Philosophy Now Forum

What is race? The modern concept is at war with itself, and has split into two parts. Ethnicity and race. Depending on who we go to we find one or the other linked to biology, and one or the other to culture. This is like a number of other topics that touch on political passions and the violence of schisms of fundamental conceptions.

Some analogous points of contest are:

Biological sex, social gender. Physical lack of hearing, the notion of the place of the deaf in society. Aging, the social meaning of old age.

It is particularly interesting to note that prior to 1848 the deaf in the Western countries were encouraged to learn sign language, and the main issue in their education was a shared life of their race (that of deaf people, which was sometimes celebrated as a race with a special history), as it was sometimes called, and the link to the Christian universality which was anxiously considered insofar as the two communities might exclude one another. At the time of the Civil War in America, and for some time after it was deemed wrong to teach sign. This was because what was then valued was shared life in the Nation. Thus lip reading of English was pushed. Sign language even being forbidden outright in most schools for the deaf against great protest.

While it's true the opinions now most powerful concerning race are not simply wrong, since they are based on facts, facts interpreted by thoughtful people, it is also true that they are based on a specific selection of facts, and moreover, a tendentious interpretation of them. Here I touch on the most superficial level of the difficulties of the serious student of history, and of all those faced with the need to distinguish real from false history.

"Race" is understood by most to mean some sub-specie class within the same species. Deafness is not a 'race' but a class defined by either some gene or environmental loss of hearing. These are not linked by the term 'race' unless you are literally speaking of a strong family line of deafness, such as may be associated to some whole heritage of deaf people who may have some closed society in sufficient numbers who only mated with each other.

I question how even the "Neanderthal" was classified as a distinct specie of hominoid let alone a 'race'.

I disagree with society using the term 'ethnicity' as though it were NOT genetic but 'cultural' because it tends to hide the racist component implicit in one's belief that some culture is intimately linked to one's DNA when this is only true IF such groups are themselve racist for the proof of their long line of intentional segregation on the basis of genetics. One example that bugs me is to the assumption that the "Aboriginal" of any place is somehow linked distinct beings tied more closer to the land than whatever "non-Aboriginals" are supposed to be.

Most of today's political issues are due to how most people in power in all political persuasions believe heritage (one's ethnicity) is signficant while the rest are most of those individuals who don't associate to 'race' but are forced to by the Culturalists to align themselves with some racialized ethnic description or risk to be ignored and isolated as rogues by all political groups. The power of GROUPS are always favored strongest to the Cultural/Multicultural purists who think the world is a 'mosaic' (or prefer it to be) rather than a more fuzzy mix or blend of colors without noticeable pattern.

1. To facilitate survival of the individual[s] and group, humans are "programmed" with the primal "us versus them" instinct.

2. This 'us versus them' give rise to the concept of race in terms of very related genetic factors.

3. This sense of race was optimal for survival of the tribe during the early phases of human evolution.

4. However this sense of race when mixed with the pre-programmed instinct of 'killing' [necessary for survival re food and defense against threats] has given rise to terrible evil and violent acts that could threaten the human species to extinction.

5. However humans are also embedded with the inherent Moral Faculty which is slowly unfolding and accelerating at present to optimize the opposing forces in 4 above.

6. I am optimistic the increasing trend of the greater activation of the moral faculty within humanity will soon override and suppress the older primal 'us versus them' and sense of race to enable humans to be indifferent to their sense of race in the future.

"Race" is understood by most to mean some sub-specie class within the same species.

Most in the biology department?

What question is the question we are asking?

If it is: What is race?, then the most obvious way to start is from the vernacular meaning. The vernacular meaning has changed over time.

Dwarves and the deaf have been understood as races historically in the sense that they are tribes or groups with a special history of their own, just as nations have histories. The history of races or groups is not essentially the history of genetics on any pre-19th century understanding. It has historically been about political bodies which could be understood as cultural groupings. These groups are independent of ancestral lines and their most important feature is the formative education. Human beings are helpless at birth, unlike all animals. They are open to becoming a specific kind of being through their first learning. They become human after birth. This is the core meaning of race so far as it describes differences or variations among humans historically. Otherwise humans are the reasoning animal, and this includes all accidental variations of appearance rolling them into one essence. In cases like the American slavers blacks were not thought primarily as a another race (except in the sense that squirrels are another race), but as sub-human or animal (lacking the rational essence).

