Re: Darwinism and the alleged superiority of some human groups

The point of my post was that I don't think this is relevant to wsn per se.
Prof Prugovecki is pressuring us in his, by now familiar tone of
democratically embracing difference in a warm and encouraging fashion, to
think otherwise. In thinking about this, I dread the possibility of a
meta-debate about a meta-debate. I don't have the time and the resources to
engage in such; I have a couple of day jobs in addition to looking at the wsn
posts trying to find out when it is possible to construe a message as an
offense to me--as seems to be the new norm.

The fact that racism has "shaped the world", well, so has the presence and
specific characteristics of large bodies of salty water, and yet, somehow I
don't think Professor Prugovecki will advocate a thread on oceanography here.
Or maybe he is? How about mountains? Islands?

To be able to conduct a conversation, one needs taste: a set of judgments
regarding what constitutes a question that you are willing to enter into and
examine its various possible sides and merits and what it is that you will
treat as an axiom (an issue whose verity / falseness we--participants in a
conversation--all agree on). Up till the last few days, I thought that the
issue of the racial unity of humankind, and hence the utter, stupid
meaninglessness of the idea of racial superiority / inferiority among humans,
is one such axiom. In order to ceremonially claim the obvious absence of
racial superiority you actually have to have examined its verity--I think
that itself is, in the face of the 500-year history of global capitalism,
colonialism and imperialism, and in the post-shoa world, basically a stupid
waste of everybody's time.  Pronouncing the obvious is not good conversation.

In the face of this, I am exercising my judgment of taste here: I repeat that
I don't think the business of racial superiority is relevant to wsn, even if
it finds its way into wsn in the form of a political statement condemning it.
I request, again, the resolute closure of this thread.

József Böröcz

On Sun, 11 May 2003, E. Prugovecki wrote:

