- Right and Wrong Racism
- by
- Richard McCulloch
Reductionism and extremism both try to keep things simple. Reductionism attempts to reduce the complex to the simple, both in matters of type, kind or form, and causality. Where there are many types or forms, differing in both minor and major degrees, reductionism — unable or unwilling to make distinctions — claims there is only one type or form. Where there are many different causes combining to produce an effect, reductionism insists there is only one cause. Extremism, the other product of simplistic thinking, defines an issue only in terms of its two extreme positions, denying the possible existence of alternative positions between the two extremes. For the extremist there is no middle ground, only one extreme or the other. Non-support for one extreme position is equated with support of the opposite extreme position. The problem with simplistic thinking, whether reductionism or extremism, is that in a world of almost infinite complexity and variety it rarely provides an accurate or truthful portrayal of reality.
This problem is particularly acute in the fields of definition and categorization. For example, racism — the subject of this chapter — is a term that is frequently subject to simplistic definitions. It is common to define racism as having only one cause and existing in only one form, or being of a uniform type. Definitions that describe a wide variation in types of racism, and a great diversity in causes or motives for racism, are conspicuous by their absence. Furthermore, the single uniform type that racism is usually reduced to in these simplistic definitions is almost always of an extremist character. In the hope of correcting the distortions, misconceptions and inaccuracies inherent in simplistic definitions, a more complete definition of racism, in its variety of forms, kinds and types, causes and motives, will be presented here.
Racism can be broadly defined as including any ideology — or system of ideas, values, ethics and beliefs — in which race and racial differences are recognized and regarded as valuable and important. It can also be defined as the opposite of racial nihilism, which denies race and racial differences and regards them as being without value or importance. In terms of causality or motive racism can be based on a wide variety of opposites, as can its own opposite — racial nihilism. It can be based on love or hate, knowledge or ignorance, idealism or realism, loyalty or envy, benevolence or malice.
[Note 1] These different bases, causes or motives can themselves interact and blend in such a wide variety of combinations that it is often difficult to determine which cause is primary and which secondary. In sum, the motives or reasons for racism are as varied and complex as anything involving humanity is likely to be. But for purposes of discussion they can be divided into the following categories — factual beliefs, ethical beliefs, values and emotions.
Racism based on factual beliefs includes the racism based on the belief that one race is superior to another, as the belief in racial superiority — whether factually right or wrong — is a factual belief. (This factual belief is often improperly criticized on ethical rather than factual grounds by racial egalitarians who demand that all factual beliefs conform to their ethical beliefs.) Also included in this category is the racism based on the factual belief in significant racial differences and variation — independent of issues of superiority or inferiority — coupled with the factual belief that it would be biologically beneficial for life and humanity to preserve that diversity. The racism based on a religious conviction that it is fulfilling the divine will is also included in the category of factual belief.
Racism based on ethical beliefs includes the racism that supports racial rights and affirms the right of all races to life, independence (racial self-determination or liberty) and the conditions of racial separation required for both. At the other end of the ethical spectrum, but also included in the category of racism based on ethical beliefs, is the racism which rejects and denies racial rights in favor of a racial competition for territory, dominance, mastery and existence — a struggle for racial survival unrestricted by moral considerations. This form of racism — here designated as immoral racism — is based on the ethical belief that there are no racial rights. This belief makes it the opposite of the racism — here designated as moral racism — that is based on the ethical belief in racial rights. Ironically, racial nihilism — the opposite of racism in terms of its denial and rejection of the importance and value of race — also denies and rejects racial rights, sharing this belief in common with immoral racism, and as a consequence also favors conditions (specifically, multiracialism) in which racial existence is not protected or secure, but is threatened with destruction by racial competition, replacement and intermixture.
Racism based on values includes the racism which regards the qualities of one race — usually one’s own — as more important or desirable than those of other races. Values both influence and are influenced by — and are closely connected with — emotions, feelings and esthetic sensibilities that are deeply rooted in the human psyche, often subjective, and perhaps partially innate or genetic in origin. These can be either positive or negative. There are innumerable gradations or degrees of both positive and negative emotions, with love being the most positive and hate the most negative. There are many different definitions of both love and hate, but for general purposes love can be defined as a strong positive emotion or feeling and hate as a strong negative emotion. In terms of causality, the critics of racism commonly define it as motivated or caused exclusively by hate, or even as synonymous with racial hate. But there is both more than one type of racism and more than one cause. Each type has its own cause, and each cause creates its own type or form.
