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Editor’s Note:
The following essay is one of the most important pieces published at Counter-Currents so far. I heartily endorse its analysis and invite discussion.
The concept of (absolute) racial purity was originally a racialist meme, one which had particular relevance in the New World environment of the intermingling of highly distinct racial groups (European, Amerindian, and Negro), Negro slavery, and fears of miscegenation. However, today, in the age of genetics, racial purity has become an “anti-racist” concept, a meme of the anti-White Left, a weapon to be wielded against the concept of racial preservation. The leftist argument goes like this:
Premise 1: The reality of race and the legitimacy of racial preservation depends upon absolute racial purity.
Premise 2: Absolute racial purity does not exist (as scientific studies tell us).
Conclusion: Therefore, there is no such thing as race, and racial preservation is illegitimate and irrelevant.
So, this is a logical argument that comes to a false conclusion because of a faulty premise: Premise 1. Premise 2 is however correct. Genetic studies tell us that groups heretofore thought “pure” are likely the result of ancient mixes of other groups. The overall European gene pool is predominantly a mix of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers, and each of those ancient groups in turn were derived from other populations. A reasonable computational analysis asserts that going back several thousand years, everyone has ancestors from all racial groups, although the relative numbers of each type of ancestor is drastically different for various ethnies; an excerpt follows:
The point was made earlier that the existence of an ACA date, or a time at which everyone alive today shares the same set of ancestors, does not necessarily imply that we owe the same degree of ancestry to each of those people. Otherwise, it is unlikely that even the most superficial physical differences could have arisen since then. But the question is, to what extent does the ancestral inheritance of various peoples in the world today differ? Are the differences subtle or dramatic? We can begin to answer these questions by tracing the ancestry of individual present-day sims. But in this case, we are not just interested in the identity of the ancestors, but in the percentage of the sim’s genes attributable to each ancestor. We will assume that a sim owes exactly 1/2 of his genes to each of his parents, and thus 1/4 to each grandparent, and so on. Of course, if an ancestor appears more than once on the family tree, she will contribute the sum of the individual proportions. After many generations, the proportion of genes contributed by each ancestor becomes vanishingly small, until some ancestors may contribute no actual genes. But we can sum the proportions over each continent or country to get a picture of the percentage of genes the modern sim owes to ancestors living in various parts of the world at a given time. We will first trace the ancestry of a randomly selected Japanese sim born in the year 2000 in one of the C2 trials. By 1500 AD, the sim owes 98.8% of his ancestry to his home country, the middle of the three Japanese territories, and much of the rest to the other two countries that form Japan. The remaining 0.4% is traceable to neighboring areas of China and Korea. By 500 AD, 98.9% of the sim’s ancestry is still attributable to Japan as a whole. This declines to 97.5% by 2000 BC, 95.7% by 5000 BC, and 88.4% by 20000 BC. The proportion of the sim’s ancestry attributable to each country in the world in 5000 BC is shown in Figure 13. The red and orange regions together account for 97.35% of the ancestry, with 2.62% from the rest of Eurasia, 0.014% from Africa, 0.00090% from Indonesia and Australia, and 0.00086% from the Americas. Figure 14 shows the corresponding ancestry for a randomly selected Norwegian. In this case, 92.3% of the ancestry in the year 5000 BC is attributable to the country in which the sim lives, in central Norway, and 96% to Scandinavia as a whole. The Norwegian has about three times as much African ancestry as the Japanese sim, but much less American, Indonesian, and Australian. The Norwegian owes 0.00044% of his ancestry to 5000 BC Japan, while the Japanese owes 0.00049%, or about 1 part in 200,000, to ancient Norway. That would suggest that, at this rate of mixing, a typical Norwegian might be expected to have inherited about one haplotype block from 5000 BC Japan (Gabriel et al., 2002).
It is important to distinguish between genealogical vs. genetic ancestors. Genealogical ancestors are all those who are your ancestors, whether or not they contributed to your genome; genetic ancestors are that fraction of your genealogical ancestors who actually ended up contributing gene sequences to your genome. In theory, one can assert that only genetic ancestors are relevant – if you don’t have any DNA from a particular ancestor, does that ancestor matter? On the other hand, the traditional racial purity paradigm was essentially genealogical, being formulated in the pre-genetics age. Thus, in the American South, for example, a person with a single known Negro ancestor generations ago was considered “Black,” regardless of whether the person had any DNA from that ancestor (of course the genetics were not known back then), and regardless of their racial phenotype. So, the purity paradigm is, at least in its strictest form, genealogical. However, if one goes back far enough, anyone will have genealogical ancestors from other racial groups (genetic ancestors of similar kind may or may not exist). Premise 2 is correct: there is no such thing as an absolute racial purity (differences in the relative degrees of admixture is another thing, of course).
