Excerpted from The Southern Tradition at Bay by Richard Weaver
Nothing appalled the white people of the South more than the prospect of four million emancipated blacks endowed with the privileges and powers of freemen in a republic. Happy experience with plantation slaves in wartime had convinced most of them that the fear of a general insurrection was groundless, but this was at best a negative comfort. The true problem lay in what the Negro, who had been through none of the white man’s long discipline in self-restraint, would do with political authority. It mattered little to say that the Negro was kind and docile by nature, that he seldom cherished hatred against his “old marster.” The urgent question was whether or not the Negroes as a group had a moral aspiration which could be united with, or substituted for, that with which the white people had maintained a civilization. For civilization is nothing more than a set of moral ambitions carried out by organization and self-discipline. The Northern theory was that the Negro was another “naturally good” man, whose aspiring impulses had been thwarted by the chains of slavery. But the Southern people had before them the lessons of Haiti and Jamaica, where the Negro—under somewhat differing conditions, obviously—had shown that his tendency, when he was released from all constraining forces, was downward rather than upward.
Now, with the old breed of statesmen gone, with the gentry fallen in battle, and with little sympathetic assistance to be expected from the victorious section, the South felt itself confronted with an impossible situation. Innumerable were the speeches, pamphlets, and articles prepared to impress upon the North the necessity of proceeding cautiously in the matter of extending full rights and privileges to the Negro. A feature of this writing was the continued clash over whether the degraded condition of the blacks was owing to enslavement or to racial inheritance. Virtually without an exception, Southerners maintained that the Negro was a primitive whom slavery had assisted forward by enforcing habits of discipline and industry. This naturally outraged Northern opinion, which began with the assumption that the Negro was an equal, and which wished to pin on the Southern slaveholder the guilt for his unlettered, shiftless, and backward condition. The Northern public has generally displayed a strange credulity with respect to stories of abuses emanating from the South, and when these are multiplied tenfold, as they were in Reconstruction days, it is little wonder that many Northerners of good will, whom a visit to the South would have undeceived, went on believing that slaveholders had subjected their Negroes to deliberate and systematic brutalizing. Somewhere between two opinions distorted by passion lay a truth: on the one hand, Southerners had done less than they might have toward civilizing the blacks; and on the other hand, Northerners, accepting the dogma that the Negro had the white man’s nature and capacities, had conceived an imperfect notion of the problem. “The hopes and expectations of the emancipationists,” The Land We Love asserted mildly, “are not in unison with the judgment and predictions of those who have a right to know, and better understand the negro character.”
Meanwhile the problem was there, and more than any other journal of the time De Bow’s Review took cognizance of the fact that the South’s future depended closely upon how the Negro conducted himself under the new incentives. A study of its pages is a good lesson in Southern opinion on the whole race question, which was discussed more or less on its merits. It might be said that among Southerners there were no progressives and no conservatives; there were only those who hoped for much and those who hoped for little; but it would be inaccurate to imagine that a feeling of vindictiveness conditioned the general attitude toward the Negro. That the presence of the African had been the chief source of Southern misfortunes was a common admission; yet his very childlikeness, his extraordinary exhibitions of loyalty, and his pathetic attempts to find his place in the complicated white man’s civilization rather had the effect of endearing him to his former owners. The prevailing feeling was one of benevolence; but the white man could not forget that the Negro had always been dependent on him for instruction and care, and that he could not become a new man in a day, even if the most sanguine prophecies of the Yankees should be realized.
There were varied surmises regarding his behavior in freedom. A writer in De Bow’s Review in the first issue after the war gave a frankly pessimistic forecast.
We avow openly that we feel the deepest commiseration for the enfranchised slaves of the South; and we earnestly hope that everything practicable will be done to alleviate their condition and advance their interests. But we confess we are not sanguine as to their capability of advancement. The black race is proverbially indolent and improvident, and we cannot shut our eyes to the facts of history.
He proceeded further to add, “Accounts from all parts of the South represent the freedmen as idle and indisposed to labor persistently.” He could not, therefore, overcome his “melancholy foreboding as to the capabilities of this class in a state of freedom.”
Two years later a writer on “Negro Agrarianism” was developing the same thought. “We shall soon have in the South,” he said,
not negro rule (for they cannot rule anything—not even their own household), but negro anarchy and agrarianism.
We do not see how this state of things can be prevented by peaceable means, and we have had far too much war. We must submit to negro misrule, cruelty and proscription until the Democratic party of the North gets into power.
The Southern Bivouac found in the Negro “an absence of self-respect, an unconscious servility,” which left him incapable of a white man’s moral perceptions. But it added, “The charge is not to be laid at his door, for the negro is still a slave by inheritance, and the tendencies of many generations cannot be counteracted in one.”
“The Abolitionists have been telling us for half a century,” said The Land We Love,
of the degradation and bestiality of the negro through the baneful influence of the oppression of slavery. But no sooner had slavery been abolished than these same philanthropists contend that the degraded bestialized subject of it is fit to serve upon juries, to exercise the elective franchise, to take his seat in the State or National Legislature, and to discharge all the high and responsible duties of manhood. Now there is an inconsistency somewhere.
Discussions of the Negro frequently took the form of excursions into anthropology and sociology, a fair example of which is the pamphlet The Public School in its Relation to the Negro. This work, which is a complete examination of the Negro’s role in society, was issued in Richmond after being serialized in the Southern Farmer and Planter. Writing to prove that the Negro was doomed by his nature to a subordinate position, the author gave as the first reason his “extreme docility, a most desirable quality in a menial: a most dangerous, a fatal one in a sovereign.” The second was his “improvidence,” and the third the fact that the Negro is “eminently a sweating animal.” This qualifies him for outdoor work in low latitudes, but renders him objectionable “in the cars, in the jury box, in the halls of legislation, in the crowds that assemble on the court green.” By his actions the Negro, “true to nature and true to truth, stoutly denies the heresy of equality.” These assertions and many like them were offered in opposition to equal education for Negroes.
