• gurugeorge
    514
    You havent given me any links to biologists who dispute the claim that "We can all happily agree that human racial classification is of no social value and is positively destructive of social and human relations(not just as individual opinion, but as showing a consensus)." Where is this scientific consensus you're assuming???Joshs

    Dawkins' conclusion is not a conclusion from biology, and as I said, I don't quibble with the biology. Dawkins' conclusion comes from Dawkins practicing junior sociology on the basis of his biological knowledge. Obviously my position is against the current consensus, but it's not totally without support from some scientists; and actually the current consensus wasn't always the consensus, the consensus was the other way until around the early to mid 20th century. How and why that consensus changed is another story (but it does have a lot to do with Boasian anthropology, another pseudo-science).

    The current consensus is based on fear and conformity, nothing more.

    And you never answered the question: do genes code for ethics?Joshs

    Missed that. Not "code for" in any specific sense, but certainly genes do have an influence on ethics, for sure, even if only because intelligence has a strong influence on ethics. Things like foresight, the ability to delay gratification, etc., are also related to ethics, and they definitely vary along racial lines.

    If homosexuals are degenerate, is this a genetic deficiency or a lifestyle choice? I never knew anyone who considered homosexuals degenerate who wasnt operating from a religious morality. Of course, the medical and psychiatric profession once upon a time labeled it as a pathology, but here was a hidden theological element working there,Joshs

    "Degenerate" from the moral point of view, which doesn't require religion to back it up. It's perfectly understandable from the point of evolutionary psychology that homosexuality should be a fringe pastime, something not for the mainstream, not to be held up as morally laudable, but rather kept to the fringes and morally despised. And the decline of great civilizations has often been heralded by the loosening of morals. (Camille Paglia wrote some great stuff on this theme.)

    There's a rather amusing possible irony here though: whatever genetic component there is to homosexuality (and I think it's probably exaggerated, but let's say there's some) was preserved and transmitted on account of the fact that homosexuals generally had to marry and procreate. Now that they marry each other, homosexuality may well die out :)

    Perhaps you don't understand their theories as well as you think you do.Joshs

    I'm not obliged to follow everything these people say just because I like some of the things they say; and after all their positions are mutually contradictory in some respects too. Most of them don't really have much occasion to discuss race anyway, since their concerns are more on the general cognitive level - although you will find the occasional declarations of piety. Everyone has to frantically virtue signal assent to PC cult nostrums these days, for fear of losing their jobs.

    Im not interested in pointing fingers, ,moralizing, accusing people of prejudice.Joshs

    And yet you did suspect me of prejudice didn't you? It's not a big deal, but perhaps it might be worth going back over your thought patterns in relation to that - why was it your go-to thought?

    I have a selfish aim in this issue.You could call it technological. I want to create a social 'machine', the ideal environment, that nurtures, stimulates and elevates my intellectual and creative capacities to the greatest extent possible.Joshs

    Getting the "best bits" from all human beings regardless of race is a perfectly reasonable idea, but it's not much related to what I'm interested in: creating a liveable world for all human beings regardless of station, capabilities, etc. - except possibly in the long term (we do need "think tanks" after all). My concern is the kinds of problems people, particularly working class people are living through now as a result of immigration, the overweening top-down forcing of multiculturalism and globalism, etc. (I suppose my particular concern for the working class is a remnant of my socialist/working class roots :) )

    But if you look at the English language , you'll notice that its the ultimate mutt language,Joshs

    That's not actually true about English, it's basically been the same language all along, it's not a "mixture", it's its own Germanic language, just with several accidental overlays (Viking loan words; Norman toffs speaking pidgin English, getting things slightly wrong, and that bleeding back to the population at large; neologisms from learned Church folks, etc.) The additions and fiddly bits do make English unique and interesting, but it's going too far to say that it's a "mixture."

    It's roughly the same story with genetics. Anglo Saxons are not mutts, they're basically a slight variant of the same stock that's peopled Northwestern Europe since the end of the Ice Age. The real muttish mix occurred during the early Bronze Age, when the indigenous Northwestern European hunter-gatherers were invaded by Indo-Europeans - but Indo-Europeans were themselves of distantly similar stock, since they were descended from remnants of those very same indigenous hunter gatherers who'd been pushed Southeast by the Ice Age; they got left behind in the Southeast (Pontic steppes) while some of their fellows followed the receding Glaciers back Northwest. Some more muttishness occurs due to the mix of those Northern peoples with the prehistoric Levantine farmers who populated the fringes of Southern Europe, and there's also a slightly similar story with the Slavs being mixtures of Indo-Europeans and robust indigenous hunter gatherers from Northeastern regions (Siberia). But that's about it, in the large. Norse of various kinds, Celts, Anglo Saxons, Germans, French, they're all basically the same people, and they're still fairly closely related to Greeks, Spaniards, Italians and Slavs (relatively - again, relatively in contrast to any of those groups' relations to Semites, or Chinese, etc., etc.). The breeds have been fairly stable in their ancestral homelands over a long period of time.

