Nation States = Racism? (1 Viewer)

[КГБ]

When we go to the roots of the racism problem we see that racism emanates from the concept of a nation state (e.g. Australia, UK, Germany etc). Each nation has a certain stereotype or definition of what the citizens of that state should look like. A good example of this is the UK where the stereotype of an American citizen is a W.A.S.P. i.e a White Anglo Saxon Person. People may argue that if you are born there then you are American regardless of whether you are black, brown or white.However in reality, every nation state defines certain citizens as from that nation and others as not from that nation. This is the real cause of racism. For example, in this country people carry an ideal of what being Aussie really is, whether it is publicly through groups such as ONE NATION or privately as many individuals do today.
Those who do not fit into this ideal of the true Aussie citizen will always be treated differently and be seen as foreigners regardless of whether they were born here or not.

found the above para on the net.
discuss

 

[Graney]

There's nothing wrong with racism

The perception in our society that racism is absolutely evil, all the time is stupid and frustrating. Calling someone a racist is the worst insult you could throw at them. It ruins careers and lives. Pointlessly when it's not at all necessarily evil.

Racism, in as much as identifying and acknowledging that there may be differences between races, is well founded, and should be open for discussion. See the eugenics thread. http://community.boredofstudies.org/214/news-current-affairs-politics/192692/defence-eugenics.html

The real evil is xenophobia. Xenophobia is the irrational fear and hatred to the cold logical detachment and scientific analysis of good old fashioned racism. A lot of people who cry "I'm not racist", may well be telling the truth, but they are xenophobic and they should be ashamed.

I think saying "the nation state is the cause of xenophobia" is missing the point.

The quote in the OP is a bunch of hippie clap trap proposing the erosion of national borders and all sorts of protections we take for granted through living in a nation state. The nation state may not be perfectly fair, but it is the only way to effectively manage the worlds needs.

Also, a homogenous culture is better than multiculturalism, European cultures are the best in the world.

Also, the OP doesn't know what W.A.S.P stands for.

 

[Groucho Marxist]

oh dear.

 

[KFunk]

There's nothing wrong with racism

The perception in our society that racism is absolutely evil, all the time is stupid and frustrating. Calling someone a racist is the worst insult you could throw at them. It ruins careers and lives. Pointlessly when it's not at all necessarily evil.

Racism, in as much as identifying and acknowledging that there may be differences between races, is well founded, and should be open for discussion. See the eugenics thread. http://community.boredofstudies.org/214/news-current-affairs-politics/192692/defence-eugenics.html

The real evil is xenophobia. Xenophobia is the irrational fear and hatred to the cold logical detachment and scientific analysis of good old fashioned racism. A lot of people who cry "I'm not racist", may well be telling the truth, but they are xenophobic and they should be ashamed.

I think saying "the nation state is the cause of xenophobia" is missing the point.

The quote in the OP is a bunch of hippie clap trap proposing the erosion of national borders and all sorts of protections we take for granted through living in a nation state. The nation state may not be perfectly fair, but it is the only way to effectively manage the worlds needs.

Firstly, I think you're using your own gerrymandered definition of 'racism' which excludes the negative aspects like discrimination, exclusion, etc. You can't fairly argue against the OP if you make a straw man out of their argument, and IMO a fair interpretation requires a reasonable definition of 'racism'.

Secondly, the desire to dissolve national borders may be overly idealistic and overlook their practical worth, but it may nonetheless be true that national borders and the way in which states construct national identity breed racism.

 

[Graney]

Firstly, I think you're using your own gerrymandered definition of 'racism' which excludes the negative aspects like discrimination, exclusion, etc.

I think there are a few definitions, if you look in any official source, and one common definition, the possible superiority of races at a population level, is a justified belief in my opinion. But you make a fair point, the word has the stigma of those other definitions. Racial science?

You can't fairly argue against the OP if you make a straw man out of their argument, and IMO a fair interpretation requires a reasonable definition of 'racism'.

Yeah, I wasn't trying to make a straw man, but rather extrapolate that after we accept that racism is not the true evil, but xenophobia, what would we say about the state and nature of xenophobia in relation to nation states. An intellectual execise, taking these things to what I see as the logical conclusion.

But fair call.