This represents, of course, the adverse extreme; a more balanced study of the Negro’s character, coming at the end of the Reconstruction era, was Philip A. Bruce’s The Plantation Negro as a Freedman. Yet Bruce, though more rational in his approach to the topic and more charitable in allowing the Negro a special set of virtues, leaves him exactly where the others do, in the position of servant and menial. “To bring him to the greatest usefulness,” the author declared, “it is necessary that he should be required to conform to certain fixed standards of conduct to which he will not rise of his own voluntary motion, or if he should do so, he will not adhere to them long.” He observed in the Negro an “inability to be watchful, prudent, and self-controlled for any length of time without alteration,” a trait which he “seems to be incapable of either eradicating or repressing.” And although under constant supervision the Negro might attain a fairly high standard of neatness and efficiency, “he does not always show in the character of his own cabin that he has taken to heart the spirit of those admonitions to which he may listen attentively at the moment.”
It was generally granted that the Negro was “a lineal descendant of Adam,” and not a few saw in him potentiality for development, but none conceded him a future in politics. It was often pointed out that political activity was the one arena in which his lack of a civilized tradition would tell most heavily against him. Thus in 1868 Senator James B. Campbell, of South Carolina, issued a pamphlet which warned that carpetbagger rule could not last and expressed the view that “…he is the best friend of the colored man…who entices him least into the field of politics, than which there is nothing more corrupting to persons like him, just emerging from a condition of pupilage.” Over thirty years later the same thesis was being maintained by Frank G. Ruffin in “The Cost and Outcome of Negro Education in Virginia.” A survey led him to the assertion that “an experience of nineteen years has shown all observant Virginians that so far from having been fitted by education for the discharge of civil or social duties, that [sic] they have absolutely deteriorated, and have given no promise of amendment in any direction.” Their condition marked a lapse from “a high degree of efficiency as agricultural laborers, in slavery, to a state of utter worthlessness in freedom.” The Negroes were “political idiots,” and the North by trying to put them into political authority had “sinned against all knowledge.”
On the topic of the Negro’s natural endowment one finds the beginning of a division of opinion; for though some held that he could never compete with the white man in the arts and sciences, others believed that he had the potential ability to succeed in all of them save that of political management. It is a further commentary on the traditional Southern view of the arts that no embarrassment was felt over conceding the Negro even superiority in music, poetry, and oratory so long as politics remained the white man’s preserve. The Southern Bivouac declared that it would not be surprised to see Negroes “in another generation” producing artists, poets, and orators surpassing those of the white race. But it regarded talent for self-government as the peculiar gift of the Aryan. The Negro betrayed his unfitness for rule through “absolute, unqualified veneration for power in its every form and symbol.” He could understand only external control. “Nature formed him for obedience, and even when he is riotous and apparently insubordinate it is most generally his expression of contempt for what he deems weakness, and indirect tribute to that which he esteems the real representative of superior controlling force.”
More than one writer took the view that it was impossible for the two races to dwell together unless the blacks remained in a condition approximating slavery, and sometimes traditional religion was invoked to sanction such an arrangement. Thus The Land We Love could say of the Negro that “From his history we infer that God has given him a tendency to thrive and multiply in a condition of servitude,” and that therefore “the servile condition of the negroes in the South was not contrary to the will of God.” If they lived free of white supervision and control, they would assert their natural bent, revert to a primitive status, and so create a county in which no white man would care to remain. De Bow’s Review suggested that within the foreseeable future the Negro would drive the white man from his domain and so achieve an all-Negro South. This was accompanied by the realistic observation that no inferior race is ever practically and actually free when in contact with a superior, for the latter is certain to find means of exploiting the labor of the former. China, Japan, and Liberia had met this problem simply by excluding white competition. If the Negro had shown any capacity for management, it was said, there would long since have been in the South a Negro feudal tenantry, which would have displaced the white overseer. “But not a single negro in the whole South was ever found capable of managing a farm.”
A reading of these speeches, editorials, and pamphlets indicates that the Southern people of the postbellum era, frightened and confused, were seeking a rational ground for their feeling. They failed to discover a consistent argument for racial discrimination, but the salient fact emerging from every discussion was that they had no more intention of crediting the Negro with equality than had the generation of the 1830′s. Even a courageous reformer like George W. Cable, who battled for the Negro’s civic rights, drew the line at social equality. By the standard of humanity which the South visualized—and this must be understood in terms of its heritage—the Negro was an inferior. God had willed it; experience proved it; and except in trifling particulars the great majority felt no impulse to redress the balance.
One of the best summaries of the prevailing opinion is to be found in a speech delivered in Congress in 1874 by Senator Thomas M. Norwood, of Georgia, and later circulated as a pamphlet. Twitting the sponsors of the Fourteenth Amendment, he said that he looked forward to the time
when the white man and the black, the mulatto and the quadroon, the coolie and the Digger Indian, shall be gathered together, a united family, in one unbroken circle, around one common soup bowl and using the same spoon, while shielded by the Stars and Stripes and regaled by the martial measure and inspiring strain of—John Brown’s soul is marching on.
All differences and distinctions are now recognized as mistakes, he continued, and thus we must vote them out of existence, although not without a show of “decent respect for the opinion of the author of these errors.” Despite the fact that “the flowers of the field might vary in splendor; the lion might be made monarch of the beasts; one star might differ from another in glory, but absolute equality, moral, mental, physical, political, social, in churches, theatres, graveyards, everywhere in the world and out of it, must be ordained among men, women, and children.”
It has been argued that although Americans are by temperament empiricists, in their political thinking they have been rationalists, preferring to deduce truths from axioms and first principles. There is perhaps no better illustration of this conflict of procedures than the handling of the vexed race problem. Northerners, remote from the scene of strife and bearing little if any of the responsibility involved, found the rational approach easy; from the Declaration of Independence and other canons of American liberty they could draw conclusions which Southerners found irrefutable. But the South, finding that the concrete situation made a mockery of the abstract statement, as is often the case, regarded itself forced to the empirical approach and continued to treat the Negro as a special case. Then the unwillingness of the Americans to compromise an issue, frequently remarked by Europeans, led each side to reduce its views to a more or less rigid credo, in which form they stand today. The inability of Southerners to arrive at first principles which would support this position explains much awkward silence in the years that followed.
