Racism is an obscenely overloaded word in this era. It is taken by our cultural enforcers as being synonymous with Evil---indeed, being the evil of evils. There are two huge problems with 'racism':
1) Racism is a net cast so broadly that if it were applied evenhandedly (i.e., not limited strictly to white people in practice), it would encompass nearly everyone today and pretty much everyone pre-1960. Words like this are not useful for communication or categorization, they are only useful for theology or control. Compare 'sinner' from Christian theology. Everyone is a sinner, or they're a lying sinner. Calling someone a sinner is therefore reasonably useless. The Catholics, for instance, recognize this, which is why they have the concept of a 'manifest public sinner'.
2) Racism as a concept is only enforced against white people. In practice 95% or more of anti-racism is just anti-white. When large numbers of nonwhites find the expression of their tribal interests ends their careers and massively lowers their social status, I'll reconsider this point. I'm not holding my breath here though.
Unfortunately, the de facto definition of words is not something that someone who doesn't control the cultural battlespace can determine. So let us consider what is called racism and analyze the evil or lack thereof within:
The belief that different races/ethnicity have different distributions (in mean and variance) of significant attributes (e.g., IQ, athleticism, criminality, etc). This is considered to be grade-A racism---serious thought crime.
Unfortunately it is also undeniably true---what's worse, pretty much everyone behaves in their personal lives as if they believe that it is true even while they loudly deny it. So someone who is racist on this score is actually a better person, if you view honesty as a virtue, than someone who is 'anti-racist'. I don't think we can attribute any evil here, and this is by far the most common sort of 'racism' in these circles.
The belief that a racial group is superior or inferior to another. Here, this is a value judgment. I don't see any evil here, although my particular favor for my own group is not based on my perception of its superiority or inferiority but rather the brute fact that it is my own.
Opposition to immigration from groups that threaten the demographic hegemony of the native citizens of a nation (also only applied against white people). Obviously I don't feel this is evil. In fact I view this as a positive good, as large scale immigration breaks down communities and greatly harms the marginal elements of it. Furthermore, there's a great deal of psychological harm inherent in living in the tents of another. Most people prefer to be ruled by those they perceive are their own, even if such rulership is distinctly suboptimal from a utilitarian standpoint.
Support of efforts through the social or political sphere to advance one group in zero or negative sum games versus others. I suppose you could attribute evil here if you wanted to---the problem is, you run into the problem in 1)---pretty much every group with the exception of post 1960s white men does it and didn't feel bad about it. Can you shame them all into stopping it, or sanction them sufficiently that such organization is contrary to their interest? If so, there might be value in this, but if you can merely only shame SOME groups, you're just handing a massive cultural battlespace advantage to those without shame. Even a morally licit meme can become wicked, IMO, when it is selectively targeted.
The use of unorganized or organized violence to achieve racial aims or pogroms. You can say this is evil, but that is generally true when you subtract 'to achieve racial aims or pogroms' from the statement. The sleight of hand here is when the first flavor of racism is equivocated with this form---i.e., you believe that black people in the US have a @1 standard deviation deficit relative to whites in the US, therefore you must also want to exterminate all black people in concentration camps at the Mexican border after shipping them bound in chains in cattle cars escorted by Klansmen in full regalia on horseback.
So what's to be done? Certainly rhetorically we can embrace the word---many words have had their negative connotation extinguished through a deliberate embrace (e.g. Quakers, Methodists, Christians). We could also deny it or try to redefine it---but there I ask---how's that working for you? (Hint, such tactics very rarely work when you're in the face of cultural battlespace superiority or supremacy) But for the purposes of actual communication, we need some fairly parsimonious words to describe each of the positions above, none of which necessarily imply any of the others.
Musings on Election Eve, 2024
1 day ago