The emotions of love and hate are often the positive and negative poles of the same emotion, for as it is normal to love that which represents one’s values, so it is also normal to hate that which represents the antithesis of one’s values. Similarly, it is normal to hate that which threatens one’s values with harm or destruction. This type of hate is a derivative emotion of love, with love being the originating, primary, active and determining emotion, motive or cause and hate being a derivative, secondary and reactive response to perceived threats. These two emotions, the one derived from the other, are often confused as to primacy, but they are different poles of the same emotion, their existence inseparably connected.
Although the role of love as a cause of racism is seldom admitted by its critics, who prefer to define racism in strictly negative terms, the fact is that the forms of racism based on values are most commonly caused or motivated by the positive emotion of love. Probably the most common form of racism may be simply defined as the love of one’s race, a positive emotion which evokes feelings of loyalty to the interests of one’s race and a desire to preserve it. Since the critics of racism presently enjoy a status of cultural dominance, and usually deny the possibility of any positive motivation for racism, the existence of the form of racism based on love for one’s race and loyalty to its interests is not generally recognized. Therefore the most common form of racism is not recognized as such, and its existence is largely unconscious and invisible, repressed by cultural norms that discourage the expression of love for one’s race.
The person who loves their own race may or may not love other races also, but if they do it need not be expected that their love or positive emotions for other races should be equal to what they feel for their own. It is normal to have a wide range of different emotions and feelings for different things, including different races, to value some more than others, to have preferences, likes and dislikes, and to discriminate on the basis of those preferences. It is abnormal to have the same or equal feelings or emotions for all things, including all races. Yet this is the egalitarianism of emotions, feelings and esthetic sensibilities, or emotional reductionism — the reduction of a complex and diverse variety of different types, intensities and degrees of emotion to a single, uniform emotion in accordance with the egalitarian principles of agapic love — that racial egalitarianism requires. It opposes the valuing or loving of one race — normally one’s own — more than other races, and condemns as immoral any person who values or loves one race — normally their own — more than other races, or who values or loves different races unequally, or in different or unequal degrees.
Racism caused by values and love also includes the racism that values or loves human racial diversity and consequently supports racial preservation, and which may or may not love and value all the diverse races equally in accordance with the egalitarian principles of agapic love. The love of racial diversity is a love of humanity which has much in common with the love of nature. The love of humanity does not require that all the parts of humanity be loved equally, just as the love of nature does not require that all the parts of nature be loved equally. Love is not a level emotion, but an uneven emotion of infinite degrees and variety. Every individual loves different things differently. It is one of the things that defines individuality. But it is most natural to love most that part of nature to which one belongs, the part of which we ourselves are a part.
As the causality of racism cannot be reduced to a single cause, so racism cannot be reduced to a single form. The forms of racism are as varied as the causes. Each cause results in a different form, each with its own goals and methods, ends and means. For the moral forms of racism the goal is racial preservation and continuation, independence and liberty. For the immoral forms the goal is racial supremacy or mastery — the ruling, controlling or subjugation of other races — often attended by exploitation, victimization or, in the most extreme versions, genocide or racial destruction.
The most important distinction between the different types or forms of racism is the one based on morality. This moral distinction is determined by their different ethical beliefs, goals or ends, and methods or means of achieving those goals. There are moral and immoral ethical beliefs and values, moral and immoral goals or ends, and moral and immoral methods or means. Morality, like human rights, is a social construct. It is willed into existence by the members of a society. Its purpose is to direct and regulate behavior and relationships so as to serve and promote the general good, the interests of the society or racial continuum as a whole. Morality can be positive, requiring certain actions, or negative, forbidding certain actions, but its purpose remains the same. In practice morality can be defined as constructive behavior which promotes the preservation and continuation of life. Immorality is behavior that is destructive, either of oneself or others, or of one’s own race or other races.
A fundamental principle of morality is respect and support for the legitimate rights and interests of all, of others as well as oneself, the famous “Golden Rule” of reciprocity. In terms of morality, the primary distinction between the different forms of racism is between those which recognize, affirm, respect, support and promote the legitimate rights and interests of all races — the “Racial Golden Rule” — and those which do not. Moral racism does, immoral racism does not. The distinction between moral and immoral racism is similar to the distinction between moral and immoral individualism. The defining characteristic of individualism is the assertion and promotion of individual rights and interests. The defining characteristic of racism is the assertion and promotion of racial rights and interests. The difference or distinction between the moral and immoral forms of individualism and racism is that the moral forms respect and promote the rights and interests of all individuals and races, while the immoral forms only respect the rights and interests of the subject’s own self and race. This excessive subjectivity results in the denial and violation of the rights and interests of other individuals and races.