Thus, obsessing over an absolute purity, going back down through the mists of time, is a futile exercise, that in the end contributes to the arguments of anti-racists, with their “but everyone is admixed” assertions. However, regardless of how modern gene pools came to be, people are not genetically identical – there are differences in genetic kinship and hence in genetic interests, and it is there that we need to focus our attention.
Premise 1 is false. Race does not depend on “purity.” Race can be defined different ways, but is essentially a genetically distinct subpopulation that is characterized by a suite of heritable (i.e., genetic) phenotypic traits distinguished from other such groups. There’s nothing in any reasonable definition of race that includes the idea that a race has to be a hermetically sealed group, absolutely isolated from all other groups from the beginning of time. Thus, racial preservation deals with races and their gene pools as they actually exist today, “warts” and all. The possible existence of past admixture does not in any way suggest that future admixture is inevitable, necessary, or desirable. The ethnic and genetic interests of any group are forward-looking, based on the present and looking toward the future. How the group came into existence – including via admixture – does not change the interests that group has in its continuity and preservation today.
Of course, the concept of ethnic genetic interests (EGI) represents an argument against future admixture, particularly against admixture across wide racial lines; i.e., across a large genetic differentiation. EGI is forward-looking. Genetic interests are considered in the present, to influence decisions that affect the future. Admixture in the past affected the genetic interests of the people at that time. We cannot go back in time and alter decisions made by past peoples that created the ethnies and individuals that exist today. Today’s peoples are what they are, with genomes that are what they are. We cannot change that. We can only change what future generations will be like, what their genomes, and consequent phenotypes, will be. Genetic interests always look forward. So, again, any individual or ethny today, with whatever ancestral mix, has genetic interests, regardless of how their genomes came to be.
For biopolitics, genetic kinship needs to replace racial “purity.” As per Frank Salter, ultimate interests are genetic interests, and genetic interests are based upon genetic kinship. Only genetic kinship is relevant for biopolitics. This contrasts to the strawman argument of racial “purity,” which is usually derived from some a priori comparison to a picked parental population (see below). Since all genetic differences, regardless of their derivation (e.g., “admixture” [real or an artifact], selective pressures, genetic drift, etc.) influence genetic kinship, measurement of such kinship is the most inclusive and definitive approach for understanding our ultimate interests. We accept the European gene pool for what it is now and strive to improve it in the future. To use Yockey’s terminology in a new way, we replace outdated and unscientific “vertical” concerns with “purity/admixture” with “horizontal” concerns with genetic kinship and genetic interests.
What I wrote in my essay on the Pareto Principle is relevant here:
If genetic interests are, as Salter argues, ultimate interests (I believe they are), and if genetic interests are based upon genetic kinship (which they are), then the only metric of biological race that is of true relevance to ultimate interests is genetic kinship.
General population genetics studies, admixture, ancestral proportions, NRY and mitochondrial DNA haplotypes, racial history — all of that may be interesting from scientific, historical, and anthropological perspectives. But from the fundamental perspective of ultimate interests, from the perspective of practical biopolitics, all or most of that is at best marginal and at worst irrelevant. A properly measured evaluation of genetic kinship, which must include genetic structure, will by its nature take into account the various mechanisms and types of (autosomal) genetic variation. An accurate accounting of genetic kinship will yield a quantitative metric that constitutes the basic essence of genetic interests and can be used to evaluate the relative merits of different ethnoracial possibilities. Consistent with the Pareto Principle, measures of genetic kinship require a minority of effort compared to more broad analyses on biological race, but yield the majority of the biopolitical relevance.
The Cobb genetic test fiasco is relevant to this discussion, and puts into focus how genetic tests should be considered. First, I do not believe that Cobb is really 14% Negro, any more than Watson is 16%. I also do not personally believe that a high quality genetic test, performed in a “blinded” fashion (i.e., the identity of the person tested being unknown), would yield a 14% result for Mr. Cobb; I’m confident it would be much lower. The whole episode, to me, fails the “smell test” of legitimacy. Indeed, one can say that Cobb was Watsoned – a term that describes the irresponsible use of genetic data to publicly humiliate a well-known alleged “racist” by “discovering” high levels of hidden minority admixture. However, not knowing the details of the type of test Cobb took, how the samples were handled, and what his exact genealogical ancestry is, all I can definitively say at this point is that the whole thing seems suspicious, and that I am skeptical of the results. It is of course theoretically possible that the 14% result is legitimate, and reflective of real, significant amounts of admixture. But extreme skepticism is warranted at this point.
