Insistence on ethnic diversity means trouble in activities where the nature of the activity goes with radical distinctions of status and reward. Here are some examples from today’s Drudge Report: top chef attacked as “racist”, Duke professors seek to defuse anti-lacrosse team ad. The problem won’t go away. Different groups aren’t going to end up equally successful in academic life or the fancy restaurant business. Attempts to equalize results don’t succeed and only undermine the original point of the activity while adding layers of suspicion and injustice. (See this discussion of the Duke situation.) Isn’t the lesson that where differences matter the attempt to eliminate all separation and discrimination is a bad idea? If people trust each other and think they can achieve something great let them join up and work together, if they don’t let them go their separate ways and find something else. You can’t force them to be happy together.
Separation and Discrimination
“if they don’t let them go their separate ways”
Aren’t social attitudes favoring segregation or seperation necessary but insufficient to actually achieve it (particularly from the perspective of the builders of successful societies that everyone else from failed societies wants to be a part of)? Isn’t this why legally codified discrimination is/was required ? Back when folks believed in what was called “common sense”, my Great-Grandfather used to say “Everybody wants the butter off our bread.” I can’t say I disagree with him.
Here I’m not just thinking of “societies” as legally-defined nations but also different “societies” within a nation.
Separation and Discrimination
Dear Mr. Kalb and Fellow Readers,
There has been an ill-informed statement made here. “Aren’t social attitudes favoring segregation or separation necessary but insufficient to actually achieve it . . . ?” Segregation or separation has been achieved many times in the great scheme of evolutionary theory, which most sceptics of Mr. Kalb’s ideas believe (and I, an ex-biologist, don’t). Traits can and do increase in frequency, according to this theory. Race is a trait. The on-high liberals would have one believe this is erroneous; they pretend race does not exist or has not been a trait selected for frequently. If the intricate song and action of birds can be selected for, human racial attitudes can.
This argument is meant as an illustration of one internal contradiction of liberal ideology. Anyone, please respond.
Paul
Paul,
“Aren’t social
Paul,
“Aren’t social attitudes favoring…” What you quoted was a question, not a statement. Specifically, I had Jim Crow on the brain. I was discussing with someone whether Jim Crow was “necessary” or “went too far” when I saw Mr. Kalb’s post. Even Traditionalists don’t usually go so far as to defend Jim Crow. Yet sometimes we seem to think that if we cleansed ourself of post-60’s liberalism, people would just neatly and conveniently self-segregate. The reality is that Mexicans, Blacks, Muslims, etc. cling to Whites and White societies like barnacles to a rock. At the same time, I wasn’t picking on the post. I realize much of what’s written here deals with fundamentals and philosophy rather than being “issues conservatism.”
Regarding race and liberalism. Yes, of course you’re right. To a liberal, animal subspecies (with very subtle morphological differences) exist and are to be admired and saved from extinction but humans are all uniform. The liberal debunking of race only illustrates how radical the liberal project is. People’s ancestral continuity is pretty darn fundamental.
MLK Day
First, don’t abandon this site because of my boorishness. Second, what do you mean when you say segregation or separation is necessary but insufficient to actually achieve it?
Paul
Paul,
This is a great site.
Paul,
This is a great site. I won’t abandon it. I like the “fundamentalist” (hope that is the right word) approach to politics, philosophy, culture, etc. even though I don’t have the background to take it all in. Using the scientist analogy, this site is for physicists not biologists. However, I think Mr. Kalb makes it reasonably understandable to a person of modestly above average intelligence.
My question was somewhat tangential to (or maybe somewhat more specific than) the post. Specifically, I wonder if we tend to engage in “magic thinking” with respect to segregation and seperation. That if we just tear down the liberal beliefs that are prohibiting us from “going our seperate ways” that it will just happen. What brought this into my mind was a brief exchange I had with someone about Jim Crow. I was wondering whether, from a Traditionalist point of view, something like Jim Crow would be seen as necessary or excessive. Or, on a more general level, any legally codified form of discrimination as opposed to privately-practiced discrimination. Of course, I realize it’s not a simple question, can be context specific, and is loaded with moral quandaries.
Just to illustrate what I call “magic thinking” (a phrase I borrowed from someone else) and “necessary but insufficient” I’ll use an entirely seperate example. Some Catholic Paleoconservatives demonstrate this tendency with their vision of birth-control rejection and fertility rates as the savior of the West. If we just started making more babies, the Latino and Muslim problem would just magically go away. They usually don’t state this explicitly (though some have to me) but it seems to be a major part of their thinking.
Hope I haven’t read too much into what was originally a short post and I’m not too much off of topic. I don’t have firm convictions on this which is why I was soliciting feedback.
Separation
Dear Fellow Reader,
Forevever oppose the lunacy of liberalism. Ann Coulter set out the case. Surely, Mr. Jim Kalb and Mr. Lawrence Auster have been articulating this idea for years. Ann and her instinctive ally, common sense, is without question.
Paul
Paul, you’re preaching to the converted
Paul,
Auster and Kalb converted me to their viewpoints a while back. Also, because Traditionalists are so marginalized and obscure, a person like me (only a few years removed from immersion in pop-culture idiocy) can interact with a couple of exceptional thinkers and ask questions, etc. I could never get to and interact with a Jonah Goldberg, Ann Colter, Bill Buckley, etc. Just trying to find a (personal) silver lining here in the (unfortunate) fact that Traditionalists seem to be voices crying in the wilderness.
Back to the original post. Obviously, every “political expression of a particular people” (to borrow Brimelow’s words) must discriminate against those outside the group. Another question. In order to achieve the goals of traditionalism, is it necessary to legislate discrimination within societies? To some extent, this may be a function of the homogeneity of the society, but I’ll try to keep the question general.
Again, I hope my question doesn’t distort the intent of the original post too much. It’s just what popped into my mind when I read the post.
Any takers?
Bruce
MLK Day: The Morning After
Dear Mr. Kalb and Fellow Readers,
How ironic is the liberal ideology. In accordance with liberal ideology, the Mestizos take jobs Americans are unwilling to take. (One of my favorite fatburger sites is a block from MLK Avenue, which used to be Melpomene until the “not-a-race African-Americans” took over.) Yet liberal ideology requires one to believe Blacks are deprived of jobs by Whites.
Paul
MLK Day: The Morning After
Dear Mr. Kalb and Fellow Readers,
Liberals propose that religion, race, ethnicity, nationality, language, and other traits are too troublesome to tolerate. The underlying assumption is everyone can and must be made equal to ensure social harmony. This is insanity. It is straight out of 1984. Even under our legal system, which is constantly lauded by plaintiff lawyers and other liberal opportunists, insanity is the inability to distinguish between right and wrong.
It is clearly wrong to force someone to change his religion, favor an alien/common race to his race, abandon his ethnicity, turn on his fellow citizens, and abandon his language. Yet liberals are unable to make this distinction. Ann Coulter is another that believes liberalism is insane.
(Usually, a rhetorical question is a statement.)
Paul
Paul,
I was fishing for
Paul,
I was fishing for feedback so the question wasn’t entirely rhetorical.