This has given me a lot to think about, and I intend to reread it later.
There’s definitely something to the idea that leftism seems fundamentally connected to the idea that equity should be granted to all people and doesn’t have to be earned either by birthright or action. I think about how often we’re called on to defend our existence for being queer, or how immigrants are often called on to emigrate “the right way,” via immense hurdles that favor the wealthy, white, privileged, and “normal” disproportionately.
I’d like to say more, but I need to get back to sleep. I’m definitely going to read this again because there are a few things causing me to self reflect, especially what You’ve written about ideologies like white supremacy being more about normality vs. pride. I’ll admit I’ve been looking at things like racism through a lens of a caste system ever since reading “Caste” by Isabel Wilkerson, but Your perspective makes sense too. And maybe there’s no conflict between the two points of view, and I just need time to parse this.
Even if you look at a neo-nazi group like the Proud Boys, the name is actually ironic. Their leader based the name on the Aladdin song Proud Of Your Boy, which he hates. McInnes thinks that Aladdin having emotions of pride and shame related to his role as a mother’s son is fake and bad. “Real men” don’t feel emotions about their identities or relationships. Nazis think the idea of a man feeling proud of who he is is a joke, worth mocking. The conservative man is expected to repress questions like “who am I” and “am I a good person”. Those sorts of questions are for women and lefty snowflakes .
The conservative man only has a cultural identity (race, nationality, religion, occupation, sex), no personal identity. Gender identity and sexuality, being defined by the individual, are not acceptable identities for a conservative to have. Vegan and religious convert also fall under the category of chosen identity and are also hated or ignored. When you call a conservative cisgender, you are putting a choice in their hands. You’re saying “you get to choose your gender identity and here is the name of your choice. Your choice is an important part of who you are”. That’s terrifying. That’s responsibility. That’s freedom. That’s prompting the conservative to ask “who am I”, and that question is a taboo. Elon Musk doesn’t want to be cisgender because he doesn’t want to be responsible for who he is. He wants society to choose for him. He wants male to be the only option for him. Elon Musk only wants to be proud of what’s happened to him, he doesn’t know how to be proud of who he is and he doesn’t like being asked to feel that way. And to be fair, if you got Elon Musk to seriously ask “am I a good person”, he’d realise the answer is no and panic. He’s made choices that mean he can never actually be proud of himself except in a shallow, superficial way. Most conservatives have made those kinds of choices. Continuing to live in a world without pride means they don’t have to face the monumental task of reclaiming theirs.
Very well said. This makes perfect sense to me, all of it.
Now that I’ve had sleep, I think the part I’m struggling with is the statement “In the opinion of white supremacists, other races would ideally not even exist.” I’m not disagreeing, but it seems to me I’ve known of white supremacist groups that do want other races to exist, but as subjugated classes. Maybe I’m just not considering this all the way through, which is why this is something I’m going to think about more.
I live in a state with a lot of racists, and because of my appearance I’ve had a lot of them share their thoughts with me unprompted. A lot of them don’t even consider themselves racist or white supremacist because they don’t hate or want to eradicate other races, but still think of them as an “other” or a “lesser” class of people that should “know their place”. (It’s astounding what bigots will tell a total stranger here in South Dakota, to the point that I’ve taken to wearing “woke” t-shirts to repel them.)
I’m not disagreeing, but it seems to me I’ve known of white supremacist groups that do want other races to exist, but as subjugated classes.
not OP, but at least in Europe the raceless racist trope is more common, particularly among liberals. in one breath they’ll say that the concept of race is pseudoscience (true), but then conclude that this means racialisation doesn’t happen (uhhh). then in that same breath they’ll say that people from Muslim countries are destructive radicals who are ‘incompatible’ with European culture, which is almost neo-racist, until you realise that they don’t know what a ‘Muslim’ ‘looks’ like, and that in practise it’s ‘anyone with dark hair and/or a von Luschan index higher than 20’.
it’s not that they want to subjugate brown people: it’s that they wish they had never existed, and that they could never see them again. but the people they vote for to accomplish this do want to subjugate brown people.
before you know it: the group of ‘incompatibles’ has grown to encompass 2/3 of the world’s population by hair colour and skin index alone, and antisemitism is back on the table. but they believe in nonviolent democracy and the ‘rule of law’ and eat organic so it’s ok.
sidenote: this is why a lot of far-right supremacist groups in Europe tend(ed) to be more about (national) ethnicity than race. historically, even people from neighbouring countries were parasitic ‘others’ to be corralled and expelled.
Ah yes this makes sense from this perspective, and certainly this ideology has also been prevalent in the US, especially regarding groups like Native Americans. And perhaps eradication is the ultimate conclusion of any form of white supremacist movement, starting with subjugation and proceeding from there.
American style white supremacists don’t want there to be nonwhite races, because a race is a people, and they don’t want slaves to be considered people. Nobody cares about the ethnic identity of a cow. They only care about its pedigree for good meat or good milk. This isn’t race in the human sense of the word. American style white supremacists want to be able to think of people of colour like that. They want white to mean human being, and black to mean animal.
There aren’t many people who feel pride because they’re smarter or stronger than an animal. There’s lots of animal abusers who relish their power over animals, but I wouldn’t call the thing they get out of their abuse pride. It’s about having the power, not about reflecting on who one is as a person. It’s not “I am awesome because I kick puppies.” Likewise, the goal of American white supremacists is to have a society where people of colour are slaves, and white people get to think they’re the only kind of human being in existence.
