Strange Fruit: Race, Identity Politics, & Ethnic Genetic Interests.

Is race biological?  Or is it a social construct ? The “debate” continues because it is political. As a scientific classification, race is one of the simplest issues to resolve. Those denying the biology of race cannot stop relying on the straw man denotations: discrete groups, fixed set of traits, distinct subspecies, pure races, unique features or genes, clearly delineated categories, eternal entities, etc., because without these they would not even have the pretense of a case. In Strange Fruit: Why Both Sides Are Wrong In The Race Debate, Kenan Malik is careful to include the above examples of dividing races into discrete groupings to show that race is not biological. Of course, any scientific taxonomy of racial groups uses the concept of “a community of common descent” that results in varying frequencies of genetic alleles to place people into an arbitrary number of categories—depending on what the classification is to be used for.

Malik claims that, “Scientific categories need to be consistent, reliable and reproducible. Racial categories are none of these. Races are difficult to define and there are no objective rules for deciding what constitutes a race, to what race an individual belongs or indeed to how many races he or she belongs.” If this assertion were true, then science could not classify any number of things, such as mental illness: every new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM manual) recreates new classifications and divisions with every updated edition. This will probably never change as the research is constantly expanding and becoming more precise. And the same is true of racial classifications except that genetic taxonomies are far easier to classify than mental illness. (The equivalent of the DSM for races would be Cavalli-Sforza’s The History and Geography of Human Genes.)

“There are certainly real genetic differences between human populations and the scientific study of these differences can help unravel the roots of disease, develop new medicines, unpick the details of deep human history; perhaps eventually even tell us something about the nature of intelligence.” Malik admits—but, “Such genetic differences are, however, not the same as racial differences.” Note that the first sentence is an accepted definition of race—he then claims races are different from the very definition he provides! The book is filled with these ambiguities and distortions.

While believing he has shown that race is not biological, he goes on to attack antiracism–identity politics as an anti-scientific philosophy. “Through such ‘identity’ politics, the celebration of difference, which once was at the heart of racial science, has become a key plank of the antiracist outlook. More recently, race realists have returned the compliment. Diversity, the concept through which antiracists understand cultural difference, has become central to the race realists’ outlook.” And now Blacks seem to have joined with race-realists: “Ten years ago, black identity might have been seen as a cultural or a political expression; now, it is increasingly seen as a genetic heritage, inextricably linking race, culture and belonging. According to Joseph Harker, former editor of the Voice, Britain’s leading black newspaper, genetics provides black people with ‘a route to a new identity’, a reconnection with ‘their own brothers, sisters and cousins’ and the possibility of ‘a whole new history and culture’.”

He also discusses Frank Salter’s On Genetic Interests: “Take, for instance, [Salter’s] notion of genetic interest and his belief that since ‘genetic continuity is the ultimate interest of all life’, so it is to the benefit of every individual to preserve his ethny. As many critics have pointed out, life has no more ‘interest’ in genetic continuity than water has ‘interest’ in flowing downhill. Genes have interests only in a metaphorical sense but human beings have interests in the real sense of wants, needs and desires. Salter confuses the two in suggesting it is to the advantage of every individual to preserve his ethny because in doing so he preserves his distinctive genes…. For Salter, racism and ethnocentrism are adaptive, because they help maintain genetic continuity. Many of his sociobiological critics argue that psychological dispositions that may have been suitable for the Stone Age are often maladaptive when translated into the modern world; hence both the virulence and destructive character of racism. As John Tooby and Leda Cosmides put it, ‘Modern phenomena such as friction between people of different “races”, war between nation states and so on, cannot be adaptations to modern circumstances but rather reflect the operation of Pleistocene adaptations misfiring under modern circumstances.’”

I agree that one cannot make a definitive assertion that racism and/or ethnocentrism should follow from Salter’s genetic continuity theory because it quickly becomes a moral issue, if one could in fact determine if for any specific ethny, it is better to fully cooperate or to compete.  That is, I will assert that based on both aesthetic considerations and on adaptive considerations of Whites under current circumstances, it is to our advantage to behave ethnocentrically in order to advance our group evolutionarily. Note that evolutionary psychologists accept that group evolutionary strategies were adaptive in the past, but they have not put forth a coherent argument as to why that is no longer the case.

There are then at least two assertions that must be proven in order to show fault with the stance that promoting one’s ethnic genetic interests is flawed. First, for any particular ethny, is egalitarianism and/or racial cooperation more beneficial than racism and/or ethnocentrism? Should Whites for example seek to limit immigration, exploit resources belonging to other races, expropriate as much payment as feasibly possible for technology developed and used by others, etc.?  Political correctness has dictated that an egalitarian stance should be accepted without debate—we do not need to accept that result.

Second, even if ethnocentrism is currently maladaptive, it does not follow that it is immoral. Moral arguments simply cannot be made to follow from an agreement on facts. Morality as evolutionary psychologists are increasingly coming to realize is nothing more than human emotions becoming codified post hoc. (I will elaborate on this in a follow-up post: “A Very Bad Wizard.") Malik does admit, in quoting the essay “Too Diverse,” by David Goodhart, that there is a tension between left-wing universalism and ethny particularism that echoes Salter’s assertion that a homogenous state made up of genetically related people is preferable in many ways to the diversity we have too quickly embraced in the West. “Frank Salter worries about the consequence of diversity for social cohesion and genetic continuity, a view echoed by some sections of the liberal left, but his is also a vision of a world composed of a patchwork of racially and culturally distinct groups, each preserving its own particular, authentic, brand of genes and lifestyle.”

Malik concedes that, “Frank Salter’s work, however, touches a number of hot political buttons that connect with liberal concerns. The universality of difference; respect for other peoples but preference for one’s own; race, ethnicity and culture as the roots of personal identity; the conflict between the inevitability of tribalism and the desire for cohesion; the dilemmas of liberalism in the post-ideological world — all these issues, which are at the heart of Salter’s work, have also come to shape contemporary political debate. Despite the reactionary smell of many of Salter’s arguments, his defense of genetic diversity and ethnic identity and his call both for the preservation of ethnic differences and for the strengthening of ethnic solidarity strike a chord in our ever more Romantic world.” Then he goes on to say that Salter has failed to “attend to history.”

According to Malik, the divisions between in-groups and out-groups are invalid because racial groups can extend altruism to other races based on a shared interest or economic class rather than race. What he fails to realize is that those of us on the Right are fully aware that White elites often ignore racial solidarity in favor of universalism and class elitism; that in addition to different moral stances all races can be influenced by social as well as self-indoctrination; that people usually go along to get along, etc. Ethnocentrism is merely one aspect of evolutionary psycholog. It can vary between tribal groups and in different contexts.

Kevin MacDonald has written extensively about these differences, asserting that Whites tend towards universal moralism, while most races are more particularist and favor their own kind.  We must become more aware of the disadvantages we face because we are low on ethnocentrism. Living among diverse out-groups, Whites are not prepared to stand their ground and protect their interests. We find ourselves under constant attack from “peoples of color.” We are accused of colonialism, White privilege, practicing racism, oppressing indigenous people around the world as well as in our midst, etc. It is time to turn away from our innate tendencies towards universal moralism and assert our own group’s interests.

Posted by Matt Nuenke on Monday, December 28, 2009 at 03:53 PM in Ethnicity and Ethnic Genetic Interests
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