    Muttness is the key to adaptivity in biology, a constant self-overcoming via exaptation. Thats the meaning of Nietzsche's ubermensch. Purity is a deathnell for organisms.Joshs

    For the third time, I do understand the value of some degree of mixture and miscegenation; and the idea of colour blind meritocracy has always been understood to be beneficial (after all, it's leaving money on the table to forbid really clever people from another race from having some impact, provided they aren't working as a group against one's group - which is a tricky question when it comes to Jews). But compare and contrast the attainments of 18th/19th century Europe and of the USA as an 80-90% white country relative to their time, in comparison to the more mixed Europe/USA of today. Has anything comparable to the lifting of humankind out of poverty and the appearance of the very concept of "progress" that started roundabout the 18th century in all-White countries happened since? Has there really been as much actual innovation (all things being equal) as in those earlier periods, or are science, technology, education, etc., largely treading water these days, simply extending what came before in various directions, but not actually innovating? What happened to materials science during the latter part of the 20th century? Where are the flying cars we were promised? ;)

    As always, it's a question of degree. By all means have your cosmopolitan centers and "vibrant" bohemian areas, no problem - they were there in the past too. However, as I said, that's not my main area of concern. My main area of concern is the descent into hell for the larger chunks of the populations (of all ethnicities) who are having to live with the increasingly disastrous results of the top-down imposition of multiculturalism as an abstract ideal, and mass immigration, on people who didn't ask for it, and who, whenever asked their opinion, rejected it.

    There is only one really workable formula for economic vitality these days, and its a globalist multiethnic one.Joshs

    Economic efficiency is an important consideration, but it's only one important consideration among several. What's really foolish and insane is to gear the entirety of society around economic efficiency and innovation.

    Dont take this personally, but you strike me as more timid than open. The ideas you like to emphasize are about avoiding and excluding, cloistering yourself rather than shattering inhibitions and venturing beyond the safety of the family. Sounds kind of boring to me. It s the kind of thing I've fled my whole life.Joshs

    Again, trust me, I used to think like you. I used to make the same kinds of arguments as you up until my mid 40s. I've gradually changed my opinion and I now think differently - not completely, absolutely differently (I still hold to the classical liberal ideal of impartial treatment at level of the individual, as I've said), but differently to the extent that I now think a lot of the latter half of the 20th century's received wisdom is rubbish, and a lot of older ideas that were discarded in that period are better.

    In my faster world,Joshs

    Speed kills. ;)

    But I understand and agree with some of what you say - as I said, economic efficiency is an important consideration. A measured amount of immigration, with assimilation, and cultural mixing, are beneficial. It's just that I think there's more of a balance to be struck with other considerations, and ethnic homogeneity and supermajority over large geographical regions is important too - after all, without that, there will be nothing "diverse" to mix up, will there? A "chocolate race" is not going to be a diverse race.

    Increasingly, technology itself is going to come under scrutiny too. "Because it's there" is a good enough reason to climb a mountain, but is it really a good enough reason to pursue all sorts of science and technology and turn it into mass consumer product as a matter of course? Perhaps a bit of slowing down is in order.
  • Joshs
    5.2k
    "Dawkins' conclusion is not a conclusion from biology, and as I said, I don't quibble with the biology. Dawkins' conclusion comes from Dawkins practicing junior sociology on the basis of his biological knowledge."

    The problem is, even if we accept the idea that genes code for behavioral traits, our scientific understanding of behavior is way too rudimentary at this point to to be able to agree on operational definitions of things like intelligence, ethics, 'clannishness', etc, much less match them up with specific combinations of dna sequences. So we are all in the same boat as Dawkins. We have no choice but to
    rely on our own experience with others to form our ideas in this matter, and thus we all end up 'practicing sociology' . So you may not be wrong in your theory about the relationship between biology and race, but the depth and breadth of your experience with other ethnicities and races is going to be a more important factor in getting at the truth than reliance on the biological literature.

    In this regard, in the United States, the popularity of ethno-nationalism is strongest in those communities that are more than 90% white, and least popular among the whites in cities that are the most racially diverse. So those ethnonationalists in the places that are almost completely white literally have no direct idea what they are talking about, in the sense that they have little to no daily exposure to significant numbers of members of other races. What were the demographics of the community in which you grew up, and the one you live in now? If they were the usual overwhelmingly Anglo-Saxon mix typical of small and mid-sized English villages (Even Liverpool, the 5th largest metro area in the U.K., has a small percentage of non-white residents compared to similar sized U.S. cities),, then it would appear the depth and breadth of your experience with other ethnicities and races
    is quite limited.
  • gurugeorge
    514
    our scientific understanding of behavior is way too rudimentary at this pointJoshs

    Well it's not all that rudimentary, and I think it's on my side. But let's say it is rudimentary as you believe: then it would also be way to rudimentary to be certain that multiculturalism is a good idea.

    So those ethnonationalists in the places that are almost completely white literally have no direct idea what they are talking about,Joshs

    That's irrelevant, it's their choice under what conditions they want to live in their own country. They don't want to live in a multicultural state, and they don't want to be politically or demographically marginalized in their own homelands.

    (Especially in the cultural climate of Hate Whitey that we have now. What do you think will happen when Whites become, say, 30% of the population, given the increasingly strident and open demonization of Whites - particularly White males - that's been going on over the past 50 years or so?)

    they have little to no daily exposure to significant numbers of members of other races.Joshs

    Is there some reason why they ought to be subjected to daily exposure to significant numbers of members of other races?

    You offer a pragmatic, conditional "ought." Fair enough, argue your case to them. But there is no moral "ought" such as would be sufficient to override their preferences, as has been done by the de facto implementation of mass immigration in Europe and the USA, always, at every step, from the 1920s to today, against the wishes of the majority.
12Next
bold
italic
underline
strike
code
quote
ulist
image
url
mention
reveal
youtube
tweet
Add a Comment

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.