|Date: Sun, 11 May 2003 08:51:15 -0700
|From: E. Prugovecki <prugovecki@laguna.com.mx>
|To: "wsn@csf.colorado.edu" <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
|Cc: "Threehegemons@aol.com" <Threehegemons@aol.com>,
|     "jborocz@rci.rutgers.edu" <jborocz@rci.rutgers.edu>,
|     "robinson@rojas.net" <robinson@rojas.net>,
|     "wwagar@binghamton.edu" <wwagar@binghamton.edu>,
|     "KenRichard2002@aol.com" <KenRichard2002@aol.com>,
|     "mdwhitak@wiscmail.wisc.edu" <mdwhitak@wiscmail.wisc.edu>,
|     "spectors@netnitco.net" <spectors@netnitco.net>
|Subject: Darwinism and the alleged superiority of some human groups
|
|NOTE: I had written this post before Steven Sherman decided "to declare
|the topic of 'genetic superiority' off topic." Hence, I trust that it
|will be posted on WSN, especially since it is in response to a post by
|Steven Sherman himself. Let me also add that I find the remarks "excuse
|me, is this the world-systems net? is wsn moderated for subject matter?"
|by Jozsef Borocz incomprehensible: I have been subscribing to WSN now for
|more than a year, and a huge number of posts that I've seen had
|absolutely nothing to do with "world-systems" theory. Why object now to
|discussions of biological or genetic superiority, since, as illustrated
|below, the resulting supremacist ideologies have very much shaped world
|systems in the past, and are doing  that even at the present time?
|
|
|In his May 10, 2003 post Re: Genetic superiority, reproduced below,
|Steven Sherman points out that, "Any claims of 'superiority' raise
|obvious questions about 'superior in what way'?
|
|The concept of "biological superiority" was introduced by supremacist of
|all kinds soon after the publication of Darwin's monumental work "The
|Origin of Species." For example, on p. 235 of James Wilson's "The Earth
|Shall Weep: A History of Native America" (Grove Press, 1998) we  find the
|following statement: "Charles Darwin's 'The Origin of the Species,'
|published a decade after the [1850s] Gold Rush [in California], gave
|scientific racism a new intellectual authority. Subtitled 'Or The
|Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life,' it seemed to
|offer a purely biological explanation for the global 'success' of
|northern Europeans at the expense of other peoples. Where the
|seventeenth-century Puritans believed that God had chosen them to
|populate the New World, nineteenth-century Americans could now feel
|confident that nature had selected them for the same purpose. Within only
|a few years, references of Darwin and the theory of Evolution were
|commonplace in writing about Native Americans."
|
|Although Mendel made his pioneering discoveries between 1856 and 1865,
|genetics did not exist as a science at the time "The Origin of Species"
|was published. (Genetics took off around 1910). Thus, the nineteenth
|century white Americans did not have any notion yet of genetics as a
|science, but quickly adapted Darwinian ideas to developing "scientific"
|supremacist ideologies. The resulting conviction that they were
|"superior" to the Native Americans led to unambiguous results: "Although
|Darwinism was clearly not directly responsible for the near-extermination
|of Californian Indians, it sprang from, and contributed to, an
|intellectual climate in which genocide was seen as natural and
|unavoidable." (Ibid., p. 236)
|
|But Steven Sherman is right: that nineteenth-century social Darwinism is
|by now discredited.
|
|However, there is a new Darwinism right now on the rise, which reflects a
|"cynicism deeper than Freudian cynicism [that] may have once been hard to
|imagine. ... Already, various avant-garde academics ...  are viewing
|human communication as 'discourses of power.' Many people believe what
|new Darwinism underscores: that in human affairs, all (or at least much)
|is artifice, a self-serving manipulation of image." (Robert Wright, "The
|Moral Animal," Vintage Books, 1994, p. 325)
|
|It is to such "discourses of power" that modern supremacists subscribe.
|Of course, the motivation for the application to human affairs of the old
|social Darwinism and of the "new Darwinism" based on genetics is the
|same: after militarily powerful nations or social groups subjugate weaker
|ones, they justify their acts by invoking the idea of "superiority" as a
|"scientific fact." That provides their own populations with the assurance
|that even if what they are doing was not "predestined by God," it is at
|least "natural" and "right." Hence we have, on one hand, Cantor's and
|Patai's assurances of the "genetic intellectual superiority" of the Jews
|that I described in my WSN post of May 4, 2003, and, on the other hand,
|the "the many vocal and virulent racist Jews" whom Ken Richard had
|encountered during his recent visit to Tel Aviv, and whom he describes in
|his WSN post "Re: Zionism, supremacist doctrines and PNAC" of the same
|date.
|
|Since Steven Sherman quotes the passage in which I refer to the genuinely
|"superior humans" in my book "Dawn of the New Man," let me add that in
|this novel an advanced society develops humans who can survive without
|protective gear on other planets, who have outstanding intellectual
|abilities, etc., so that the "superiority" is very specific, and has
|nothing to do with dominance. In fact, my intention was to examine how
|extremely advanced human species might fit into an already advanced
|society that enjoys true freedom and democracy, since genuine superiority
|will give rise to some amount of social friction even if it is not
|overtly asserted and used to acquire special privileges.
|
|However, that is a work of fiction, and I would hate to see geneticists
|develop new strains of humans at the present infantile stage in the
|development of the human species. Unfortunately, that will very likely
|take place, and seeing how things are "progressing" nowadays, probably
|the first priority will be given to military purposes: to develop humans
|who are more efficient killers, so that they can better serve with the US
|occupying forces across the globe, and supplement on the ground all the
|"smart bombs" dropped from the air.
|
|Eduard Prugovecki
|
|
|_________________________________________
|
|
|On May 10, 2003 Steven Sherman wrote:
|
|      In a message dated 5/10/2003 10:52:31 AM Eastern Standard
|      Time, prugovecki@laguna.com.mx writes:
|
|      > It is not that I shy away from the possibility of genetic
|      superiority of certain groups. In fact, in my novel "Dawn of
|      the New Man: A Futuristic Novel of Social Change," I dwell on
|      the subject of how an enlightened future society, which
|      enjoys true freedom and democracy, deals with the technology
|      of genetic engineering leading to various superior human
|      species. But the arguments that the Jews, or the Aryans, or
|      whatever, are "genetically superior" at the present time
|      simply does not
|
|      > represent well-established scientific fact.
|
|      Any claims of 'superiority' raise obvious questions about
|      'superior in what way'?  Generosity?  Endurance?  Strength?
|      Mathematical cognition?  Musical cognition?  Tolerance?
|      Humor?  Physical attractiveness? etc.  Are all (or any) of
|      these measurable on a single scale of 'superiority'?
|
|      When Darwin was first writing, and for another hundred years
|      or so, there was a belief that evolution produced superior
|      species as time went on.  I have not read enough Darwin to
|      know whether or not to blame him for this.  But this view is
|      now completely discredited scientifically.  Species are more
|      differentiated, from each other and in terms of their
|      internal functioning, but each part has become simpler.  It
|      is more endless mutation than ascension.
|
|      Humans regarded by some as 'inferior' often have capacities
|      that are superior to others in important ways.  The blind,
|      for example, can navigate in the dark much better than those
|      with eyesight.  And the reverse is true.  While many at the
|      top levels of the contemporary economy would undoubtedly
|      score well on intelligence tests produced in our society, it
|      has been my experience that they can be stupefyingly
|      narrow-minded and utterly unable to incorporate any facts
|      that may lead to self-criticism.
|
|      I find any view that suggests that those who have fallen
|      victims to some individual or group with bigger guns or
|      muscles are 'inferior' to be particularly repugnant and
|      incompatible with anything I would recognize as 'left'
|      values.
|
|
|      Steven Sherman
|
|
|
|