[Hrothgar]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Hrothgar,given that you use those categories, in order to communicate with you, I have to deploy them. 

That's not true.  You could reject the categories entirely and communicate with me using your own paradigmic language and expressions.  The reason you can't is because we are still within a racial paradigm and there is a reason for this: race is real.

Young Master Smeet wrote:

While you or I can and will differentiate between lemons and limes, in many countries that distinction isn't recognised, they could still use those words to us, in order to communicate.

Which countries?  Give me examples, please.  I have no doubt there is some truth in what you say, but let's have some specifics.

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Population genetics is very like those colour charts you get on computer programmes for choosing the font colour, at one end there may well be red, and at the other blue. There are no boundaries at any stage, and selecting any section will include a variety of components (which will merge at the edges with any neighbouring sets within arbitrarily drawn boundaries).  There is no essential difference at any point on the scale, merely greater or lesser concentrations of particular traits.

We've discussed this already.  I accept that there is race-mixing at the margins and to that extent, there are therefore 'greys', but even the 'greys' are defined by racial type, which reflects the lingering consequential importance of race as a signifier.  In any case, the vast majority of people in Western societies mix within their own racial group – and I consider that irrefutable.  It's supported by government data.

Young Master Smeet wrote:

I present, btw, the ancestor paradox as a major scientific refutation: there are more people alive than pairs of ancestors to produce them, within relatively recent history (about 20 or 30 generations) we all share common ancestors.

Even if true, that is not a refutation.

[Hrothgar]

gnome wrote:

alanjjohnstone wrote:

It matters not a whit to me whether you can scientifically prove race.

But that's the rub; (s)he can't; so far all we have been presented with are prejudiced assertions…

Yes I can, and I have.  You've just not being paying attention and you're ignorant of the relevant science in the area.  You think that race is just skin colour.  It isn't, and moreover, that is not the mainstream scientific position.The prejudiced assertions are emanating from your direction.

[Hrothgar]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

""You really are disgusting, aren't you, " If I am, it is because I am holding up a mirror showing you your own reflection. Very early in this thread I stopped being serious, not even half serious. It matters not a whit to me whether you can scientifically prove race. I care not a jot if someone is AB rhesus positive or lactose intolerant. Unlike yourself I have not led a homogeneous life. 

Then this comment speaks for itself.

[Hrothgar]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Hroðgar, Ic ne sægd þæt þær bið "cynnisc todal", Ic sægd se ongean, soþlice.  Ond, hwi sprichst þu Frencisc? Ic spreche hit to for þe…My comment in fact was pointed at the fact that there is no category boundary, and human populations bleed one into the other.

There is a category boundary and your own post implied it.  Apostrophising words may make you feel clever, but it doesn't change the fact that you have made reference to the categories and that your thinking is framed by them.  You are inherently adopting a comparison: in this case, between white and black people, or what you imagine those people to be.  Our exchange would be meaningless unless you were able to make such a comparison, and thus you have accepted the categorisation that you seek to deny.  The paradox you fall into here is resolved very simply.  You can just accept that there must be a reason for you having adopted the categorisation, albeit unintentionally, reluctantly or unwilling.  You may dispute the essentialism of the respective categories and argue for their relativity – i.e. your 'bleeding' point – but that imputes an acceptance of the category themselves, which again leaves you contradicting yourself.If it is your contention that the categorisation is false, then that is a different point and you need to produce real arguments to support that.  I doubt you will because that would actually require you to engage in some real thought and come up with some robust arguments for a change.  Instead, your tactic here is to parrot facile tautologies along the lines of "there is no category boundary", while feigning intellectual superiority.  Neither you nor your colleagues have been able to demonstrate the non-existence of race or provide support for your assertion that racial types are nothing more than skin colour.  Quite the opposite.  Hardly surprising, given there is no scientific basis in what you are saying.

[Hrothgar]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Further to an earlier link to Debs, here is another from 1910. http://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1910/immigration.htm "Let those desert us who will because we refuse to shut the international door in the faces of their own brethren; we will be none the weaker but all the stronger for their going, for they evidently have no clear conception of the international solidarity, are wholly lacking in the revolutionary spirit, and have no proper place in the Socialist movement while they entertain such aristocratic notions of their own assumed superiority."

Having read both this and the earlier link, Swift's A Modest Proposal came to mind.  Debs was, surely, the preeminent satirist of his time.

[Hrothgar]

ALB wrote:

If I'd have been you, instead of posting long cringe-worthy self-justifications, I'd have simply said touché and moved on.

I am sure you find them cringe-worthy.  It must be a refreshing change for your colleagues to see someone answer you back and that's bound to make you cringe with embarrassment.  But I prefer to give proper responses rather than rely on insults, and so speaking for myself, I feel no embarrassment whatever.