These genetic tests have a problem with “statistical noise” that is not really fully explained or quantitated by testing companies. I know folks will agonize over things like some Finn getting a “2% Asian” result or some such thing, but at those low levels, the results may not really be statistically different from 0%. When asked directly, sometimes companies make some admissions (emphasis added):
Here’s the response from our scientist who developed the algorithm underlying ancestry painting: “There’s no case that I’ve seen where 9% Asian ancestry does not indicate genuine East Asian or Native American ancestry. I’ve looked at order thousands of individuals of known ancestry, that approximately cover the gamut of human diversity. Thus I would regard 9% as a reliable indication of East Asian or Native American ancestry. That said, 9% is close to the threshold above which the following statement can be made, so it is still theoretically possible, albeit very unlikely, that the prediction is not true.
Note that explanation was for Blacks exhibiting Asian/Native American “admixture” – 9% is “close to the threshold” of reliability; therefore, lower percentages cannot be definitively distinguished from statistical noise. Does a Black with, say, “2% Native American” really have an American Indian ancestor? Maybe they do, but it’s not much more likely than some other Black who has a “0% Native American” result. The precise numbers for Whites were not given, but presumably would be in the same general range. Thus, when considering numbers of less than, say, ~5%, it’s not, in my opinion, strongly distinguishable from “noise.” A 14% result is likely above the “noise” threshold for Whites, but I doubt that an accurate measurement of Cobb is really going to yield 14%. If it’s instead something in the range of 1-5%, that’s likely meaningless.
There’s an even more subtle problem with many of these DNA tests. For ethnies somewhat genetically distant from the “reference populations” used, some low amount of artifactual pseudo-“admixture” will be detected. In other words, “admixture” is detected not necessarily because actual (historical) admixture exists, but because a population is less genetically differentiated than the reference population, and is hence slightly genetically closer to other populations. Consider two populations, A and B, which are very genetically distinct and are used as reference populations. Now consider a third population, X, that belongs to the same overall racial group as A, but is less genetically/racially differentiated. In other words, X is slightly more similar to B than A is – but not because X is a mixture of A and B. For example, perhaps, over time, the more isolated A population has undergone genetic drift which, when combined with selective pressures, has differentiated that population away from population B to a greater extent than population X is differentiated from B. If A and B are the reference populations used, and if X is evaluated through comparison to A vs. B, then X will appear as if it is a mixture of mostly A with a bit of B. Of course, one possibility is that X is indeed such a mixture, but it’s also possible it is not.
On the old Decodeme site (login was required, so no URL available), the following was admitted (emphasis added):
The reference population samples were obtained from the HapMap project – they are:
1) European Americans from Utah – who most likely have a majority of north European ancestry
2) Yoruban Nigerians
3) Chinese from Beijing and Japanese from Tokyo.
The characteristics of these reference population samples and the clinal nature of human genetic variation (i.e. the fact that people typically become gradually more different as you travel further from your country) have several minor implications for the interpretation of the results. For example, a deCODEme user with a majority of ancestors (during the past >2 generations) from south-east Europe, will typically see higher percentages of African and Asian ancestry than a deCODEme user whose ancestry is mainly from north-west Europe. The difference will be small, but present.
That’s a general problem for ethnies not genetically very close to (or identical to) the reference populations. Now, Cobb presumably (?) derives ancestry from sources similar to the Utah samples, so this problem likely doesn’t apply to his case, but it nonetheless is an important caveat to keep in mind. This problem, coupled to the problem of statistical noise, must be considered for the proper interpretation of genetic test results. However, the sort of (leftist) people involved in the “gotcha” genetic attacks on Cobb and Watson are not going to be honest enough to point out these issues.
Genetic testing can be used to get an approximate estimate of ancestral proportions, which may be of some limited utility and, certainly, can be of personal interest. But it’s a mistake to believe that such testing – at least in the foreseeable future – can provide a definitively accurate measurement, down to the exact percentage, of ancestry and “purity.” To the extent that I may have contributed to that misconception in the past, that was an error on my part. But, that’s a minor error compared to the major error of continuing the outdated obsession with some sort of absolute purity going back to the dawn of time. One may talk about relative levels of “admixture” (or the lack thereof), but the point made in my Pareto Principle essay was that for the biological component of identity, genetic kinship is paramount. And therein lies the real value of genetic tests: the accumulation of data that can be used to measure relative genetic kinship, and relative genetic distance, which can be utilized to evaluate genetic interests. And since admixture will alter gene frequencies and increase genetic distance, a calculation of genetic kinship will by necessity take into account the presence of, and levels of, genetically detectable admixture.
