Coalitional psychology—finding ways to bring back White racial consciousness.

The ongoing argument about collectivism versus individualism relies almost wholly on whether we embrace one over the other because (a) Whites are genetically different and tend towards individualism or (b) we are more individual because of historical circumstances. I argue that aside from genetic or historical circumstances, we can also take advantage of contextual circumstances to awaken racial consciousness, but efforts to do so still rely on information dominance, and who can make the best case in terms of sheer volume about the proper moral stance of humanity. It becomes a media war of moral positions and there correctness.

However, there is an optimistic view that we can take advantage of changing world events, to change how people view their relationship with other groups, including national versus racial solidarity, as we have noted after 9/11. A recent paper from the journal Evolutionary Psychology entitled “Normative Bias and Adaptive Challenge: A Relational Approach to Coalitional Psychology and a Critique of Terror Management Theory,” by Carlos David Navarette and David M.T. Fessler, argue in their abstract as follows:

“Adherence to ingroup ideology increases after exposure to death-related stimuli, a reaction that proponents of terror management theory (TMT) explain as a psychological defense against the uniquely human existential fear of death. We argue that existential concerns are not the relevant issue; rather, such concepts can be subsumed under a larger category of adaptive challenges that prime coalitional thinking. We suggest that increases in adherence to ingroup ideology in response to adaptive challenges are manifestations of normative mental representations emanating from psychological systems designed to enhance coordination and membership in social groups. In providing an alternative to TMT, we (1) explain why the theory is inconsistent with contemporary evolutionary biology, (2) demonstrate that mortality-salience does not have the unique evocative powers ascribed to it by TMT advocates, and (3) discuss our approach to coalitional psychology

, a framework consistent with modern evolutionary theory and informed by a broad understanding of cultural variation, can be employed to help account for both the corpus of results in TMT research and the growing body of findings inconsistent with TMT’s predictions.”

I will not discuss TMT, as the paper does, I think, and excellent job of debunking it, while replacing it with a more plausible explanation—when people feel threatened they become less individualistic and more coalitional to survive or prosper when under stress. In contrast to the hysteria that some people feel towards natural and human disasters around the world, we in the West have few real threats that adversely impact our lives with regards to the well-being of our families or communities. We have become soft because we have prospered so well against many of the dangers that impeded the good life of our ancestors. The stressors that maintained at least a nominal amount of coalitional conditioning—for example farmers collective banding together to bring in harvests of grain or just looking after their neighbors—is lost in a cosmopolitan world. Society sets up organizations to look after us if anything bad happens, so we can be rather care-free in seeking an individualistic lifestyle—as long as we go along with the current moral position of the groups we work, play and associate with.

The authors note, “There have been many attempts to understand adherence to and defense of national ideologies and values, intolerance of dissent, and hostility towards dissimilar others. However, few have sought to ask why such intergroup bias varies as a function of the degree of national emergency, and why it differs between individuals…. We suggest how increases in adherence to ingroup ideology, intolerance of opposing views, and derogation of dissimilar others can be interpreted as behavioral manifestations of normative mental representations emanating from psychological systems designed to enhance individual acceptance in, and coordination with, social groups.”

Natural selection allowed for a wide variation in adherence to group norms that made it possible for collectives to come together in order to survive under conditions of stress that ranged from disease, warfare, starvation, natural disasters, etc. As Kevin MacDonald and others have pointed out so eloquently, Whites evolved in an ecological niche that was threatened more by natural stressors like glaciations rather than warfare over resources that took place in such places as the Middle East. The tribalism we see today in Iraq and Afghanistan is a result of thousands of years of conflict between neighboring tribes that perceive threats from relatively close kin, but will also set aside those conflicts for coalition formation to defend against outsiders when the need arises.

The authors state, “…much of our abilities in hyper-sociality do not lie in kin-related altruism, but is due to the unique human abilities for imitation, internalization of and conformity to social norms—processes crucial for individual adaptive coordination within groups. Conformity to social norms, including embodying the attitudes, values, and life-ways of the ingroup, enhances the efficiency of coordinated action among self-interested actors. In addition to their sometimes complex cosmologies, cultural belief systems contain norms that address conflict resolution and resource distribution, as well as marriage rules, stereotypes, delineated power relationships, and group membership criteria that define who does or does not belong. Such guidelines are undoubtedly crucial for solving a variety of adaptive problems that confront people in every society.”

In the West then, it seems that we have adopted the world view, via indoctrination by the media, that our future lies in forming a global, humanitarian coalition, where we will adopt policies to promote universal brotherhood and care for global resources. This world view has been promoted by environmentalists (noting numerous disasters if we don’t act as one global nation), egalitarians who believe that inequality is caused simply by oppressive groups who subjugate the less prosperous, and by other groups who are tribalistic and adept enough to get resources transferred from the productive groups to their own under-performing group economies (which includes welfare within nations, tolerance of immigrants with low economic potential, and direct transfer of resources from the Western nations to backward nations).

