The whole discussion of being labeled a “White nationalist” over at Insty’s place makes me reflect about the thing a little.
Yes, I’m white (or White). Accident of birth, both parents and sets of grandparents, great-grandparents etc. were all White. So: White.
Nationalist: a little more difficult, this one. Having been born in one nation — also accidentally, by the way: my parents were going to emigrate from South Africa to Canada before I was born, then didn’t when Mom discovered she was pregnant with me — I changed my nationality when I in turn emigrated, and became an American. [goes off for a quick Happy Dance, then returns]
Now, as to that nationalism thing: unlike the “open borders” idiots, I think that nationalism is important when the nations are culturally distinct — and I mean really distinct: the difference between a Scot and an Irishman is far less than between, say, an Italian and an Austrian. We’re talking shared cultures and common backgrounds, albeit with a somewhat different language for the Scots/Irish, and a much greater difference for the Austrians/Italians. It’s even more complicated by the fact that the Scots and Irish, mostly, have different religions (an important cultural factor) while the Austrians and Italians mostly share Catholicism. So national separation can be linguistic, or religious, or both.
For all intents and purposes, there is practically no difference between, say, the peoples of the United States and Canada — they could merge tomorrow, and very little would change. [pause to let the Québeçois separatistes get over their vapors]
I would suggest that American nationalism — a fairly recent one, compared to, say, Britain’s Anglo-Saxon nationalism which has existed for millennia — is signified by a common language and a common Anglo-Judaic-Christian heritage. Unlike the British one, which stubbornly defies change despite Leftwing attempts to suppress it, the American one is fragile, as we have traditionally been a refuge for people who want to improve their lot in life. (Note that the same has become, lamentably, true as the combined efforts of the EU and NuLabour forced immigration of alien cultures into Britain.)
Both nations have traditionally welcomed immigrants who might not have shared the British or American heritage, but assimilated as quickly as they could into the dominant culture.
Which is where the post-Modernist (“pomo”) and anti-nationalists start getting their knickers twisted, because the idea of “dominant” culture is toxic to their Utopian ideal of “we’re all the same people, really” — even though we absolutely are not.
I have said countless times that our American culture, with all its little flaws, is still the greatest culture which ever existed — it is found in our nation, and in no other. (There are similarities to others — notably, the Anglo-Saxon-Judeo-Christian societies of Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand, for example — but our American version is slightly better: I think.) Certainly, our culture is better than anything ever devised or inherited on the African continent, and has been more robust and more congenial than, say, the baleful and repressive cultures of Islam and Communism (as practiced in Slavic cultures), and the rigidly-conformist cultures of the Far East.
Ours is a culture worth preserving — and it is best preserved in our nation, because we’ve seen over and over again, it fails when attempted in other nations, with their markedly-different cultures and heritages.
The fact that our culture has its roots in “White” (European) populations is frankly irrelevant. It’s an accident of both history and geography, just like the color of my own skin, and I’m not going to go into the tangent of why: it simply is.
So my “nationalism” (a culture created largely by White people) is not something to be feared or despised: it’s both accidental and meritocratic. It most certainly is not an insult, as the Left would attempt to make it these days, because quite frankly, I’m proud of my cultural heritage and my nationalism (and my skin color is irrelevant). We find a similarly-disjunct attitude when Europeans refer sneeringly to the “American cowboy” ethos, when we Americans cherish the cowboy values of independence, self-sufficiency, hard work and, yes, being armed to sustain all the above. To us, it’s a compliment, not an insult.
And ditto my nationalism. I’m proud to be an American, I’m proud of my Anglo-Judaic-Christian cultural heritage — and I couldn’t care less about either the color of my skin or the fact that our culture was created by mostly White people, all those years ago. And I’m immensely proud of the fact that so many immigrants of different skin colors have assimilated into the dominant American culture and ditched most of their deficient home cultures for the greater American one. Like I did.
I consider myself a nationalist because I think a strong America that cares for Americans (of all stripes) is the best idea for us. I also am a nationalist by proxy for other Western nations, because I feel that Western Civilization is the best thing mankind has ever done.
And I want that preserved.
We are the shining city on the hill only as long as we keep the lights on.
I suppose one has to defend oneself from that line of attack a bit these days just to keep things straight, but do not worry about it. My wife has on occasion been called racist for giving her (low) opinion of our last president or making her conservative opinions known. Of course this makes no sense as she is black, but it is the only argument they have so they use it whether it applies or not. If the only tool you have is a hammer…..
This is where you and I diverge — it is no accident. It is a result of the combination of higher IQ and higher Conscientiousness Personality Traits, both of which are highly heritable. In short, it is breeding. Europe’s success had little to do with geography, and it wasn’t an accident other than an accident of genetics (which denies the basic tenant of Natural Selection, but I’m no huge defender of Natural Selection.)