There’s more to identity than genes, although I believe that genetic interests are fundamental. To the extent that we wish to consider genetics, let’s concentrate primarily on genetic kinship and the consequent genetic interests – an emphasis which will bolster the case for racial preservation. Going back to the idea of an absolute racial purity, and trying to fit that paradigm into the genetics age, will only play into the hands of the anti-White forces – as Cobb discovered – and will encourage “Watsoning.” We need to pursue strategies and tactics that play to our strengths and support our interests, not those that help the Left delegitimize the case for our racial survival.
In summary: genetic kinship and genetic interests should be our focus with respect to biological considerations, not the Holy Grail of a mythical absolute racial purity. Further, to the extent that genetic testing is useful, the data generated should primarily be used for determining genetic kinship, not to feed fuel to the fire of anti-White leftist arguments and “Watsoning.”
40 Comments
“Conclusion: Therefore, there is no such thing as race, and racial preservation is illegitimate and irrelevant.”
This statement reminds me of the supposedly deep question posed in Philosophy 101 by our instructor, “How do we know we are alive? We could just be dreaming this whole experience we call life”. Whether or not a person can come up with a detailed technical argument to prove he is actually alive, the idea is just silliness, the kind one often sees in higher education. Every person with minimal awareness, even a young child, has an instinctive understanding that he is alive, and this is his reality whether he might like to imagine otherwise. Likewise, the brain instinctively understands that a dog is not a cat (whether or not the brain’s owner can put is finger on exactly what makes them different), and also that an African is not an Asian and that neither are Europeans. Infants show this ability to differentiate by staring at pictures of those with an alien race longer than co-ethnics. The amygdala, the “fear part” of the brain, lights up when subliminally viewing photos of alien races. Whether or not the argument is arranged into a syllogism and evidence compiled, race is a reality for our brains, and this affects our behavior in significant ways. Even if genetic testing showed absolutely no genetic difference between races, that would change nothing; humans would still have an instinctive understanding that race is real and this would remain an important factor in group competition/conflict.
I agree with Mr. Sallis’s argument that the existence of minority non-European admixture in a person’s genes is not material at this time. This is a concern that is divisive and unhelpful for establishing a political movement.
As an aside, if Mr. Cobb was actually 1/8 African, an “Octoroon”, one would expect some telltale phenotypical signs, as African features tend to be quite pronounced. The test does seem fishy.
It is of the essence for preserving white populations around the globe – our European “rasion d’etre” -, to be conscious of our genetic kinship and our genetic interests projected to the future. To that we must add consciousness of our common cultural characteristics, as nobility, and being truthful, virtues all to be found in the “Education of Cyrus” by Xenophon. There is more, but genetic kinship + common cultural characteristics is the core. Brilliant Ted!
Hmm, I do not know about others, but I find it very hard to embrace the idea of “genetic interests.” It seems so unnatural; ethnic kinship I can easily understand, but identifying according to “genes” I cannot, because knowledge of genetics is not something we primally have like knowledge of our ancestry or cousinhood. It seems all too clinical. The implications of the same for those with Downs syndrome, however, would be interesting.
Genetic interests is really sort of just a more quantitative way of looking at ethnic kinship. We are simply determining the amount of genetic information that is shared, or not shared, between individuals and groups. It is a confirmation of ethnic kinship.
I often use the analogy of color: just because they merge into each other on the spectrum, does that mean they don’t exist? To think so is a corruption of fuzzy set theory. Or watercolors: if you mix all the colors together, do you get some super color of amazing beauty? Or do you get mud? Or watercolors on a palette: if you want to paint with colors, you need to keep them separate. That’s real diversity. Or judicious mixing: mixing some colors together can get you other colors or modify the color you are working with. This doesn’t mean the old color was bad or the new color better. It depends on what you want.
We should emphasize the fuzzy set theory. They are using our one drop rule against us. The one drop rule is a good policy but not good philosophy. We can’t expect ordinary people to make this distinction.
Race is not just skin color, so colors are a bad analogy.
I am interested in European preservationism, and “white” to me just means “European,” which includes a whole range of skin tones, from the whitest white to brown. Just because brown-skinned Europeans share the same skin-tone as some non-whites is not grounds for assuming admixture.
Yes, I suppose color might confuse people since they think race is only color – even though it was just an illustration of the concept of fuzzy sets.
Do you think White is a viable racial distinction or merely a cultural heritage? Are Hindu and Arab Caucasian Christians and secular humanists candidates for the White Republic? Their IQ’s are on average much lower….
We are European racial preservationists. That is the essential factor.
We are not cultural preservationists, since culture is less fundamental than race.
We are not about preserving Christendom, which is a universal religious community that does not necessarily overlap with our race. It is possible to be anti-Muslim without thereby being pro-Christian, or identifying the cause of racial preservation with merely promoting Christianity, which is indifferent to white racial preservation.
