This article and thread may provide a more appropriate context to reply to a question Peter Phillips raised at another thread:

http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr/archives/001132.html#6046

“The fundamental point I’m trying to make is that no one has a satisfactory answer for the mess that the United States and several other western nations have gotten themselves into (due to past injustices such as slavery or modern follies like immigration) and there seem to be few constructive ideas on resuscitation of the nations and avoiding absolute destruction. Limiting immigration is merely slowing the process of death. What would you do about millions of immigrants already here and their seething hatred at the majority white population for barring their cousins from getting themselves on to American soil?”

The starting point of any realistic discussion of America’s ethnic/ racial/ cultural/ national future is that the extreme diversity America has already created through immigration has placed it in a permanent crisis from which it may very well not be able to emerge intact or even survive at all. Without getting into the various nightmare scenarios of how a future multiethnic U.S. might be organized, let me just address the immigration side of the problem. It is not possible at present to envision a scenario by which America could return to what it was in 1965. However, it is possible to envision a scenario in which the current diversification trends are not just slowed, but reversed. This could be accomplished through (1) basically stopping all new immigration from non-European countries; (2) removing all illegal aliens; (3) deporting all non-citizen aliens who manifestly do not belong here, such as Muslim fundamentalists; (4) putting out the message that America does not see itself as a diverse multicultural country but as a predominantly Western, European country, and that it intends to remain so; and (5) changing all our educational and cultural policies to reflect that identity. Such policies would not only stop the net increase of immigrants, but lead to a net decrease as many of them found America less than hospitable and decided to go back to their own countries.

The key point here is that even though it is not possible at this point to UNDO the disasastrous consequences of the 1965 Immigration Act, it would be possible to REVERSE the direction, from the ongoing large-scale increase of non-Europeans to an ongoing net decrease of non-Europeans through immigration control, changed cultural policies, and voluntary departures. What I am describing is a reversal—not a mere slowing—of our present suicidal course.

Assuming this can be done (Id say it would never happen, for a variety of reasons - not the least of which is that some 75 percent of american whites wouldnt themselves have the stomach for it), how does one deal with the issue of the Black nation within the United States (some 12 percent of the population and growing faster than the white population)?

Dear Larry,

Further to what Ive said above, I think it is important to give those nightmare scenarios some thought because they are the most probable. The course of action suggested by you will probably never be taken. So some crystal ball gazing might, therefore, be called for here.

I answer one humongous question from Mr. Phillips, and before I’ve even caught my breath he goes on to the next one. :-)

I believe that to a very large extent, the black problem in America is due to whites and can be changed by whites. It is whites’ guilt and cowardliness before blacks; it is whites’ accepting the idea that blacks’ social disfunctions are whites’ fault and can be fixed by whites; it is whites’ saying that blacks are equally capable with whites and that therefore any failure by blacks as a whole to perform equally with whites is some terrible problem that we have to “solve”; and most of all it is whites’ creation of group rights for blacks, that has created an impossible, anti-social, tribal attitude on the part of the black community. If the white majority stopped all this coddling of blacks, if it removed the racial proportionality system, if it dropped the idea that the races are equal in abilities and must perform equally, all those things would take the wind out of the sails of the black racialism that is such a threat to our society, and black people would become more willing to see their life outcomes in individual terms rather than as part of some racial-group agenda. To an extraordinary degree, blacks believe the things they believe—including the demand for group rights and total group equality—because of the promptings they receive from whites.

Would this new racial politics I propose solve the race problem in this country? Not at all. But, just as with my suggestions on immigration reform above, it would reverse our current direction, which is one of white retreat and suicide, combined with mounting black group consciouness. It would mean that the majority was once again acting like the majority.

The paradox is that in order to have a more individualist rather than a group-rights form of society, there must be in place a functioning white majority culture, because the belief in organizing society on the basis of the individual comes from that culture, not from any black culture. For whites actively to encourage tribalism among blacks, which is what our current ideology does, is insane.

It is true that white guilt is a major problem (one could solve 90 percent of the west’s problems if one could eliminate that). The larger question is whether blacks can live side by side in substantial numbers with whites and not have a tremendously deleterious impact on the future of such a society (even without white racial guilt over past injustice). The key here being that at the root of all the social malaise that infects black america lies a host of genetic causes that are much more difficult to confront than white racial guilt (which is a peculiar 20th/21st century phenomenon).

Which is probably why Lincoln believed (of all people - the Neo-cons might not want to hear this very often), that the problems created by slavery could only be remedied by repatriation of the black population to the African continent (an option that is no longer open).