One can approach the question what is race through the legal meaning. This is linked to the historical political understanding.

If we restrict the discuss to the most recent usage we have a different field of inquiry than in looking at the last 2500 years. However, since the current situation is the result of the earlier situation, we lose insight.

I question how even the "Neanderthal" was classified as a distinct specie of hominoid let alone a 'race'.

This is a question specific to the modern biology department and its methods of taxonomy. It raises the question: How do the practices of those departments stand in relation to human life? If they make a tacit claim to be superior to the vernacular understanding of race one has to parse out the question whether that claim of superiority or improvement over the vernacular understanding is true. They could be merely a technical issue of a particular science which can be judged only by its ability to predict within a closed frame of understanding. Thus of only secondary importance, and subordinate to the political understanding of race.

Most of today's political issues are due to how most people in power in all political persuasions believe heritage (one's ethnicity) is signficant while the rest are most of those individuals who don't associate to 'race' but are forced to by the Culturalists to align themselves with some racialized ethnic description or risk to be ignored and isolated as rogues by all political groups. The power of GROUPS are always favored strongest to the Cultural/Multicultural purists who think the world is a 'mosaic' (or prefer it to be) rather than a more fuzzy mix or blend of colors without noticeable pattern.

Well, it could also be stated like this: Egalitarianism which wants equal access for all races is in conflict with meritocracy which wants those with specific abilities to get pride of place. If races exist, some have talents others don't. Since Lamarck, or the beginning of the 19th century the belief in the fanning out of evolution has created the races, or conviction in their existence, in contradistinction to the one universal rational animal.

5. However humans are also embedded with the inherent Moral Faculty which is slowly unfolding and accelerating at present to optimize the opposing forces in 4 above.

I agree to the extent that the Iowa school teacher's experiment about Brown and Blue eyes is very edifying on this subject. However this prism on the issue is only one part. More important in my view is the rational meaning of the tribe. This is visible in Plato, the first political philosopher. The difference between Athens and Thebes, the subject of many Athenian dramas, is of the country for the citizens as opposed to the mafia state of family run state. The argument is not about this group is better in the blue and brown sense. It is an argument about forms of government and correspondingly of life. That is the main issue over the last 30 generations or 2500 years.

"6. I am optimistic the increasing trend of the greater activation of the moral faculty within humanity will soon override and suppress the older primal 'us versus them' and sense of race to enable humans to be indifferent to their sense of race in the future.

My view is that this is a complacent and deadly attitude based on the Rationalism of the American and French revolution period which still comes down to us. The argument is not about the overcoming of "religion" or of sub-rational instincts. The rationalism of the radical Enlightenment is contested on the level of reason. It is one more dogma about Governance and the way of life.

About the proximate issues in the university and so in the culture wars I repeat what I wrote above: Egalitarianism which wants equal access for all races is in conflict with meritocracy which wants those with specific abilities to get pride of place. If races exist, some have talents others don't.

The issue of the good, or morality, includes the issue of the highest goal. Of the question what is human life for? By merely speaking of an increase in morality you imply to know the goal. And give it by inference in the rise from tribalism. But, this rise, is what I contest as the true source of the conflict in what is written above. For the reason that on your account it is simply a rise from the sub-rational to the rational, whereas it is actually a war about what the rational is.

TheVisionofEr wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2020 7:40 pm

"Race" is understood by most to mean some sub-specie class within the same species.

Most in the biology department?

What question is the question we are asking?

If it is: What is race?, then the most obvious way to start is from the vernacular meaning. The vernacular meaning has changed over time.

If you can't be clear about your meaning, you are permitting cross-transference of one definition from another that creates problems. If you are intending to discuss any 'notion of race' without clarity, you can't speak of any political meaning you are implying. "Tribalism" is often used as a more kind word for what it used to refer to as "Nationalism" circa World War(s) Germany. The 'Nation' was not just a 'country' but a People, just as the Aboriginal Natives of Canada call themselves as "First Nations" to reference who they are wherever they are.

