• Registered: 2009-03-17
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Topic: 46. POLITICS OF THE POLITICS OF RACE

From Onlinephilosophyforum.com:

hi belinda. You are taking up the cause of "naturalistic ethics" that was fashionable late 19th century. I can't remember names but Spencer, Sumner and the Social Darwinists come to mind. The Brit. paleontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn. The idea is that love, first and foremost in the family, had survival value and so, in a naturalistic sense, was affirmed and "true." Survival value = truth. I'm afraid these old Social Darwinists would disagree with you, Belinda, on the issue of race. Races like organisms were seen as entities in a struggle for survival; and between them there would be no mutual ethical respect.

It is not God, simply,that is dead in my own ideology--it is value that is dead. As an anthropologist and relativist I can say that values are simply some white and black people talking. On an issue of value, Belinda, it is your word against mine. I do not have to rid myself of the spectre of God, so long as I have answered the question of value. This is not simply the question of your values against mine, but the fundamental problem of the very existence of value. Here I refer to Max Stirner (founder of Theoretical Anarchism), who has long been my mentor. So, if you want to call me a sexist or racist, go ahead. Hume said, and carnap followed, that you can't get a value from a fact. That is true. If a value has no reference point in fact, then we cannot finally talk about values at all. And anything we say on race or so-called racial prejudice is just simply one's opinion. Dead as value is, value nonetheless supports our present civilization.

Unfortunately--and here you may be right, Belinda--society itself depends on a stable and reliable focus of orienation. So, it may be socially necessary that we say, for instance, among other things, that racism is wrong. To paraphrase Voltaire: if values does not exist, it may be necessary to invent it. That is what has been done. Then the criterion of social stability is set forth as an arbiter of all judgements on my values or yours. Mine of course would be, and are, condemned as contrary to the interests of American society. I claim the priviledge of philosophy and theory. (I know I cannot claim the priviledge of free speech within my university.)

When we ask "How should I treat my fellow human being" we are raising an issue of value, not of fact. I do not want to talk about fact. If you are going to challenge me, Belinda, speak about value. Trace your values to an absolute source. I take up these issues in my webbsite,richardswartzbaugh.com/punbb --Richard



The Declaration of Independence--America's most sacred document--begins with the statement:  "We hold these truths as self-evident, that all men are created equal..."  Our civilization stands or falls not on whether this equality is factually true, but whether the self-evidency of the statement can be upheld.  And upheld through physical force.  So long as it is self-evident that men are created equal, our culture stands; when it is no longer self-evident, whether or not it is merely factually true that men are equal, the culture falls.  We could possibly, at the outset of this blog, just go ahead and concede that "all men are equal."  This compromise would not damage our cause nor advance it.  We simply are not interested here regarding whether humans are in fact equal or unequal, which is an issue of science and can be left to the scientists.  What concerns us is the word self-evident.  This word is much more interesting than whether or not humans are in some factual sense equal.  The Declaration says, most signficantly, that it is self-evident that such and such is true, what ever that truth may or may not be.  We could say but are not permitted to say, for instance, that this truth is not evident to us; still, the truth is self-evident to itself.  In denying the facticity of human equality we would contradict also the majesty--the self-truth--of the statement that men are equal.  This would not be a mistake simply, but a crime or sin.  In the self-evidency of human equality is the authority and magiesty of the idea of human equality.  How should this concern us?   We are concerned, rather, that American civilization was through one word--a word that proclaimed the self-truth of itself--set on a course that has held, consistently, these hundreds of years.  It is not too much to say that our culture was prefigured, predetermined and predestined in a short sentence.  It is our purpose here to look at that sentence, but only part of it.  The idea that all men are created equal has a certain place in the history of ideas of our Western culture;  and to overlook Rousseau and Locke would be a disservice to philosophy.  That much we can conclude.  Human beings can in fact be considered "equal" in certain terms and with certain assumptions.  Why argue the point?  Where I am focusing attention here, on the other hand, is on the provisiion--stated so clearly--that the idea that all men are created equal is self-evident.  So it is on the point of self-evidency (Selbstverstaendlickeit) that needs analysis.  What is being said is that there is a quality--self-evidency--of this idea that belongs to, inherently, this idea.  A ball is round; and roundness is a quality of the ball.  Self-evidency would be a quality just like roundness or redness.   So, it is said, that just as redness or roundness is a quality of one object, the truth of a certain statement inheres in that statement, not dependent in any way on the human being who understands it to be true or not true.  Self-evidency in a statement belies the very idea of populist democracy.  This is the first contradiction in American civilization and one that was present the moment the first whitemen set foot on this continent.  The self-evidency of the truth of democracy is also the flat denial--categorical contradiction--of democracy.  That is, nothing is conceded to a knowing person regarding rights to know a thing.  The thing has already been proclaimed self-evident; it has proclaimed itself self-evident.  Not an authoritative statement (which needs an authority) is the problem, the issue rather is a statement that is by virtue of an inherent quality of auto-authority an authoritarian statement.  We are led to the paradox of an authoritarian democracy.  But consistently--the idea of forced equality--is what exists for Americans in practice.  The government is there, it is said, just to enforce the idea of a self-evident truth.  This idea--which ultimately is not so much self-evident as self-contradictory--festers today.  A civilization based on a self-contradiction cannot sustain itself.  It does not suffice one that one can control human beings; he must also know what they are thinking.  The thoughts of Americans and Westerners in general in this sprawling culture and society are drifting in one direction; the civilization is materially wealthy but going in another direction.  What are people like.  We see in them a certain inherent self-evidency, but that is their quality, not their culture's.  Of course, as always, there is some large or small priesthood with a stake in the question.  If truth is self-evident, their own role in culture is evident.  The idea that the truth is self-evident diverts attention away from their self-interest.  I call the statement of the Declaration of Independence the first and formative act of our civilization; as also it is the last and dissolving act.  Having a successful discussion (essentially, winning an argument) depends upon a narrow focus; that is what we've tried to foster.  We must not bother with the notion that some people, true, will want to treat others as so-called equals; this is usually just the patronizing behavior that humans are fond of.  They cannot be stopped.  Humans as citizens should understand, on the other hand, that a basis of authoritarian control was written into the first words of the Declaration, our seminal political document; and that government could rightly interpret its own role as enforcing that provision.  Our culture is basically simply force equality.  This is by no means a paradox or self-contradiction.  Where the contradiction lies, the one that will undermine our civilization, is between the self-evidency that motivates a person (essentially, self-interest) flatly contradicts the civilization that we have with no possibility of compromise.  The present blog has an anarchist assumption which affirms the absolute self-assertion of the ego at the expense of anything ephemeral that humans might contrive.