Moral racism can be defined as the recognition, affirmation and promotion of legitimate racial rights and interests,
[Note 2] especially the primary or vital — or life-essential — right of a race to racial life (continued existence or preservation) and independence (control of its own life or existence in all spheres — political, social, economic and cultural). Immoral racism and racial nihilism can both be defined as ideologies that deny and violate racial rights, the difference being that the immoral racist violates the rights of other races — sometimes as an end in itself, but more commonly as a means to the end of benefiting their own race — while the racial nihilist denies and violates the rights of all races in general, and of their own race in particular.
The forms of racism that have traditionally been defined, recognized, promoted and practiced as racism generally do not recognize or promote racial rights. Specifically, they have not upheld the rights of different races to life (continued existence), liberty (independence) and the pursuit of their own evolutionary destiny, or to the exclusive possession of their own territory as required for the realization of these rights. In fact, the forms of racism that have traditionally been defined and practiced as such have denied and violated these rights. The extent of their violation and denial of the rights of other races has varied. Some have been restricted or governed in some degree by moral considerations, so their violation of the rights of other races has not been total, while others have been virtually unchecked by such concerns. Moral racism has not yet been practiced as the guiding principle of racial relations.
Before moral racism can be practiced its existence — or at least its possibility — must first be generally recognized. But the very concept of a moral form of racism is viewed with suspicion and doubt, or outright denied, in a culture long conditioned to racial nihilist ideology. The only forms of racism commonly recognized as existing, or even being possible, are immoral forms, and these usually of the most extreme varieties. As a result, and fully consistent with the tenets of reductionism and extremism, the recognized alternative positions on racial matters have been reduced to the two extremes of racial nihilism and immoral racism, both of which deny and violate racial rights.
Extremism views a given matter as limited to two opposite extreme positions without other alternatives, as one or the other, either-or. Both extremes on the issue of race claim that there is no alternative to their position other than the opposite extreme, and deny or ignore other alternatives, insisting they do not really exist, or even that they cannot exist. Thus racial nihilism claims that the only alternative to its multiracialist version of racial destruction and violation of racial rights is the supremacist version promoted by immoral racism, and that any deviation from racial nihilism leads by inexorable extremist logic to acts of genocide against other races. Likewise, immoral racism claims that the only alternative to its supremacist version of racial destruction and violation of racial rights is the multiracialist version promoted by racial nihilism, and that any opposition to immoral racism is the equivalent of promoting multiracialism and racial destruction by intermixture and replacement.
Both claims are typical of the simplistic reductionist view of causality and form, reducing the complex and diverse to the simple and uniform. Neither will consider or admit the existence of an alternative that promotes racial rights, preservation and independence. Consequently, the racial issue has only been presented and defined in the form of its two opposite destructive extremes, with other alternatives or choices denied and excluded from consideration. The only choice offered is between different versions of racial destruction. But human racial diversity needs another choice, a better choice, an alternative that recognizes and defends racial rights and promotes racial preservation.
The distinction between morality and immorality often coincides with the distinction between preservation and destruction. Moral actions and ideas tend to preserve life. Immoral actions and ideas are more likely to be destructive of life. Races are living things, forms of life and continuums of life composed of generations of living things. Therefore those ideas and actions which promote racial preservation should be presumptively regarded as moral (i.e., should enjoy a presumption of morality) and those which promote racial destruction should be presumptively regarded as immoral. Immoral racism and racial nihilism both promote racial destruction, although the motive, the method of destruction, and the identity of the race — or races — marked for destruction are different. Moral racism is the only ideology that promotes the preservation of all races.
Moral racism is the preservationist middle way, the “golden mean” between the two opposite destructive extremes. It charts a racial preservationist course between the Scylla of immoral racism and the Charybdis of racial nihilism. It is the alternative choice, the conservationist choice, the position that affirms racial rights, especially the right of all races to life, liberty (freedom) and independence (control of its own life). In this it clearly differs from the two forms of racial extremism — immoral racism and racial nihilism — which deny and violate racial rights. Immoral racism violates the racial right to freedom and independence by the practice of racial supremacism, in which one race rules over, controls or is master of another, and — in its extreme forms — violates the racial right to life by acts of genocide. Racial nihilism violates the same rights by the practice of multiracialism, in which the different races are denied the condition of racial separation required both for continued life and for control of their own lives.
