily, to say the least.

This, and several other things, has an affect on the individual. There is no question about this. A man is not a blank slate. He grows up in some kind of social order. This social framework, to some undisputable degree, brings an order and structure to society (because otherwise no civilization would exist to speak of!). No individual reinvents the wheel. Defending a civilization, and wanting to enhance it, requires defending concepts that we can call "collectivistic" or "anti-individualistic." Many of these concepts are also generally built into what we can call "tradition." Defending a civilization means defending values and morals that are, in some fashion, "objective," "non-relativistic," and "non-nihilistic" (because, e.g., certain human actions lead to good results and some to bad!). Additionally, I would also add, this specific concept of collectivity does not necessarily deny methodological individualism (or libertarianism). This is because I am not saying that language, for instance, forms apart from the individuals that compose a society.

Now this tangential discussion is not as far off from the issue of race as you might prima facie think. What I briefly discussed was the importance of "cultural conservatism." At bottom, it is an understanding that there is a structure and order of society that is intelligible to man. It is an understanding that there are laws that govern nature, and that man has a nature himself. It is a seeing that there are "permanent things" or permanent truths about human existence. Conservatism is the recognition of the truth that society is not rootless. History, tradition, prejudice, authority, religion, and spirituality are all cornerstones to conservatism. Moreover, it is based on an understanding that, given that there is a structure and order of society and so forth, certain values that preserve and enhance a society must be defended. These specific things or values, that is, must be given "authority" in the associations, institutions, habits, beliefs, ideas, attitudes, etc. of men. They unite individuals into a vivacious society, with an enduring and transcendent moral order. (In contrast to this, it is, e.g., principles of relativism that destroy genuine culture. Principles, of which, that lead to the destruction of order and morality. They lead to indiscriminate thought and action, and thus the breakdown of society.)

If a discernible race can be viewed, in some sense, as a super-extended family which passes down certain genes, and if we grant that these genes actually have some meaningful impact on men (how couldn't they?), it then seems that it is not possible to defend a given civilization if one is to detach the specific people that make it up and have made it up in history.

Arguably, then, what has been called "race realism" is, or can be, perfectly consistent with cultural conservatism. An essential part of conservative values, incidentally, is the value of community. Since people live together in community, it is only to be expected that a community's characteristics would somewhat be defined by its ethnicity and race.

Is it so far-fetched to say that only the people of Western Civilization could have built Western Civilization (and likewise for other Civilizations)? And, if this is true, is it so far-fetched to say that the individuals of this grouping should think about defending this discernable collectivity of individuals (in terms of promoting good culture, trying to increase the low birthrate numbers, etc.)?

True, in today's world of political correctness it might be taboo to discuss differences between peoples, but intelligent men should not shun earnest discussion and research. As far as I can tell, this specific research is fully coherent (and is not in contradiction to methodological individualism or place man, necessarily, in a pure "materialistic" light, as Raimondo suggests). This research in point of fact helps to smash the ideas of egalitarianism, and other analogous left-liberal myths. The myopic idea to bring about a "utopia" of equality will, as this type of research shows, only result in the substitution of one form of hierarchy and distinctions with another. Because if it can be shown that intelligence is not entirely based on environmentalism, it can be said that leftist social policies will fail. This research can furthermore show that the culture of one peoples cannot just be transferred to another peoples. It is thus a blow to the dreams of Wilsonian imperialism.

According to the great Richard M. Weaver, a leading intellectual figure of traditional conservatism, the left-liberal view of man is of a "positivistic" nature. It is this that often leads to social engineering proposals. Since, if liberalism is correct about man, it does make some sense to say that the managerial state must relentlessly engineer civil society. As Weaver wrote in National Review:

The [left-liberal] attitude toward race stems from [liberalism]'s positivistic representation of man, which has always had one of its cardinal tenets the dogma that there are no real differences between people except economic differences. Remove the economic differences and all the others----racial, cultural, social, and moral----disappear. Thus the collectivizing of the economy can be depended on to obliterate the various differences... [Source: In Defense of Tradition.]