If then, universal morality dominates in the West, and particularist morality everywhere else, we need alternative examples of stressors that will bind Whites once again to a more race sensitive stance. I believe—I hope—that Islamic fundamentalism along with terrorism will be one such catalyst. When our liberal attitudes fail to prevail against more tribalistic attitudes that will not display the tolerance that the West embraces, the festering within minority communities living in the West will start to fray our optimism in diversity. Likewise, when warfare continues to spring up between ethnic groups, liberalism’s credulity will be strained.

And then there are natural disasters, like Hurricane Katrina, where I saw a city not worth saving, while my liberal friends used it to blame Bush for callousness and insensitivity. I’m no apologist for Bush, but the media images were powerful, as we watched obese fat Black women cradling two or three young children, wondering how they could even become pregnant by normal means not to mention being too poor to raise children.

We need more research then on coalitional psychology, how it differs between groups and individuals, and what images and indoctrination is required to make Whites more racially conscious. In the spirit of Frank Salter, we know the theoretical justifications. Unfortunately, humans do not respond to theory but to images of how they fit into the world, and the images for Whites has been one that no matter what happens, we are safe in our diverse and democratic enclaves. I believe debating the merits of differing world views in the end will change few people; but the images of disgust, disaster, crime, warfare, and conflict will go much further in promoting change. Keeping abreast of research in coalitional psychology will help us formulate plans to bring back White racial consciousness.

Posted by Matt Nuenke on Sunday, September 11, 2005 at 04:39 PM in Ethnicity and Ethnic Genetic Interests
Comments (18) | Tell a friend

Comments:

Posted by Fred Scrooby on September 11, 2005, 05:37 PM | #

“I believe debating the merits of differing world views in the end will change few people; but the images of disgust, disaster, crime, warfare, and conflict will go much further in promoting change.” (—from the log entry)

But you’d think the race-replacement crisis itself would form a sufficiently disastrous image in people’s minds to promote change. (I think it will, finally—I just wish it weren’t taking so damn long ...)

Posted by John S Bolton on September 11, 2005, 07:58 PM | #

Individualism has much greater scope in peacetime than in time of war. This differential is the triggering one, as your racial consciousness promoters obviously are aware of. The moslem tolerance advertisers have a promotion going where they say everyone is unique, therefore no labelling against their relatives should occur. That is a contradiction in terms, though; the concepts in which ‘labelling’ is derogated are themselves generalizations, or ‘labels’ about groups. It is necessary to look at such events in terms of affinity and disaffinity, rather than specious racism and antiracism. That is, affinity and disaffinities which correlate with genetic distance. Tell us that this is not the relevant consideration, if you please.

Posted by Soren Renner on September 11, 2005, 08:48 PM | #

Thank you for bringing the article to my attention. Skimming it revealed that some people (not the authors) take Ernest Becker seriously. If you want to see fear-based social coordination and competition (that has NOTHING to do with fear of death) just watch “Big Brother”, the CBS reality show.

Posted by Svigor on September 11, 2005, 11:03 PM | #

We need a race-realist-friendly Christian denomination. It must have strong theology and apologia.

Posted by Geoff Beck on September 11, 2005, 11:15 PM | #

Svi,

I think highly of the folks at Little Geneva, they are of Calvinist Presbyterian stock: http://www.littlegeneva.com/

They have a nice photo of the South, in the good ole days: http://littlegeneva.com/images/txpostcard.jpg

——————————-

Matt N.

Found the piece most interesting. I’ve read it once but need to return to it again.

Posted by Desmond Jones on September 12, 2005, 01:55 AM | #

Did white racial consciousnes ever exist? White ethnic consciousness existed, but was often confronted and destroyed by other white ethnic groups.

KMac writes of medieval Catholic corporatism as a collective strategy invoked by the Crusaders battle against a Muslim outgroup threat. However, religion was the motivator for that white collective not race. KMac outlines how often white elites used outgroups, like Jews or crypto-Christians as “a highly competent intermediary group between themselves and the great mass of gentile Christians.” The elite in 15th century Spain used this approach.

The Celtic South, the Boers and the Germans all developed a collective strategy for survival when threatened by outgroups. Each in turn was confroned and destroyed by a white ethnic group efficaciously using a class based strategy.

The notion of the ‘West’ is a myth. White elites will continue to employ class based strategies to elevate other ethnic/racial groups because they view whites outside their group as ‘trash’ and with the same disdain that they view the majority of yellows, blacks and browns.

Posted by Mark Richardson on September 12, 2005, 06:42 AM | #

The thing is, DJ, that in traditional societies identity builds outwards.