We are not “Caucasian” preservationists in the broad sense: the Caucasians of the Near and Middle East and South Asia are not in any danger of vanishing from the planet. They have their own homelands, healthy birthrates, and relatively healthy cultures compared to the white world. They don’t need to be in our homelands, and I would hope that our people would remain aloof from them genetically, to preseve our own distinctness.
I used to be a supporter of pan-Europeanism myself but I have come to modify my position on the subject. So much resistance from Nordicists, petty nationalists, aracial conservatives and other similar types have lead me to believe that pan-Europeanism is pointless and futile.
What I’m concerned with now is that the major Continental nations — Germany, France, Italy and Iberia– become united and strong so as to weather the storm and survive.
The rest do not matter.
I obviously disagree. And I would think that those living in the nations you think “do not matter” would disagree as well.
One may as well say that racial preservation itself is “pointless and futile” given the major resistance by so many important players.
More to the point: this essay was not a brief in support of (or against) pan-Europeanism. It was a discussion of the issue of “racial purity” from the standpoint of genetics and racial identity. This is an issue which is as much a concern for the “major continental nations” as it is for all Europeans in general.
So if Cobb were actually an octroon, what consequences would follow? Should he renounce his beliefs and embrace multiracialism, or gracefully bow out of the movement? Put it another way. If and when the white race as a whole is more than 15% non-white due to decades of miscegenation, will then be time to accept multiracialism, or simply to despair?
Please understand that I am not trolling. It is a serious question, namely, could there ever be a mixed-race white nationalism? We know that racial purity is not a sufficient condition for racial consciousness; could it be that it is not necessary either?
I think the point now is to be forward-looking. We do not want a 15%+ non-White “White” race; we not want a global Brazil. We can’t know what challenges the people of tomorrow will face; we need to face the problems of today. If we today can hold the line against mass miscegenation, then the peoples of tomorrow will not have to a ponder the possibility of a mixed-race “white nationalism.” From our perspective a mixed-race nationalism would still be a form of racial nationalism, but it would not be “White,” defined as the current constellation of European peoples as they exist today.
With respect to questions of necessary/sufficient: all peoples have genetic interests, and all peoples have interests in preservationism. And that includes groups that are highly admixed. The point of this essay is that racial purity – in the absolute disjunctive sense popular in the “movement” for a long time – does not really exist. That doesn’t alter the imperative for racial consciousness, since race does not depend on purity. It depends on distinctiveness. Therefore purity is not necessary for racial consciousness, since we support consciousness while asserting that purity does not exist. Particular types of genotypes and phenotypes do exist and it is the defense of those that we value and which constitute the foundation of an enlightened racial consciousness.
As far as Cobb goes, I’m not interested in discussing what one individual or another should do under different sets of circumstances. His case is relevant as it sheds light on misinterpretation of genetic tests, and how an excessive focus on purity supports anti-White memes.
One major point of the essay was that racial purity does not exist. Something that does not exist cannot be either necessary or sufficient for racial consciousness unless you believe that racial consciousness is illegitimate. Since the essay obviously supports racial nationalism while denying the existence of an absolute racial purity, it is obvious that I (and Greg who endorses the viewpoint) do not believe that the former is dependent on the latter.
Both my essay and Greg’s comments in the Parrott interview make clear that we do not believe that very minor, ancient, and possibly artifactual admixture in any way, suggests that we should accept mass admixture in the present and future.
Whites of the future will face their own challenges. If by “Whites” we mean people with genotypes and phenotypes similar to the various European peoples today,then adding 15% admixture will mean they are not “White” by our standards. What such an admixed people may call themselves is beyond our control. We should aim at preventing such admixture from occuring.
Thanks for the clarification. I understand, of course, that you are criticising a particularly stringent type of racial purism in your essay. This type of racial purism is not what most people would understand by the term, however.
I think it’s interesting that blacks, for example, will accept black-white hybrids as belonging to their racial community. In fact, I believe it’s common knowledge that US blacks are about 15% white on average. Malcolm X, black nationalist, was obviously a mulatto.
Similarly one often reads of Jews who identify strongly as such despite being mixed race or in mixed marriages.
Some white equivalents are to be found in Riccardo Orizio’s book Lost White Tribes. The Blancs Matignons would be a striking example of a people who, although far from pure blooded, have a far stronger sense of themselves as white than does the average first world white person.
The issue is that you have to draw the line somewhere. Is it only prehistoric admixture that’s okay? One grandparent, etc.? A related issue is that in an increasingly mixed race society the white nationalist position asks people to choose between their actual community and an imagined, nostalgic and\or futuristic one. I predict that this position will become less tenable as we draw closer to some revolutionary crisis point and organic communities spring up consequent on the failure of the state. Language, culture and customs will matter then, but no one will likely be focused on racialist eugenics.