The Southern apologia was a minority protest delivered over a period of thirty years. If one judges by practical results, it was almost wholly vain. The legal case was at best a hollow victory. The attack upon secular democracy was so much wasted breath, later to be answered by the more terrible radicalisms emerging from Europe. The particularism of peoples, though it may have heightened the self-consciousness of Southerners and made them suspect when abroad, was soon in futile competition with an enthusiastic internationalism. Only the poorly clarified theory of white supremacy was destined to have immediate efficacy. Near the end of the century it came to overt expression in a widespread campaign to deprive the black man of the franchise, which was done by means sometimes more effective than honest.
“The Southern people had before them the lessons of Haiti and Jamaica …” The 1911 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica under the entry for Haiti notes that the beginning of 1804 “saw the declaration of independence and the restoration of the aboriginal name of Haiti. Dessalines, made governor for life, inaugurated his rule with a bloodthirsty massacre of all the whites.” Historically, have whites and non-whites lived together in harmony?
Should whites in the USA form a White American Survivalist Party (WASP) that advocates several positions:
1. white survival but with Christian chivalry toward non-whites
2. racial realism that draws attention to non-white crimes against whites
3. civil disobedience that helps whites from all over the world enter the USA, irrespective of USA immigration laws
4. assistance for whites attacked by non-whites, both domestically and in foreign countries such as South Africa
5, abolition of public schools in the USA ?
Some very interesting points in this article. However, the views expressed in this article seems to contradict many if not all of the teachings in the Bible. The first and most significant is that God created men in his image. The Bible doesn’t not make any distinction between any groups of men he created. There is nothing in the book that would suggest that some men were created in his image while others were not. The Bible suggest that we all originated from one man that He created. To suggest otherwise would imply that God made mistakes when creating certain people because some men are superior to others. Further there never is any mention of people of Eurpean decent being the Global leaders in an increasingly westernized world. There are, however, words that suggest that evil men will rule the world, and that one day the first shall be last and the last shall be first. This could be interpreted as the white power structure being the very catalyst for the evil that will cause Jesus to come back and destroy the earth. The only time the Bible makes a distinction between people is when God refers to the Jews as His chosen people, the rest of us are considered Gentiles. The Jews that the Bible refer to originated in the Middle Eastern region, not Europe. So because of how we treat those from that region presently, one can only assume that God’s chosen people fall under the category of “non-white”. There are many more contradictions to even Jesus’s teaching, of which I probably don’t have room to note. However, my point is it is probably dangerous to present these theories as God’s truth, when Jesus taught the exact opposite of the claims in this article.
Whoa Myron! Really? I’m not sure if you even remotely read this article. You state that the views of Richard Weaver in this article contradict many if not ALL of the views of the Bible. I don’t think it is even possible to contradict all of the views in the Bible at once in a single article. Such superlatives show that you really don’t take Weaver or kinists even remotely seriously. You state that all humans are created in the image of God. Fine, please indicate where Weaver denies this even once. Perhaps you missed the part where Weaver states that in the old South “It was generally granted that the Negro was ‘a lineal descendant of Adam.’”
I also don’t understand how superiority of aptitude in one race implies that God somehow made a mistake. I’m sure you would concede that certain individuals are smarter, more attractive, and better behaved than others. Did God somehow make a mistake because we all aren’t as smart as Sir Isaac Newton? Of course not, but we are supposed to believe that noticing racial trends of these issues means that we believe that God made a mistake by making certain races that have higher aptitudes than others. Obviously there are hierarchies in the animal kingdom which imply superior/inferior relationships. We simply believe that God has an acceptable reason for acting the way that He does.
Next you state, “Further there never is any mention of people of Eurpean decent being the Global leaders in an increasingly westernized world.” Where does Weaver say this? Were do kinists say this? If you’ve even remotely researched what we believe you will find that kinists believe in a principle called kin rule derived from Deuteronomy 17:15. Kinists certainly do not recognize the legitimacy of global leaders regardless of their race, but rather that political legitimacy is derived from common ethnic heritage. I also appreciate how you immediately backtrack from “The Bible doesn’t not (?) make any distinction between any groups of men he created,” to “the Bible makes a distinction between people when God refers to the Jews as His chosen people, the rest of us are considered Gentiles.” Ok I see now. So there are no Biblical distinctions when it comes to whites defending our own identity, along with our political and civil traditions; but there is a Biblical distinction between the Jews and us lowly gentiles. Jewish identity is good and Biblical; White identity is racist and antichristian. Do you seriously believe this?
Next you discuss your belief that because the historic homeland of the Israelites is in the current Middle East, they must be non-white. Where did you read about this in The Theory of Race? The racial identity of the historic Israelites is unimportant when considering the right of white people to maintain our own identities. By this I mean that even if I readily concede your point about the ethnic identity of the Israelites, and I do not, this does not mean that whites have no right to a unique identity, unique customs, and unique homelands. Incidentally even secular anthropologists acknowledge that the advent of Islam has brought about a significant change in the genetic makeup of the people we consider “middle eastern” today due to it’s amalgamationist orientation.
I’m sure that my fellow kinists won’t mind if you try to submit the “many contradictions to even Jesus’s teaching” that you suppose we teach along with Mr. Weaver. Just be sure that you back up these assertions with copious scripture quotations and respond to our questions for you. Also it would be a great idea to peruse other position papers on this very website and kinism.org along with some of the recent blog posts in the archive before making more unsubstantiated accusations. Understand what kinists actually believe and teach before you work yourself up into a tantrum about “racism.”
That’s a very good response to a silly comment, SF. I’m in a melancholy mood at the moment and have no patience for red herrings, so I’m glad you did it.