Last edited by richard_swartzbaugh (2010-11-21 15:08:20)

  • Registered: 2009-03-17
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Re: 46. POLITICS OF THE POLITICS OF RACE

Race, as we think of it here, is not some mere generality.  I suggest that the reader acquaint himself with Heidegger's distinction between Algemeinheit (generality) and Sein (Being). [Identitaet und Differenz: p.65 et seq.]  We attribute race to the realm of Being or (I want to say) substantiality.  Generalities are not so much incorrect as, based on traits abstracted away from a more fundamental reality, they are simply shallow. There are generalities beyond these generalities; as, also, there are generalities within generalities.  There are categories which include other categories; and categories that make up larger categories.  These forms arise out of the way human beings expedite--simplify--their thinking.  To delineate such forms is a capacity of thought; but it is a shallow capacity of thought.  And to deny the existence of a reality on grounds that simply one or the other of its traits--ones that, in human thinking, differentiate some thing from some other thing--is a shallow criticism.  A reality cannot be denied on grounds of its category alone; or on grounds that one or the other trait is not a essential trait.  A breed of dog, we may say, is a generality; and beyond this breed is another generality, that of "dog."  But there is more to a dog, even, than its mere breed.  At some point there is a whole process, which determine's the animal substantiality, wherein this being comes into existence--as a being.  Science and taxonomy may not be incorrect on some such fine point;  it is only that such a consideration is shallow.  We do not reject science on account of error so much as we decry shallow science.  Science is often simply shallow and irrelevant.  We are talking here about a category within a category, a smaller generality within a larger generality.  When we speak seriously of race, as we are doing now, we want to say more than that race is a simple category.  And we want to attribute to race more than simply those traits that will distinguish one race from another race.  I want to use the word "substantiality."  Heidegger talks about words, but without mentioning race, that are "heavy with being."  With Force Theory we can say that race is one of those words.   Race signifies a concept in which many concepts merge and become dynamic processes and events.  In putting ourselves in this position--that we are asking about Being or substantiality--we evade most of the criticisms coming from hostile ideologies such as Maxism and Liberalism.  We have already said that Liberalism is consistently anti-racist.    But this success of Liberalism is bought at the expense of a shallow interpretation of race, as, in other words, a simple category of Being but not Being itself.  We speak at the risk of raising the issue of "essences" and "souls."  I want to be clear on this point.  What we are saying merely--and we could say the same regarding life itself, not "in general" but as Being--that life amounts to a mystery.  We present race in the same terms, as the principle of becoming of life, as "heavy with Being."  This is all we are saying.