ALB wrote:

As to your self-proclaimed "general civility" I remind you of your derogatory remark laughing at people who you said were going to have "mixed race" grandchildren, without considering that there will be such people on this forum as well as people you don't want them or yourself to mix with.

I have already addressed this at length. I am unsurprised that we will not be discussing your own behaviour.  It seems that self-examination is only something for your 'nasty' opponents, not for 'nice' people like you.

ALB wrote:

As to your argument, it seems to have boiled down, in the course of the exchanges here, to the claim that humans have a "tribal instinct" and are able to recognise others with a similar genetic make-up to theirs (what you call "race") but without reference to their skin colour.

What I have actually argued is that human beings have a tribal impulse or instinct that is evolved within the species.  The historical evidence for this is that human societies organise tribally according to propinquity and kinship, hence the evolution of different races which exhibit clear physical differences that are consistent within the groups and which, with distinctive cultural artefacts, allow individuals to recognise others of the same group or other similar groups as well as those of 'alien' groups.  My contention is that human beings will naturally organise according to kinship groups whatever the economic modalities, and I believe that even in socialism, group selection will persist among human beings.  To deny this inevitably leads to a slide into intolerance and social and political repression of the kind exhibited here in this thread.

ALB wrote:

Since humans are social animals they may well have something akin to your "tribal instinct" but it would be a general "instinct" to associate with fellow humans, in our complex modern society with different humans for different purposes; which is what happens.

No, what happens is that people generally tend to associate according to racial types.  The recent UK census results lend some support to this, but this observational fact is evident across human societies.  Obviously, I appreciate human societies are complex, but I am talking about social organisation at a very general level.

ALB wrote:

You have not shown that it can only take the form you want it to take.

That's because I have never made that argument.  This is just a straw man of yours.

ALB wrote:

In fact, the fact that you have to propagandise for your preference and try to create a "racial consciousness" shows that it is not "natural" as, if it was, it would manifest itself spontaneously. But it doesn't. And hasn't. Quite the opposite. There's been what you call "race mixing" for tens of thousands of years.

Consciousness can exist in different forms and at different levels of sophistication.  You know this well enough since one of the areas of debate among socialists and neo-Marxists is over what kind of consciousness might be sufficient for an authentic social revolution.  Do we need class consciousness?  Or is some kind of hazy trade union consciousness and mass support for a vanguard party enough?  People can be – and generally are – conscious of their own racial identity in some way, and will take lifestyle decisions accordingly – e.g. white flight – but they will not necessarily be conscious of themselves as members of a race with distinctive racial goals and interests. Nevertheless, there must be a level of consciousness or how do you explain the racial structure of most human societies today, including the UK?  Why do white people, on the whole, tend to live among mostly white people?  And the same for blacks and Asians.  Why do these divisions in society persist?  I think you would put it down to false consciousness, but racialism is an enemy of capitalism and the capitalists have had to mount a relentless campaign of propaganda against the whole notion of racial integrity as well as invent and promote the concept of 'racism'.  Why is this propaganda needed, and why is it still failing, if racial (i.e. tribal) consciousness is not something inherent in human nature?  Of course, I am willing to concede that none of this means that people, on the whole, are willing or able to manifest racial consciousness in a politically-efficacious way , but I see that as more of a political problem and attributable to the unprecedented campaign of propaganda I have mentioned and the social and peer pressures it brings, some of which are evident in this thread.  Why would someone want to display racial consciousness overtly and politically and challenge mixed-racial ideology if that means they have to be on the receiving end of insults, ridicule and loss of career or livelihood?  Clearly very few people will do so and this in itself becomes an evolutionary pressure, so that we see a decline in the self-confidence and genetic strength of the indigenous or host population in a society, which is the intention of the capitalist class.I do accept that there has been race-mixing among human beings for thousands of years, but for the most part the mixing has been at the margins.  Until relatively recently, most human societies maintained a strong racial basis, and the way that human beings generally organise themselves socially into discrete racial types suggests that Race is enduring as a form of tribalism, though its basis is now weakening under an oppressive ideological assault.  I would suggest that is a very bad thing because tribalism – and thus racialism – is an evolutionary process whereby a group seeks to adapt to its environment and protect its successful adaptations against other groups that are differently-adapted.  It's natural and difficult to override because it is in our nature to discriminate and we are drawn to protect and defend our kin.  Only repressive measures can defeat these impulses, and that is exactly what we see in our society now, and also on this thread in the way that you have mounted a verbal assault on myself, which is very typical.  The notion of human equality is unscientific and counter-factual, and so its adherents must rely on lies and bullying (and violence as well) in order to get their way.Part of what you imply is true in that modern racial definitions are socially-constructed and always have been, but that is not the end of the debate or a basis for dismissing racial concepts.  There is an interaction between social and evolutionary processes respectively, so that racial formation is based on environmental factors which catalyse an evolutionary adapative process.  The racial patterning that we see in the genome reflects the adaptive group selection going on over thousands of years.

