One has to see it in light of development in 18th and 19th century and especially the birth of nationalism stemming from secular humanism. This was a movement where it was claimed by Hegel and his predecessors especially in French revolution, that there is such a thing as a nation. An entity that encompasses people who share culture, language, history. In his seminal work, Lectures on the Philosophy of History Hegel popularized Herders concept of the entity of as Volksgeist. A spirit that animates the population and that gives rise to the nation based on shared culture, language, history and political structure. With advent of Darwinism after Hegel's death this idea was appropriated and added blood/race into the structure.
This also gave rise to a new form of antisemitism that was distinct from the old religious forms. Jews were no longer just outsiders with different religious beliefs, they were people who were not part of the German Volksgeist, the historical force that was moving the German/Aryan Volk toward supremacy. They had their own Jewish Volkgeist that was in dialectical opposition to Germanic race. Also this theory was not exclusive to Jews, Hitler defined other races such as Slavs that also were disruptive elements opposing Germans. By the way, denigrating Slavs but also Africans and Native Americans was there back in Hegel, who defined them as Naturzustand nations - people in natural state, Engels who was a rabid racist later marked all these nations as geschichtslose Völker - nations without History. Where The History™ is this religious mystical force that drives progress as opposed to just "history" in form of having some monuments and the past. This is where the concept of Blut o blood was added to some nationalist projects alongside of language, culture, geography and The History.
It is all rooted in the eugenic/social darwinist ethos of of late 19th and early 20th century progressives, who saw evolution not only on the level of some bacteria or dinosaurs, but also as a struggle between different tribes and nations toward supremacy. The survival of the fittest had spiritual angle, the ability to dominate for millenium was attestation of right to rule. That the global arrangement is constant struggle between various Darwinian entities, these Volkgeists and that ability to dominate by force is at the same time proof of right to rule as well as the supremacy of given race embodied in superorganism of the state. That is why the totalitarian fascist state was so obsessed with power, as Mussolini defined it Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato or Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State. And by everything, they meant everything: political power, culture, religion even family relations had to serve The State as this divine entity engaged in constant struggle over power. It is no accident that the Hitlers propagandist director Riefenstahl made a movie named Triumph of the Will. The Will here is in line of German continental philosophers like Shoppenhauer and Nietczhe - the Will to Power. The will is not just an individual grit, it is also not Augustinian Christian free will. It is specifically the secular will to dominate and enforce one's ideas upon the society - but not from an individual standpoint, this will is subject to the teleological mystical power of The History™ - they are just Great Men who embody the Ziegeist and move the society toward Progress.
It is no surprise that this idea stemmed from secular humanism or socialism, who also see collective as the ultimate God, the Marx's The New Socialist Man.
Also Hitler as many other totalitarians was concerned with purity. He did not care that Japanese Volk had their own interest in far east, or that there may have been some Yemeni Jews with their own schemes inside Middle-East. He wanted to create a 1000 year Reich, which would have "pure" Germanic foundation and fight with Arabs or Japanese was something to be hashed out in Darwianian sense after this internal purity was established.
The idea behind fascism is that the whole state is one superorganism and that individuals are serving the state in this Darwinian struggle. In fact Hitler himself despaired after crushing defeats in the east - how come that hordes of barbarian Slavs were able to defeat his nation? It could only be because of saboteurs and clandestine actions, because otherwise he would have to accept that the Slavic nations are superior to German nations which was a tough pill to swallow. Also that is why he was so suicidal, he saw defeat of Germany as defeat of these almost religious concepts.
Now this may have seen as some historical/philosophical tangent, but the very same ideas now animate current ideological battles and Culture War. Progressives are still worshiping power, they endlessly analyze systems of oppression and how power flows based on blood or culture not unlike progressive "humanists" from the past. It is the same underlying ethos and theology but in a new dress.
You are using presentist definition of race according to modern US Culture war. This was not so in the past. Hitler himself defined Jews as a race, it was a "terminus technicus" inside the Third Reich - the so called Judenrasse. In fact this whole issue was behind the whole Holocaust was not about race controversy by Whoopi Goldberg - because she is correct. From modern US race relation system point of view, the Jewish Holocaust is just white-on-white violence, similar to let's say Yugoslav wars or black-on-black genocide in Rwanda - which were also not technically "racist" in modern parlance.
This of course only reveals the inherent racism of the modern system especially related to affirmative action and similar race laws. There are numerous jokes running in the same vein, pointing to the inherent progressive contradiction - they at the same time have racial based affirmative action, but also deny race as a scientific concept, but also deny race as a self-identification identity/category similar to let's say trans. As in all dialectical leftist schizoid conspiracy theories, they just declare belief in the power of Progress to resolve/abolish this nasty Hegelian contradiction, which by itself is a proof of a need to do more more research grift into their Theory™ bankrupt religious theology. In the end, they leave it as temporarily unresolved candidate to abolish in further revolution, but also heavily punish anybody who looks into the topic too deeply, and in a way that makes them sound ridiculous.
In the end they do implicitly endorse something like Nazi or Spanish colonial definition of "visible minority". So that Megan Markle - a wife of Prince Henry is considered as a minority, but it would be tougher to say so about her son Archie, who is technically a quadroon under Spanish colonial nomenclature.