Secondly, the desire to dissolve national borders may be overly idealistic and overlook their practical worth, but it may nonetheless be true that national borders and the way in which states construct national identity breed racism.

Well played, definetly, I'd conceed this. I was perhaps overly harsh in my initial response.

I think the erosion of the nation state is undesirable because of the impacts and implications it could have upon private property rights.

 

[prime-factor]

All I can say, even if this is a little off-topic is that MULTICULTURALISM DOESN'T WORK. I think that article is silly and makes no real arguments of substance and meaning.

The article seems to be leaning towards the tyrannical idea that national sovereignty should be eroded, and borders left open, and we should all have a one world government. What a load of cods-wallop. Also, racism even if you view it as 'evil' is a right. People have the right to chose who they will associate with and accept. But this cannot be done in a violent way. If you stop racism, you stop free-speech all together. It's the nature of censorship. It perpetuates.

 

[KFunk]

I think the erosion of the nation state is undesirable because of the impacts and implications it could have upon private property rights.

Fair enough, though keep in mind that erosion isn't necessarily an issue here (though of course, it might be).

If it is the case that it's not national borders per se, but rather the way in which states tend to construct national identity (e.g. through rhetoric, social institutions, iconography, us-them dichotomies) that breeds racism, then it may be possible to modify such practices without 'eroding the state' as such. Note that the OP talks in terms of 'concepts' and 'stereotypes' rather than the brute structure of the state itself.

There are interesting research questions for social psychology here (and no doubt there is already relevant literature to be found).

 

[KFunk]

Also, racism even if you view it as 'evil' is a right. People have the right to chose who they will associate with and accept. But this cannot be done in a violent way. If you stop racism, you stop free-speech all together. It's the nature of censorship. It perpetuates.

It depends on what you mean by racism. Certainly, people should be permitted to hold negative views regarding certain races, or to avoid association with them if that is their choice. However, such a right needn't extend to verbally abusing them, denying them access to a job or a service, or so forth. In other words, any outward form of descrimination or persecution. Racism is too broad a term to make the blanket statement that 'racism is a right'. In its broadest sense this claim seems blatantly false (in the context of conventional rights discourse) and so needs some degree of qualification.

Also, it is sensationalist to claim that in prohibiting racism you eliminate free speech. Certainly, it would be a blow to free speech but it would nowhere near toss it out the window (with the bathwater). Whether a restriction on free speech is an issue depends on the primacy you accord freedom of speech in the context or liberal / rights discourse. This shows up a typical issue in any system of rights or liberties: if they are not ranked in someway, or if some decision procedure for prioritising is not provided, then conflict between them becomes an issue in certain cases.

 

[prime-factor]

KFunk: Hi There . What you are studying looks awesome. How are you finding it?

I agree that racism is too broad a term and in a way what I said could be described as sensationalist, but I also think that the meaning of the word 'racism' is greatly misunderstood in many aspects. Also it seems to be a never-ending circular logic black hole once we start to define 'verbal abuse'. Because then context, connotation and intention must be clearly identified and well differentiated between. We would need to write a law for every racial insult/slur we know (I'm exaggerating greatly, but you get the point). Also cultural, societal influences would dictate peoples understandings of racial slurs.

Denying people to jobs/services is wrong. I agree 100%. But the problem then arises of people choosing who they want to employ (e.g. a preference for white Australian males/females). This is racism? But I think people should choose who they 'want' to employ. Otherwise a can of worms is opened when people sue business owners for 'racism'. It's like otherwise we need a checklist of 'Okay I need to hire one more Indonesian' (Once again this is an extreme case, but you get my point'.

 

[hermand]

There's nothing wrong with racism

The perception in our society that racism is absolutely evil, all the time is stupid and frustrating. Calling someone a racist is the worst insult you could throw at them. It ruins careers and lives. Pointlessly when it's not at all necessarily evil.

Racism, in as much as identifying and acknowledging that there may be differences between races, is well founded, and should be open for discussion. See the eugenics thread. http://community.boredofstudies.org/214/news-current-affairs-politics/192692/defence-eugenics.html

The real evil is xenophobia. Xenophobia is the irrational fear and hatred to the cold logical detachment and scientific analysis of good old fashioned racism. A lot of people who cry "I'm not racist", may well be telling the truth, but they are xenophobic and they should be ashamed.