Studying racial differences should be just as much an acceptable thing as studying sex differences. Recently I read Dr. Steven Rhoads's excellent Taking Sex Differences Seriously. It presents an immense amount of scientific information that confirms a more "traditionalist" view of the sexes. (Though, how anyone could think that their differences are based on "social construction" is beyond me. The differences between men and women are mostly common sense.) So the sciences are on the side of the cultural conservative, and they should be treated accordingly.

Now, allow me to comment a bit on the issue of nationalism.

We have to remember that the world is no racial or ethnic monolith. Although "nationality" and "nation" does indeed exist in some organic and unifying sense, they are no monolith (and thank goodness). A Europe that became a stateless continent would still have "nations" in some fashion. France would still be France, in general, and they would still be speaking French, and equally for the other nations.

Sketchily and loosely speaking, we can define a nation this way: it is made up of a people sharing a geographical location that often is discernible by its features in some way; as a whole it is made up of a common people of a common race (the location of individuals of various ethnicities and races are not "randomly" located around the world, nor could they be); it has a sharing of temporal continuity of a people being at a given location with many customs and traditions; it contains a common language in widespread use; there exists a general self-awareness and patriotism among the people of being a part of a sort of distinct "nation" (even if there are no borders in the conventional sense of that term, as seen in certain secessionist-separatist movements).

To go over once more, this is not to say it is any monolith. Given the non-egalitarian nature of the world, different communities will be different from each other. However, I should point out, there is a difference between "multiethnic" societies and "multicultural" societies in our statist world, as Gottfried has defined these terms. The first term does not of necessity imply the second term:

Nothing could be more misleading to equate a multicultural society with a multiethnic one. . . At issue [in the Western world today] is not the coexistence of more or less tolerated ethnic minorities grouped together under an administrative unit or imperial jurisdiction but the celebration of state-sponsored "diversity." In the new multicultural as opposed to conventional multiethnic situation, the state glorifies differences from the way of life associated with the once majority population. It hands out rewards to those who personify the desired differences, while taking away cultural recognition and even political rights from those who do not. [Source: Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt.]

Thus, for example, desiring to use the multicultural regime for a force of "good" is a self-destructive desire. Multiculturalism specifically is used as a political and ideological instrument for managerial control, both directly and indirectly, against the culturally conservative principles of which I am writing about here.

It goes without saying that I want nothing to do with "white supremacists." As far as the term "white nationalist," it confuses me because it seems to imply the desire to make America "white only" (making it in reality indistinguishable from the former term). Obviously, I am not for this either. Yes, I want all of the best for whites but the same is true for all other races. (How can a man be a Christian conservative and say otherwise?)

If, as a few surely claim, there needs to be racial homogeneity "nationally"----as embodied in a centrally powerful State?!,----then the question logically is: why not worldwide? The thing that one must understand is that no racial conflict [see this & this], in any consequential sense of the term conflict, exists in the division of labor or in free trade. Different communities---with no forced integration---can peacefully coexist with each other. Moreover, freely trading with "everyone," in a manner of speaking, and discriminatorily choosing who you live next door to do not contradict each other. That is, "inviting the whole world" to come to your front door does not follow from you trading with the whole world. Neither does it follow that from a free market condition that genetic pauperization, i.e., dysgenic deterioration in the population, will occur. Such negative interactions must be differentiated with positive economic trade. Conversely, it does follow, by subsidizing births of the lower end of intelligence at the expense of the higher, from welfare state conditions.

To Taylor's credit, though, and as far as I know, he has only advocated as public policy free association (i.e., the elimination of all compulsory civil rights) and immigration restrictions (which some anarcho-libertarians have argued for).

Today's massive and unrelenting immigration that is occurring I do not consider a good or desirable thing. The work of gentlemen like Lynn only boosts my reasons for this. Not to mention, most Americans are not so wanting of this amount of immigration either. This makes me believe much of it is artificially stimulated via statism. (That's why the solution to this problem is not the central state. Ideally, it should be to uphold private property rights to the max.) With private property rights fully restored, and all property privatized, all "immigrants" would have to be granted permission to enter. In distinct dissimilarity with today, men would have full control and freedom over who could and could not immigrate or travel into and onto their roads, private neighborhoods and towns. With that understanding, it seems fairly apparent that a total free-for-all of immigration would not be present in anarcho-capitalism. That can only be the outcome of the central government running public property and controlling private property owners' (and their voluntary associations') right to discriminate.