The internet has opened new oportunities, not merely for purveyors of pornography, but for serious writing.  The essence of the matter is freedom.   In a way, the internet can handle any content--so far the masses of humans of our civilization have taken this new phenomenon in stride--but I still am concerned that the internet might not be prepared for the present webbsite on Philosophical Anthropology.    I am speculating.    It's doubtful that anywhere or anytime in the world has there been such freedom.    In this case, the word freedom has a rather clear meaning.  One can truly express one's point of view.  Having existed in schools and universities all by the first five years of my life, I can compare the internet with the university.  The American university is for everyone, student and teacher alike, a mind-numbing experience.   I may talk about this issue later.  In the meantime, the real question that is raised is, since real knowledge can be transmitted through the internet--knowledge that is prejudicial to great governments and individual--why  there such real freedom in the internet?  Te answer may be this:  all the knowledge and information that there is tends to neutralize itself by its shere volume.  Such knowledge and thought buries itself alive.  In such a state, a given piece of writing is tucked away in a vast, cavernous place where no one can find it or pay attention.  The internet censors itself, in effect, by overwhelming writing by infinitely profuse writing.  That is where I stand--or thought I stood--with Force Theory.  The writing of this blog--which is a mix of anarchism, racism and Hegelian metaphysics--is set off to the side, somewhere, where it cannot be found unless someone actually looks for it.  I have assumed all along that no one would read this material.  If someone is reading this paragraph this fact comes to me as a surprise.  Originally I dispaired; but then I thought, now, in reality, a degree of obscurity for Force Theory would be a mixed evil.  I don't think this material should be highly visible or exposed; at any rate not until it is fully developed. The term "over-exposure" comes to mind; that is what singers and such experience.  Over-exposure is not to be the fate of Philosophical Anthropology and Force Theory.  I have certain habits of writing that are objectionable.  Long paragraphs follow other long paragraphs in tiresom succession.   These same long paragraphs are packed  and saturated with Hegelian mumbo jumbo.  This should be intimidating to anyone.  Add to this the fact that I do not particularly always know what I am talking about.  I am sure criticisms are, or at least would be assuming anyone reads this, forthcoming.  Such a long, tedious-looking pagraphs might intimidate anyone even assuming he finds this Philosophical Anthropology webbsite.  And the very word Philosophical Anthropology, so I have heard from asking, is a mystery.  This field--the study and thought about where we come from as human beings and who we are--is apparently of very little interest to anyone.  A perusal of Google topics and the interest in these topics should prove my point.  Buried, then, in a tiny corner of the internet is this webbsite on Philosophical Anthropology, much as we as individual human beings are all buried alive in some tiny corner or other of mass society; so that, were one to find this webbsite, and read this blog, it is unlikely that this person, having arrived at this long paragraph, would take the effort to read this paragraph and find, there, a decisive and clearly stated strategy in presenting a racial philosophy.  That is what one will find now.   This idea, which I have stated elsewhere, is that there is no intention here of "proving" a racist or racialist point of view.  I was recently asked by my Department chairman if I were a racist.  Anticipating the question, I was going to answer no.  My final answer surprised me more than perhaps him: I said I would not answer.  But here is the jist of this whole thing:  I am not out to convince anyone of the truth or falsehood of a racist point of view.  My purpose in this webbsite is not to propound the truth of racism, so much as it is to present a racist viewpoint that is logically consistent.  In order to do this, a racial viewpoint must divest itself of all "baggage" or extraneos considerations, such as nationalism and religion.  These last things--nationalism and religion--are favorites of the Conservative group of which I was originally a member.  Now I am saying:  give up your jingoism and Christianity if you want--as I know you do--a consistant racist point of view.  Nationalism and religion contradict racism.  But if you don't divest yourself of these highly abstrract and confusing ideas, then your racism will be ineffective.  I want here to present, not a true or untrue racist viewpoint, but a logically consistent racist viewpoint.  That is my purpose in writing this webbsite.

