Hrothgar
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alanjjohnstone wrote:ALB – I remembered that the word ‘Sassenach’, normally an abusive Scottish term for the English, is derived from the Gaelic word ‘Sasunnach’ for Saxon, was originally applied by the Highlanders to all non-Gaelic speakers, be they Lowland Scots or English who were, in the eyes of the Highlanders, indistinguishable and both equally foreign.
This would seem to lend support to my view that human beings have tribal impulses.I do understand the point you are trying to make, which is that there is a historical progression towards diminishing diversity and a post-racial society. Maybe the tribal impulses can be selected-out of the population, so that in time humanity merges into a mixed-racial mass without any indigenous identities. But I don't want that, and in the end this is about the choices we make. Just as I accept we can choose socialism provided a sufficient number are class conscious, we can also choose a future of racial and cultural diversity, provided a sufficient number are race-conscious.I don't want to lose the connection to the past, because it is important to who I am now and the future. I think that racially-homogenous societies that have a strong attachment to culture and kin lines have greater solidarity and are more co-operative and caring, whereas societies that disregard and disparage heritage, family and kinship tend to be highly-competitive, meritocratic, unpleasant and inevitably break-apart. You hold to an entirely materialistic perspective. You see racial preservation as idealistic and irrelevant. So we have different perspectives. In my eyes, you are overlooking a crucial attribute that makes us human.
Alex Woodrow wrote:When will workers rise up and realise they have no nationality and they are part of one world.I agree that we are all part of one world and I agree that workers should realise this, and the world would be a better place if they did. Where we disagree is that I do not consider it necessary for workers to disregard their indigenous identities in the process. In fact, to do so could be damaging for humanity. History suggests that human beings are in any case naturally tribal.
Alex Woodrow wrote:Hrothgar I don't know you but, like most of the world's population, you are probably a worker. Don't be brainwashed by the Government, the capitalists want to divide us, the working class, so they can prevent us from a democratic revolution. It is not your fault you think the way you do mate, you are conditioned in capitalism to think nationalist views because, in capitalism, there is this myth known as "greed is natural" so this theory says an individual can try to grab as much as they can for themselves so they don't live in poverty. Hrothgar unfortunately at the moment you have this theory in your head, so you feel insecure economically and therefore will do anything you can to grab material wealth to avoid poverty, and you think that is that means nationalism then so bei it.Though things don't have to be like this, because we, as humans, can create an abundance of resources when working together. All we need to do is identify that we are one big family, because we all share bloodlines.Lastly, you may ask how can we create an abundance of resources when working together. It is simple, ther will be no parasitic bosses so workers can keep what they produce.I broadly agree with you and your critique of capitalism and I accept that stato-nationalism is a divisive and poisonous creed that still serves the interests of capitalists. All am I saying is that if people are naturally tribal and wish to divide along racial and cultural lines, then they should be allowed to. Any solution to the capitalist problem needs to accept human nature, which is that people generally value kinship and wish to live among others like them.Perhaps the words 'nationalism' and 'racism'/'racialism' are unhelpful to a discussion such as this, as they carry a loaded connotation, in much the same way that 'socialism' and 'communism' have been evacuated of meaning and twisted into 'Leninism' or 'Stalinism' or 'Trotskyism'. However, I prefer not to side-step the issue. We are talking about Race. I think the reason this type of discussion attracts so much hate and vitriol is, partly, because anti-Racial and post-Racial arguments are countered by science and observable facts, which is inconvenient and humbling for some people and that's what drives the anger.
Ed wrote:I am of course referring to the nation state as this is the only definition of a nation.I think you must know that the nation-state is not the only definition of a nation. You need only consult a standard atlas.