Preserving our community as it is requires, of course, that we decide who is part of it.
Some thoughts for discussion. I would argue the following.
1. Ancient admixture is OK. That is simply part of our identity, not something extraneous to it.
2. If a person identifies as non-white no matter what his genetic makeup, he is not part of the white community.
3. As for recent admixture, lines must be drawn. For one thing, different races are genetically more or less similar to our own. The greater the genetic distance, the less admixture should be acceptable. This is why the one-drop rule for blacks seems far more reasonable than the one drop rule for Amerindians or East Asians or Near Easterners.
4. The further back the admixture, the greater the chance that the alien genes have washed out. If one has a great-great-grandfather who is non-white, at most you have inhereted 1/16 of his DNA, but you could have inhereted less. Although it is conceivable that you did not inheret any at all, it is not likely. Furthermore, not all DNA is race-specific. When determining our identity, we need to focus not on who is in one’s family tree but whose DNA is actually in us.
5. For the time being, I think we can go with David Lane’s rough definition: If somebody looks white, acts white, thinks white, and fights white, he is white.
And in follow up to my previous comment: something I’ve noticed about the biology departments at most universities is that there is a very strong drive, present in the beliefs of the faculty, the material taught and the spirit of ‘why we do biology’, to conserve, namely flora and fauna conservation.
I may be wrong about this, but 70-100 years ago, the spirit of ‘why we do biology’, the material taught, and the beliefs of the faculty were largely eugenicist. So what has happened is a shift from ‘preserving humans’ to ‘preserving animals.’
The less mixture with other races, the more unmixed a race, which is a marker for selective breeding and segregation. The greater the urge to separate, the more racially conscious the group, and therefore the more deserving of our admiration, but sadly, the more receiving of humanity’s hatred.
“White privilege needs to start acting privileged.”
White nationalism is not about race at all, it’s about preserving and promoting the interests and welfare of the historic American nation — whose single unifying characteristic may have been its European or white racial nature, but this nature was hardly the extent of the nation.
Race is a facet — indeed the most important facet — of the nation as a “population.” But it’s the nation (product of history rather than nature) that is primary.
The sooner white nationalism moves from a purely zoological to a nationalist or identitarian orientation, the more successful it will be.
(For the slow witted, let me emphasize that this does not at all imply multiracialism — for the nation WN defends is a white nation.)
“White nationalism is not about race at all.” Never thought I’d hear that one!
Perhaps I’m slow witted, but the criticism of zoologism to me reads as prevarication. Either racial purity (in the normal sense of the phrase) is necessary or it isn’t. Juxtaposing your first sentence with your last here, it sounds as if you haven’t made up your mind.
One comes across this sort of thing a lot: displacement of anxiety over the real issue of who belongs onto disavowals of a type of racial purism that is little more than a straw man. The classic of the genre is probably Greg Johnson’s “Is Racial Purism Decadent?” which pursues an asymptotic trajectory in relation to Spengler’s position on the subject.
Ok if being White doesn’t matter beyond the historical and cultural sense, should we be willing to accept Westernized populations from elsewhere as long as they are high functioning? This is the Vdare/high IQ stance. Again if we are not unique in any racial/spiritual way, these immigrants should be able to acculturate quite nicely.
I like to think to think we are unique. And even if it’s a Myth, it’s a very useful one for protecting our precious Tradition. Think of consequences of being wrong. It’s far too much to risk.
We are white racial preservationists, not cognitive elitists. High-functioning non-whites may be more pleasant to be around than low-functioning ones, but the former are far more dangerous because, as the Jewish problem indicates, they are actually capable of wresting control of our societies away from us. Indeed, the low-functioning non-whites were not much of a problem in America until the rise of Jewish hegemony.
You are overstating your point to say that WN is not about race “at all.” Of course it is about race, and those aspects of nation that go beyond race — the cultural aspects — strike me as important, of couse, but also inessential, in the sense that if we were forced to choose between racial and cultural preservation, I choose race. It hardly matters to me if the Japanese will still be listening to Beethoven if our race becomes extinct. Preserving the race is more fundamental than preserving culture. Beyond that, it is possible for non-whites to acculturate but it is not possible for them to become white. Thus putting too much emphasis on culture is the path to the assimilation (culturally, then genetically) of non-whites.
In what way is race (the biological aspect of man) not a product of history?