Generality is a word we need to define.  This could be, for our purposes of argumentation, simply one trait of a larger thing but one, too, whose sole role or purpose (human express purpose) is to isolate and delinate that thing.  The real issue is not as difficult as it sounds. What we have conveyed as a "definition" or "defining trait" is in essence an abstraction for practical purposes.  A generality "expedities" a situation demanding human action.   I have stated that generality is some one "defining or definitive trait."  The purpose one has in creating a generalization is to "deal with" some phenomenon in an essentially practical, "prgamatic" way.  Generalities expedite relationships, whether between humans themselves or between humans and things.     Examples are close at hand.  Greece was once settled by groups of clans who likewise set up villages.  The clans maintained their corporate identity and also designated for themselves certain small holdings or territories.  The town assembly consisted of representatives of the clans.  I want to think of these clans as "races" insofar as their identity was established, not simply in their place of residence, but in their history--essentially, time--they had lived together and their collective experiences.  All these shared experiences, in themselves vague and ghost-like, were rolled into their self-concepts.  These experiences, we are saying, were what these people were.   I want to think of these clans as "heavy with Being," to use Heidegger's phrase.  But new circumstances appeared and new practical problems had to be faced.    In General the land these people settled, Greece, was a happy one; there was no impulse to move.  The interests of clans were not compatible, always, with those of the larger community; so a new political organization was proposed.  In this, instead of clan representation there would be representation by "districts" or essentially barrios.  But these new land designations criss-crossed and did not corrrespond to the original clan settlements.  In effect, the modern polity was born.  This system no longer recognized the clans, even remotely and distantly, but treated humans now from the standpoint solely of their district of residence.  These basic points that we make here have long been the subject of sociology and legal theory.   This polis was for the people not only a new political relationship, it was also the essence of a new human identity.  People were now separated, at least  in theory, from not only their clans but from their history--a history extending back in time to remote places and events--as a people or race.  We do not need to identify all that there is in the old clan, even, let alone the race:  this is vast and vague and unsuited for any scientific purpose of taxonomy or classification.  That is, whether this classification be biological or political.  A generality is not so much an "outline" of a thing as it is one trait that serves to set that thing off from other things.  Generality and form are not the same ideas.   Scientists apply the same thought process--to isolate one trait of a thing as "defining" that thing as separate from other things--in organization for scientific and analytic purposes as politicians and bureaucrats do for political control.  This is what Allgemeinheit (generality) is:  a reduction of one thing or person to a single trait which constitutes, in effect, a relationship with a larger entity.  No exertion is needed to see that, beginning with a movement of political order away from clan cohesion, society also began to distance itself from whole tribes and, finally, races.  In essence the race is heir to the old clan mentality.   Yet, race is who human beings are; it is their Sein (Being).   We confront at this time an entire body of literature--so-called science--that decries the "racist" notion that there is anything significant about white skin as opposed to black skin.  To isolate any one trait, and identifying that being solely by that one trait, is to trivialize that being.  Of course white or black skin is not the "essence" of a race.  That is why a race is a race in the sense of radix, or "root" and "source":  Race is the source of one's Being  an sich (in itself) and cannot be reduced to the abstract terms of science.  Race, however, does not wait to be talked about:  it asserts itself inexorably as Being.

Last edited by richard_swartzbaugh (2010-10-19 15:36:43)

  • Registered: 2009-03-17
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Re: 46. POLITICS OF THE POLITICS OF RACE

Earlier it was stated that generalities are a way--albeit a shallow way--that humans have of dealing with one another.   That is true.  Profiling and stereotyping are an example of this, as when, for instance, one is "sized up" by a banker as a prospective borrower.  Police and airport personel do this.  This is a way, and a necessary way, of doing business in a mass, impersonal society.  But profiling and stereotyping is shallow.  One cannot judge a person essentially in this way.  We know that, and accept it, insofar as we see how impractical it would be to judge humans always in terms of their entire or essential identity.  That cannot always be done.  Of course the practice of profiling is also deried in our society by the pundits and sociologists and preachers.  Such shallow judgements are called the essence of racism.  However, this view is a two-edged sword.   The entire argument denying the existence of the white race is itself, we may say, based on the idea that this group is a mere shallow category of things.  A mere one or two traits of this group are singled out to define the whole group; then, once such a trait is seen as merely spurious, the entire category is declared invalid.  White people somehow magically disappear.  Thus the argument that "white" is not a legitmate category falls victim to the corresponding view that one trait or another "falsely" identifies other groups.  [:( This needs work.]