Myron’s comment reminds me of my favorite line from Weaver’s piece:
“All differences and distinctions are now recognized as mistakes, he continued, and thus we must vote them out of existence, although not without a show of ‘decent respect for the opinion of the author of these errors.’”
This is a perfect snapshot of the absurdity of most Christians today.
Differences and distinctions are what make life fascinating. The equality of uniformity is a nonexistant. Even in hell there are degrees of damnation.
For the melancholy mood, I recommend the kind of songs that only the Gael can sing.
Niamnh Parsons. Clohinne Winds. Unforgettable photos of the wild sea delved cliffs of the West Country.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEzMVV2-15c
Some very interesting points in this article. However, the views expressed in this article seems to contradict many if not all of the teachings in the Bible. The first and most significant is that God created men in his image. The Bible doesn’t not make any distinction between any groups of men he created. There is nothing in the book that would suggest that some men were created in his image while others were not. The Bible suggest that we all originated from one man that He created. To suggest otherwise would imply that God made mistakes when creating certain people because some men are superior to others. Further there never is any mention of people of Eurpean decent being the Global leaders in an increasingly westernized world. There are, however, words that suggest that evil men will rule the world, and that one day the first shall be last and the last shall be first. This could be interpreted as the white power structure being the very catalyst for the evil that will cause Jesus to come back and destroy the earth. The only time the Bible makes a distinction between people is when God refers to the Jews as His chosen people, the rest of us are considered Gentiles. The Jews that the Bible refer to originated in the Middle Eastern region, not Europe. So because of how we treat those from that region presently, one can only assume that God’s chosen people fall under the category of “non-white”. There are many more contradictions to even Jesus’s teaching, of which I probably don’t have room to note. However, my point is it is probably dangerous to present these theories as God’s truth, when Jesus taught the exact opposite of the claims in this article.
+1
Is there an echo?
Really, the Word makes no distinctions among men? Have you ever read Ephesians 5-6 where the categories of husband to wife, parent to child, and master to slave are discussed, with different obligations for each?
Just because humankind is created in God’s image, and just because the gift of salvation is offered freely to all, does not mean that there are not differing duties, talents, capacities, etc. Even the Apostle Paul denounced ALL Cretans as liars, animals, and gluttons, but he loved them enough to send missionaries to their island. The inferiority of the Cretan did not mean that God had made a mistake in creating them.
I don’t know what you mean about whites “being the Global leaders in an increasingly westernized world.” This was unarguably the case once, and now Asians are assuming the role. Why would you expect the Bible to tell you whether this is true or not? The Bible doesn’t waste time reciting the obvious.
There are obviously many reasons for our fall as a race. Perhaps we mirror the Cretans in many respects.
If you think Jesus is going to come back and destroy the earth, your eschatology is in dire need of repair, but that seems to be the least of your problems.
If science meant anything to you, you would know that the ancient Hebrews were white, but again, this is one of the least of your problems.
You’re doing quite well in the area of self-esteem, though. I know that even if I were as ignorant as you, I would not presume to join a forum and accuse Richard Weaver and Kinists of being biblically illiterate. That takes more gonads than brains, but as I said above, we all differ in our talents.
Some very interesting items in Myron’s post. However, the views expressed in it seem to contradict many if not all the teachings in the Bible, not to mention his own post.
The Bible doesn’t make any distinction between any groups of men God created, except when it does. Which is practically all the time.
There is nothing in the Bible that would suggest that some men were created in His image while others were not. There is nothing in Kinism like this either, but I brought it up to prove how anyone who acknowledges and loves the white race is an idolater. See how smart I am?
The Bible suggest(s) that we all originated from one man that God created. To suggest otherwise would imply that God made mistakes. How, I’m not sure, but it does. Somehow. Agree with me, or you are an idolater.
Further there never is any mention of people of “Eurpean” decent (or do I mean INDECENT? lol) being the Global leaders in an increasingly westernized world. There is also no mention of Antarctica. Antarctica is white, and not suited to human habitation. Therefore all whites who do not hate themselves and Antarctica are idolaters. Understand, Nazi?
There are, however, words that suggest that evil men will rule the world, and that one day the first shall be last and the last shall be first. This could be interpreted as the white power structure being the very catalyst for the evil that will cause Jesus to come back and destroy the earth. Although there is nothing in the Bible to actually indicate any of what I just said, you are worse than Hitler if you disagree.
The only time the Bible makes a distinction (I know I said it didn’t but bear with me, you satanic Nazi) between people(s) is when God refers to the Jews as His chosen people, the rest of us are considered Gentiles. The Jews exist, see? But you don’t. Because you, white man, are an obstacle to Jesus. It’s in the Bible, a collection of books I have apparently never read. We must kill you in the name of our father, Trotsky.
The Jews that the Bible refer to originated in the Middle Eastern region, not Europe. So because of how we treat those from that region presently, one can only assume that God’s chosen people fall under the category of “non-white”. Nevermind how we treat those from that region when the Book was actually written. Or that there are whites in the middle east. Look, this is all confusing, and the point I am trying to make is whites are worse than Satan.
There are many more contradictions to even Jesus’s teaching, of which I probably don’t have room to note, mostly because they don’t exist.
For example, there was that one time a Syrophoencian woman approached Jesus and requested His time, which He was using for Jews (His own race). He rebuffed her until she acknowledged her inferior position, due to His mercy. How this proves there are no races, I don’t know. I know I said they do and don’t exist. STOP CONFUSING ME WITH WHITE POWER MIND RAYS FROM THE INTERNETS!
However, my point is it is probably dangerous to present these theories as God’s truth, when Jesus taught the exact opposite of the claims in this article. And by “this article”, I mean the post written by Myron Curtis.
Bravo Clever Anti-Wracist!
how does it feel to be completely deluded, i’ve always wondered
Mirick,
I have a feeling you already have a pretty good idea.