Ed wrote:It's why I used the word country in the rest of the post. But like I said the concept of the nation state is so deeply ingrained that it is difficult to use language that does not imply that nations have always existed. However, this now seems immaterial to the debate, so I won't quibble over definitions. If as you say "Race is Nation and Nation is Race" does this mean that all national boundaries are racially justified? So that there is an English race which is separate from the French race and the German race and the Scandinavian race? If the answer is no, I imagine you must be a great supporter of the European Union and a unified Europe?Clearly not all national boundaries are racial. Some nation-states are nothing more than administrative entities – an extreme example would be Singapore – and that seems to be the general trend for the future. This is part of the problem, in that the traditional nation-state model has become redundant in racial terms. The solution – as I see it – is the building of autonomous racial communities which may or may not evolve into federated entities. This is why, unlike most Nationalists, I see no fundamental problem in theory with a federal Europe, and though I would not endorse the present European institutions, I do support the long-term vision of a White National Community.
Ed wrote:If no could you tell me how many races there are and how you could begin to categorize people into different races? Hereditary? By sight? By self classification? Or another way?If yes could you explain how all of these countries have their origins in the same culture and were presumably all once part of the same tribe? If yes how do you explain nations like the USA or any of the former colonies in the Americas? Are they not nations at all? Should all but pure blooded Native American Indians be deported? If you're looking for racial homogenity then surely that's the only logical step for nations which were formed with a complete mish-mash of cultures and ethnicities. Or can the Nation create the race? If that is the case then the colour of one's skin or any genetic differences however slight make no difference at all and what you would actually be speaking of is culture and not race at all.I believe that nations are organic. This applies to the USA as much as Britain, and this explains their racial nature. In its earliest and most primitive form, a nation was simply the expression of community (or 'folk') consciousness. These primitive nations evolved into political states in order to establish and maintain hierarchal traditions, and in time, meet the needs of capital by raising fees and taxes and other services from their populations. Just to be clear, I do not hold any Romantic delusions about nations. I agree with the SPGB's socialist case and I know and accept the true purpose of nations in their modern form, as capitalist states. In that sense, we are in agreement. Where we diverge is that I attach some importance to racial consciousness, whereas you would prefer to ignore it. Just to address your other point directly, when you refer to nations here – i.e. American colonies, European nations, and so on – you are talking about civic nations. It is equally possible to speak of a Racial Nation, and the two can co-exist, but I have already explained above why I reject the existing civic nations. This is for racial reasons, but just because I want a White National Community, it needn't follow that I reject the ethno-traditions that under-gird it, nor does it follow that I feel hate towards those who are non-white.The USA was seeded as a white European nation, not as a mish-mash of races. The traditional reference to a 'melting pot' emerged in reference to the melding of white European ethnicities, which I find completely acceptable, and that was the 'melting pot' pretty much up until the 1960s. The racial basis of the USA was only subverted significantly in very recent times. This matters because White Europeans share broadly the same culture and linguistic traditions (albeit with some significant deviations at the margins). If you try and force people to live together like this, then you do not encourage peace, only conflict and disorder. I believe racial and cultural identity are an important part of our humanity and I think this diversity should be preserved, not destroyed. That is my opinion, and I believe I have set out a rational basis for it. I am not hateful of anybody.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Hrothgar wrote:" I have no particular problem with the presence of white Europeans in Britain."(my emphasis)Now why is that? And why should your personal preference on who you wish to associate with decide anything. Don't try to hide behind your pseudo-scientific crap – You are a racist, so just cut the bullshit about community and kinship. It is all down to the colour of the skin for you. Nor is that all your thinking is original self-taught rather than regurgitated racist ideology, you sieg-heiling, goose-stepping, swastika-waving white supremacist. My attempts to ridicule you obviously have not got through your thick creamy pink-coloured skin.