The existence of moral racism is not generally recognized for two main reasons. The first is the unwillingness of either of the two extreme positions on race — immoral racism and racial nihilism — to admit the existence of alternative positions. The second reason is that moral racism — the ideology of racial rights, preservation and independence — has not yet been consciously defined and conceptualized, intellectually purified and morally transvalued. This is a process that all values must go through before being recognized and persistently practiced — and thereby “socially constructed” — by a “critical mass” of persons, or a powerful and influential minority, sufficient to make them normative or dominant. Individualism and individual rights, as well as environmentalism and conservation, went through this process before being recognized as values, and so must moral racism, with its concepts of racial rights and racial conservation.
The essential process of definition and conceptualization, purification and moral transvaluation, requires above all that moral racism be clearly distinguished from all other positions on race, especially the various forms of immoral racism. In this the situation of racism is similar to that of individualism. The word individualism can be applied to any ideology that affirms the value and importance of the individual. It is generally recognized that there are many forms of individualism, both right and wrong, moral and immoral. They are distinguished by their different attitude toward the rights of others. The moral or right forms of individualism recognize and respect the rights of both other individuals and the larger society or race of which the individual is a part. The immoral or wrong forms do not, but deny and violate them.
The fact that there are immoral forms of individualism does not usually cause people to consider all forms of individualism to be immoral. In spite of the immoral individualists the mainstream culture generally sees individualism as a positive value, as morally right and good, and regards its immoral practitioners as exceptions to the rule. In modern Western culture individualism is more likely to have a positive connotation than a negative, more likely to be regarded as moral than immoral. This is because the moral forms of individualism have been successfully defined as distinct from the immoral forms, and so purified of any association or confusion with them. The same should also be true of racism.
The name racism can be applied to any ideology — or system of ideas, beliefs and values — that affirms the value and importance of race, or that is based on racial considerations. Like individualism, racism can be either moral or immoral, depending on its attitude toward the rights of others. But unlike individualism, the fact that there can be moral as well as immoral forms of racism is not generally recognized. Consequently, racism has an almost exclusively negative image and is routinely regarded as immoral. To be morally transvalued, and so recognized as moral, the moral forms of racism need to be successfully defined and conceptualized as clearly distinct from the immoral forms, purified of any association or connection with them (other than the fact that they are both based on race), and thus morally evaluated by a new standard in place of the conventional standard based on the immoral forms. It will then be possible for moral racism — and its concepts of racial rights, preservation and independence — to be socially constructed as a normative or dominant value by the cumulative effect of the decisions, beliefs and actions of a sufficient “critical mass” or influential minority.
Individualism in general is characterized by the factual belief that the individual is unique, important and has value. Moral individualism adds to this the ethical belief that the individual has rights, among which are the right to life and the conditions required for life, the right to control his own life (to rule or govern his own life), the right to the product of his own labor (the wealth he has created), the right to his own home, and the right to reproduce his life, so long as the exercise of these rights does not conflict with the same rights of others. Racism in general can be similarly defined as the factual belief that races are unique, important and have value. Moral racism adds to this the ethical belief that races have rights, among which are the right to life and the conditions they require for life, the right to control their own life and destiny (independence and self-determination), the right to their own homeland or racially-exclusive territory, the right to the product of their own labor, and the right to reproduce their life and culture through their children, limited only by the provision that the exercise of these rights does not conflict with the same rights of other races.
The Lockian doctrine of individual rights holds that each person is a sovereign being, not to be ruled by or to rule over others, but to rule only their own life. It rejects the doctrine that some people are justified in ruling over, controlling or being the masters of others. This is a central concept of moral individualism. Similarly, moral racism holds that each race is a sovereign entity, with the right to sole power and control over its own life, existence and destiny, in all its aspects, not to be ruled by or to rule over other races. It rejects the doctrine of racial supremacism — typical of immoral racism — that some races are justified, or have a right, to rule over, control or be the masters of other races.
As stated above, racism has an almost exclusively negative or immoral image in the present culture, and for good reason, since the only forms of racism generally known or recognized are the immoral forms. It is associated with immoral means or methods, such as intimidation or physical violence. It is associated with immoral solutions, ends or goals, such as genocide or enslavement of other races, or mass expulsion of other races without adequate provision of a homeland of their own, all of which offend the most basic civilized sensibilities. Finally, it is associated with totalitarianism, with the rejection of the political morality of liberal humanism and its values of democracy, individual rights and freedom. With regard to immoral racism these associations are well-founded. With regard to moral racism, however, they are not, but represent the opposite of its principles, values and goals.