I should call myself the parapatetic philosopher in that, as I walk to school, my thinking becomes collected and organized. That is what, as every day, I did today.   Walking aligns a person in body and mind.  That is my own belief.  I should apologize for the title of this section,  The Politics of the Politics of Race.    By "politics of the politics..."  I mean simply the type of theoretical wrangling that academic types engage in surrounding an issue that, already, is in the public consciousness.  In fact, the people of America have already made up their minds regarding race.  Not to change minds and hearts is my mission here, nor certainly is it to engage in any politics or "activism" on the level of everyday life.  This writing is created in the pure ether of Platonic serenity and good will.  Nor, finally, are we trying here to prove anything:   .  "C-type" personality that I have, I just hate to have to convince my students or anyone of anything.   "Science" regarding racial differences is not in our domain.   Our purpose is only to give logical consistency--not "truth"--to racial ideology.  I am greatly priviledged to live in the girlhood home town of the great scholar and pioneer of psychological testing Audrey Shuey, author of The Testing of Negro Intelligence.  The title of her work speaks volumes and casts a warm glow over what is written here as Force Theory.  Her work will not be consulted in these pages.  Yet it is good and great work.   I am not myself trained in Shuey's area so am not certified to enter an opinion on every point of her work; but her science is enough our purposes.   We do not consult science because, stating our problem as we have, we do not need science. We need logic to the extent of knowing that A = A.   We do not offer arguments in support of scientific racism; neither do we want to contradict this theory.    Facts should be alone; and we also want facts to leave us alone.   What Force Theory does, rather, is to make a story--because all we try to do is to tell a story--where the particulars are consistent with one another and with the whole.  Christianity may illustrate our point.  Christianity tells a very small and rather (in Wilde's words) "charming" story.  There is nothing inconsistent or contradictory within the story itself, about a man sent by God to tell other people of himself, God.  People did not believe this man when he said he was so sent to them; they crucified him.  The idea that a man could be sent by God is consistent with the fact of the crucifiction of Christ.  Probably at some point the inconsistencies in our Bible were edited out by scholars of this or that age.  What comes down to us in the Gospels is a story that is told several times but in ways not at odds with one another.  Again, I am not a Bible scholar.   Of course, if one looks to the archeological and historical record for any evidence--any evidence whatsoever, even a hint--that Jesus ever existed, we would find none.  This is the way things stand with Force Theory.  We are glad when we don't contradict facts, but that is our only thought about facts.  What we strive for is the same goal that the old Catholic scholars had in mind when they sorted out and excised logical inconsistencies in the New Testiment.   My thesis has been from the beginning of this blog that racism has been identified as a "Conservative" ideology that is supported by, among other ideas, the Christian religion and American nationalism.  We state as our only intention that race be isolated from nationalism and religion, inasmuch as these ideologies are logically and categorically contrary to the idea of race.  For allies and friends, racism should take up the cause, perhaps, of the old clan-based society or some sort of Nordic tribal ideology.  We can be friendly with science, though we leave science--here we speak of so-called Scientific Racism--to fight its own battles.  We will not fight these battles.  Science will not defeat our purpose insofar as the real and ascertainable facts of science, from Audrey Shuey onward, also do not contradict us.  Where racist ideology becomes mired, rather,  is in trying to be friends with religion and nationalism.  We are incompatible; and furthermore a divorce is inevitable.  As I say, we would like to be "factually true"; but, given our stated goals, we do not have to be "true."

Last edited by richard_swartzbaugh (2010-10-21 16:00:35)

  • Registered: 2009-03-17
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Re: 46. POLITICS OF THE POLITICS OF RACE

There is no human unity without disunity. Unity begets disunity.   In relationships on the level of language and society, what brings persons together in one way separates them in another.  Thus, for example, in coming together as citizens of a nation--creating around themselves a national border or demarker--they in effect create other and alien nations.  When they invent for themselves a language they simultaneously consign those who don't speak it to the level of, in effect, inarticulate animals.  Humans have largely given up much of the instinctive language they inherit from their animal past; so, lacking a human language that is mutually understood, these separate groups lapse into paranoid silence.  Where animals are not mutually deaf, human beings can be in relation to outsiders and aliens.   We may call this the principle of "divisive unity' [tentatively].  This is paradoxcally true:  unity is itself divisive.   This is a point so obvious that I hesitate to say that it originates in this blog.   I may be mistaken.   Yet I am inclined to say, if this point is understood--because sociologists and historicans are intellectually capable of entertaining the idea--it is possibly suppressed.  The point is not beyond the theory of sociology so much as it is outside the ideology or religion of sociology.  Intellectually the principle of "divisive unity" is not incomprehensible; but it is ideologically objectionable. Unity is not so much the fact of society so much as unity is the aspiration and goal--or "the good"--of sociologists.   In their (what I call) priestly capacity, the American community of scholars aspires to the universal unity, not disunity, of human beings.   The phrase "unity of humanity" is their stock in trade.  To seriously entertain and promulgate a theory of the inevitability of disunity contradicts their mission, instilled in them in all their training, of "bringing humans together."  Because it contradicts scholars' "religious" purpose as those who overcome--or "heal"--divisions, to propose, simply, that every act promoting unity begets some new point of separation is to call the whole effort of behavioral science self-defeating.  Also, every point of disunity that appears out of the reconciling efforts of mediators calls for renewed efforts by these same mediators, who go from conflict to conflict in a never ending search for "justice."  The "Good," we may assume, would the final Hegelian "negation of the negation" in which the natural disunity that comes from unity is overcome in one final act of "reconciliation."  The Good negates the disunity begotten of efforts of bringing humans together.  This Good is the Holy Grail of sociology that is implicit, but unspoken, in sociology.  Force Theory takes a clear stand on this so-called Good.   We are saying that the unity that exists in nature is the unity that was there before mankind--before technology, language and other culture--as a sort of Rousseauian State of Nature.  We are talking about the kind of communication and relationships that animals have; and that humans have, too, insofar as these still function in the face of culture.  The family is an instance of this nature unity.  Earlier I spoke of the separation of humans insofar as they adopted a culture which was essentially a "foreign object."  Through this technology and language humans became in effect foreigners and aliens to one another.