Well, I suppose it makes a change from discussing bananas. Forgive me for saying so, but it seems to me that, so far, the "pseudo-scientific crap" is coming from your direction. You have already shown us that you do not understand the basics of genetic transmission or gene expression. Your suggestion that we "share" 60% (it started at 50%) of our genes with bananas was a really nice touch though. Genuinely hilarious.Now you call me a "racist". It's true that I am a racialist, and I won't deny it, but in this context, from you, it's just name-calling. To you, a racialist (or 'racist' – I won't quibble over the terminology) is just someone who hates; whereas to me, a racialist is just someone who holds a rational position regarding inheritable differences among human beings. Hate, even dislike, doesn't come in to it. It seems to me that all the 'hate' here is coming from you, directed at me.
alanjjohnstone wrote:I will accept you are right only so I can say this – I'm glad my small genetic difference doesn't make me related to the likes of yourself – unfortunately that is sadly not the case. "In fact, it's likely that everyone in the world is related over just the past few thousand years," Graham Coop, a geneticist at the University of CaliforniaNo, it's not because you and I are genetically different that I wish not to be associated with you; it is because I find your views repugnant and no amount of discussion will change it because you aren't seeking the truth but legitimacy and reinforcement and that is why you latch on to the smallest iota of scientific argument to justify your views and camouflage your actual inhumanity. We are all Jock Tamson's bairns – except you. "I used to think the world was broken down by tribes. By Black and White. By Indian and White. But I know this isn't true. The world is only broken into two tribes: the people who are assholes and the people who are not.” ― Sherman AlexieGuess which tribe I place you in.So you've given up on the rational argument or any pretense of rebuttal, and you've decided to hurl hateful insults instead?I must take issue, though, with one 'point' you make. You say I am not seeking truth only "legitimacy and reinforcement." That's interesting, because so far in this thread it seems to me that I have responded with rational arguments and I have insulted no-one. You on the other hand….
ALB wrote:Have you read Daniel Defoe's poem The True Born Englishman?http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173337 Yes, it's a nice poem about genetic affinity. Dafoe wrote the poem in response to attacks on King William, who was Dutch (the Dutch having invaded in 1688). Dafoe, quite rightly, is satirising English ethno-chauvinism as it existed at that time. Actually, I am not so sure Dafoe is right that the typical English person is an ethnic mix. The impact of some of the invading ethnic groups was likely minimal, but that in itself doesn't terribly matter one way or the other. He is pointing out that the typical English person is part of a multi-ethnic European heritage. The point is well-made and I agree with it.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Sorry i was wrong – its actually about 60% DNA shared with a banana http://www.genome.gov/DNADay/q.cfm?aid=785&year=2010Noi tend to prefer to associate with women and strangely enough they aren't like me at all.In fact their DNA lack the Y chromosone so i have more in common genetically with a male Maori than with a woman.Genetic affinity here is simply a reference to the closeness of a genetic relationship. It's nothing to do with the comparative study of genes, be it bananas, bonobos or baboons. I have a closer genetic relationship with white people than with black people, because the genetic distance is shorter. This closeness finds its expression in racial and other phenotypical differences, which are normally observable. I would tend naturally to live, work and socialise with others like me. That is what most people do. The existence of this 'racial consciousness' is proven by the persistence of discrete racial groups, i.e. people who live, work and socialise with others who are like them. Why do white people overwhelmingly marry other white people and not, on the whole, black people, for instance? Your contention about the male Maori and the white woman is, in my view, wrong, and also slightly puzzling given it is well-established that general genetic determination is shared between the biological parents. To recap, the Y-chromosome contains very few genes and does not recombine in the same way that the X-chromosome does. This means that the Y-chromosome causes an assymmetry in genetic inheritance so that a male will inherit more genes from his mother than his father. You could only have more in common genetically with a male Maori if you have a direct genetic relationship with someone of Maori descent. Otherwise, you need to explain basic observable genetic differences, specifically: why you and the male Maori look so different, not just in skin colour but also in phenotype, whereas you and the white woman look so similar. Of course, this assumes you are white, but the fact that you acknowledge racial differences in what you thought to be an amusing little joke tells its own story. You clearly accept implicitly that racial types exist, or you would not have made the comparison. The explanation for the apparent differences is a combination of sexual selection and geographic proximity..The rest of what you say I'll ignore. I don't attach myself to any political group or ideology. I simply wish to think through these issues myself, without the benefit of propaganda.