I think saying "the nation state is the cause of xenophobia" is missing the point.

The quote in the OP is a bunch of hippie clap trap proposing the erosion of national borders and all sorts of protections we take for granted through living in a nation state. The nation state may not be perfectly fair, but it is the only way to effectively manage the worlds needs.

never thought i'd say this, but i agree with graney.

 

[Aryanbeauty]

America, Canada,Australia and new Zealand are rightfully owned by British people and the rest are just visitors, whether you gained citizenship of the said country is irrelevant. Enjoy your visit.

 

[KFunk]

KFunk: Hi There . What you are studying looks awesome. How are you finding it?

Howdy . I'm enjoying my program very much. Medicine is fascinating, and it only gets better IMO once you introduce the human element and apply knowledge in the clinical setting. I've done a couple philosophy courses already and will soon break from med (after this summer course) to only study philosophy for a couple years. Plenty of time for pondering (and sex/drugs/rock'n'roll ideally... it's all about balance).

Also it seems to be a never-ending circular logic black hole once we start to define 'verbal abuse'. Because then context, connotation and intention must be clearly identified and well differentiated between. We would need to write a law for every racial insult/slur we know (I'm exaggerating greatly, but you get the point). Also cultural, societal influences would dictate peoples understandings of racial slurs.

This is perhaps a case where it makes sense to legislate in a way which allows a magistrate/judge/etc to exercise some degree of judgement, whilst also protecting individuals from unfair prosecution (through certain requirements of proof, say?). Also, it may not be necessary to legislate against racist language specifically as the particularly malignant cases may already fall under laws regarding verbal abuse, defamation, harrassment and obscenity.

I agree that it initially seems troubling that many of the concepts do not yield to precise definition, e.g. 'obscenity' and 'racist language' (and I expect any attempt would probably produce somethin unwieldy). Although it lacks the purity of written law, human judgement is a fairly practical way of circumventing this issue (we must conceed that imperfection of some degree will be present in our legal system).

Denying people to jobs/services is wrong. I agree 100%. But the problem then arises of people choosing who they want to employ (e.g. a preference for white Australian males/females). This is racism? But I think people should choose who they 'want' to employ. Otherwise a can of worms is opened when people sue business owners for 'racism'. It's like otherwise we need a checklist of 'Okay I need to hire one more Indonesian' (Once again this is an extreme case, but you get my point'.

Yes, that is racism. You don't need a racial checklist, you simply need an employment process which is procedurally fair.

For an example of procedural fairness, consider the classical case of a lottery. Individuals choose to purchase tickets, pool the money thus collected and allot the money to the owner of the first drawn ticket. The outcome, though unequal (consider an analogy where only caucasians are hired by chance using fair criteria), is nonetheless fair on account of procedural fairness.

Likewise with employment, you simply need to ensure that the same employment criteria are applied to each candidate and that the criteria are relevant to the position in question. Relevant criteria may include education, social skills, appearance (think modelling or some types of service industry). And of course race can be relevant - consider the case of employing someone to be liason officer for indigenous Australian students (though note that it is cultural, not genetic, background which is relevant here). The important thing is to stop employers from not hiring a person simply because they dislike their race.

 

[moll.]

Not all nation-states are based on race.
However, is nationalism a destructive force? Yes, it is, but only when incited in a population too stupid and uneducated to know better. Which is most populations.

 

[prime-factor]

I agree with you on almost every point. I can't find any faults.

But..even with procedural fairness, choice is still up to the employer. You can have beautiful procedures and guidelines but employers will still chose based on their preference even if this preference is race based.

 

[Graney]

Your entire argument is based on re-inventing a rather obscure definition of racism.

Reinventing?
An obscure definition?

the prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other races
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
The belief that each race has distinct and intrinsic attributes;
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/racism
Racism includes the belief that genetic or inherited differences produce the inherent superiority or inferiority of one race over another. ...
www.adl.org/children_holocaust/more_resources.asp

etc...

I think when one of the greatest scientists in history is denied the opportunity to lecture in academic institutions, for expressing view identical to the ideas I've expressed in this thread, it's fair to say attitudes to the idea of racism have become hysterical
Fury at DNA pioneer's theory: Africans are less intelligent than Westerners - Science, News - The Independent


I was listening to "Sunday night Safran", Triple J's weekly, Sunday night religion show with John Safran and Father Bob. Some Jewish Australian community leader was on talking about how about how there had been a couple of Jews bashed in Melbourne and a Sikh dude had been bashed by some cunts who mistook him for a Muslim. This made me .