  • Registered: 2009-03-17
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Re: 46. POLITICS OF THE POLITICS OF RACE

[NEEDS REVISION]

How a race is defined or what makes it distinct from other races is not going to be our problem.  Nor will we care, even, if a race can be defined at all.  Purusing the sections on race in Google (which for me now is a major tool of research), it appears that sociologists and anthropologists want to make race a social, rather than a biological, construct.  As a social construct, conceptions of race always change.  Likewise, if such concepts are inconsistent with the times within which they reside, they can be made to go away.  This position seems reasonable.   But there is a further consideration.  Where the concept race--more precisely the word race--goes away, it soon comes back.  That is the fact that we look at now.  Respect is due to anthropologists and what they have acomplished; they have been duly accorded the status of experts.   And, too, we do not deny the validity of their assertions within their appointed area.  It is simply not my job, I believe, to go head-to-head in an argument with these people, when, after all, I am already mired in science, in this blog, that I myself do not understand.  My family is one of lawyers who have no interest in facts that cannot be explained to a jury.    Actually, the matter is rather simple.  In the Old South race was a concept basic to the hierarchical and economic structure of the place.  Slavery was basic to the economy; and the concept "negro" was basic to slavery.  As anthropologists say, race changes in concept from place to place, culture to culture. 

[SECTION OFF FOR REVISION OR DELETION]These considerations have put me in a position where I cannot prove anything.    Some general considerations are in order here.  In proposing to talk about race, we deviate from the general plan of Philosophical Anthropology as laid down by Scheler, Plessner, Gehlen and others.  1965 I attended Otto F. Bullnow's course Philosophical Anthropology at Tuebingen Universitaet.  That was not perhaps my first knowledge of that field.  Or, at any rate, given my turn of mind, perhaps, I was so pre-adapted to Bullnow's way of thinking that it was, then in Germany, as though I had studied the subject all my life; or perhaps I had just, by virtue of some personality trait, always thought that way.[END SECTION-OFF]

The challenge of Philosophical Anthropology, and the discispline that comes of entering this mode of thinking, is to find the largest concepts in the smallest details of human life.   A large concept would be "the Good"; a small detail would be the first use of a stick to replace the hand.  The hand and the stick are the two "homely facts" where we start our research--or rather our speculation.  We are in Philosophical Anthropology, here, but we are not far away from Phenomenology.  I came away from that year in Germany set on a different course, which sustained me through my training as an anthropologist and my (many) years teaching anthropology.    I can talk about all the details of my life; and I feel these things are relevant.   It is said that one's random experiences are as important as his focused attention.  This is true.  In any case, when over the years of teaching and business I came out of my long "slumber"; my interest in the scientific side of race had declined, but my philosophical interested had increased.  Also there are just the issues of living as a member of a society, getting alone with one's community and colleagues.  It would be a totally fruitless and Quioxic mission to convince Americans of anything pertaining to race, inasmuch as, as front-and-center as race is in our civilization. The word race is of venerable family tradition. 

There is a general sense of the word race that is accepted, or seems to be accepted, in the English-speaking community.  Only a profound and pervasive use by a large community over much time could instill the intensity of meaning that the word race has.  Philology and etymology trace the word to the Latin radix,  meaning "source" or "root."  Words can have narrow meanings or broad meanings; they can have meanings that are precise or rather vague.  This depends on how and by whom the word is used.  "Race" is a very old word and one whose relatives are found throughout the Indo-European language family.  Even Arabic words have, whether by native use or adoption, some sense of rad and race.    This we know about the history of the word race.  "Radix"appears throughout the English language in such words as radius, radiate and so forth.  We have the sense here of a center or source from which lines radiate.  Radix is of such import to language that, if surpressed in one place or one context, it would resurface in another.  This is our opinion here.  We turn now to the "American Anthropological Association Statement on Race" [cite Google.com]; this proclaims the word race should be dropped from English on several grounds:  scientific meaninglessness, as causing immoral acts againt humanity and so forth.  (The anthropologists assume the word humanity has meaning but race does not.)  But words do not await approval of empirical scientists before they can be used; they come to us from ancient times.  This is not to bely the contributions of scientists and anthropologists in particular. 