Racial nihilism often uses extremist logic to morally discredit all forms of racism by claiming that racism must, if taken to its logical extreme, result in genocide. Much of the population has been effectively conditioned to perceive racism only in this extreme and morally discredited form. This is combined with the use of reductionist logic to reduce racism to only one monolithic form — the morally discredited extremist form — and deny the possibility of any other form, especially a morally credible form. Both extremist and reductionist logic disallow any differentiation or distinction between different forms. In this matter the proponents of immoral racism are in agreement with racial nihilism, and are unwilling to accept the existence of an alternative moral form of racism. They both use extremist and reductionist logic to discredit efforts to promote a moral form of racism by claiming that, if taken to its logical extreme, it cannot be distinguished or differentiated from immoral racism.
One consequence of the general use of reductionist and extremist logic to portray racism as monolithic, reducing it to only one type which represents one extreme of the possible positions on race, is that the anti-racists who oppose racism rarely qualify their position by identifying which type or form of racism they are anti or against — the moral or right forms that promote racial rights, liberty and preservation, or the immoral or wrong forms that promote racial supremacy, exploitation, subjugation, slavery or destruction. If they are only against the immoral forms it should be explained that moral racism is also against, or anti , immoral racism. Only racial nihilism is anti or against both moral and immoral racism. For racial nihilism there is no right form of racism. By its standards all racism is wrong, for it seeks racial destruction and extinction to achieve its goal of Oneness, of one unified and uniform human race, and therefore opposes racial diversity, racial rights, preservation and independence — the principles of moral racism.
Another consequence of the tendency to portray racism as monolithic, or limited to only one form, is a tendency to provide only one definition for racism. Given the preoccupation of the currently dominant ideology with the promotion of racial egalitarianism, many of these simplistic definitions of racism place a great emphasis on the issue of racial equality. Typical of these is the definition of racism as “A strongly held belief in the ethnic superiority of one race over all others.”
[Note 3]
The problem with the above or similar definitions is that they are based on a factual belief (in racial superiority) rather than an ethical belief — on what one believes to be factually true or false, not on what one believes to be ethically right or wrong — whereas moral racism is based more on ethical beliefs than factual beliefs. It is common for anti-racism to condemn the factual belief in racial superiority on ethical grounds by citing its use to justify unethical practices (such as slavery or genocide). By this logic one’s perception of facts should be determined by the effect one believes they will have on ethical conduct, and one should deny facts that seem to disagree with one’s ethical values. Ethical judgments should not be made on factual beliefs, but on ethical beliefs and behavior. Factual beliefs should be regarded as morally or ethically neutral, neither moral nor immoral in themselves. Only rigidly reductionist and extremist logic can assert that a factual belief in racial superiority necessarily leads to the violation of other races’ rights.
The definition of racism as based solely on a belief in racial inequalities (another word for differences) reflects the obsessive concern of racial egalitarianism with the enforcement of its central dogma of racial equality, and hence its practice of defining all ideas and beliefs in terms of their conformance to that dogma. Belief in racial equality is usually an act of faith. Unfortunately, as is so often the case with beliefs based on faith, the believers are intolerant of the nonbelievers, condemn their nonbelief on moral grounds, and focus exclusively on this heresy of nonbelief in their definition of them. Indeed, by their narrow definition of racism a person who supported racial preservation, independence and separation, but who did not believe in racial superiority, would not be considered a racist.
Moral racism is based on the ethical belief in racial rights, not on a factual belief in racial superiority or inferiority. The latter belief is irrelevant to moral racism, as it supports the same racial rights for all races regardless of whether they are superior or inferior in any trait. The factual belief in racial superiority is frequently used to justify racial mastery or supremacism, the rule of a supposedly inferior race by a supposedly superior race, whose “right” to rule is based on its supposed superiority. But an ethical belief in racial rights would prevent the promotion of supremacism even if it were combined with a factual belief in racial inequality.
Similarly, a race need not be superior or “special” to be entitled to racial rights, preservation and independence. Many racial preservationists wrongly assume — as do many of their opponents — that the case for preserving a race depends upon establishing its superiority or special value relative to other races. This false assumption is an all too common trap leading many to engage in a highly partisan criticism of other races and praise of their own in an effort to establish its greater value. Thus many of the claims regarding racial superiority and inferiority can be attributed to the false premise that the preservation and independence of a race can only be justified by its superiority to other races. Claims of racial superiority are necessary as a justification for racial supremacism, the rule of one race over others, but not for the advocacy of racial rights, preservation and independence, for which such claims are irrelevant. Under moral racism all races have an equal right to life and independence without regard to whether or not they are “special” or superior.