Dear Christian, White Racists,
I am White as well as a Christian, but in no way do I feel even remotely related to you (thank God).
Racism, and the perpetuation of racism, has left scars upon our nation, our institutions, and our reputations as American, White Christians. Whilst you hide behind your computer monitor’s confederate flag background and type hate speech into willing ears, I sit behind mine and shutter.
Racism has caused inequalities in education, economics, employment, marriage, housing, criminal justice, and almost every other aspect of your precious fallen confederacy. As you are reading this, I can only assume your face is turning red and you are preparing to retort my claims. But as you already know, I will not hear them objectively. Therefore, there is no need/purpose.
In conclusion, our country’s ailment is sick, ignorant, spoon-fed racists (i.e., you are simply a broken record of your parents’ hate speech)like yourselves. The only salve for said ailments is time. As your generation dies off, there is hope. Continue to age, complain, and argue. Your life has less time than mine.
Sincerely,
Scarborough Unfayre
That’s a pretty creative nickname you have their unfayre. I bet your kindergarten teacher is real proud of you.
“Racism, and the perpetuation of racism, has left scars upon our nation, our institutions, and our reputations as American, White Christians.”
Right, America is soooooo much better since the 1960s right?
“Racism has caused inequalities in education, economics, employment, marriage, housing, criminal justice, and almost every other aspect of your precious fallen confederacy.”
How? How can you prove that the attitudes of people cause these things rather than natural inequality? You can’t, which is why you appeal to the Marxist and abstract idea of “racism.”
“In conclusion, our country’s ailment is sick, ignorant, spoon-fed racists”
Our country is sick indeed, but oddly enough the main-stream media, Hollywood, and MTV agree with you on race. Huh…
” Continue to age, complain, and argue. Your life has less time than mine.”
I wouldn’t be so sure of that SU. Aren’t you late for fag practice?
Lol @ “white power structure”
What a perfectly apt name for our interloper. Another self proclaimed, fair skinned player of tiny violins blaming the world’s evils on white skin and complaining about how DNA is unfair. Not the fall and the resultant curse of original sin; it’s white folks that are hastening the return of angry Jesus!
Fellow Kinists, can we please have an eschatological truce outside of posts specifically relating to the subject? I think we are split 50/50 into a and post camps.
I also meant to say, at least he is paying *Whites* the respect they deserve and capitalizing the name of their race. Or maybe he is just being facetious.
Dear admin,
I notice that my previous post was removed. Nevertheless, I now repeat my serious request for information about a Christian viewpoint for the origin of the Negro. Believe me, I am agonizing over this. I won’t repeat my previous thoughts on the possibilities and why it is causing me a crisis in my Christian faith and creationist belief system. Feel free to pull this post as well, but please, do respond to my e-mail address with some informational links.
Sincerely,
Gavrick
Gavrick,
Could you be more specific as to what it is you are troubled by? If you or admin do not want to discuss this here, leave a comment on my latest post including your e-mail.
Caradoc,
Contact me at goblush@gmail.com
THanks!
Gavrick
Caradoc, Gavrick,
I too am somewhat perplexed by this issue. The traditional view is that Ham fathered the black race and (possibly) the asians. However, more and more it seems difficult to make any real connection between the Genesis table of nations and the Negroid or Mongoloid races.
Historical linguistics seems to coincide with this. The three main language groupings: Indo-European, Semitic, and Hamitic have no relation to the languages of Africa or East Asia.
These are puzzling facts.
However, if secular science is to be believed, all contemporary races have their source in one woman, so-called mitochondrial Eve. It seems our knowledge of history in this department is seriously lacking. The races have clearly existed from very ancient times — the question is, can we understand the post-flood narrative to account for their existence? Which of Noah’s descendants were the progenitors of such divergent stock? And why are there languages so different?
Have you fellas ever considered that maybe the flood wasn’t worldwide? If so, what are the pros and cons? Also what about the fact that we have found early humans and even White men that pre-date the standard six or seven thousand year time frame laid out in the Bible?
The dating methods are based on many evolutionary presuppositions, and a uniformitarian paradigm which rules out catastrophic processes to begin with. There are sedimentary rock layers laid down on the highest mountains in the world (this does not mean they were as high at the time of a flood as they are now). Mount St. Helens provided a microcosmic example of how quickly the Grand Canyon could have formed in the soft pre-rock strata after a flood; there is a huge body of evidence that the views held by orthodox Christians for centuries (young earth, worldwide flood) are not only possible given modern discoveries, but very likely as well.
If I remember correctly the time frame of the flood is around two thousand years after Adam. Is there not recorded evidence of Egyptian and Chinese cultures that existed right through that time period? What I am saying is do you think that it may be possible that the flood was a localized event and the word translated as “the earth” should have been translated as “the land”?
Yes, I think this theory is certainly possible.
Given the Scriptural use of universal language in Daniel, I wouldn’t consider it beyond the pale to entertain the possibility of a less-than-global flood. We’re told that several empires ruled “the whole earth”, but it is obvious in that context that we cannot interpret the phrase in an unequivocal geographical sense.
I happen to believe in a local flood because of the reasons mentioned here. In addition to this I also believe that it is significant that the narrative in Genesis seems to limit itself to the lineage of Seth (Gen. 5) and states that there was at least one group of people who survived the Flood (Gen. 6:4, Num. 13:33). It seems to me that the most natural reading of the Flood account leads me to believe that it is limited to the Meditteranean world and that Noah is the ancestor to Caucasians. Try as we might, it is essentially impossible to fit other races into the Table of Nations in Gen. 10.
The megalithic architecture is found all over the globe.
These structures could not be duplicated today by any technology that we possess.
They built with granite – that’s about 7 or 8 on the moh scale. They used the same technique all over the world – megalithic stones cut (?) with in irregular forms that locked together (as in earthquake proof) and fitted together so precisely that not even a razor could pass between.
Some of the Nephilim survived the Flood. How one can only speculate – and there are many clues as to this. But however they survived, tribes of the giant race coccupied Canaan when Joshua led the Israelite invasion into those lands.
