Race and ethics

[ceck]

Reposted from saidit:

Racial ethics as taught by the Transcendentalist "Things Refuse to be Mismanaged Long" versus the rabble-rousing "No one is coming to save you."

submitted 1 day ago by ceck from self.Religion

And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever . . . ." - Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII

Americans of European descent have -- for many decades -- been watching the slow unraveling of America's social fabric. It seems that America has been mismanaged for a long, long time, and Americans frequently argue about what political, racial, or religious remedies might be sought.

Some people see themselves as entirely spiritual and entirely political. The Berrigan brothers were fiercely Catholic and fiercely devoted to impeding the Vietnam war. Fanatical Muslim warriors kill for jihad.

Some people see themselves as entirely loyal to religion and race. Israeli "settlers" who kill Arab children see this as religiously and racially beneficial for Israel. "Thou shalt not murder" -- but the rabbis get to decide which killings are murder and which killings are mitzvot.

Pauline Christianity is famously indifferent to race. Paul believed that Jesus visited him on the road to Damascus, and after that visitation, Paul preached "Gentile or Greek, woman or man, no more." That is, Paul believed that devotion to Jesus was a spiritual allegiance that over-ruled any physical racial loyalty. I was raised in an atmosphere of Pauline Christianity, so I tend to assume that my "immortal soul" has no race. (I don't know that to be true. I might die and my immortal soul might appear before Odin, who might judge me quite harshly for my lack of physical warfare during life.) From the Catholic version of Pauline Christianity I learned the typical notion that "idolatry is sin" -- that is to say, it is sinful to worship anything other than God. One can revere and pray to saints, but such prayers are not worship. A Catholic is permitted to revere and protect his race and his community, but a Catholic must not worship his race. A Catholic is permitted to revere industriousness that leads to wealth, but a Catholic must not worship industriousness -- and a Catholic certainly must not idolize Mammon. Thus, even if it could be proven that Jews are the wealthiest people because they are the most industrious and productive people, a Catholic must not idolize the worldly wealth and accomplishments of Jews. (It is open to debate whether post-Vatican-II Catholics ought to revere Jews as their elder brothers in spirit. A pre-Vatican-II Catholic would say that the opposite is true -- that Jews ought to revere Catholics for holding out the opportunity to be baptized.)

My own notions of spirituality are not very connected to race or politics. I am concerned with mystical experiences while alive and the fate of my immortal soul after the death of my physical body. But here is my problem. I don't see any permanent connection between my consciousness and my race. I have never been visited by Odin or any similarly European deity. I have never had a mystical experience that told me to protect my race by political activism.

It would be very theologically convenient if the Hindu doctrine of "karma" turned out to be true. The notion of karma is hard to pin down, but roughly speaking it seems that "the Wheel of Karma" is a perfect judge of moral right and wrong -- the judgement might take multiple lifetimes, but ultimately all good will be rewarded appropriately. Unfortunately, so far as I can tell, no one anywhere on Earth can truly explain the theory of karma, much less predict its effects in practical terms. To complicate the issue, Buddhist notions of karma are not equivalent to Hindu notions.

Should a spiritual person seek to protect his (or her) race? The answer must vary according to the circumstances of the individual person in question. The Berrigan brothers were born into circumstances that allowed them to take particular actions; Smedley Butler was born into very different circumstances, and took much bloodier actions before (like Ashoka) he stopped killing non-Americans and preached peace to his fellow Americans. (Did God ever find fault with Butler for killing the non-Americans? Did Butler arrive at the Pearly Gates and face judgement for the people he killed before he said "To Hell with War"?)

Ralph Waldo Emerson was doubtless informed by Hindu notions of karma when he wrote:

The farmer imagines power and place are fine things. But the President has paid dear for his White House. It has commonly cost him all his peace, and the best of his manly attributes. To preserve for a short time so conspicuous an appearance before the world, he is content to eat dust before the real masters who stand erect behind the throne. ... This law writes the laws of cities and nations. It is in vain to build or plot or combine against it. Things refuse to be mismanaged long.

And yet, to all appearances, Emerson seems to be wrong, because twenty-first century Americans can clearly see that America has been mismanaged for decades -- or even for centuries. The once-proud middle class has been reduced to a precariat, and to all appearances, America will continue its agonizingly slow degradation for many decades to come. "There is a great deal of ruin in a nation." A popular slogan among Americans is "No one is coming to save you." Typically Americans exhort each other to take responsibility for saving themselves and even for saving their fellows. Typical racial rabble-rousers preach as follows: "It is your duty to be strong, and to use that strength to protect your race. You owe that to your race. And I, as the self-appointed representative of your race, will shame you and bully you to the utmost of my ability until such time as you live up to my expectations!"

For my own part, I doubt that anything I do will accomplish much toward saving my race. But when I reflect on my failure to protect my own race, I wonder whether that is a sin for which my eternal soul will be judged.

[x0x7]

As far as the "Things Refuse to be Mismanaged Long" perspective I think it is helpful to look at it empirically. Africa has successfully been mismanaged for a long long time. Also beyond it most of humanity has been in abject poverty for most of its existence. Perhaps transcendental philosophers who came up with the concept existed in societies with certain foundations that acted as negative feedback. So things were often mismanaged but frequently mismanaged in new and acute ways but would historically in those societies correct themselves due to those corrective elements.

Perhapse one of those corrective elements is human will. If you have a society where people engage in external action for the sake of improving their surroundings the more a problem exists and the more people's attention falls on it you have a concert of smart people thinking about how to adjust away from the problem in an elegant way. It can take a while, but eventually their positive schemes prevail. But if you have a society in which every bit of trouble you see is someone else's problem then problems can go on forever.

