The connection between race and culture
This brief comment by me is from a
discussion at VFR in March 2003:
I find it remarkable that, as of Sunday night, 23 out of 65 people voting in the poll believe that if people of Chinese race had inhabited Europe and people of the white race had inhabited China, instead of vice versa, the resulting civilizations would not have been different from what they actually are. People of Chinese race inhabiting Europe would have developed Greek civilization, Greek philosophy, the idea of the tragic, the idea of the hero; a man of Chinese race living off the coast of Asia Minor would have written the Iliad; other people of Chinese race living in the Near East would have written the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible, people of Chinese race in Northern Europe would have created the Anglo-Saxon sagas and the Lindisfarne Gospels, then they would have created Romanesque churches and Gothic churches and Renaissance architecture; then they would have developed modern science and the idea of individual rights and elected parliaments and modern democracy, they would have created Art Deco skyscrapers and Hollywood and Jazz and Rock ‘n’ Roll.
In other words, according to over a third of the participants in the poll, the racial characteristics of people are utterly irrelevant to their psychological characteristics and thus to the sort of culture that they create.
Posted by: Lawrence Auster on March 3, 2003 02:46 AM
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Stephen T. writes:
You write: “I find it remarkable that, as of Sunday night, 23 out of 65 people voting in the poll believe that if people of Chinese race had inhabited Europe and people of the white race had inhabited China, instead of vice versa, the resulting civilizations would not have been different from what they actually are.”
Don’t know if you’re aware, but it’s an absolute bedrock article of faith among Mexicans that the only reason Anglos have prospered and advanced while they haven’t is merely because we simply lucked out and happened to inhabit “the right place” geographically (which, of course, they claim was “their” place) and at some sort of magical “right time.” I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that many Mexicans passionately believe that, had the geographic region of the American Southwest not been “stolen” from them at a crucial point in history, the Mestizo Mexican culture would have undoubtedly gone on to blaze the trails, settle the wilderness, and institute a nation equal, if not superior to, the Anglo America of today. They would have been the ones to build—no, not more of the backwards, dysfunctional Third World that has always defined their native land and society—but modern cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, etc, with functional democracies, uncorrupted law and order, centers of medical research, the Hoover Dam, the Jet Propulsion Lab … just like those lucky Gringos did. To the Mexican mentality, the thing that deprived them of this glorious future, the ONLY thing, was nothing more than an unfortunate—and infuriating—fluke of geography and timing.
LA replies:
I hadn’t heard about this. It would be interesting to see some articles or quotes by Mexicans stating this view.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 09, 2007 01:07 PM | Send