Blaggard wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuLVv56YGXQ
You don't have to watch this clip but I would, it would add context, but let me get straight to the point, do you think in a modern world where boundaries are becoming blurred, the idea of race makes any sense at all. Now I am not talking about in medicine where of course some peoples from certain places have certain disease that are more prevalent, nor about socialism where cultural differences are clear, but the more ignorant racism: ie Whites are smarter than Blacks but not as smart as the Chinese, the sort of dumbery that comes with a flavour and an agenda to pervert good science. Is it even worth it now, or is there a clear divide between races that should and must be acknowledged, what are your views?
Obviously, since people use the term race, then it has some meaning - if only to them. Like any other belief system it relies on people accepting the idea are true, and the more they accept race as what "is", they also think they can derive a system of "oughts".
Racists are blissfully unaware of Hume's razor.
Clearly there are differences of appearance between humans and these can be categorised into groups by those appearances. And there is no doubt that the differences are due to geographical isolation of genetic clades during HS long walk out of Africa. The last big wave of anatomically modern humans was around 100k before present, and whilst there are attempt to suggest cross-breeding with neanderthal populations, there are no remaining traits from that sub-species.
But there are two key facts why race is social category and not a scientific one.
1) All humans are perfectly capable of breeding and thus do not form into distinct groups.
2) What ever criteria one uses to define one race against another; there are always exceptions, and examples that lie exactly between those definition. In this way all defined races are arbitrary and do not comply to scientifically definable categories, being arbitrary, and include nationality, colour, history, religion, and of course prejudice.
Racial identification relies wholly on a personal sense of belonging, and the entire trope relies on the continued beliefs of those that propagate it.
But here's the crux. Racism is not interested in facts, capabilities, abilities, genes or anything of the kind. It's philosophy is engineered around giving one group of humans power and privilege of others. It is pseudo-scientific evolution of the most primitive of thinking: tribalism, and it long predates any genetic science, evolutionary theory or basic biology.
Racism seeks to justify emancipation of one group and the oppression of another derived from a perceived Naturalistic Fallacy, which demands political action based on false understanding of reality.
But even if humans were exactly definable as a set of races, there is nothing in that fact to justify any prejudice or differential treatment for different groups.
Let's say a black and a white were up for the same job. Let's say that statistics show that whites tend to be more intelligent, more honest, and less likely to steal.
That would never be a reason to deny the black a job, as in this case it is possible that the black is more intelligent and honest and believes stealing to be bad.
And yet that is what racism does. It is wrong, immoral and with each generation needs to be fought against, like all primitive ways of thinking, like any system that relies on belief.