And the giant, cone headed skulls of the Nephilim have been unearthed. I saw one in 1971 in a museum in Crete. Photos of them (together with the names of the museums where they are displayed) can easily be found on the internet.
There is massive evidence (suppressed before the internet) that confirms the Biblical record.
I think all modern races descend from Noah. And some ethnicities bear a heavier burden of departure from the patriarchs Shem, Japeth and Ham than others because of Divine chastisement – the descendents of Canaan, the followers of Nimrod, the descendents of Esau for example.
In Christ, the nations that become disciples can be regenerated as nations.
The imago Dei is restored within the genotype.
The descendents of Shem – the European race has communed in the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ for about 2 millenia. Prior to the whole sale apostasy of the European peoples from the Saviour, this race had attained a high degree of regeneration. Now, these peoples are becoming degenerate in morals, mind, customs and appearance.
Other nations that become disciples may come into the same regeneration that elevated us. But now, it looks like all nations reject Christ the King – so it follows that they will all degenerate along their own lines.
Check out this short essay “Reflections on Race and Spirit” by Arthur Henderson:
http://www.archive.org/details/ReflectionsOnRaceAndSpirit
“Reflections on Race and Spirit” explains the failures of scientific racialism and attempts to present an alternative view of race taking into consideration its spiritual factors (largely inspired by Rosenberg, Evola, and Yockey).
Henderson…
I’m very excited to hear about this article as I’ve been moving in a very similar direction (in thinking about race.)
I’ve found various attempts at defining “race” (by pagan WNists) to lack consistency and have rejected them as explanatory mechanisms.
What do you make of Henderson’s article? (You’re not the author, are you?)
Well, after Googling it, I certainly hope you’re not the author. If you are, the admin at S/W/B needs to call a priest or something.
Shotgun, if that’s the case, then I think people on this site really need to listen to this:
http://www.counter-currents.com/2012/01/interview-with-kevin-macdonald-2/
Henderson,
I assume you were directing our attention to the implication (by MacDonald) that Plato’s spiritually-based anthropology is being validated by cutting-edge psychology (represented by MacDonald’s work)?
Well, I don’t want to offend MacDonald’s fans (or fans of Counter-Currents). I follow both as well.
But…
I think the reason white nationalist movements are in the state they’re in today, is because people like MacDonald are the heroes.
I find his evolutionary world-view repulsive and counter-productive. I’m certainly not a fan of his historical commentary (as it regards the church and especially, the Puritans.) He expounds on his views (concerning the Puritans) in the introduction to Sunic’s “Homo Americanus” and shows what amounts, in my opinion, to naivete.
I hope non-Christian white-nationalists will take MacDonald’s interview seriously and begin pondering the spiritual nature of man but I’m afraid they’ll do like MacDonald and hold-fast to evolutionary-materialism and see their pseudo-agreement with Plato as simply a historical novelty — “oh, Plato anticipated our position? How cute!”
I agree, Shotgun. While some of their kind tolerate Christianity for pragmatic reasons, Sunic is a vocal hater.
I don’t give a fig for white nationalism devoid of our Creator and Redeemer. I can’t imagine a bigger waste of time.
admin wrote:
“I don’t give a fig for white nationalism devoid of our Creator and Redeemer. I can’t imagine a bigger waste of time.”
I had a similar thought this morning.
The thought of a White Christian state is indescribably beautiful to me. I think about it a lot.
“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
Philippians 4:8
Something else I thought about, yesterday I think; the decline of Christian values here in America has coincided with the anti-White agenda (and the homosexual agenda, and the feminist agenda, etc.)
Anyway, I pray God blesses you and your readers. Take care.
Shotgun,
I agree with you that MacDonald’s scientific materialism is repulsive. I did not give you the link to that interview because I thought anything of their materialism. Plato’s ideas are only valuable to me insofar as they are spiritual, not just scientific.
My purpose in linking the interview was because I agreed with MacDonald on the need for conservative racialist movements to stop appearing suspicious and backwards. We should promote belief in religion, but if we become so obsessed with a specific religious position to the point where it is oppressive, we turn away too large a number of decent people.
The Freudian philosophy has this primitivist element; it asserts that human civilization is something fundamentally UNNATURAL, a state that we were never “meant to be in”. Organized human societies, Freud taught, were and are based on the systematic denial, suppression or sublimation of our “natural” animalistic urges (both sexual and violent ones, Eros and Thanatos) that would ruin any culture if allowed to run wild and free.
This logically means that the more developed, refined and disciplined the culture becomes, the more neurotic, uptight hypocrisy it will produce, as it progressively alienates humans from their natural state. Psycho-analysis is meant to help over-civilized humans to cope with this condition.
Now then, right-wing evolutionary psychologist Kevin MacDonald has bashed Freudian theories and tried to make it look like as if his own discipline would have nothing to do with Freud’s Jewish charlatanism. But he “protesteth too much”: even though disagreeing on details, Freud and MacDonald agree on the fundamental proposition that men, no matter how seemingly civilized, are little more than dressed-up apes, subjected to the dark forces of their animalistic Id – or their stone-age genes.
“Evolutionary psychology” is a soft pseudo-science just as much as Freudian or Jungian psycho-analysis.
Evolution is the scientific incarnation of malthus. Darwin never quite put it all together until he read malthus. Evolution is based upon the philosophy of conflict and scarcity which is exactly what the enemy bases everything that they do upon. For example, every part of social engineering of the past century has creating conflict of some kind. Their private central banking systems are based upon scarcity. Thus you see why the embrace of evolutionary thinking is so deadly, it is the philosophy of the enemy. If the universe has certain aspects of evolutionary conflict and scarcity in it, it is because the universe is corrupted, not because conflict and scarcity is natural.
Henderson,
I’ve never met a white man yet willing to give up his convictions for the sake of unity — and those who claim to do so are being dishonest.
