@Hoffmeister25 comments on "Culture War Roundup for the week of October 16, 2023

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 16, 2023

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Hoffmeister25 American Bukelismo Enthusiast 6mo ago

Let’s look at some of the other things Thomas Jefferson wrote about race:

In his Notes on the State of Virginia:

The first difference which strikes us is that of color. Whether the black of the negro resides in the reticular membrane between the skin and scarf-skin, or in the scarf-skin itself; whether it proceeds from the color of the blood, the color of the bile, or from that of some other secretion, the difference is fixed in nature, and is as real as if its seat and cause were better known to us. And is this difference of no importance? Is it not the foundation of a greater or less share of beauty in the two races? Are not the fine mixtures of red and white, the expressions of every passion by greater or less suffusions of color in the one, preferable to that eternal monotony, which reigns in the countenances, that immoveable veil of black which covers all the emotions of the other race? Add to these, flowing hair, a more elegant symmetry of form, their own judgment in favor of the whites, declared by their preference of them, as uniformly as is the preference of the orangutan for the black women over those of his own species. The circumstance of superior beauty, is thought worthy attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; why not in that of man? Besides those of color, figure, and hair, there are other physical distinctions proving a difference of race. They have less hair on the face and body. They secrete less by the kidneys, and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odor. This greater degree of transpiration renders them more tolerant of heat, and less so of cold, than the whites. Perhaps too a difference of structure in the pulmonary apparatus, which a late ingenious experimentalist has discovered to be the principal regulator of animal heat, may have disabled them from extricating, in the act of inspiration, so much of that fluid from the outer air, or obliged them in expiration, to part with more of it. They seem to require less sleep. A black, after hard labor through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning. They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present. When present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites. They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which render it doubtful whether heaven has given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep when abstracted from their diversions, and unemployed in labor. An animal whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep of course. Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. It would be unfair to follow them to Africa for this investigation. We will consider them here, on the same stage with the whites, and where the facts are not apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed. It will be right to make great allowances for the difference of condition, of education, of conversation, of the sphere in which they move. Many millions of them have been brought to, and born in America. Most of them indeed have been confined to tillage, to their own homes, and their own society: yet many have been so situated, that they might have availed themselves of the conversation of their masters; many have been brought up to the handicraft arts, and from that circumstance have always been associated with the whites. Some have been liberally educated, and all have lived in countries where the arts and sciences are cultivated to a considerable degree, and have had before their eyes samples of the best works from abroad. The Indians, with no advantages of this kind, will often carve figures on their pipes not destitute of design and merit. They will crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove the existence of a germ in their minds which only wants cultivation. They astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and elevated. But never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never see even an elementary trait of painting or sculpture. In music they are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and time, and they have been found capable of imagining a small catch. Whether they will be equal to the composition of a more extensive run of melody, or of complicated harmony, is yet to be proved. Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry. — Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry. Love is the peculiar oestrum of the poet. Their love is ardent, but it kindles the senses only, not the imagination…

… I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind. It is not against experience to suppose, that different species of the same genus, or varieties of the same species, may possess different qualifications. Will not a lover of natural history then, one who views the gradations in all the races of animals with the eye of philosophy, excuse an effort to keep those in the department of man as distinct as nature has formed them? This unfortunate difference of color, and perhaps of faculty, is a powerful obstacle to the emancipation of these people. Many of their advocates, while they wish to vindicate the liberty of human nature, are anxious also to preserve its dignity and beauty. Some of these, embarrassed by the question `What further is to be done with them?’ Join themselves in opposition with those who are actuated by sordid avarice only. Among the Romans emancipation required but one effort. The slave, when made free, might mix with, without staining the blood of his master. But with us a second is necessary, unknown to history. When freed, he is to be removed beyond the reach of mixture.

It would be easy for me to dig up plenty of other quotes not only from Jefferson, but also from Madison - who, remember, was the two-time president of the American Colonization Society, an organization solely and explicitly dedicated to achieving the mass deportation of blacks back to Africa - and from Franklin, and John Dickinson, and Hamilton, and Abraham Lincoln, about their explicit denial of racial equality and about their desire for the entirety of the American continents (North and South!) to be populated exclusively by white people. In Jefferson’s case, he even specified that they should all be Anglo-Saxon.

The sad thing, though, is that you purport to be a Real American Patriot, yet you don’t seem to want to hear what the Founding Fathers said outside of the one or two documents they authored that you agree with. Because in your heart of hearts, you are a bleeding-heart liberal, and you truly believe, in full agreement with the left, that racism and white supremacy are the most evil things in history. And since you don’t want to believe that the Founders were evil, you need to believe that actually they were all anti-racists, it’s right there in the Declaration, la la la la la I can’t hear you when you quote all the other stuff they said and talk about the way they actually lived their lives.

If you were to really deal with the totality of the truth about these men, you would either have to abandon them or abandon your other beliefs. And since you can’t imagine any third position other than “the Founders were racist, and that makes them evil and this country illegitimate” and “the Founders were not racist, which is the reason this country isn’t evil or illegitimate” you’re forced to just lie and obfuscate.

But there is, in fact, a third option. “The Founders were white supremacists, and that’s totally fine, and white supremacy was a legitimate goal and it doesn’t reflect negatively on the men who founded this country, or any other colonial outpost of white/Western civilization.” It’s the position I’ve been thumping since I got here, and you keep telling me that I’m the unpatriotic anti-Western America-hater, when I’m the one here trying to rescue and rehabilitate the Founders for who they actually were and what they actually said that they wanted.

Context

Frequent_Anybody2984 Hoffmeister25 6mo ago

I couldn't agree more here. Their world view is basically if the 1619 project was DR3. The funny thing is that the 1619 project is actually a more realistic view of US history because at least they acknowledge that the US and Europeans did often treat non-whites very poorly and that those actions were every popular at the time. From the responses below, I kept asking him who the real racists were that the real Patriotic Americans were fighting against in a quest for equality in the 1960's and apparently like today it was only the Democrats and white progressives:

You ask me who were the people on the opposite side of the CRA debate, and my reply is the same people who are supporting segregation today, namely college-educated white democrats. The specific terminology they use to justify their beliefs might change, but the substance of those beliefs (racial segregation, mob justice, and various flavors of Marxist nonsense) hasn't.

curious_straight_ca Hoffmeister25 6mo ago · Edited 6mo ago

I don't think there are any fundamental challenges in 'important person believes very intelligent correct thing A and very dumb incorrect thing B'? The world we live in is incredibly complicated, and in an individual's attempts to comprehend it they can simultaneously attain great insight and leadership in one area while being uninterestingly incorrect or simply insane in another area. Every person alive 1k years ago held beliefs that are (correctly) deemed patently ridiculous and immoral. And that isn't just culture-war-related beliefs. Beliefs like 'the way to treat diseases is to apply herbs that don't work and pray' or 'we should kill members of other Christian sects because they are corrupting our souls'. Plenty of beliefs both people here and normies have will be (correctly) judged in the same way in the future.

It might clash with some desire to worship the whole person of a leader, but that's more a personal tendency than it is an intractable problem.

The problem is that progressives really dislike racism and hurting, or doing things that sorta look like hurting, the downtrodden, and that 'the founders were nazis' is sort of like that, not that 'the founders or nazis' is an intractable problem for a smart liberal.

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