Beyond liberalism and paleoconservatism

I have often criticized those paleoconservatives who, in order to get out from under the “racism” charge, argue that racism is just a politically correct idea used to intimidate and silence conservatives and that it has no real meaning. In effect they deny that there is such a thing as racism.

My response is that there is indeed such a thing as racism, meaning, at a minimum, statements about and behaviors toward another race that are demonstrably morally wrong, but that, given the term’s systematic misuse, we need to define it before we use it.

An example is black liberation theology, as expounded by James Cone and his follower Jeremiah Wright. Black liberation theology teaches that the white race is the source of evil. Now THAT’S racist, and I call it racist. But the paleocons, having denied the validity of the concept of racism as mere fraudulent political correctness, are unable to call black liberation theology for what it is: racist. In their desire to free themselves from false, politically correct moral judgments in the area of race, they have eliminated the very possibility of moral judgments in the area of race.

Here is the practical point. Between the liberal and neocon mainstream on one side, which identifies morality with Political Correctness, or, more precisely, with Racial Correctness, and the paleoconservatives on the other side, who say that nothing that liberals say is racially incorrect can be immoral, there is a middle ground (which at present barely exists) where rational and moral right-wingers can distinguish between racially incorrect things that are moral, and racially incorrect things that are immoral.

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For reasonable attempts by me to define racism, see the chapter on the meaning of racism in The Path to National Suicide, and my letter to the editor or Reason magazine in response her article in which she called me racist.

If readers have seen articles by paleocon writers calling Wright’s statements “racist,” thus disproving or at least demonstrating exceptions to my thesis, I would be interested in seeing them.

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Dan M. writes:

If “racism” is an objective moral wrong, I presume that would mean it’s a sin? If it’s an objective moral wrong and a sin, why was there no word in the English language for it until the 20th century? Actually, there doesn’t seem to have been a word for it in any language before the 20th century. Can it be that a real (and evidently very important) grave moral error, separate and distinct from all others, remained undefined throughout western history until a moral paragon of the 20th century recognized it? (Not that it has ever been defined, even from the first.) How can the Church fathers have missed it? What did people like you, who believe this, do before 1936 when the word was first coined? It must have been a very frustrating time for the morally upright, to be conscious of this moral wrong but not have the words to express it. And for so long!

LA replies:

I don’t think Dan’s argument is entirely serious. Before the mid 20th century there would have been equivalent words to convey the same idea of moral condemnation. We could make up equivalent words now to replace “racism” if we wanted. But they would need to convey the same meaning.

Let’s take just a couple of simple—because they’re extreme—examples where “racism” is an appropriate word. Someone thinks that the black race is a negative force in the world and advocates exterminating all Negroes on earth (that’s not made up, someone wrote to me proposing precisely that). People argue that the Jews have a genetic program or a conscious plan to destroy all white societies, and therefore Jews must be eliminated. Someone thinks that white America is the embodiment of the anti-Christ and must be destroyed. Or someone teaches that the white race was invented in a laboratory by an evil scientist 6,000 years ago.

Now I would call these belief systems racist. They propose ludicrously false ideas that demonize an entire race or people, and they justify the dehumanization and killing of that entire race and people.

I’ve had this discussion with paleocons many times. They wouldn’t want to call these phenomena and beliefs “racist,” because they think racism is a wholly artificial, illegitimate concept. But they also don’t put a better word in its place. That’s because many paleocons have opted for tribalism in place of traditional morality. The bottom line of these paleocons is that different peoples ought to dehumanize and kill each other and that’s just the way it is. So if blacks target, torture, and kill a white man because he’s white, that’s terrible because it’s an attack on whites. But if whites target, torture, and kill a black man because he’s black (which doesn’t happen often, but it does happen occasionally, as with the James Beard murder case in Texas years ago), a lot of paleocons won’t condemn that. It’s just tribalism.

We can’t make the word racism go away, it’s too embedded. But because the word, underneath its liberal-ideological meaning, has an objective meaning that can be appealed to, we can require that it only be used where it describes objectively immoral things said about or done to people because of their race. Thus I have the ability to condemn Jeremiah Wright in appropriate words. Many paleocons do not have that ability, because all they can see at work in Wright is tribalism, and because they believe in their own tribalism, they have no language to condemn his.

What made it possible to mount an intelligent and winning defense last fall against Charles “Jackboot” Johnson’s insane attack on Vlaams Belang and Brussels Journal? It was the fact that the defenders of VB had moral standards and were applying them to the case at hand. If real evidence had shown that VB was Nazi-like and anti-Semitic, as Johnson kept charging, VB’s defenders would have condemned VB too. But there was no such evidence.

But many paleocons would not have been able to mount that defense on behalf of VB, because their response would have been, “ALL charges of anti-Semitism are by their very nature politically correct lies.” So they wouldn’t have had the ability to examine the facts at issue and determine whether it was true or not true that VB was anti-Semitic. Without moral standards, they could not have addressed the issue at hand leading to the determination that under the standards being appealed to, VB was innocent of the charges.

Paul Gottfried writes:

I don’t know what kind of paleo literature you’ve been reading but one of my criticisms of this group is that its antiracism is even more extreme than that of the neocons. In order to show they’re not racists, paleos typically go around insisting that IQ tests are meaningless and that there is no significant cognitive differences among ethnic groups. Paeos and white nationalists are not the same; indeed paleos make a point of beating up on Phil Rushton and Jared Taylor whenver they get the chance. They rage against the anti-Catholic, neopagan character of all racial distinctions. Take a look at the responses to anyone talking about IQ differences on takimag. Moreover, despite their disagreements with the State of Israel, paleos tend to be more anti-anti-Semitic than any other group I’ve encountered. Some of our bloggers drip with Philosemitism to a degree that might make even Michael Novak and Cal Thomas blush with embarrassment.

LA replies:

I’ve encountered the phenomenon I’m describing for years, so I know what I’m talking about. But I’ve never collected the samples from web discussions and e-mail exchanges and documented this, so I can’t right off prove what I’m saying.

It’s possible that some of the people I’m thinking about are better described as white nationalists than as paleocons. But there seems to be a lot of overlap or at least similarity between those groups.

Of course I’m also aware of the type of paleocons who are ideological anti-racists. However, I am not aware of paleocons who are philo-Semites. It’s almost a contradiction in terms. Unless you’re defining a philo-Semite as someone who doesn’t automatically side with Israel’s enemies against Israel.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 01, 2008 10:47 AM | Send