[Hrothgar]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

"I don't have a therapist and I have never been in therapy. "  Yet, another failure of our wonderful education, health and social services. Another potential, possible Breivik missed by the system. "I have never had the need. " You may not yourself have felt the need but it is very obvious to others that you are in need.

So now you try and turn the 'therapy' joke into a semi-serious comment.  'Semi-serious' because it's really just another witless insult lathered with thinly-disguised, self-regarding, righteous pomposity.  You use the name of a mass murderer against me?  Who the hell do you think you are?  Breivik killed innocent teenagers.  I consider such actions evil and utterly incomprehensible.  You really are disgusting, aren't you, scraping the barrel with that and resorting to using the deaths of innocent children for your own amusement.  But I won't say anymore.  I'll let this hang in the air.  Oh, I'm sure someone will now go back through my posts a la Buick and draw out some remark I made in a decontextualised fashion so that I can be accused of 'hypocrisy'.  It won't work – you brought up Breivik from your own dark, twisted, empty, souless depths.  You're stuck with it.Let's leave it that you have no arguments to support your pseudo-scientific claims concerning race, which are in fact nothing more than the ravings of a crude ideology.  You have not thought about your position.  You just have this vague notion that everybody belongs to the human race and everyone is equal and therefore all forms of discrimination are wrong.  When you are confronted with facts that might intrude on this fantasy, you have to rely on insults and projections.

[Hrothgar]

ALB wrote:

Hrothgar wrote:

you instead try and turn the tables on me.

Rather successfully, I thought. You stand exposed as a sanctimonious hypocrite on this point. Better you stick to simple "racialism" instead of trying to be a feather plucker.

In what sense have I been exposed as a "sanctionious hypocrite"?  The following points, I think, pertain:-1. First, I used a well-known colloquialism, which I edited out of my post anyway before your response appeared.  Normally, to say to someone: "Don't go psycho" or something similar, is a familiar expression for urging someone to calm down and treat a situation more reasonably.  It doesn't imply that the other person has a mental illness or some kind of psychological problem over and above the emotional investment they have put into the matters under discussion.  Compare this with the behaviour of your colleague, which is clearly inappropriate in that he talks about 'therapy', implies I have mental or psychiatric issues simply due to my political views and seems to think he is being funny.2. Second, I was explicitly not being sanctimonious or condemnatory of your colleague.  Please go back and read what I actually posted.  I only made reference to his comments in the context of your debating methods and the way that you decontextualise and exploit every off-hand comment of your opponents in order to distract attention from the weakness of your arguments.  That's intellectually dishonest.  My post also expressed my genuine interest and fascination for the obvious double-standard that both you and he, and others like you, adopt in discussions like this in that you make fun of the vulnerable while pretending to defend them or in some way represent their interests.3. Third, so far as I can recall I don't think I have actually branded anyone here a "hypocrite" or anything similar.  I have certainly pointed to the hypocrisy of some of your views, a charge that I think is amply justified, but I have not deigned to insult you or anyone else personally.  I would consider that rude and indicative of a low-brow intellect, but you are free to adopt your own dialectic practices.  Admittedly, none of that is indicative or relevant as to the truth of whether I am a hypocrite, but it's worth noting that you are not repaying my general civility in kind, which implies you have no response to my arguments.4. Fourth, it could well be that I am a "sanctimonious hypocrite".  If I am, then that is nothing more than human, but that says nothing as to the appropriateness of your and your colleague's debating style and your general behaviour in this thread, something you have not commented on.  If you find it acceptable to insult your opponents and take false offence at every off-hand comment, then what does that say about you?  

[Hrothgar]

ALB wrote:

Hrothgar wrote:

you go psycho at even a moderate slight

Can that be a demeaning reference to people with psychological problems?

Also, isn't it interesting how you again seek to distract attention from the points I have taken the trouble to make.  Rather than looking at the matter even-handedly and perhaps admitting I have a point about your colleague's debating style, you instead try and turn the tables on me.What does that tell other people about you?

[Hrothgar]

ALB wrote:

Hrothgar wrote:

you go psycho at even a moderate slight

Can that be a demeaning reference to people with psychological problems?

No, because it's a well-known colloquialism.  And do I rely on such comments in making my arguments?  No.  Does the comment imply that the other person has a mental illness?  No.

[Hrothgar]

ALB wrote:

I suppose he thought he could suggest that somebody was a "common toad" without being challenged just as he was when he laughed at people who he said were going to have "mixed race" grandchildren. He was wrong.