Also,
The more I read that original paper you linked us to, the more I like it, though I had mistakenly thought it was written by an Aurthur Henderson that has passed on. Seems clear now that it’s much more recent. I’m probably wrong again, but I think you are the author after all.
If so, I’d like to thank you for helping narrow the scope and focus of the discussion.
Joshua, Not to hijack the discussion, but can you further explain why you think scarcity, in particular, is not natural? (Of course I do not mean the artificial scarcity created by the banksters.) We are finite creatures, so scarcity of resources is always a factor to a greater or lesser degree. Remember “The poor you have with you always?” So is conflict, actually. I understand what you are saying about the enemy’s philosophy, but denying the existence of these things in the structure of the Creation is not the correct answer.
Henderson,
A few words about your article, sir:
I disliked it the same way a knife dislikes the sharpening-stone; your article does a great job in surveying the contemporary scene among white-nationalists regarding different theories of race and offers an interesting “spiritual” view though it is one that I have to ultimately reject.
I’ll make a few quick points:
1. I wish it was footnoted. In the footnotes, you could have expounded on minutiae and supported your arguments with citations to other material. I am happy that you’ve introduced me to Mircea Eliade for example, but I have no idea how you intend for his thought to supplement the point you were making when you alluded to him.
2. Many thinkers appeal to Plato’s forms to support their position, without taking into account the fatal flaw in Platonism: How to bring the forms into contact with the particulars?
Simply saying that it happens (or, in your case: simply claiming that people have this consciousness of the racial form) is to skirt the difficult issue all together…which is fine if you’re not serious, but if you base your entire racial paradigm on the relationship between a racial form and particular racial objects, then you have to provide an explanatory mechanism for how the two meet. (Plato says: The Demiurge does it!)
3. I’m not sure the tripartite distinction of race (into Race/Mind, Race/Body and Race/Soul) is acceptable to a Christian. The tripartite distinction of a human into “body / mind / soul” is controversial and by no means is there a consensus. Your article simply assumes it without giving any good reason. Yes, it’s part of your explanatory mechanism, but that’s not a reason to accept it prima-facie.
Also, the entire scheme seems arbitrary.
Supposing a person born deformed in Africa (to negro parents)has all the physical character-traits usually associated with Europeans, and furthermore, is shipped off to Europe and raised there all his life so that he shared the same culture and “volksgeist” of the Europeans. Under your scheme, it seems we would have to claim that he was a racial European.
Unless we appeal directly to an actual *person* (i.e. The Christian God) who directly separates and legitimizes racial categories, then we’ll never be able to establish the categories for ourselves here on Earth (from an autonomous standpoint.) Impersonal Nature, in the end, (no matter how spiritual it turns out to be) simply cannot (in any authoritative way) distinguish between the races and account for our racial experience as humans.
To conclude:
I love where the article is going but I think it needs fleshing out. I also like the idea of speaking about a “Volksgeist”. Thank you for posting it here.
Shotgun,
I should have clarified earlier that I am indeed the author of “Reflections on Race and Spirit.” I will address your numbered points with my own numbered points corresponding to yours now:
1. I thought about footnoting it, but I decided that it was too much of a short introduction to a type of racial thought rather than a complete work, so I decided to forget about footnotes. However, this is the point (that the article is only a short intro) you need to understand to understand why it takes the appearance it does and also why your following points have only partial validity. The authors referenced throughout the article (especially those at the start) are emphasized because I want the reader to utilize their ideas to form their own understanding of race. This includes Mircea Eliade, whose study of religion and denunciation of modern anti-religious (scientific materialist) thought is very helpful to my racialism even if Eliade did not concern himself with race. After all, can we say anything in the world really has meaning if it does not survive death? Therefore, since race (along with many other things in the world) has meaning to us we can assert it has a metaphysical origin. This origin lays in immortal metaphysical Archetypes, which Eliade explains was common to the belief of most archaic peoples. But the Archetypes are ultimately the creations of God.
2. I can see how someone could use Plato alone to justify a sort of “Race Platonism”, but that is not what I am doing. Notice how I did not assert that my idea is entirely equivalent to Plato’s ideas, but still related. My idea of the Race Archetype is actually more based off of the ancient ideas of spiritual Archetypes common to archaic religions, which is related to Plato’s concept (this is mentioned in Eliade’s book “The Myth of the Eternal Return”). However, my entire racial paradigm is not based only on the relationship between the Race Archetype and the Race Physique (the physical entity of the race). I will explain this later, but I will say for now that the connection between the Archetype and the Physique can be understood as the relation between the spiritual and the material. Yockey wrote, “Matter cannot be explained materialistically. Its whole significance derives from the soul.” You see, I believe that everything material which we see around us is the manifestation of the spiritual, it does not exist without spiritual forces and entities behind them (I mean everything not just race). These spiritual forces are in turn the creations of God Himself. So, in the same way the immortal soul of a man is connected to his mortal body, the immortal Archetype of a race is connected to the mortal Physique of the race.
3. The division into body, mind, and soul is the only valid division for a Christian or any other sort of religious man who rejects materialism. The existence of the body is self-evident, but the mind and the soul must be separated. You see, if the mind IS the soul, then there is no soul, because the mind is dependent upon the brain and nervous system, which means that it dies with the body. The soul on the other hand, is an immortal entity that survives death, unlike the body and mind. Of course, most religious humans (including myself) believe that the soul retains all or part of the memory/experience which the mind experiences during its life (which is limited to the duration of the body). That is, in a simplified form, the reason those of us who share the ancient ontology of most religions must make the distinction of body/mind/soul. Now, if race truly matters, it must also be seen as not only a physical thing, but also both a psychological as well as metaphysical entity. Can a Christian accept such thoughts? I don’t see why not, as Christian teachings at their essence leave room for further thought.
Now Shotgun, I will quote your last points in parts and respond to each individually.
Shotgun: “Also, the entire scheme seems arbitrary. Supposing a person born deformed in Africa (to negro parents)has all the physical character-traits usually associated with Europeans, and furthermore, is shipped off to Europe and raised there all his life so that he shared the same culture and “volksgeist” of the Europeans. Under your scheme, it seems we would have to claim that he was a racial European.”