It is both. They are ignorant because they don't want to learn The Science™. And they do not want to learn because they are intellectually lazy bigots. This is a standard pathos + false ethos attack that James Lindsay described quite well. He described it as an ultimate Ad Hominem battery of attacks - you do not have scientific consensus, plus you probably also have some unresolved trauma and also your opinons are very close to what fascists and racists say.
So it is a blend: you are white supremacist fascist, Jones level MAGA conspiracy supporter, and on top of that you are also religious bigot who suffers trauma from priest child diddling and sexual repression. It is all one neat dehumanization package.
Of course there are other strains of this, e.g. old school eugenics intellectual progressivism - something very close to maybe current Grey tribe technocratic elite often with Fabian Socialist bent: most people are just stupid and they simply do not know what is good for them. We are the intellectual utilitarian avant-garde who will establish benevolent technocratic permanent beurocracy, where we will use psychological tricks, nudging, propaganda, economic and tax incentives and other means to make sure that the the sub 100IQ plankton can live their lives in moderately prosperous society. Of course they will fight us, but it is because they are stupid and barely above some animals intellectually. Also we are not using words like good and evil outside of tongue-in-cheek. The population is just object of our power, they are barely sapient and incapable of good/evil. And the best of us who achieved true Gnosis of utilitarian calculus are literally beyond Good and Evil in Nietzchean sense, they are applying their will to power in form of social engineering of raw material in form of nameless "population".
georgioz
6d ago
As one example, this is a standard broadly liberal ethos for centuries. It goes with belief in tabula rasa and belief that humanism is the correct (liberal) atheist ethical structure can be gained by using science and reason. The whole liberal schtick for decades was that all it takes is a proper education and we will all live in Star Trek space luxury communism society.
You never encountered opinions that let's say Trump voters are uneducated stupid heliolites or that all Christians are science deniers or some version of this argument? It was very popular attack since my youth with new Atheism.
georgioz
6d ago
Overall I think my question is underspecified, because I'm not entirely sure how to properly adopt an outside view here and set aside my own personal beliefs about what is good and consider a general principle that's simple enough for someone who isn't already me and is less intelligent than me to use to eventually arrive at some approximation of goodness (which I believe is equal to my specific beliefs about what is good, even if I don't always live up to them).
This is exactly the problem of most secular ethical systems. As you say, in the end they have to be honest and just admit that they are subjective, relative and underspecified.
Bootstrapping ethics and morality from bottom up does not work and it was admitted since Hume that it is bankrupt endeavor. The main problem being that if you adhere to any kind of humanism and secularism where you start with human mind as the presupposition, then you do not have access to any justified universals. The frustrating thing is that many people holding these ethical systems either do not understand this conundrum, or they are just willfully ignorant about them.
How does someone without the sophistication to understand second order effects not just get one-shot by virtue signallers who sacrifice the greater good in favor of optics and first order appearances?
This is often much worse for these supposedly "intelligent" people, especially if they adopt some form of utilitarianism and consequentialism, where they can rationalize their delusion and sometimes outright schizoid view of the world to promote a very let's say "interesting causes". Just look at Effective Altruism that is supposedly filled in with the smart people and they care about topics like insect welfare, rationalization of how purchase of 15th century UK luxury manor Wytham Abbey is actually in line with utilitarianism and many more.
USA did it. The way I think about it is as a nonlinear system that decides if the country can absorb immigration. Here are the variables:
In USA in the past, the peak foreign born population happened in 1890ies where it climbed toward 15%. However back then the TFR was very strong running close to 4 children per woman. Just simple arithmetic women age 20-40 are are third female of native population or (100%-15%)/6 = 14% of the population and they produced 4 children thus reproducing rapidly. Moreover schools inside all the nations during early 20th century leveraged state power, propaganda of Radio, Television and huge government push toward local assimilation - be it Germanization, Magyarization, Francization or of course Americanization
Americanization came after Civil War and it coincided with lucky historical events: reconstruction after civil war, fulfillment of Manifest Destiny, jingoism and imperialism during FDR and of course winning the WW1 and birth of American exceptionalism and legitimacy of the system based on all available metrics: military power, industrial power, growth of GDP and everything. Nevertheless USA adopted very harsh anti-immigration stance even during this period ranging from Chinese exclusion act of 1882 to Immigration act of 1924. There were additional factors. After WW1 a lot of people remigrated from USA - especially people who heeded national call of rebuilding from nations like Poland, Czechoslovakia etc. Moreover USA was not a welfare state and the great depression led to more voluntary remigration during the Great Depression, where outflow exceeded inflow especially from Mexico but also European countries.
As a result of all of that, the foreign born population dropped to around 4% in 1964 at the time where TFR also dropped to around 2.5 per woman. Since then the immigration took off along with huge drop of TFR to current levels of 16% of foreign born population paired with 1.5 TFR. This is unsustainable level bordering on replacement, especially paired with national shame, refusal to proceed with any meaningful assimilation programs or curbing of immigration paired with welfare state that prevents remigration. But this is historically a new situation.
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