A person can be a moral racist whether they believe in racial equality or inequality, superiority or inferiority. Such factual beliefs are irrelevant to moral racism because it is primarily based on an ethical belief in racial rights rather than a factual belief in racial inequality. By its affirmation of the racial right to life and independence moral racism opposes any form of supremacism or rule by one race over another, regardless of whether one race is superior, inferior or equal to the other. Moral racism supports the above rights for all races, as moral individualism supports the same rights for all individuals, regardless of whether they are superior, inferior or equal. A moral racist may love, value and prefer their own race over others, and they may believe it is superior to others, but they recognize and support the same rights of life, liberty (independence) and preservation for all races, and expect this recognition and support to be reciprocated.
After the reference to a belief in racial inequality, the most common terms found in definitions of racism are prejudice, bias, discrimination, hatred, and the prefix anti (against). The first three terms — prejudice, bias and discrimination — are, like the belief in racial inequality, sins against egalitarianism, violating its demand that all be regarded and treated the same, without recognition of differences or variation of preference, love or value. There are many definitions of prejudice, but in reference to racial relations it often means no more than having a preference for one’s own race, for its traits, qualities and characteristics, and special concern for its interests. “Bias” is commonly used to mean the same preference, and the “discrimination” referred to is based on this preference.
From the perspective of racial nihilism, which denies the value or importance of race and racial differences and seeks to reduce them to zero or nothing (nihil ), any preference based on race is regarded as irrational and unreasonable, arbitrary and unfair, and, ultimately, as immoral. But all life, all living things, and all life-forms strive to live and to continue their life, and the life of their own life-form or kind. This is perhaps the deepest command of nature, and it presupposes an innate or inborn preference for one’s own life and one’s own life-form or kind. The absence of this preference should probably be regarded as a defect, potentially fatal to one’s own life and the life of one’s own life-form or kind. The existence of this preference should be regarded as harmful or immoral only to the extent that it exceeds the legitimate needs and interests of the individual or life-form possessing it and disregards and violates the legitimate rights and interests of other individuals and life-forms.
Hatred is the strongest of negative emotions, but negative emotions or opinions — including hatred — are not in themselves immoral. What is immoral is behavior that disregards, violates or causes harm to the legitimate rights and interests of others, or an ideology — or system of beliefs, values and ideas — that sanctions such behavior. Such behavior, and such an ideology, is immoral whatever its emotional or other motivation, regardless whether it is motivated by hate or love or anything in-between. In the present culture love for one’s race, preference for one’s race, or the desire to preserve and continue one’s race — including opposition to racial intermixture and support for the conditions of racial separation required for racial preservation and independence — are often wrongly described as hatred. In fact, much of the racism described as hatred is simply the unwillingness of members of one race to intermix with members of other races, and their resistance to this racially-destructive process, ultimately motivated by a desire — whether conscious or subconscious — for racial preservation and continuation, separation and independence. In the absence of any desire to harm the legitimate rights and interests of other races, this opposition to the destruction of their own race, or its loss of independence, would be more accurately, and more fairly, described as motivated by love for their own race rather than by hatred or ill-will toward other races.
The prefix “anti” means to be against. For the term to have any moral significance, to be “anti” or against a certain race or ethnic group must mean to be “anti” or against the legitimate rights and interests of that race or ethnic group, and to commit or promote harm to, or promote the violation of, those rights. An ideology or behavior which recognizes and respects the legitimate rights and interests of a race or ethnic group — especially its primary or vital (life-essential) rights to life, liberty and the conditions required for its continued existence and independence, specifically its own territory and government — cannot be accurately defined as being “anti” or against that race or ethnic group in any morally significant or meaningful sense. Also, to support, promote and advocate the legitimate rights and interests of one’s own race or ethnic group — such as its continued life or preservation, its racial liberty or independence, and its right to its own territory, country or homeland as required for its continued life and liberty — cannot be accurately defined as being “anti” or against any other race or ethnic group in any morally legitimate sense. Moral racism affirms and supports the legitimate rights and interests of all races or ethnic groups, and therefore cannot be accurately described as being “anti” or against any race or ethnic group in any morally significant or meaningful sense. It is immoral racism and racial nihilism that are “anti” or against — and which deny, violate or harm — the vital and primary rights and interests of races and ethnic groups.
Racism, nationalism and individualism all assert the importance and value of a specific and particular entity and its right to be separate, unique and differentiated from the mass rather than be absorbed into it. They each assert and affirm the identity and rights of the separate entity, including its right to life or existence, to independence or control over its own existence, and to freedom or self-determination, with the only limit on its rights being that it not violate the same rights of other races, nations or individuals. Thus one race, nation or individual does not have a right to cause death or diminishment of life to another, to rule over another, steal from another, or to invade or take from another the territory or property that it requires for its existence and independence. These three ideologies — or isms – are thus all contrary to the various universalisms of the Oneness creed, such as racial nihilism, which reject and deny racial and national identity, rights and independence and seek to absorb all the diverse races and peoples of humanity into one vast undifferentiated mass.