We do not mean to deprecate anthropologists; we only ask them to stick to their fields.  (And of course I am not a philologist, either!)   Anthropology is an empirical science; think of potsherds and such, and carry this level of thinking to the cultures of Eskimos and Ibos; that is what we are talking about here.   We expect from anthropologists little bits and snatches of information now and then.  This is the use to which they are put; this is their apointed task.   Examples are not hard to find.  If for instance we want to know if a fragment of bone is human or animal, or if its owner was  male or female, and so forth, we consult an anthropologist.  This is a narrow field of knowledge and one in which special training and compentency is required.  But there is more.   In fact, anthropology, perhaps reacting to criticism of the social sciences that they are not hard science, has moved continually away from philosophical mode of thinking.  The sad truth is that the great accomplishments attributed to science do not come from science at all--if by science we mean empirical verification--but through broad speculation that is anarchist and undisciplined.  Much philosophy is that way:  it is the anarchism and lack of community discipline that subjects much philosophy to criticism.  Even originality itself is subject to the same criticism, by members of a group, directed at wayward members of this group.  Where then do anthropologists have legitimate authority?  A layman might attempt a coherent definition of the word race; and anthropologist might show how this definition contradicts empirical facts or is logically inconsistent.   The anthropologist has had special training, has undergone the scrutiny of his colleagues, and is entitled to his license of authority.  Where there is an argument at present is, however, is regarding the issue of whether we can dismiss a very old word with a very general--albeit vague--content; this dismissal based, that is, on the idea that a very specific and new meaning has been attached to it.  We cannot dismiss the word race on grounds of alleged political atrocities by this unpopular group or that.   

I have spoken earlier about the Philosophical Anthropological correction to anthropology (and likewise to traditional philosophy itself.  Philosophical Anthropology, like the society that (under Force Theory) advocates, is wildly speculative and in that sense anarchistic.  Anthropology has succumbed to a priestly concept of disciplined--ritualistic--thinking.  Meanwhile Philosophical Anthropology after a mere 50 years of existence is still relatively new, fresh and spontaneous.  But this is where originality and creativity take place:  away from the dead forms of priestly organization and ritual, and in the open air of  uninhibited generality.  We look at the history of anthropology's involvement in the great race controversy that, in fact, is at the very core of our present-day civilization.  That race is "controversial" is an understatement.   The anthropologist might say that there is nothing in his field, which is human biology, that corresponds to the definition of "race" that you or I give.  He is saying our definition of race, if we have one to offer, is not scientific.  He is pronouncing on the connection between a real phenomenon and a word; here he looks for consistency and verifiability.  But he is not in any position of authority to pronounce on the validity of a word purely and simply, just as a word.   His area of expertise is in human biology, not in language.  Thus when we say--as we are saying here--that race is a "good" word, we are within our rights to ignore the anthropologist.  He has authority in biological science but has no authority whatsoever in language of the realm.  He would be, and in this case is, intruding in an area he doesn't belong.   Even those who pronounce on language--teachers of English--have no authority, finally, when the will of an entire people as to which or what are valid words.  There is simply a disagreement on how the word should be defined.  THE VALIDITY IN THE WORD IS IN ITS CAPACITY SIMPLY TO SURVIVE IN A LANGUAGE.  Words of a language are in competition with one another.  A word may be dropped from a language on account of disuse.  This is a major argument for the existence of the word race, which by no means is unused.  The vehemence of some religious and academic leaders is in itself an argument for the existence of the word race--it will not go away on its own.  We have to concede that we are talking about one culture--our own--not all cultures and languages.  Humans, we say, not universally or in every culture--because in some cultures there is no word that corresponds to our word race--but in our own culture we do use the word race.  In fact--and this is now said frequently--race is a word for a phenomenon that is central to our culture.  Our culture of America is about race.  That is a categorical statement we will make here under the banner of Force Theory.  It is preposterous to suggest that we all just not use the word race; because we now use it all the time.  And we use it as though it means something.  People of our language family have always used closely related words that have meant something fundamental to life.  We suggest here that the word race means "source" or "root" of existence.  Force Theory will not abandon the word race simply on account of the sense we have of some "metaphysical" content:  we quote Heidegger as saying that a word (he did not specify race) may be "heavy with Being."  Race is one of those great words of venerable tradition. 