You might identify with your local town, then your region, then your particular national tradition, then your wider race.

So there was no conflict between an Australian of the 1940s identifying ethnically as an Australian, but then also thinking of themselves more broadly as being northern European, or more broadly still, as being European or Western.

Posted by jonjayray on September 12, 2005, 07:44 AM | #

Hmmm…
A persuasive and interesting article at first but VERY weak on history.

Anglos were thoroughly “racist” up until WW2. They did not suddenly become “unthreatened” and hence individualistic in 1945.

In fact the Cold war was a tremendous threat—of nuclear annihilation.

Think again folks.

Posted by James Bowery on September 12, 2005, 09:24 AM | #

When our liberal attitudes fail to prevail against more tribalistic attitudes that will not display the tolerance that the West embraces

This has already happened in the case of the rise of Jewish ethnocentrism and ethnic nepotism to power in the US, culminating in the neocon unmasking of “more tribalistic attitudes that will not display the tolerance that the West embraces”.

Indeed, the two-faced Jewish promotion of diversity in the host population, combined with ethnic solidarity within its own, preceded the neocon unmasking by quite a long time. Evidently such was evident to Elizabethen England as Shylock’s “do I not bleed?” monologe in “The Merchant of Venice” attests.

No, the critical dimension to wake up the West isn’t the contrast isn’t between naked tribalism and tolerance— it is force vs (frequently unconscious) fraud (usually hypocrisy). The real threat from Islam, as from Judaism, isn’t violence, but peaceful “assimilation”. We cannot count on Islamic violence to continue beyond the point that it exposes Jewish hypocrisy in the West. I don’t think Judaism ever offered us even that much of a signal to which we were evolved to react.

Posted by Dirk van Renesse on September 12, 2005, 11:05 AM | #

Little Geneva is interesting. I’m an agnostic myself, but, I know that christian groups (as opposed to pagans) tend to be motivated and willing to donate time and money to the cause.

Posted by Svigor on September 12, 2005, 02:29 PM | #

Yes Geoff, I’ve recently started recommending the Kinists to religious types. Kinism might form a framework, but I think the Confederate aspect will limit its appeal to non-southerners.

There’s also the whatstheirnames, those guys who claim that Europeans are the true descendants of Israel (Identity Christians?). Wacky? Maybe, but I’m biased on the issue since it’s all wacky to me.

Posted by Matt Nuenke on September 12, 2005, 03:13 PM | #

Jonjayray stated: Hmmm…A persuasive and interesting article at first but VERY weak on history. Anglos were thoroughly “racist” up until WW2. They did not suddenly become “unthreatened” and hence individualistic in 1945. In fact the Cold war was a tremendous threat—of nuclear annihilation. Think again folks.

Very true indeed. Franz Boas started the propaganda against racial consciousness around 1930 and was very successful. Then came blaming the Nazis for everything that had anything to do with race and eugenics. Then the Left started piling on more issues leading up to the civil rights movement and the media events newly broadcast nationwide. In addition, the threat of nuclear war was one where the great enemy was still a White one. One could only imagine what if the cold war had been between say a communist Far East (say China/Korea/Japan). Perhaps we would not have drifted so far to the left.

Posted by Tom Peters on September 13, 2005, 02:28 AM | #

“White elites will continue to employ class based strategies to elevate other ethnic/racial groups because they view whites outside their group as ‘trash’ and with the same disdain that they view the majority of yellows, blacks and browns.”

Outside threats will unify whites - to at least some degree. Those who choose not to unite will not remain white, so they are irrelevant. The times call for a new strategy, and survival strategies is what it is all about.

You are wrong to call the notion of the West a myth. But in the end, it is a just a word, and once again the survival of the people is what’s most important.

To a WN like myself, it all comes to seeing what actions lead to what outcomes. Who cares if 100 million non-whites tell me that I stand no chance, or that I should give up? What interest do they have in my group’s survival? Most of what non-whites say to whites about survival is deceptive noise anyway. Any WN worth his salt looks beyond the non-white ‘advice’.

The question of white elites will resolve itself in time. In the past White elites could afford to play games and call other white people trash. It’s an ancient struggle for privilege that will be buried with new threats.

And if it’s not? Who cares? My people will be gone, or perhaps only alive in small numbers. Maybe they’ll just be a lighter face in a crowd of blacks/browns. Once again - why should I care for people who outbred my people, out-witted my people?

The message of WNs is only now forming. Europe never really had a unified message for its people, but that does not mean it never will. This new message is born from survival (evolutionary) energies and nothing can stop it. Once the message is formed it will be up to white people to take the necessary actions to follow-through. Once again if they choose to ignore this message then they will disappear anyway.