Much of what we see happening in Southern Africa should bring us to sanity about these things.

Without going into another Big Question, I just want to reply to Mr. Phillips’s comment about Lincoln which reflects a historical misunderstanding that is very common on the right.

To say that “Lincoln believed in … repatriation of the black population to the African continent” incorrectly suggests that this was a firm conviction Lincoln held over the course of time. It was not. It was an idea he floated for a while (and he was continually floating various ideas during the course of the war) but gave up when it wasn’t accepted. He proposed his repatriation idea to a group of free blacks visiting him at the White House. They vociferously rejected it, one of them writing in a newspaper article something like: “This is our country as much as yours. Your rich blood flows in our veins …” Just as with his earlier scheme for graduated recompensed emancipation which he dropped when the Union slave states rejected it, Lincoln dropped his repatriation scheme when the blacks rejected it. He then proceeded with an increasingly egalitarian racial agenda.

One proposal I would add to Mr. Auster’s initial list above is the complete abolition of all welfare in any form. This step alone would weed out a great number of incompatible immigrants who have come here since 1965. With no free medical care, no free schooling, etc. many would find it much easier to return to their countries of origin. Mixing welfare benefits with open borders is a sure-fire formula for disaster. Look at Gray Davis’ California today.

“The key here being that at the root of all the social malaise that infects black america lies a host of genetic causes that are much more difficult to confront than white racial guilt (which is a peculiar 20th/21st century phenomenon).”

The “root of all social malaise” are genetic causes. Has this become a website for social Darwinist? This makes as much since as those who blames Black Americans problems on slavery. Liberalism is the poison. The decline in the Black family started with the sexual revolution. Black families have been the canaries in the coal mine. Unfortunately, the Black elites blind allegiance to the government school system has lead to a captured audience for Plan Parenthood and fellow travelers. Thirty years of schools promoting (free) sex and denigrating marriage and men produces 80% of Black children living without fathers. Add affirmative action, which destroys the idea of merit, then the poor performance of many Black children, is understandable. The success of the Blacks from the West Caribbean and Africa is evidence of a cultural problem in the USA.

Let’s agree with TCB that the pathologies of contemporary black life are to a significant extent the result of modern liberalism. Modern liberalism in his account involved the overturning of the former moral, cultural, and racial system of America, by means of, respectively, sexual revolution, cultural revolution (the leftist takeover of the schools), and racial revolution (affirmative action and anti-white group rights). Defeating modern liberalism would therefore mean bringing back some equivalent of that former system. Among other things, that would require that whites behave in the ways I suggested in one of my previous comments, rejecting the lies of racial egalitarianism, rejecting black demands for group equality of results. But to have the ability to resist such an overwhelming and intimidating ideology requires that whites have a sense of themselves as a people and a culture who stand for something—as they did until the mid-20th century. Since liberalism is directed against whites as whites, the only way whites can stand effectively against it is they have some consciousness of themselves as whites.

Thus, to help heal the pathologies of black America, whites must resume their historic role of moral leadership in this country. And that in turn requires that whites become, to a certain degree, race conscious. Only then can they function effectively as the majority that they are.

“This makes as much since as those who blames Black Americans problems on slavery. Liberalism is the poison. The decline in the Black family started with the sexual revolution.”

Well, yes and no. Why didnt the sexual revolution destroy family life among Chinese and Japanese immigrant groups settled in the United States since the building of the railroads? Where is the social malaise among these people? Why didnt it wreck family life to the same degree among Jews? Why hasnt it wrecked family life to the same degree among WASPs? Perhaps the answers lie beyond mere cultural changes. Does the “cultural revolution” explain everything?

We could avoid a lot of unnecessary confusion in discussing this issue if we always kept in mind that there are two distinct dimensions to the problem. On one hand, the cultural and sexual revolutions have had a devastating effect on blacks, and therefore the overturning of the sexual revolution and restoration of marriage as the norm of society, for example, could greatly lessen the familiar black pathologies. At the same time, there remain deeper racial differences of abilities and even temperament that no social action is going to eliminate entirely. And in fact, those deeper differences are the reason why blacks were especially susceptible to the destructive effects of the cultural revolution, as Mr. Phillips points out.

So it’s true, as TCB argues, that a transformation in the culture would improve the condition of blacks, but at the same time we should not have utopian expectations about how much improvement is possible.

For some reason, however, most people only seem to be able to look at one aspect of the problem at a time. Mainstream conservatives put all the emphasis on amelioration, while never questioning the racial egalitarian assumption. Race conscious whites tend to see only the inherited racial differences and have little interest in improving the culture. The balanced approach is to look at both sides.