Well, if you are talking about natural history, then Darwinists and other materialist/nominalist types would argue that it is entirely a product of history. If you are talking about human history, i.e., culture, then we have to presuppose that humans exist before they create culture. But once cultures exist, they do shape the race, because cultural institutions and practices have eugenic and dysgenic effects. So man is an artifact of nature, but when man enters into history, he can perfect or pervert nature’s handiwork.
I agree with you, sort of. But I wouldn’t make such a clear distinction between nature and human culture: humans and their culture are part of nature. That is relevant when talking about the distinction between the nation (as a product of history) and the race (as a product of nature), as Mr. O’Meara did. I can’t see how the one could be more a product of, say, history, than the other. They are so to an equal extent.
Humans and our cultures are constrained by nature, but not fully determined by nature. Two peoples who are quite similar genetically and who live in basically the same geographical and environmental conditions can have radically different languages, cultures, religions, etc based simply on historical contingencies. Europe is full of such examples. How different are Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians in terms of genetics, geography, and environment? But historical and cultural (including religious) factors make virtually all the difference.
In other words a European genetic patrimony is an absolute necessity, but by itself it is insufficient.
“We are European racial preservationists. That is the essential factor.”
Good point. I think that we can easily convince the left of the ‘goodness’ of preserving the ‘European races.’ They understand that it’s good to preserve endangered animals, so it’s not a great leap at all to extend the argument to humans.
Of course, they will at first say that there is only one race, the human race, and therefore it doesn’t matter if whites become brown. But this is an inconsistency on their part. The left has no problem with preserving sub-species of species (such as the many sub-species of the species Canis lupus), so if one considers whites a sub-species of homo sapiens, then there is no response that an honest leftist can now muster, other than a concession of our point, of course.
An honest leftist? I’ve never met one but I admit the possibility if you could find one that rejects Marxism and its commitment to subversion. In any case, you are being far too optimistic.
Full marks to Michael O’Meara for showing us where the Light in our Cave came from.
I approach this from a metapolitical perspective; the “nations” we support are derived from our Race fulfilling its unique cosmic destiny. “Aryan,” meaning superior, is the identification that is very accurate from the perspective of where our “national” identities derived from.
Our Race, uniquely, sees the same material world as the other races, except we look more deeply to understand the abstract forces that are at work, and, in turn, transform Culture into Civilization. Only we Created Western Civilization; actually, I repeat myself, for only the West has a process AND structure of Civilization that reaches from the dirt beneath our feet – which we transformed into cities – to the Stars from which we came, and to which we shall return.
Think of it – we took properties inherent in one medium, perceived them in the abstract, and transformed them into Tool to transform Culture into Civilization. Water? Steam engines were used to conquer the seas. Air? Bernoulli’s Principle made aviation possible, and we conquered the Air.
It is something in our Spirit that creates and transforms Civilization, which to us is “merely” a means to a much greater End, which calls us Home to the Stars.
Remember, of all creatures on Earth, only Man has free will, and walks upright – his spinal column being used as a tool for bridging cosmic forces with material forces. Not only do we walk upright, we look UP, we imagine, and we Create better. much damn better, than what came before.
This is linked to Something in the forces that form our DNA. Only we can do this, and only we want to; no, HAVE to. Our DNA acts, for want of a better metaphor, as a receiver for a higher grade of Consciousness that we are only beginning to tap into.
The Mars Society – which I believe Tesla’s Elon Musk supports – issued the call for volunteers to take a ONE WAY journey to Mars, to begin the process of terraforming the planet. So far, they have received applications from more than 200,000 volunteers, many of remarkably high quality. What do they have in common? Look in the mirror.
I only know of Cobb’s adventures from what I read on the New York Times and Daily Mirror websites. Sadly, nothing I have read surprises me, with one exception.
Why didn’t he choose to buy the old NA HQ at Turkey Buzzard Point? Buildings and infrastructure are in place, and can probably be had for very little (with good reason).
Is it something in the blood?
Yes sooner or later we must return to the mystical biology of the Race Spirit as put forward by Rosenberg. This transcends and heals the divide between genes and culture and puts as far above White Nationalism as Zoology.
A lot to comment on, a lot I disagree with, little time. A few points.
To me, racial nationalism is absolutely about race, with a foundation in biology/genetics. If that’s zoology. so be it.
But, as said, an absolute racial purity does not define race. For anyone to say that this form of racial purity is a “straw man” meant to knock down to deal with “anxiety” hasn’t been paying close enough attention to the “movement.”