As far as Gottfried's critical remarks on anarcho-capitalism, Mr. Keith Preston has written an interesting essay on his blog, "Why You Conservatives Should Give Us Anarchists a Chance: A Reply to Paul Gottfried." I suggest you all read it.

It is funny how Gottfried, in his first main essay on this subject, says that most "white nationalists I have met are libertarians," but then suggests that Raimondo's libertarian views are naturally atomistic and against thinking about any kind of collectivity, racial or otherwise. Well, as my analysis reasons above (despite how weakly perhaps), I reject this as erroneous: (non-statist) cultural conservatism combined with race realism has no necessary incompatibility with libertarianism. Neither is libertarianism per se against authority. As important, libertarians are the ultimate manumitters vis-à-vis the managerial and multicultural regime.

A private property society would be more compliant with a bourgeois society, one can argue. Private roads and spaces, for instance, would not be detached from the values of the local community. They could justly enforce rules against prostitution or whatnot. Just because a private law society would do its best to outlaw all violence against the non-violent does not mean that various forms of social ostracism would not exist against immoral activity. It also does not mean that (voluntary) positivistic law would not exist (which would, in terms of specific forms of this kind of law having very wide-spread support, put high pressure on those who do not comply to comply). You could additionally see small proprietary communities develop, which could range from religious monasteries, to (yes) collectivist, left-liberal communes, to distributionist-based communities, to racially homogeneous communities. And instead of a top-down and socialist monopolist of law and order, you could see the rise of a very diverse assortment of "intermediate institutions" handling these kinds of things.

Nothing, as a whole, in this appears to be absolutely anti-authority, or anti-Christianity. Neither does it suggest a free-for-all society where everything that is non-violent is encouraged and promoted.

One of the main things that has been lacking in today's world is an objective and non-subjectivist view of ethics and morality. Libertarianism provides an objective view of ethics. This makes it not antagonistic to having a sort of objective or traditionalist view of personal morality.

The question of "anarchist" feasibility is yet another question. Preston gives reference to many historical examples, and I will not repeat that here. With these examples, I do not view it as written in stone, as Gottfried does, that the feasibility and probability is zero (despite how pessimistic I can be). States collapse when the public stops supporting them. "All it takes" is a change in vox populi.

To finally conclude this lengthy essay, let me add that differences are what make the world an interesting place. But it is only natural that a man of a given culture and a given people generally prefers his own to others (just as he generally prefers friends of a like-nature). Notwithstanding this, he can respect, or at the very least peacefully tolerate, the variety of cultures and peoples in existence (and the non-monolithic nature of his own).

A man should want the very best possible for all men, of whatever society, culture, religion, race, or ethnicity. Society has no need for men that hate, or for men who are unable to discriminate between things, including between collectives and within collectives, to see the individual worth of an individual.

As a matter of fact, the "collective good" and the "good for the individual" are not set against each other. This provides elucidation to why individuals can peacefully coexist and cooperate with each other in a market setting. An individual, by himself, is weak and un-wealthy. Cooperation in the division of labor propitiously changes this. (Language, to use an example from above, is another perfect illustration of this.) The individual becomes better off---regardless if his working capabilities are little or great---by this peaceful participation and the collective whole of individuals become better off as well. Thus, correspondingly, various collectives, so to speak, become better off through peaceful economic cooperation with each other. Protectionism, on the other hand, can be called "anti-life" or "anti-existence" because it leads to conflict. The more complex and diversified a division of labor is under a free market, the more peace is required, and the more economically dependent we are on one another. It helps facilitate peace and friendship. The so-called "ideals" of protectionism, socialism, and the like, on the other hand, help tend to lead to war and hate. It starves and isolates men.

It is only the egalitarian mindset which wishes to ignore the obvious and is bent on unnatural oneness and sameness that is a logical ally to statism and oppression. It is a mindset that tries to impose on reality and the laws of nature. Equality is made superior to justice and liberty, and that is just tyranny.