Ed wrote:The concept of the nation has only been around since the French revolution. So how can a concept which is only 214 years old be classed as natural? Prior to the creation of the nation state the boundaries of the Kingdom you lived in depended merely upon how great your feudal lords holdings were: this could be as arbitrary as whether your lord's grandmother had lands in the Kingdom of France or in the Holy Roman Empire or nowhere at all. Here's a short video showing the extent to which borders changed in the last 1000 yearshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugqGueQ9Ud8As you can see the borders of Kingdoms only started to settle down after the concept of nationhood was created. But the last 1000 years are merely a blip on the radar of human history. It's about 0.5% of the total amount of time we can say that human society has existed. So what was going on for the other 199,000 years? How can humanity have only recently discovered such a "natural" concept? The only logical conclusion must be that it is not natural at all and merely a by-product of socio-economic conditions. In other words a social construct, an idea that has no natural basis outside of the human imagination. I know it's difficult to get your head around it; in my opinion it's the idea which has been most fervently ingrained in our consciousness throughout our lives. So much so that the very language we use is very difficult to separate from the concept of a nation. But even historians who have vastly different politics to those of a socialist concur that the nation state has only existed for the last couple of hundred years.I am grateful to you for taking the trouble to post a thoughtful reply, but it pains me to say that I disagree with your very first sentence (highlighted in bold above). Nations were conceived long before the French Revolution. In fairness, I suspect what you are making reference to is the modern concept of the nation-state, but even nation-states existed long before modern times. In any case, the point remains that 'nation' and 'nation-state' are conceptually different. My own concept of Nation is synonymous with Race. In my view, a nation cannot exist without racial integrity and homogeneity, and indeed that very expression could be seen as a tautology. Race is Nation and Nation is Race. I would envisage a world without strong 'states', and possibly no formal governmental authority at all.Just dealing with your other point, I see your argument, but when I suggest that notions of Race/Nation are 'natural', I also mean to imply that the concept has existed in some form or other for the duration of human consciousness. Its various manifestations may not have resembled a nation in the form we recognise it and it will not always have been called a nation, but it was a nation. Be it a town, a tribe, a group of nomads, or whatever. Human beings are tribal. In a sense, it could be argued that your efforts to organise people according to shared economic interests (i.e. a working class) is a sophisticated type of tribalism. There is a strong element of 'us' and 'them' in your propaganda and to an extent, you rely on the idea of 'blaming' capitalists for the social problems throw-up by capitalism, though I realise that's a simplification as your actual arguments are more systemic in nature.
ALB wrote:alanjjohnstone wrote:i dare say your nom de plume betrays you as some sort of Aryan racial myth-peddlar rather than a genuine student of the Beowolf legend.An Anglo-Saxon, eh? But they were immigrants in their time. Hordes of them came and pushed to the West the previously established population who spoke a language akin to Welsh. Here is what some of these think of Saxons:Where will this nonsense about sending people back from whence they came end?
I would say that what you refer to here are ethnic differences rather than racial differences. I have no particular problem with the presence of white Europeans in Britain.
gnome wrote:Hrothgar wrote:alanjjohnstone wrote:A banana share 50% of the DNA of a person so feel free live amongst other bananasBut that's just facile. It's also incorrect – we don't 'share' DNA with other things.
DNA is a molecule that contains an organism’s genetic information, which is passed on from one generation to the next. When a cell reproduces, it copies its DNA almost exactly.In human reproduction, half of the DNA comes from the father and half from the mother. This is why you share many characteristics with your parents.DNA has the famous double helix structure. Each molecule is made up of 4 chemicals called bases: adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine, which are sometimes abbreviated to A, C, G and T.DNA is found in all known living organisms, from complex animals like chimpanzees and humans, to single-celled organisms like plankton in the oceans.The same 4 bases occur in the DNA molecules of all these types of organisms. Also, the A, T, G and C bases always occur in a similar sequence from one end of the DNA molecule to the other. This is evidence that humans are related to every other species on Earth.The genes of organisms that look very different are surprisingly similar. For example, human DNA sequences are over 95% identical to chimpanzee sequences and around 50% identical to banana sequences.You have to go back in time a long way to find a common ancestor between humans and bananas, but ultimately they have both emerged from the same family tree, the tree of life, and that is why they share common characteristics
Quote:The point is: We tend to associate, live and work with those who are like us, do we not? Human beings are tribal, and in that sense, nationalism (including racism) is natural.As a general rule we have very little choice who we live and work with. As far as human beings being tribal the only 'evidence' there is for that is when rival groups of football supporters, quite often from the same 'part of the world', battle it out on the streets or terrraces or when workers are convinced by nationalist politicians in times of war to go and kill other workers who usually look remarkably similar to themselves.