Regardless, I am hearing that you are arguing for a kind of Nationalism when you speak of 'pride' because you seem to be wanting to argue for some right to have strict associations to some group based on a belief in enhancing one's "own kind" discretely from others. While this is fair for one to choose independently and voluntarily, are you proposing it reasonable to have segregate governments of people based upon these beliefs or to demand an assimilation within one shared government that practices eugentic ideals? ["Multiculturalism" where people segregate into Ethnic Nationalities within one system or permit some right to compete to Nationalize all people within some common government for all by eliminating those genetic factors that don't fit into some ideal human being....a "Mono-culturalist" ideal?]

TheVisionofEr wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2020 7:53 pm The issue of the good, or morality, includes the issue of the highest goal. Of the question what is human life for? By merely speaking of an increase in morality you imply to know the goal. And give it by inference in the rise from tribalism. But, this rise, is what I contest as the true source of the conflict in what is written above. For the reason that on your account it is simply a rise from the sub-rational to the rational, whereas it is actually a war about what the rational is.

Yes, there is a need to understand what is the highest goal via reason based on empirical evidence.
The highest goal is within 1 above, i.e.

• the purpose of the objective moral laws are to ensure the survival of the individual[s] (till the inevitable] and therefrom the preservation of the human species.

Do you dispute the above rationale?

To ensure the above purpose, there is the necessary "us versus them" primal drive which lead to tribalism, then race. While the above has pros it is a double-edged sword in time with its rising cons.

To ensure the above pros and cons are managed, mitigated, modulated and optimized within its constraints, there is a need to activate the moral faculty in the average human brain more actively than its present state.

In this case we need to establish an efficient Framework and System of Morality & Ethics to reduce the evil effects from the concept of race.

So what is your war on the above rationale?

TheVisionofEr wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2020 3:54 am What is race?

black squirrel/brown squirrel

both squirrels.

per Ethicity, that is upbringing, so if i as a white agl-american, had i been born an orphan in say Nigeria, i would have been adopted by a nice black afrian couple as thier own , and raised as an african.

and so if i had been as said above, i would be an Ethically Nigerian white guy!

its simple really, just use horse sense.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2020 5:29 am
I question how even the "Neanderthal" was classified as a distinct specie of hominoid let alone a 'race'.

Neanderthals were humans outside of current "Race" but not outside of human species since we interbreed (outbred/aborbed them into "us") millinia ago.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2020 5:29 am I disagree with society using the term 'ethnicity' as though it were NOT genetic but 'cultural' because it tends to hide the racist component implicit in one's belief that some culture is intimately linked to one's DNA when this is only true IF such groups are themselve racist for the proof of their long line of intentional segregation on the basis of genetics. One example that bugs me is to the assumption that the "Aboriginal" of any place is somehow linked distinct beings tied more closer to the land than whatever "non-Aboriginals" are supposed to be.

????? ethnicity has noting to do with DNA.

if i were born in Vietnam as an orphan - a white anglo - i would be an Vietmanese! fully ethnicly Veinamese (though racailly i would be white of course).

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2020 8:30 am 1. To facilitate survival of the individual[s] and group, humans are "programmed" with the primal "us versus them" instinct.

2. This 'us versus them' give rise to the concept of race in terms of very related genetic factors.

3. This sense of race was optimal for survival of the tribe during the early phases of human evolution.

4. However this sense of race when mixed with the pre-programmed instinct of 'killing' [necessary for survival re food and defense against threats] has given rise to terrible evil and violent acts that could threaten the human species to extinction.

5. However humans are also embedded with the inherent Moral Faculty which is slowly unfolding and accelerating at present to optimize the opposing forces in 4 above.

6. I am optimistic the increasing trend of the greater activation of the moral faculty within humanity will soon override and suppress the older primal 'us versus them' and sense of race to enable humans to be indifferent to their sense of race in the future.

Race nor ethnicity relates to tribalism, no.

Tribalism is closer to home, we war with those most like us (Catholics vs prots/ sunni vs shia -both ignore the alien Hindus for the most part).

the guy next door that is not familiy, the guy that shares your culture and looks like you but is not in your tribe is the enemy.

gaffo wrote: ↑Sun Feb 23, 2020 7:11 am

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2020 5:29 am
I question how even the "Neanderthal" was classified as a distinct specie of hominoid let alone a 'race'.