Where did I say that someone is a 'common toad'?

[Hrothgar]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Hwæt! Hrothgar, hit þencest þu þæt se walesh ne bide landas Angelfolc?  Hit me þinceth þæt þæt bith unrihtnes.  Angelfolc bith walesh to se walesh.As a supposedly so-called "White person" I can categorically state that I do have black skin.  'sTrue.  If you are "White" then there's a strong chance you have too.  They are known in common parlance as freckles, but what they are are patches of melanin in the skin.  All it means is that "White" people simply have less melanin pigmentation than so-called "black" people.  Indeed, I'd propose a terminological re-definition. "Black" people should be known as "Melanin Rich" and "White" as "Melanin poor" (or melanin deficient, even?).  This does tell us something, that skin colour is just a question of degree, not quality.

We've already discussed how the race category is not simply a matter of skin colour, so your comment lacks relevancy.  However, I'd like to thank you for posting in support of my argument that there are racial differences.

[Hrothgar]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

When you were in  therapy didn't your counsellor explain to you that some of us untermenschen would not give you the respect your superiority deserves. 

I don't have a therapist and I have never been in therapy.  I have never had the need.However, two interesting points arises from your comment.First, you appear to find it acceptable to make fun of, or use as a means of ridicule, people with psychological problems or mental illness.  I normally wouldn't make anything of it.  I mention it here only because this type of thing is a stock-in-trade of yours. Due to the weakness of your position in this discussion, you and others have resorted to the tactic of assuming vicarious offence.  I encounter this frequently from people who feel very strongly about an issue but don't have any real arguments.  To an extent, it's understandable and we can all be guilty of it to some degree, but a certain type of person – normally with 'left-wing' views of the sanctimonious variety – has to rely on the tactic.  Calling someone a 'racist', 'Nazi', 'fascist', 'woman-hater', or whatever is felt appropriate, helps to distract attention from the substantive weaknesses in the position being argued.  It also helps if there are others with similar views who can post to the same thread to bully the truth-teller – using name-calling, threats, insults, lies, slander and distortion, or whatever will work – so as to prevent or stifle inconvenient discussion.Of course, people who engage in these tactics not only hold absolute faith in their own correctitude (a deluded and dangerous intellectual disposition), but also think themselves to be the righteous defenders of some vaguely humanistic ethos.  That's why it's fascinating to note how you and others here feel unhindered when ridiculing vulnerable people, be it those with special needs or those with mental or psychiatric problems.  This behaviour is at odds with your claim to believe in nice things.  It doesn't bother me, but I would offer the observation that this kind of double standard does typify people like you.  I encounter this frequently when discussing or debating any 'sensitive' topic with the self-righteous.  You are quick to assume offence on behalf of others and you become very angry in the face of even a moderate slight, but at the same time you think it is OK to insult opponents in various nasty ways.Is it because you have modish views and think that makes you exempt from showing good manners?  Whatever the reason, let's be clear – This is the real you.  These are your true colours.What's hilarious about it is that you are completely blind to the double-standard.The second interesting point that comes out of this is how frequently people like you use psychiatric allusions when referring to others who hold different views.  You seem to think that my views warrant a course of therapy.  I think you betray a great deal there and I find it quite sinister.Is this how a socialist society will work?  Will your opponents be confined to psychiatric hospitals?  I know it's become something of a cliché to make reference to the psychiatric detention of dissidents in the former USSR, but it's interesting how that 'solution' keeps being mentioned in all sorts of places and it's not difficult to see how well-intentioned but misguided people in the medical profession were persuaded to become involved in such outrageous political abuses.  The twisted Brezhnev dogma of 'philosophical intoxication' is not a great leap from your belief that political dissent is a condition requiring 'therapy'.May I ask what type of therapy you have in  mind?

[Hrothgar]

ALB wrote:

Hrothgar wrote:

In fact, to call this 'reasoning' is an insult to the common toad.

If the cap fits …

Golly, how clever of you to decontextualise a statement of mine, and then cut and paste and re-post it to distort its meaning and make it appear the opposite of the original statement.  And how typical too. You know, if you have to resort to insults and distortions, that's the most graceless way of admitting you have lost the argument.

[Hrothgar]

ALB wrote:

 Sorry you didn't find it useful to identity who your grandchildren should and should not be allowed to play with and later choose as sexual partners. The good news is that they will probably make up their own minds, as they should. The last laugh will be on you.

So the 'test' does carry an inherent biasing?  Thanks for confirming that.But why aren't you insulting me?  I'm disappointed and might ask for my money back if you don't post some childish insult.  I must say that given the lazy and dishonest standard of argument that abounds on here, the standard of trolling isn't what it should be. 

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