[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.