I'm not sorry for what I did, but I do feel like a scumbag for making statements that could be mistaken by a casual reader as defending some of the ideas and practices of racial supremacist groups.. Racism does have connotations of that dirty, evil, insidious ideology, and this line of argument does make me a little sick to the stomach.

Mabye I shouldn't feel this way. For me personally, I feel I've gone too far and continuing this line of argument is too upsetting. I don't think I'm wrong, I believe emerging scientific evidence about racial differences should be taken seriously and not ridiculed as it has been. but this isn't a belief I feel strongly enough to about keep defending. I won't bring it up, ever again.

 

[Graney]

But..even with procedural fairness, choice is still up to the employer. You can have beautiful procedures and guidelines but employers will still chose based on their preference even if this preference is race based.

I agree, it is fair employers should have this choice. If they choose to employ based on racially discriminatory policies, those of us who abhor racism can choose to boycott their service and they can try to sustain their business by appealing to the racist market. Good luck to them.

 

[KFunk]

Mabye I shouldn't feel this way. For me personally, I feel I've gone too far and continuing this line of argument is too upsetting. I don't think I'm wrong, I believe emerging scientific evidence about racial differences should be taken seriously and not ridiculed as it has been. but this isn't a belief I feel strongly enough to about keep defending. I won't bring it up, ever again.

I agree that such differences may well exist, statistically. Whether one race is smarter than another on average is an empirical matter, the truth of which does not depend upon ideology (of the value-laden variety). One must be wary of the measurement tools though since anglo-centricity is common (and so the validity of difference claims needs to be carefully examined with respect to study methodology).

The thing worth remembering, as zimmerman has pointed out, is that within any racial population there is a huge amount of racial variation. Thus it may be true that race X is smarter than race Y (on average) such that if you took a random individual from X and one from Y, then the former individual would more likely be smarter.

But how much more likely? I'm not that familiar with the relevant data. I would conjecture that the differences between races, especially in terms of intelligence, would be small enough that the predictive power (of race) on the individual level is quite small. Take a job interview:

You're faced with an individual from race X, so you think 'aha! the mean IQ for this race is 98 with SD 15.2' thus they are probably less intelligent than the last candidate we interviewed. But what about the other predictors? In an interview you can pose a great number of questions which test verbal skills, reasononing, and so forth, which are far more predictive of IQ than race. At the end of the day race only represents a relatively (on account of natural variation) small differences in traits which are far more easily predicted by other factors. By all means, use such data when constructing social and health policy (where it is potentially relevant) but don't rely upon such generalisations at the individual level where there are far more valuable predictors than race. To assume that someone is unintelligent/inept/incompetent on account of their race, in the face of indicators to the contrary is a socially detrimental form of racism.

My argument here is thus similar to Zimmerman's claims: that differences likely exist, and may be relevant across populations, but in most cases race is probably too weakly predictive (versus other accessible variables) to be relevant in individual cases.

 

[KFunk]

I agree, it is fair employers should have this choice. If they choose to employ based on racially discriminatory policies, those of us who abhor racism can choose to boycott their service and they can try to sustain their business by appealing to the racist market. Good luck to them.

But it's not that simple when that employer is offering an essential (or semi-essential) service, especially if they are the primary provider or offer the most affordable service. Anti-discrimination laws can help protect against such cases where consumer behavior is not a sufficiently effective form of regulation.

 

[prime-factor]

But it's not that simple when that employer is offering an essential (or semi-essential) service, especially if they are the primary provider or offer the most affordable service. Anti-discrimination laws can help protect against such cases where consumer behavior is not a sufficiently effective form of regulation.

That seems reasonable to me. But I think what is really making 'racism' a continuing issue is the divide that society constantly forms between people. Just look at the Israel/Palestine thread. Once again a divide is being formed between X and Y. And soon you end up with X < Y < Z. When people stop being so edgy about racism I think the issues associated with it will cease to exist.

 

[CIV1501]

never thought i'd say this, but i agree with graney.

why would you not agree with graney? he is a nazi superman and our superior