Neanderthals were humans outside of current "Race" but not outside of human species since we interbreed (outbred/aborbed them into "us") millinia ago.

I used the word, "hominoid" to refect the archeological use of what you are thinking. They treat Neanderthal as 'extinct' as a subspecies, however you want to define it by other words. This means they have some particular classification for why they believe this. It is this that I am in the dark about. If you assume it is 'extinct', as they did, it presumes there should be nothing passed on from that line. Yet, most of Indo-European blood has genetic markers that prove we have Neanderthal relatives. Before this was established though, I wonder what they used to determine this assertion AND why it is still not been reduced to 'race' by biological definitions given a 'species' WAS defined as, "a living being that can still successfully breed offspring among one another." It is still considered that we are "Homo (generia) Sapiens (specie)" where Neanderthal is considered a distinct specie. My confusion is to WHY many have not dropped the idea that the Neanderthal is a different specie from Sapiens because we now have proof of interbreeding.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2020 5:29 am I disagree with society using the term 'ethnicity' as though it were NOT genetic but 'cultural' because it tends to hide the racist component implicit in one's belief that some culture is intimately linked to one's DNA when this is only true IF such groups are themselve racist for the proof of their long line of intentional segregation on the basis of genetics. One example that bugs me is to the assumption that the "Aboriginal" of any place is somehow linked distinct beings tied more closer to the land than whatever "non-Aboriginals" are supposed to be.

????? ethnicity has noting to do with DNA.

if i were born in Vietnam as an orphan - a white anglo - i would be an Vietmanese! fully ethnicly Veinamese (though racailly i would be white of course).

I would LIKE to agree to this but it is NOT the case within many political uses. For example, here in Canada, many think that it is somehow a travesty should an Aboriginal child be adopted to a non-Aboriginal family with their argument that they believe one's genetic roots are more signficant. We have here a titled case, called "The Sixities Scoop", which defines Aboriginals who were 'scooped' up by non-Aboriginals in adoption as though it was intentional theft of children. Many here believe that if one is genetically Aboriginal, they have a 'right' to some "heritage" which implies legal issues. For instance, if you are Aboriginal but adopted to a European family, our system thinks this person OWNS something about their genetic family with priority. That means that for laws that grant SPECIAL status and benefits, etc, this should be potentially applicable to the Aboriginal child adopted from birth regardless of whether they relate to the 'culture' of Aboriginal life.

This applies to all 'ethnicities' here. As such, an 'ethnic Muslim', for instance, is one who is not only Muslim but one who has Arabic/Semitic blood.

So an "ethnicity" is a specific word to refer not only to one's environmental inheritance (heritage) but to one's genetic link, say of their direct ancestral roots. Otherwise, this word has no distinctive meaning to the term "culture" in a generic sense.

gaffo wrote: ↑Sun Feb 23, 2020 7:15 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2020 8:30 am 1. To facilitate survival of the individual[s] and group, humans are "programmed" with the primal "us versus them" instinct.

2. This 'us versus them' give rise to the concept of race in terms of very related genetic factors.

3. This sense of race was optimal for survival of the tribe during the early phases of human evolution.

4. However this sense of race when mixed with the pre-programmed instinct of 'killing' [necessary for survival re food and defense against threats] has given rise to terrible evil and violent acts that could threaten the human species to extinction.

5. However humans are also embedded with the inherent Moral Faculty which is slowly unfolding and accelerating at present to optimize the opposing forces in 4 above.

6. I am optimistic the increasing trend of the greater activation of the moral faculty within humanity will soon override and suppress the older primal 'us versus them' and sense of race to enable humans to be indifferent to their sense of race in the future.

Race nor ethnicity relates to tribalism, no.

Tribalism is closer to home, we war with those most like us (Catholics vs prots/ sunni vs shia -both ignore the alien Hindus for the most part).

the guy next door that is not familiy, the guy that shares your culture and looks like you but is not in your tribe is the enemy.

Yours is a straw man above.

Note my point 2 and 3.
First in the emergence of the primal 'us versus them' impulse.
Race is inherent genetically and align with the us versus them impulse.
Race [mostly & predominantly but not compulsorily] together with social and customs [ethnic] and "birds of feather" contribute to tribalism.