In racism, nationalism and individualism it is moral to act in one’s own interests provided such action does not violate the legitimate rights of others. This is the standard of morality differentiating their moral from their immoral forms. The moral forms respect the rights of other races, nations and individuals, the immoral forms do not. If taken to the extreme, immoral racism can promote genocide just as immoral individualism can promote murder. Genocide is to racism what murder is to individualism. They are the antithesis of moral racism and individualism.
According to the extremist forms of immoral racism we must choose between our race and other races, between destroying other races or their destroying our race. This is the adversarial concept of racial relations which typifies immoral racism. According to this concept (or perception) all races are seen as opponents in a hostile conflict situation similar to war, a zero-sum competition where if one race wins the others must lose. Thus immoral racism naturally assumes a very hostile stance toward other races, often expressing its attitude toward them in mean-spirited, hateful and critical terms that convey ill-will and an intent to cause them harm, to cause them to lose, and to violate their legitimate rights and interests rather than recognize and respect them. Like most extremist thinking it is not an accurate portrayal of reality, and begins and ends with a false premise. In reality there are other choices — moral choices — and other means — moral means — by which racial independence and preservation can be secured.
The most important consideration in the relationships between different races, as in the relationships between different individuals or nations, is that they recognize and respect the other’s rights to life, continued existence, independence and self-determination. For races, the fulfillment of these rights requires a condition of racial separation, with each race possessing its own exclusive territory with its own sovereign government. The recognition and respect of these rights must be regarded as the primary indicator of good will in racial relationships, to the extent that if this recognition and respect is not present good will cannot be present either. A race that denies these rights to another race, or violates them, cannot be regarded as having good will toward that race. To deny a race the conditions it requires for existence and freedom is to wish it ill. To recognize and respect the right of a race to the conditions it needs for life and independence is to wish it well.
Moral racism avoids the adversarial concept of racial relations. If racial rights are recognized all races would be winners in the sense that all would be secure in their independence and continued undiminished and undiluted existence in their own homelands. To seek the continued existence of one race does not require the nonexistence of another race. It is not either-or, rule or be ruled, kill or be killed — the position of extremist immoral racism. It is not a matter of choosing between the existence of one or the other. This is a false and unnecessary choice. We can choose for all races to exist in the future even as all existed in the past, by restoring and maintaining the conditions (territorial separation and reproductive isolation) they require for continued existence.
The mutual recognition of racial rights, the central principle of moral racism, would foster a cooperative relationship between races and a common effort to promote and protect racial independence and preservation. Whereas extremist immoral racism believes that other races must lose for it to win, moral racism believes that all races can win, that the interests of all can be served and protected, so that all can coexist — which first requires that they continue to exist — on the same planet in peace, each in their own homelands, each in control of their own destiny, each respecting the rights of the others in accordance with the Racial Golden Rule.
If there is such a thing as moral progress, and one should hope there is, then humanity can learn from past errors and enjoy progress in the moral or ethical sphere much as it has in the material, technical and scientific spheres. It would not be limited to the same standards of morality practiced by generations of past centuries or long-ago millennia. The pre-human law of nature, the brutal struggle for survival, of rule or be ruled, kill or be killed, has been superseded by the cumulative efforts of thousands of generations of humanity to rise above it through the recognition (or social construction) of human rights and the Golden Rule of live and let live. Immoral racism applies the law of pre-human nature to racial relationships. But the relationships between races can be raised above this brutal law by a morality that respects and affirms racial rights, just as the relationships between individuals have been raised above it by the morality that respects and affirms individual rights. There are limits to how far conduct can deviate from the laws of nature before the individual or race engages in conduct that is self-destructive, but within those limits humanity has sufficient leeway to create a just, humane and civilized society.
[Note 4]
Racism is many different things. It covers a multitude of both sins and virtues. Racial supremacism is racist. Genocide is racist. But racial independence and preservation are also racist. So is valuing and loving one’s race, being loyal to its interests and desiring its continued existence and control over its own destiny. The extremist claim that all forms of racism lead to genocide, coupled with the reductionist assertion that there is only one — immoral — form of racism, is a preemptive accusation often used to discredit, suppress and prevent any consideration of alternatives to the present destructive course of racial nihilism, especially any attempt to promote racial preservation and independence.