My Answer: It is not arbitrary. Note the fact that I mentioned how Race of the Body is the starting point for identifying members of your own race. I did not say that physical race is only an image, I affirmed that it has some influence (although not total, but still some) on Race Spirit. Race of the Body is more than just appearance, it includes the tendencies and instincts of a race which are genetic in origin. These genetic tendencies and instincts greatly contribute to giving a race its character and style. Although, what I meant in my explanation in the essay is that people exaggerate the influence of genetics on such racial tendencies and instincts. I was not rejecting the biological view of race entirely.
Even with that alone we could reject an African who looks European and is raised as a European, as it is in your hypothetical situation. (By the way, I believe you meant to say both Race Spirit as well as Folk Spirit in your comment, they are not equivalent). First, this African cannot entirely have a European Folk Spirit or be of the European Race Spirit because blood has some influence, he can only take on some of its characteristics (but it is impossible for a total racial foreigner to join the Race Spirit of another race completely). In other words, I believe that a racial foreigner such as an African can only superficially take on the characteristics of another race because these characteristics are not inherent in his blood or in his soul. Secondly, this African would have children that would not appear European, and thus their foreignness would make them unacceptable to true Europeans.
Finally, you must remember the Race of the Soul, which is still very real even if it is not accessible to our physical senses and psychological evaluations. Yockey wrote: “For the animals, that which appears — matter — is Reality. The world of sensation is the world. But for primitive man, and a fortiori for Culture-man, the world separates out into Appearance and Reality. Everything visible and tangible is felt as a symbol of something higher and unseen.” Thus, Appearance has its roots in Reality (the Metaphysical realm), but it is not equivalent to Reality.
Shotgun: “Unless we appeal directly to an actual *person* (i.e. The Christian God) who directly separates and legitimizes racial categories, then we’ll never be able to establish the categories for ourselves here on Earth (from an autonomous standpoint.) Impersonal Nature, in the end, (no matter how spiritual it turns out to be) simply cannot (in any authoritative way) distinguish between the races and account for our racial experience as humans.”
My Answer: My article was written in such a way as to appeal to people of any religion, not just Christians. This is why I did not mention that Race, in all its facets (Physique, Spirit, Archetype), is the creation of God. I took it for granted that the reader, if Christian, would take the position that God created it, and if Pagan, that whatever god or gods he believes in, also created it. How do we distinguish between races? This is briefly addressed in the article where I mention that Race of the Body is the starting point of identification, from which it then follows that one must proceed to identify the Race of the Mind through psychological observation. This is actually explained in the works of Julius Evola, who I recommended at the beginning. Yes, I am fully aware of how crazy and repulsive Evola can be, but I cannot deny his influence on my racial thought.
Shotgun: “I love where the article is going but I think it needs fleshing out. I also like the idea of speaking about a “Volksgeist”. Thank you for posting it here.”
My Answer: Yes, the article is admittedly a bit underdeveloped and overly-condensed. It simply a short introduction that relies on the reader exploring further by taking it as a starting point and then using the works of Rosenberg, Yockey, and Evola to go further. When I first wrote the article, I was buried in work and had limited time but had an urge to get my ideas out to the public. There was too much of a lack of thought on the subject, as I mentioned at the beginning. However, I think someday, when I have more spare time, I will take up the task of writing a longer and more complete essay on race using the present article as an outline. For now, “Reflections on Race and Spirit” will have to suffice.
“The division into body, mind, and soul is the only valid division for a Christian or any other sort of religious man who rejects materialism.”
I disagree that one must insist upon this. One could just as easily view the mind as flesh, and therefore part of the body. At best, you could argue that the mind is at the point where body and soul converge, but I see no reason to insist that the mind is an entity separate from the body.
I also think Wendell Berry is very helpful on this score. He rejects the dualism of body and soul:
“They conclude that the formula for man-making is man = body + soul. But that conclusion cannot be derived, except by violence, from Genesis 2:7, which is not dualistic. The formula given in Genesis 2:7 is not man = body + soul; the formula there is soul = dust + breath…”
Thanks for that quote, Admin. That’s just one more reason to like Wendell Berry.
But, along with Berry, many respected Reformed theologians reject the “tripartite” division of man and point out its Greek influence, preferring instead a “holistic” view.
Cornelius Van Til, Herman Bavinck, the great B.B. Warfield, and J. Gresham Machen, all reject the tripartite view, as does their disciple Dr. Greg Bahnsen, who has a great analytical article on the mind/body problem in philosophy:
http://www.cmfnow.com/articles/pa143.htm
“What is matter? Never mind! What is mind? Never matter!” ~ Warfield.
I remain unconvinced of your program, Henderson, though, as I’ve said before, I sympathize with the direction you’re moving and think we need much more of it.
(I share your frustration with White-Nationalists and their discussions of race.)
As a Van Tillian, I remain committed to the position that “race” is ultimately a spiritual category (a category that draws all the particular physical features, like genetics, culture, linguistics and family-line, into a relevant relationship with each other.)
But, I’m also committed to the idea that God could take one-hundred white-marbles and divide them into 10 equal groups — where all else is equal but the division — and we’d have legitimate, non-arbitrary distinctions among the 100 marbles.
“Race” is how God thinks about people-groups (and subsequently, we humans are endowed with an affinity for the group we’ve been placed in). He makes the “actors” on the stage of history. He develops the context of man.
This sort of work should be done by theologians-in-training at the anthropology department in the local seminary — too bad they’re busy working for Satan.
I think that Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) in distinguishing Form as a ‘substance’ and the form of the object as a ‘universal’ (predicate), is speaking in the same veine as Arthur Henderson.
They found the Ark of the Covenant; Christ tomb, Crucifixion site and the Ark of the Covenant found buried under a trash pile at the foot of Skull Mountain.
http://vur.me/s/cxZ/