None of what you say touches on my point, which is that tiny genetic variations can lead to dramatic differences in gene expression.
gnome wrote:Hrothgar wrote:What if people just want to live among others with whom they have a genetic affinity? Racism and nationalism seem natural to me.What on earth do you mean by "genetic affinity"?Popular conceptualizations of race are derived from 19th and early 20th century scientific formulations. These old racial categories were based on externally visible traits, primarily skin colour, features of the face, and the shape and size of the head and body, and the underlying skeleton. They were often imbued with non-biological attributes, based on social constructions of race. These categories of race are rooted in the scientific traditions of the 19th century, and in even earlier philosophical traditions which presumed that immutable visible traits can predict the measure of all other traits in an individual or a population. Such notions have often been used to support racist doctrines.All humans living today belong to a single species, Homo sapiens, and share a common descent. Although there are differences of opinion regarding how and where different human groups diverged or fused to form new ones from a common ancestral group, all living populations in each of the earth's geographic areas have evolved from that ancestral group over the same amount of time. Much of the biological variation among populations involves modest degrees of variation in the frequency of shared traits. Human populations have at times been isolated, but have never genetically diverged enough to produce any biological barriers to mating between members of different populations.We are all related, therefore, it’s just a matter of degree. Not only is our common ancestor estimated to have lived 3,500 years ago, but reasonable estimates show that every individual alive around 5,000 years ago was either a common ancestor of everyone alive today, or of no one alive today. * It can be seen, then, that here is no scientific foundation for racism, which is a prejudice diverting the working class from the real cause of modern society’s problems.Socialists argue that every nation state is by its very nature anti-working class. The 'nation' is a myth as there can be no community of interests between two classes in antagonism with one another, the non-owners in society and the owners (the workers and the capitalists). And the state ultimately exists only to defend the property interests of the owning class at any given point in history – which is why modern states across the world send the police and army in to break strikes and otherwise seek to protect the interests of the capitalists and 'business' at every turn.The goal of the socialist movement is to establish a real world community without frontiers where all states as they currently exist will be destroyed. In a socialist society communities, towns and cities will have the opportunity to thrive – and people will no doubt feel an attachment to places that are real and tangible – but the 'imagined communities' that are nation states will be consigned to the history books where they belong.* Rohde DLT, Olson S & Chang JT. 2004. Modelling the recent common ancestry of all living humans. Nature 431, 562-566
Thank you for this reply, but it doesn't get to the root of things. It may be that human beings share a common genetic ancestry (and I am inclined to accept we do, as this does seem logical), but even if true, that says nothing of whether nationalism (racism) is a natural force, impulse or tendency among human beings. To the contrary, it may tend to support the premise I adopt here, but in any event, to simply assert that we have common ancestry and therefore nationalism (racism) is incorrect or wrong is a non sequitur and leaves the opposite assertion unexplored.
alanjjohnstone wrote:A banana share 50% of the DNA of a person so feel free live amongst other bananasBut that's just facile. It's also incorrect – we don't 'share' DNA with other things. Besides, in a way you're assisting my argument because you're demonstrating how relatively small differences in DNA can account for significant speciation. Racial differences can be accounted for on a similar basis.The point is: We tend to associate, live and work with those who are like us, do we not? Human beings are tribal, and in that sense, nationalism (including racism) is natural.