The major issue of “where to draw the line” – it’s not feasible to state a defined specific number percentage, because any concrete “line” depends upon a 100% accurate and precise tool for measurement. If statistical noise is a problem (and will likely always be a problem, at least for very low percentages), and if 0% may actually be 2% and 2% may actually be 0% – a technical issue. That doesn’t even get into the issue of artifactual “admixture” due to choice of reference populations. As Greg points out, the type of admixture, and more importantly, the timing, also influences things. The more recent the admixture, the more likely that the foreign DNA is in the form of large chromosome blocks, that have a greater effect on genetic structure, and are more likely to influence phenotype. Thus, a given % of (real) admixture is more of a problem the more recent. With respect to identity, Greg makes an important point that the ancient admixture is part of who we are today in any case and in fact constitute part of our current genetic interests.
Therefore, probably the best answer is that a fuzzy line around the types of “admixture” (real or artifactual) that exist in recently unmixed indigenous European peoples are part of who we are, and not a problem for us today. Cases of recent admixture (eg, great grandparent, etc) are more problemmatical and can be approached on a case-by-case basis.
I agree that ancient admixture is less important, and I think one important reason is that it has been subjected to both natural and sexual selection for many generations. Characteristics that are not suited to the environment, such as dark pigmentation in the far North, or very light pigmentation in a sunny environment, would be selected against. Also characteristics that don’t fit the group’s standards would be selected against. I recall reading a saga many years ago where the hero was contemplating marriage, and the sole negative of one prospective bride was that she was “a black woman.” There weren’t many negresses in Scandanavia before the cultural Marxists went to work, so I figured out that the problem was her black hair. Therefore in that predominantly blonde culture sexual selection would have limited change in at least one characteristic of the phenotype.
somewhat off-topic – I read online that Cobb was arrested for “terrorizing.” Reading between the lines, it seems at first glance (more info is needed to get all the facts) that Cobb and friends were defending themselves from harassment and those with whom he was in conflict called the police. Of course, who is the establishment going to arrest?
That’s why the “live out in the woods” crowd doesn’t get it (even after Weaver and Waco). The establishment won’t leave you alone. Even if you want to just set up your own community and not bother anyone they’ll come after you one way or another. Provocation set ups seem an easy way to accomplish this.
Razib Khan who runs a blog on genetics, thought it unlikely that the Cobb results were accurate.
I might be over-simplifying things, but it’s possible just to go back and draw lines on a map in order to articulate the contours of who counts as a European. The genetic groupings are in large part contingent on historical geographic isolation anyway.
I might be over-simplifying things…
I think simplifying here is good, particularly from the political perspective. The tendency to over-complicate and nitpick, re: these issues causes the problems discussed in this essay (and in the recent Greg Johnson-Matt Parrott interview).
A place to start: recently unmixed of European descent (which would exclude intrusive Diaspora peoples like Jews and Gypsies, as well as Asian Muslims like Turks).
That’s similar to – but more simple than – the National Alliance membership requirements. I believe the NA rejected homosexuals for example – I’m relatively uninterested in a person’s private life provided that they are of European ancestry and pro-White.
Exceptions to the rule (e.g., recent admixture) can be considered on a case-by-case basis.
As per Razib Khan – I agree with his assessment on this score, but in general he’s no friend of ours.
Razib K is one of those keyboard reactionaries — a vague amalgamation of MRAs, orthodox Christians, HBD’ers, and others — who seem to have a pretty bustling presence on Twitter and various blogging platforms, but as far as I can tell, don’t really produce many concrete works (I will say that out of all of them, HBD’ers are the most persistent and exhaustive. Valuable and interesting, but not political beyond lazy libertarianism).
As for the definition of European, it’s much easier to make hard-biological distinctions between Africans and Europeans (or Africans and pretty much everyone else). For diaspora people, the distinction is often more ideological than strictly material. The other day on the train, I saw an orthodox/conservative Jew with red hair and blue eyes. Without his religious costume, he could’ve easily passed for a Gentile, yet he belongs to a different tribe.
Actually, even with all the caveats of genetic testing, Jews can be fairly easily distinguished from White gentiles via genetics. One paper even asserted that 1/4 Jews can be identified with a high degree of certainty. Of course it is true that phenotypically, many Jews look fully European. And the distinctions go beyond the material, I agree as well. Yockey distinguished Jews based on the totality of their identity: race, religion, people, nation, culture.
Good article. How could there be such a thing as absolute purity when all living things have common ancestors? If you go back far enough, we have common ancestors not only with Blacks but with field mice and strawberries.
The important fact is that the human races are evolving apart. The only question before us is whether shall allow this natural and necessary process to continue — the only way human evolution (or any kind of evolution) can move forward — or continue the insane and genocidal attempt to terminate it which our enemies have made the raison d’etre of the West.
Good points. We need to look to the future and continued branching off of the human species.
An interesting article is this:
https://archive.org/details/TheEvolutionaryFunctionOfPrejudice
Which goes together well with Salter’s work on genetic interests.