If you can't be clear about your meaning, you are permitting cross-transference of one definition from another that creates problems. If you are intending to discuss any 'notion of race' without clarity, you can't speak of any political meaning you are implying. "Tribalism" is often used as a more kind word for what it used to refer to as "Nationalism" circa World War(s) Germany. The 'Nation' was not just a 'country' but a People, just as the Aboriginal Natives of Canada call themselves as "First Nations" to reference who they are wherever they are.

In the Latin writers the words “gens” is sometimes used. All these words, gens, genus, genesis and so forth have to do with birth, and so with biology in the modern sense, but without the idea or knowledge of evolution (under the notion of stable essences). A question could be put: howsofar is it possible to say the (modern) biological meaning is simply, without qualification, an improvement over the political or common sense meaning. Thus, in asking what is race we have one question with a particular go at a single answer.

“Regardless, I am hearing that you are arguing for a kind of Nationalism when you speak of 'pride' because you seem to be wanting to argue for some right to have strict associations to some group based on a belief in enhancing one's "own kind" discretely from others.”

Saying that: pride and superiority mean the same thing from the political point of view. Starting from there there follows the corollary issue that the rational point of view might still speak of, let us call it, merit. Merit is pride or superiority that is not by the low standard of the blue-eyes and brown-eyes or the sub-rational (it is rational). So there is a question whether politics can rise to the level of rationality at all contained in the ambiguity and the overlap of connotations on the plain of daily life and maybe in the theoretical discussion as well. The most obvious and corresponding course division is made in asking the question: Which, a society of merit or of egalitarianism? Which is the rational or most healthy? Which is the standard for the human being, any human being, as intelligent being (which is to say, taking for granted that the intelligence stands higher than any biological difference, if race is a biological matter).

“Yes, there is a need to understand what is the highest goal via reason based on empirical evidence.
The highest goal is within 1 above, i.e.
the purpose of the objective moral laws are to ensure the survival of the individual[s] (till the inevitable] and therefrom the preservation of the human species.
Do you dispute the above rationale?”

It’s not clear. Evolution continues no matter what. Either as “negative” evolution or entropy, or as ‘positive’ transformations eventually inclusive of the genes themselves. From the light of biology it is meaningless to speak of morality or even fitness & survival (cf. the post-Hamiltonian sense). From the light of reason the standard of survival was never suggested before Hobbes. Since it was taken for granted. Partly because extinction was never contemplated seriously as it had no compelling evidence (or at least not understood to be compelling) before the year 17 hundred or so. On the other hand it was generally believed that it was better to die in the certainty of doing right, do go down in honor, than do live in disgrace (as, possibly, by eating human flesh or worse). The difference between the individual and the species as a whole might come in, but, still, even the species would prefer death if life according to the good were impossible by the older view. However, the older view assumes the truth is healthy, that is healthy for the human being.

So what is your war on the above rationale?

You seem to scarcely give any idea of a principle other than survival. If it is accepted it implies world peace or the making un-dangerous of humans is likely a practical step in this direction. However, it leaves out what the survival is for. If the question of what survival is for is raised, it might be said to be for a goal that itself required violent competitions which must be maximized to the degree they risk making the human again dangerous and threaten its survival. Survival in itself needs the addition of the reason for surviving since it is no mastery of the human condition, but only the bare condition for the possibility of that mastery or autonomy.

black squirrel/brown squirrel

both squirrels.

per Ethicity, that is upbringing, so if i as a white agl-american, had i been born an orphan in say Nigeria, i would have been adopted by a nice black afrian couple as thier own , and raised as an african.

and so if i had been as said above, i would be an Ethically Nigerian white guy!

its simple really, just use horse sense.

Well, skin color is related to frequency of some diseases caused by sun exposure. Other traits, seemingly unimportant, effect the reaction norm, or the expected outcome in a specific environment. If the rational or good were judged simply from the standards of the American Scientific Research University, some characteristics would likely lead to not coming as close to it. In this sense, the vernacular and legal sense of race overlap with the biological observation of the expression of genes in groups. Darwin himself regarded words like race and species as arbitrary. But, in the sciences, arbitrary terms become technical scientific terms so far as one holds to them and uses them consistently.