As I said earlier, I am not out to prove anything but make race a logically consistent point of view.  I want at this point to bring in my connection with David Duke.  He may well not remember me; I prophesy, however, that some day he will be asked about me and our conversation.  This occurred in Urbana, Illinois sometime in the 80's.  Since then I have perused his writtings such as there have been on the internet.  When I say I want to make racism a logicaly consistent viewpoint--while not necessarily "proving' this view--I mean, that is, to expunge from the race concept everything that has been brought one way or another into the discussion about race.  This would include nationalism, religion and all sorts of unnecessary and encumbering "baggage" that mires us in imponderables.  Thus, this will be a "pure" theory of race, a point of view distilled of everything extraneous.  If we have to cast out nationalism and jingoism--and I say we do--we simply will.  Nationalism and religion are just so much baggage that, along with racism, is rolled into the present day Conservative movement.  Here we are attempting to clean or proverbial house, removing every idea except race.  To us there is nothing worthwhile about the American nation, which like every other nation since 1500 AD is an abstraction.  Force Theory is not nationalistic; let the Japanese run this country for all Force Theory cares, so long as the white race prevails in the end.  That is what we are saying here.  The nation, as we say, has nothing to do with race.  Affirming the nation, as many do, it will always be at the expense of the race.  Nationalism is color blind; we are not, with Force Theory, color blind.   Race is closer to the idea of tribe; but race is tribe in a special purified sense.  Religion is likewise inherently color-blind.  Religion has nothing to do with race.  We must cast out that baggage, too, in order to present a purified and distilled race concept.  It would be possible to invent a religion of race; but the religion must be specifically about race, but not about Jesus or human love or anything like that.    Even then, the whole principle of religion--as a symbolic link in the sense of Latin religare--is inherently not only not racist, it is anti-racist.   As I said once before, liberalism has been consistently anti-race and anti-racist; conservativism for its part has been only inconsistently racist.  We want to change that here.

Were I to purport to have discovered or invented the white race, I would fail.  That would be to become mired in values and imponderables and also be knee-deep in science that is simply over my head.   No one would listen or believe me.  So, that is not what I'm going to do.  There is one other serious possiblity, however, which is the right one.  I'm not going to do anything, at all, only to follow a strategy of omission.  I omit to correct the assertions of the avowed enemies and adversaries of the white race.  Because these adversaries have the most consistent and definable idea of all regarding who is their enemy. They listen to their instincts.   It is these decriers of whiteness, not me or other whites, who have invented the white race.   Inuit or Ojibwa are Indian names that were invented by surrounding groups and enemies; Inuits and Ojibwa had entirely different names for themselves than the ones that have come down to us.  We could say, weakly but truthfully, that, oh, there are breeds of dogs; and, oh, these breeds are very different from one another in body and mind.  So are humans different in these ways.  This argument for racial differences--by comparison with dog and other species' breeds--is reasonable.  But that is not the way we argue here.  To argue is for us demeaning our point of view.  We do not need to argue anything:  let our enemies, the anti-racists, argue for us; let them define who we are.   There is no particular point in adding or denying any aspect of the world-wide opinion of my people, the white race. Whiteness is above biology, it is cosmic.  I said that before and will affirm it here.  That is where we must base our racial ideology--with the assertions of people who are not ourselves. 

My concept, for instance, of "German" and "Southerner" has been impressed upon me, in school and in church and information media, all my life.  There is where I form my opinions of these people.  Out of these opinions, by non-Germans and non-Southerners applied to people they do not know, I begin to build a philosophical system.  This is a common practice:  to invert the opinions of average people to arrive at new truths.  That is what is being done in this blog.  In this inverted, but not untrue, system the values represented of men of the Old South and of Germans of their great period--1900-1950--are core concepts.  The values and concepts that emerge here are simply representations, sometimes softened but often exaggerated, of an ideology called odious to mankind.  I should clear up a possible misunderstanding; I am bound to be accused of this serious offense.  I am not claiming here, anywhere, originality.  It would be arrogance on my part to claim I invented Force Theory; actually our enemies--people who have decried me and castigated me in my university--who have invented all these "awful" things that appear in this blog.   I have said all along that race and racism are simply politics of the day. I do not invent these politics; other people, who oppose me, invent them.  As the peace-abiding person that I am.  I only defend myself.   In places where humans cannot distinguish among themselves on the basis, say, of skin color they pick some other distinction.  The issue of skin color was not invented by white people but by black and brown people and their "white" friends.  Or we could even speculate that the issue of race was invented by anti-white white people.  Therefore we are not saying, in Force Theory, that race is an absolute in terms of empirical characteristics that are relevant to certain values.  I said earlier that Philosophical Anthropology tries to find large concepts--here race--in small details.  It is not difficult to find the whole race issue prefigured in the smallest details of human interaction.  Everything about the human being is race.  Race is pure becoming, as I said earlier.   Race is a term invented by humans; and which humans these are--whether they are the identified people or the people doing the identification--is irrelevant to our main purpose.   But there is more.   What is being done under the heading Force Theory is to understand the generic meaning of "race," as radix or root, and understood as a principle of life.  Race is essentially the time dimension of human biology.   We are not connected initially with the persons around us but with those who have engendered us.  We are a race in time.  Our race consists not so much, directly, of the bond we have with the people in our neighborhood, so much as the bond we share with our grandparents.  The race exists in time.  And through a common time span we constitute, together, as white people, the full bond of race.