There are societies where people can be mugged, beat up, or run over and everyone around them will continue with their day like nothing happened. There are others where people will pick up trash they see on the ground at put it in their pocket.

It's the shopping cart problem. There are those who will not put their shopping cart back. There are those who will put their shopping cart back. And there are those who will see an abandoned shopping cart and put it back. Real society forms around the people who do the last one. But such a society invites others into it because everyone enjoys living in a place like that regardless of their own mentality. The first group eventually leads to full societal dysfunction until to ask someone to live their is practically an inhumane request, to the point that to ask or prefer that someone with those mentalities not live among you is something that you will have to physically fight them over, because to get your wish is to literally cast them back into the depths of hell.

[LS2]

It would be very theologically convenient if the Hindu doctrine of "karma" turned out to be true. The notion of karma is hard to pin down, but roughly speaking it seems that "the Wheel of Karma" is a perfect judge of moral right and wrong -- the judgement might take multiple lifetimes, but ultimately all good will be rewarded appropriately. Unfortunately, so far as I can tell, no one anywhere on Earth can truly explain the theory of karma, much less predict its effects in practical terms. To complicate the issue, Buddhist notions of karma are not equivalent to Hindu notions.

What makes you say no-one can explain the theory of karma? There are completely developed and consistent theories of it. If you mean that it cannot be proved, that is correct. The veracity of it is often seen as something everyone must evaluate for themselves. There's no point in being a Hindu or Buddhist if you reject karma theory, however, and this is problematic considering that there is no logical proof of karma. One thing that polemicists mention is that the world would be utterly capricious if nothing in the vein of karma is true. "Where would be the moral justice in such a view?" runs the comment.[1] It's postulated that the world is just, and that therefore karma is true. Admittedly, that's quite a big postulate. But I do think one has to make that leap to gain peace of mind.

The failure to predict the effects of karma is built in. As you mentioned, events are often the result of actions from a past lifetime, so the explanation cannot be grasped from the point of view of someone whose memories don't go back that far. But that's precisely what makes the system just, because nobody is free from the consequences of their actions. The idea isn't too outrageous. The effects may just as well take place within one's lifetime. If one inflicts violence upon someone else, for example, they will provoke an equally violent retribution. The idea behind karma is to extend this principle to events in general. If a cause isn't found within the same lifetime, it must be from a previous one, and likewise, effects that don't occur within this lifetime must occur in a future one.

For my own part, I doubt that anything I do will accomplish much toward saving my race. But when I reflect on my failure to protect my own race, I wonder whether that is a sin for which my eternal soul will be judged.

I think you're too hard on yourself to think like that, since you don't have control over it. What matters are your intentions and effort.

[ceck]

What makes you say no-one can explain the theory of karma? There are completely developed and consistent theories of it. If you mean that it cannot be proved, that is correct. The veracity of it is often seen as something everyone must evaluate for themselves. There's no point in being a Hindu or Buddhist if you reject karma theory, however, and this is problematic considering that there is no logical proof of karma. One thing that polemicists mention is that the world would be utterly capricious if nothing in the vein of karma is true. "Where would be the moral justice in such a view?" runs the comment.[1]

1. Sorry for the late reply. I've been distracted with non-Internet matters.
2. The theories of karma are no doubt very logical and consistent. The empirical tests of karma across lifetimes are shaky. Various channellers conduct seances and claim to speak with souls in afterlife worlds; those souls sometimes claim that everyone gets reincarnated. I have never been to a seance, but even if I were to get such afterlife testimonies, I fear it would difficult to reconcile the testimonies with the theories of ethics.
3. I think you meant to hyperlink a footnote with the [1] but I don't think the hyperlink syntax worked.

[LS2]

1. Sorry for the late reply. I've been distracted with non-Internet matters.

No worries.

2. The theories of karma are no doubt very logical and consistent. The empirical tests of karma across lifetimes are shaky. Various channellers conduct seances and claim to speak with souls in afterlife worlds; those souls sometimes claim that everyone gets reincarnated. I have never been to a seance, but even if I were to get such afterlife testimonies, I fear it would difficult to reconcile the testimonies with the theories of ethics.

That is indeed shaky. I haven't looked further into this, but there are tests where the researchers interview children with memories of their previous life, and then they learn about deceased people that match. This may be more convincing.

3. I think you meant to hyperlink a footnote with the [1] but I don't think the hyperlink syntax worked.

Right. I was going to source it, but Google Books won't let me browse the page in question and it was too much effort to find it. I found that quote in Edwin Bryant's edition of the Yoga Sutras, although he's just paraphrasing one of the classical commentaries to one of the sutras. With this information you can find it for yourself.

[Henrybub]

So they acknowledge that women who pretend to be men and use the men's bathroom may require female products so they acknowledge they are actually female, so why the fuck do they let them use the men's bathroom?

[LS2]

So they acknowledge that women who pretend to be men and use the men's bathroom may require female products so they acknowledge they are actually female, so why the fuck do they let them use the men's bathroom?

Hello, welcome to this forum. You make an interesting point, but it seems off-topic here. Are you replying in the wrong thread?

[ceck]

So they acknowledge that women who pretend to be men and use the men's bathroom may require female products so they acknowledge they are actually female, so why the fuck do they let them use the men's bathroom?

I suppose a practical, clear distinction between male and female is necessary for the ongoing collective survival of any race.

Those who destroy clear distinctions between male and female within a race are probably trying to destroy that race.