Reductionist logic was typical of the dogmatic thinking of medieval times when all alternatives were reduced to a Manichaean choice between good and evil — either obeying church dogma or being in league with the satanic powers of darkness. In the reductionist logic of the dominant orthodoxy of the modern world all alternatives are reduced to a similarly Manichaean choice — either obeying the dogma of racial nihilism or being in league with the evil powers of racial supremacism and genocide. With all other alternatives eliminated by the successful use of extremist and reductionist logic to produce such powerful Manichaean imagery, racial nihilism has enjoyed a position of virtually unchallenged cultural dominance.
That the future existence of human racial diversity is now imperiled is largely due to the success of racial nihilism in denying the existence of any alternatives to itself other than immoral racism. People are limited by the choices they are given. They cannot choose a moral alternative if they are unaware that it exists or is possible. So it has been with much of the immorality of the past and the present. Only if a sufficient number of people are aware of real moral alternatives to the immoral status quo can the future avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
Racial nihilism has a dream of a future in which race is not important, a dream in which separate races and racial diversity do not exist. It is the dream of Oneness, the merging or blending of all races into one uniform race where all the distinct traits and qualities created by divergent evolution — and whatever creative force, cause or purpose might be behind that evolution — would be destroyed. It is the ultimate reductionist dream, a dream of racial reductionism, of reducing the many different races to one race, the diversity of humanity to uniformity.
But racial nihilism is not the only possible dream of the racial future. There are other dreams. Moral racism also has a dream. It is a dream of racial preservation and independence, of continued racial existence and liberty, for all the diverse races of humanity, sharing the world together in mutual respect for the legitimate rights of their fellow races.
Moral racism supports friendly cooperation among races in matters of joint concern and mutual benefit. It also supports the right of each race to its own secure, separate and exclusive territory, country or homeland as required for its continued life and independence. It would encourage the diverse races of humanity to share the earth as good neighbors, recognizing that a good neighbor is one that respects the rights of others to the secure possession of their own piece of earth and to the conditions required for their continued existence. It is the racism that preserves, as opposed to immoral racism, the racism that destroys.
The dream of racial nihilism, the dream of Oneness, is a dream of racial reduction and destruction, promoted in the name of combating another form of racial destruction which is claimed to be its only alternative. The dream of moral racism is a dream of continued racial life and racial preservation. Moral racism — the morally right or righteous form of racism — is the alternative to racial nihilism that must be considered as a matter of the utmost urgency, as a matter of nothing less than racial life or death. It has not been practiced in the past, but in the moral development of humanity it must be hoped that a stage has now been reached where it can become the practiced morality of the present and the future. The future existence of at least one race depends upon it.
Notes
1. There are also false forms of racism that are motivated not by true racial concerns, but by economic or political concerns. These forms of pseudo-racism, as they are not really based on racial feelings or concerns, are only superficially racist. But racial nihilism, which evades the central concerns of race by denying their reality, prefers to attribute racism to non-racial motives, and can therefore only provide explanations that focus on such peripheral distractions. There are many different forms or types of racism, requiring many different definitions, but each form of racism should have at least one thing in common with all other forms — it should be based on real racial values and concerns.
2. Legitimate rights and interests are here defined as primary or vital (life-essential) rights and interests as well as those lesser — secondary or non-vital — rights and interests which do not conflict with the greater — primary or vital — rights and interests of other races. The legitimate rights of one race end where the equal or greater rights of another race begin.
3. This is the sole definition of racism given in a “special report” titled The New Racism , televised on The Family Channel, December 29, 1990.
4. Whenever humanity takes another bite from the fruit of the tree of knowledge it often happens that the newly acquired knowledge, at least for a certain period of time, increases confusion and error as much as understanding and wisdom. So it was with Charles Darwin’s epochal revelation of the mechanisms of biological evolution. Many learned the wrong lesson, or took the right lesson to excess, and rushed to apply the newly revealed practices and logic of pre-human evolutionary struggle or natural selection to human society. This school of thought, called Social Darwinism, wrongly assumed that the discovery of more ancient behavioral norms discredited and refuted more recent moral developments, and justified a rejection of the moral concepts of civilized existence in favor of a return to the morality that existed before civilization, or to the even earlier behavior of pre-human animal existence.
The ultimate purpose of morality is to promote and preserve life. Knowledge of the natural or pre-civilized state of existence should be used to identify and discard those distortions of morality which are destructive of life, not the advances in morality which serve to enhance and preserve life. Morality should seek to maintain a harmonious balance between the laws of nature and civilization that can accommodate both, reconciling the requirements of life and evolutionary progress with the desires of humanity for a secure and civilized existence.