This has given me a lot to think about, and I intend to reread it later.
There’s definitely something to the idea that leftism seems fundamentally connected to the idea that equity should be granted to all people and doesn’t have to be earned either by birthright or action. I think about how often we’re called on to defend our existence for being queer, or how immigrants are often called on to emigrate “the right way,” via immense hurdles that favor the wealthy, white, privileged, and “normal” disproportionately.
I’d like to say more, but I need to get back to sleep. I’m definitely going to read this again because there are a few things causing me to self reflect, especially what You’ve written about ideologies like white supremacy being more about normality vs. pride. I’ll admit I’ve been looking at things like racism through a lens of a caste system ever since reading “Caste” by Isabel Wilkerson, but Your perspective makes sense too. And maybe there’s no conflict between the two points of view, and I just need time to parse this.
Thank You very much for this.
Thank you!
Even if you look at a neo-nazi group like the Proud Boys, the name is actually ironic. Their leader based the name on the Aladdin song Proud Of Your Boy, which he hates. McInnes thinks that Aladdin having emotions of pride and shame related to his role as a mother’s son is fake and bad. “Real men” don’t feel emotions about their identities or relationships. Nazis think the idea of a man feeling proud of who he is is a joke, worth mocking. The conservative man is expected to repress questions like “who am I” and “am I a good person”. Those sorts of questions are for women and lefty snowflakes .
The conservative man only has a cultural identity (race, nationality, religion, occupation, sex), no personal identity. Gender identity and sexuality, being defined by the individual, are not acceptable identities for a conservative to have. Vegan and religious convert also fall under the category of chosen identity and are also hated or ignored. When you call a conservative cisgender, you are putting a choice in their hands. You’re saying “you get to choose your gender identity and here is the name of your choice. Your choice is an important part of who you are”. That’s terrifying. That’s responsibility. That’s freedom. That’s prompting the conservative to ask “who am I”, and that question is a taboo. Elon Musk doesn’t want to be cisgender because he doesn’t want to be responsible for who he is. He wants society to choose for him. He wants male to be the only option for him. Elon Musk only wants to be proud of what’s happened to him, he doesn’t know how to be proud of who he is and he doesn’t like being asked to feel that way. And to be fair, if you got Elon Musk to seriously ask “am I a good person”, he’d realise the answer is no and panic. He’s made choices that mean he can never actually be proud of himself except in a shallow, superficial way. Most conservatives have made those kinds of choices. Continuing to live in a world without pride means they don’t have to face the monumental task of reclaiming theirs.
Very well said. This makes perfect sense to me, all of it.
Now that I’ve had sleep, I think the part I’m struggling with is the statement “In the opinion of white supremacists, other races would ideally not even exist.” I’m not disagreeing, but it seems to me I’ve known of white supremacist groups that do want other races to exist, but as subjugated classes. Maybe I’m just not considering this all the way through, which is why this is something I’m going to think about more.
I live in a state with a lot of racists, and because of my appearance I’ve had a lot of them share their thoughts with me unprompted. A lot of them don’t even consider themselves racist or white supremacist because they don’t hate or want to eradicate other races, but still think of them as an “other” or a “lesser” class of people that should “know their place”. (It’s astounding what bigots will tell a total stranger here in South Dakota, to the point that I’ve taken to wearing “woke” t-shirts to repel them.)
not OP, but at least in Europe the raceless racist trope is more common, particularly among liberals. in one breath they’ll say that the concept of race is pseudoscience (true), but then conclude that this means racialisation doesn’t happen (uhhh). then in that same breath they’ll say that people from Muslim countries are destructive radicals who are ‘incompatible’ with European culture, which is almost neo-racist, until you realise that they don’t know what a ‘Muslim’ ‘looks’ like, and that in practise it’s ‘anyone with dark hair and/or a von Luschan index higher than 20’.
it’s not that they want to subjugate brown people: it’s that they wish they had never existed, and that they could never see them again. but the people they vote for to accomplish this do want to subjugate brown people.
before you know it: the group of ‘incompatibles’ has grown to encompass 2/3 of the world’s population by hair colour and skin index alone, and antisemitism is back on the table. but they believe in nonviolent democracy and the ‘rule of law’ and eat organic so it’s ok.
sidenote: this is why a lot of far-right supremacist groups in Europe tend(ed) to be more about (national) ethnicity than race. historically, even people from neighbouring countries were parasitic ‘others’ to be corralled and expelled.
Ah yes this makes sense from this perspective, and certainly this ideology has also been prevalent in the US, especially regarding groups like Native Americans. And perhaps eradication is the ultimate conclusion of any form of white supremacist movement, starting with subjugation and proceeding from there.
American style white supremacists don’t want there to be nonwhite races, because a race is a people, and they don’t want slaves to be considered people. Nobody cares about the ethnic identity of a cow. They only care about its pedigree for good meat or good milk. This isn’t race in the human sense of the word. American style white supremacists want to be able to think of people of colour like that. They want white to mean human being, and black to mean animal.
There aren’t many people who feel pride because they’re smarter or stronger than an animal. There’s lots of animal abusers who relish their power over animals, but I wouldn’t call the thing they get out of their abuse pride. It’s about having the power, not about reflecting on who one is as a person. It’s not “I am awesome because I kick puppies.” Likewise, the goal of American white supremacists is to have a society where people of colour are slaves, and white people get to think they’re the only kind of human being in existence.
This makes perfect sense to me now. They don’t want them to exist as people. Yes, thank you very much for clarifying this.