FWIW, East Asia managed to put together very successful but very different societies based on higher IQs without the Conscientiousness part. That distinction is why they didn’t see the sorts of technological explosions of the West, and it certainly never captured ideas like the Rights of Englishmen.
Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs, and Steel.” Read. Learn.
Western Europe’s dominance of the world economically and in large part culturally is almost entirely an accident of geography, history, and a particular plant and animal diversity.
The idea that western europeans are inherently of smarter or given of some inherent superiority is pure BS, without any factual basis. Those who spout such nonsense deserved to be labeled the racist nincompoops they are.
I’ll see your “Guns, Germs and Steel” and raise you by “The Bell Curve”.
At least the (many) critics of Diamond have read his book.
But of course, any disagreement with Diamond makes one a racist nincompoop.
Actual measurements of real people is different than biased hand-waving of a progressive anthropologist.
The biggest reason to support him is his narrative: There’s nothing special about the people who created Western Civilization, therefore Western Civilization is nothing special.
I don’t accept that.
Let’s do an experiment. Take a modern, industrialized, and educated state of people known for hard work, diligence, and other positive traits. Hell, make them all white.
Next, bomb them back to pretty much the stone age, and split the country into two. Govern one as a liberal, western, capitalist state under a representative government. Govern the other as a full out welfare state run according to Marxist/Socialist principles. Let it run for 45 years, and what’s the result? The one state is producing Mercedes-Benz, and the other is producing Trabants.
The historical record of West and East Germany prove a number of things. First, Marxism is [GRAPHIC CONTENT DELETED], and those who advocate it should be [GRAPHIC CONTENT DELETED]. The other thing is the corrosive effect that culture can have on any people of any race. Marxism had freaking Germans making Trabbants, fer Adam Smith’s sake.
If you bomb the crap out of a trust based civilization, they will cooperate and get back on their feet once the bombing stops.
If you bomb a tribal culture to the same extent, they will be reduced to killing each other for that last bowl of tree-bark soup, and stay there.
It isn’t all guns-germs-steel.
The East Germans were stuck with Trabants because the first thing a Marxist must do to create the utopia he wants is to destroy the existing trust-based civilization. This always results in slaughter.
lpdbw: I don’t accept it either. And that’s where you miss the boat. Diamond doesn’t argue that Western Civilization isn’t special. Western Civilization is special. The personal freedoms that come with enlightenment thought is special. The (relatively) free market that comes with that belief in personal freedom is special. I’m a great believer in American Exceptionalism, though not for the reasons many might think; we are a nation built, unlike any other I can think of, not on a national/geographic/linguistic identity, but on an idea. That makes this nation unique. And makes the culture we have (yes, Western, and based on the belief in the individual as the possessor of inalienable rights), and pass on to our children, crucial. If we lose that central idea, we lose what makes America, well, America. I don’t think Diamond’s book or central thesis challenges that.
But that Western Civilization is special does not mean that westerners are inherently more intelligent or superior. That Indo-Europeans created what we have come to call Western Civilization and the culture it generated is an accident of history and geography, not any innate superiority. The Western or “trust-based civilization” we champion is the result of many centuries of history guided by geographic factors including the types of grains that would grow well, the domestic livestock that was available, the natural resources available to be exploited, and many other factors. It has nothing to do with any innate racial superiority.
That’s a lie we tell ourselves to make us feel superior. And humans are nothing if not liars, especially to ourselves.
And I’m familiar with “The Bell Curve.” I don’t think it says what you think it says, and its authors apparently explicitly deny that it says what you seem to imply it says. The authors themselves wrote:
“If the reader is now convinced that either the genetic or environmental explanation has won out to the exclusion of the other, we have not done a sufficiently good job of presenting one side or the other. It seems highly likely to us that both genes and environment have something to do with racial differences. What might the mix be? We are resolutely agnostic on that issue; as far as we can determine, the evidence does not yet justify an estimate.”
While that quote is not an endorsement of Diamond’s central thesis, it’s most certainly not an endorsement of yours either.
Moreover, IQ measures are in fact culturally biased as well. They do not measure innate intelligence any more than school testing measures knowledge. The tests you all took in school measured, mostly, how well you take tests.
In regards to IQ and other test- which would you generally trust to fix your car? The kid with a fresh degree in automotive engineering, or the busy mechanic with years of experience (and NASCAR tattoos)?
Ponder just how many utterly stupid things come from the mouth of people with high IQ’s and lots of credentials.
“…a quick Happy Dance…”
Good thing you’re an African-American, because everyone knows White guys can’t dance.
The big problem is that American national cohesion relies on constant maintenance work. We’re too dispersed, with too many differences in backgrounds for it to be otherwise. And that chipping away at rust and repainting hasn’t been done for about forty years.
If the left keeps calling everyone who disagrees with their multiculturalism “white nationalists”, they will soon make us all white nationalists.
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