To say that because there have been past failure makes WNs’ message irrelevant is wrong. Let’s see if we’re smart enough to come up with the right message, and if white people are smart enough to follow-through on this message. Life is all about these sort of challenges.

Posted by Desmond Jones on September 13, 2005, 05:20 PM | #

Tom,

Outside threats have unified whites (Sobieski, Charles the IV of Lorraine at the siege of Vienna (1681?)) however, not on a racial basis. It was religion, the 300 years clash between Christian Europe and Islam. Yet time and again white nationalist movements are crushed by the elitist evil empire. It’s like the Death Star battling the Jedi knights, except the Jedis never win. The Celts, the South, the Boers, the Germans, the Rhodesians, all conservative white nationalist movements have been struck down by the liberal Anglo/American empire. You’re not going to achieve your objective if you rely on white racial unity.

“Europe never really had a unified message for its people, but that does not mean it never will.” Tom, with all due respect, you can’t go there. It’s a liberal fallacy. It’s Jared Diamond saying if only the noble savages of New Guinea grew up in Europe, they too would have invented the plane, car, fax, telephone etc.etc. It’s a lie.

We have to accept that the genetic default point for Euroman is individualism with a collective defence of ethny and/or religion but not race. Whites are being killed in South Africa, and Rhodesia without out a murmur from the ‘West’. And white Christian Serbs, fighting for their own ethny/nationalism, were destroyed by the evil empire.

A class based strategy has to be re-examined, even if it must include non-whites because the enemy is the white elites.

Posted by JW Holliday on September 15, 2005, 09:47 AM | #

Sigh ... this is the GNXP/GC mentality here - that a race-based strategy has to include every single person or interest group of that race. No. White elites who betray white interests should be excluded from white identity politics; they wouldn’t be interested in it anyway. But the fact that white elites are a deadly enemy does not logically suggest that race cannot be the unifying factor.

One can look at any other “proximate” valuation - class or religion, for example - and see differences of opinion and plenty of traitors there as well.

In today’s age of globalism, narrow ethnic particularisms won’t cut it, mentioning Serbia only underscores that any individual white ethnie cannot go it alone, they’ll be crushed by the elites of other nations. Nationalism will thrive when nationalism is promoted in a concerted effort.

But, hey, to those who have differing opinions, I say, try it your way. I am always amused when those who say “Christianity is essential to white survival, we must reform Christianity and bring a rebirth of belief”, try to promote that idea to atheists, Nietzschians, pagans, etc! No, no, my friends, if you think religion is the key, then you and those who agree with you, show the way. It’s not up to atheists and the like to save Christianity; if Christians themselves cannot do it, then that’s saying something, no? Likewise, those who think that class is important, and that white Americans of a class really wish to associate with blacks of the same “class”, then you show us the way. And those of us who believe in a race-based method, it is we who have the responsibility for making that work.

To me, a race-based method is self-evident, but if others disagree, I won’t harangue them about it.

To each is own.

Posted by Svigor on September 15, 2005, 03:06 PM | #

JW, what about us agnostics who think a reformed Christianity is vital?

The trouble is that very many WNs want to toss the baby out with the bathwater. Does it sit well with me that a Mosaic religion penetrated our collective psyche the way it did? No. The fact remains that it did, and that no other religion holds as much sway over our peoples. I don’t want to see sour grapes making us cut off our noses to spite our faces.

It isn’t so much that I think Christianity is essential to our overall success, but rather that for many, their God trumps all and to get them into the fold we’re going to have to show them their God doesn’t mind.

Fortunately, ethnocentrism is the very core of the Old Testament. We have the jews to thank for that too; might as well take advantage of it, no? Hell, given my druthers I’d drop the New Testament and stick with the Tanakh, just fudge the proper nouns a bit, but I’m not going to get my druthers.

Posted by Desmond Jones on September 16, 2005, 04:36 PM | #

But the fact that white elites are a deadly enemy does not logically suggest that race cannot be the unifying factor. The counter position is also immutable, JW. It does not suggest it can be a unifying factor either.

There is a massive movement of people that is very, very rapidly changing the demographic. The number one concern, IMO, is stopping mass immigration cold. To that end immigrants have an interest. An atheist has no interest in becoming a Christian, however, an immigrant or black may want immigration stopped because it’s driving his wages down. Rubenstein at Vdare has extensive documentation in this regard. It does not preclude separation, it simply widens the effort to stop immigration.

Depending entirely upon race consciousness to mobilize a force to stop immigration is very limiting. Time is of the essence. How more years can the massive inflow continue until it too is an immutable force?

Posted by Desmond Jones on September 16, 2005, 04:48 PM | #

Nationalism will thrive when nationalism is promoted in a concerted effort. When has that ever happened, JW? Ethnicity trumps ideology. Building a global nationalist ideology will fail as surely as communism failed. Ethnic interests will prevail.

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