Peter,
Culture and environment still trump genetics.
1. After all the sexual revolution came after 400 years of slavery and 100 years of Jim Crow. The sexual revolution was all ready building. By the 1920’s. Sanger and other population controllers were all ready targeting the Black community (see HLI.org).
2. For years Blacks were not allowed to build healthy institutions. The family had to be rebuilt after its destruction during slavery. Educational institutions when allowed were few. Schools were separate and unequal. Business were limited. By the time the sexual revolution was in full gear Blacks were barely climbing out of segregation.
3. Other immigrants had the benefit of a separate language, ethnic traditions and usually a common religion which helped to bond the community. A strong community supports the family.
4. As I said before, other Black immigrants such as those from the West Indies and Africa have succeeded. In fact, America is an immigrant success story. If I were to use genetics as a predictor, I might assume that African immigrants would have a worse rate of success than American Blacks. Yet the Africans are more successful.
5. That brings us to the problem with genetic arguments. There is always a circle of reasoning. We find that a group tends to be successful at something and we assume its genetic. When that group fades, no one mentions genetics. For instance, Italians use to dominate sports especially baseball. Did Italians lose the gene? In the 1930’s, would anyone have predicted that Blacks would not only successfully compete against whites in popular sports but dominate our country’s most popular sports. In the next decade, we may see another racial shift in the NBA due to Europeans from the old Communist block.
6. Those who predict cultural changes at least try to predict. The encyclical on Human Life by Paul VI accurately forecasted the results of a contraceptive mentality. Genetics is useless in making any predictions about societies.
7. I’m not a utopian. Man is obviously a fallen creature. However, I agree with Chesterton. Cultures and societies are man- made. The clock can be turned back. That’s what revolutions are all about.

TCB is rejecting my attempt to see both culture and inherited intelligence as factors. For him it’s only culture, there are no inherited trends or limits in human individuals or human groups.

But nothing that he says changes the fact that the percentage of American blacks above 115 is one-sixth that of whites, something that has been true for generations, with everything that implies about blacks’ civilizational performance. Nothing he has said changes the much lower IQ of African blacks.

His illustration about Italian Americans and baseball implies that because cultures go up and down, that disproves genetics. This reminds me of a conservative writer I knew who resisted The Bell Curve, and one of his arguments was that “The ancient Greek civilization collapsed, so that shows the Greeks weren’t so smart after all.” The argument assumes that high IQ by itself is a SUFFICIENT condition for civilization. The reality, of course, is that high IQ is an INDISPENSABLE condition for civilization; obviously lots of other things need to be going on as well for there to be successful civilization, and those things may come and go historically. That’s what the tragedy of human life is about.

So TCB is arguing against a straw man. He assumes that for genetics to be true, genetics must be absolutely determinative; and since genetics is not in fact absolutely determinative, he concludes that genetics can’t be true.

The difference between TCB and Auster is the stress that should be placed on culture vs genetics.

Before Islam, the Eastern Empire was the center of high culture and learning. It is now virtually devoid of both. The people who occupied the various lands then, are the same as occupy the lands now, with the exception of the influx of the Mongol.

What changed? Not the genetics. The source of civilization was the culture through the Church. Remove the Faith and you remove civilization.

Would the Visigoth have reached high civilization in the middle ages without the Faith? The enlightenment, the denial of the Faith, is what is destroying us, not variation in genetics.

Genetics plays its part, but it’s a minor part undeserving of the lead.

Lawrence,
Now who’s attacking a straw man? I never said that genetics had no role. After all, the genetic syndromes associated with mental retardation are the best evidence of your necessary but not sufficient hypothesis. My main point was to challenge Mr. Phillips argument that genetics was the main cause. To suggest that genetics is the main cause is to suggest that genetics are determinative. Thanks to F. Salzer for illustrating and expressing my argument more clearly.

TCB writes:

“Now who’s attacking a straw man? I never said that genetics had no role.”

It was my impression that in every post prior to this last one, TCB was denying that hereditary plays a role in the abilities of peoples. While I’m glad to find out that that is not his actual view, I still don’t feel my construction of his previous argument was off-base. He had said the fact that Italian Americans were once good at baseball, and no longer are so today, shows that there is no “gene” or hereditary component in baseball ability. I pointed out why I thought that was a fallacious argument. I agree that “straw man” was not the right term for this fallacy, but no other ready term came to mind.

In any case, I certainly did not feel that I was “attacking” TCB’s argument. I think this has been an interesting and civil discussion.