I had a few debates this weekend with a couple of “normal conservatives” who, though disagreeing with me and at times resorting to ad hominem attacks, were very decent people willing to tolerate frank discussion. I wanted to put down some thoughts and formulations arrived at in those conversations.
“Racism”: If there is an identifiable group of people, with an “identity,” that group will possess virtues and vices. White Americans are not allowed, often by law, to criticize other identities, especially certain identities. We are not allowed to say “people with these identities tend to have bad political opinions for reasons x, y, or z” or “people with these identities have a tendency to misbehave this or that way.” But if there are virtues peculiar to certain identities there will also be vices peculiar to them; and there will be peculiar virtues and vices found in any peculiar, i.e., unique and identifiable, group of people. Pointing this out is not racist. Racism rightfully defined includes animosity towards others because they are “different” along with a refusal to admit that some other identity has any virtues. Saying blacks as blacks tend to have certain vices is not racist; saying blacks as blacks have no virtues is racist. And I am using the word racist to mean irrational and bad. If merely seeing differences between biological and/or cultural groups is racist, then there isn’t anything wrong with being racist. Irrational animosity is an error and usually is found in vicious men—the “noxious beast” Locke derided. Refusing to admit that a group of people, whose virtues you recognize, might also have vices, is equally stupid and is usually found in soft effeminate men, or the “last men” derided by Nietzsche. A good man will not make either of these errors and, depending on the times, will incline one way or the other depending on what’s needed. Errors in one direction become preferable in times where the other error predominates. White Americans, who refuse to admit minorities in their nation have vices, effectively and spiritually betray themselves and their children. They accept second-class citizenship in high society (the academy and government especially), where whites are openly derided and reviled.
Intermarriage: It is one thing to marry someone who is of another race or identity; it is another thing to marry someone because they are of another race or identity. It’s weird to like someone because they are members of an identity that isn’t your own. It’s weird to elevate other identities above your own. When you choose a mate, you choose the best mate you can. By what standard do you choose? If you choose a mate from some other group-identity (like a different race or religion) then what does that say about you? It says one of a few things. Take the white guy who is shorter than the average white guy, and can do O.K. for himself in America but can play the Lothario in a foreign land like China, where he is physically more impressive than the average male and has the American passport to boot. I have a friend who has lived in S. Korea, China, and is moving to Japan. This is a real thing. Guys like this who go after Asians announce, in some way, they would rather “be a big fish in a small pond” so to speak. More than 60% of the global population is Asian. It’s easier for a white guy. Or maybe, and I have heard this one, a white guy prefers Asians to whites because he says “American white women are stuck up and too feminist.” In that case, he prefers Asians because he finds some fault with his own identity. I imagine there are other reasons as well; my point is that there is some reason for choosing someone of a different identity and reasons can be evaluated and judged good or bad, right-minded or irrational. Maybe an Asian-American girl likes a white guy because she wants her kids to be more white. Whatever the reason, there is a reason and not all reasons are good reasons. If someone wants to marry someone from another race or religion, if their attraction begins with a preference for “the other,” that preference includes a statement of ideals and a judgment regarding themselves or their group-identity or both. If you are a white dude who prefers Asians, that says something about you and can be a little weird okay? But also, so what? Doing weird things, having your own quirks or whatever, is perfectly excusable in our time when no one is a citizen. -- Ideally, we would be citizens in a nation. Citizenship rests upon exclusion, on the attempt of one group of people to separate themselves from the rest of humanity and to own something of their own. This view is Lockean-Liberal, by the way: the 5th Chapter of Locke’s Second Treatise is about the right of one group of men to exclude the rest of humanity from their common property, from their commonwealth.1 The source of all rational opposition to intermarriage is centered on citizenship rightly understood: if you are a citizen of a commonwealth, it is wrong of you to marry with outsiders and thereby endanger the Boundaries and Limits between your group and the rest of mankind. Again this is Liberal: anyone who can read Latin should go read Locke’s A Letter Concerning Toleration to see that the Commonwealth is determined by Limits, both geographical and theoretical; these limits distinguish the citizens of the Commonwealth from those who refuse to accept the Liberal philosophy of religion. So, while I am laying out the case against intermarriage, against preferring other identities to your own, I recognize that for those of us without citizenship and without a class or “class consciousness,” it is stupid and fake to go around acting as if you do have these things or arguing that others should accept the burdens of citizenship when they reap none of its benefits. I believe my friend in China has found something that works well for him, but I would say that, in a better world, he should choose to defend his citizenship and his Commonwealth by controlling his sexual desire, marrying within his group, and being a “productive member of society.”
Infant baptism: something is weird about adults getting baptized. I prefer infant baptism because it seems more respectable. I have similar views about adult conversion. I haven’t thought this one through all the way, but if it’s really about “consent” … conversion cannot be about consent. Baptism cannot be about consent. These are not “rational” things. You simply do not choose your highest ideals and if you do, then … well—does the Holy Spirit treat you like a woman? Does the HOLY SPIRIT sit around waiting (or seducing) until it’s “okay for you” to be made whole? That’s an effeminate Holy Spirit. ---- I’m not wed to this view, it’s just a hunch.
Evolution: What is wrong with Darwinian evolution? Is there a way of reconciling the obvious fact of evolution with the other fact, less obvious, that life strives towards perfection? The problem with Darwin’s theory is that, according to Darwin, the origin of the species has nothing to do with striving towards anything. His argument is that random, meaningless, mutations occur and that these either do, or do not, get passed down through procreation. In other words, the species become more complex by accident—the increasing complexity and beauty of life has nothing to do with desire or will, much less design. I’m not persuaded the complexity of life that we see could have resulted from chance mutations. Darwinists—and basically all our biologists today are Darwinists, improved by Mendel—can only produce strained and unbelievable stories about the evolution of the eye or other things. And I am not arguing from an “irreducible complexity” position common to the Intelligent Design thinkers like Gish. I am saying that other simpler, more probable explanations exist and that Darwinists produce epicycles—needless explanations—because their basic premises require them to disregard other naturalistic and divine explanations. I stick to merely naturalistic explanations here, since there is no reason to argue for the divine explanation which is by definition above reason and investigation: why not environmental pressures? The Darwinist says environmental pressures weed out undesirable mutations, and I am sure they do. I am sure mutations occur and that mutations that are advantageous are more likely to get passed on than mutations that are not or are positively ruinous. However, why do our biologists overwhelmingly deny that the way we live our lives, or the way our lives go, has no effect on what material our children inherit? Instead of admitting this, Darwinists merely extend the amount of time it must have taken for the chance mutations to build up over time. You can say there isn’t evidence for what I’m claiming would be a simpler explanation, but there are two considerations. First and foremost, there is evidence that our experiences change us and these changes get passed down: scientists have proven that severe illness can have an effect on what gets passed down. Second, our scientists do not look for evidence of this explanation because they have been taught it isn’t a possible one. Also, a third thought, I believe even the slightest differences genetically or otherwise have massive results: the size of organs; the proportion of ears, nose, eyes, mouth; the thickness of skin; and so on … how many habits have an effect on things like this? What if a set of habits, persisting through generations, constantly promoted certain physical traits? Are we to believe these changes don’t “turn biological” at some point? That is, are we to believe that social conventions, or a generations-long response to certain environmental pressures, cannot begin to form the organism on a biological level? If we looked for evidence of this I think we would find more than we already have. And such an explanation would free us from the constant need for timeline-revision and the fantastical stories our biologists have to tell to preserve their merely-mechanistic explanation of the origin of the species.
1Sect. 25. Whether we consider natural reason, which tells us, that men, being once born, have a right to their preservation, and consequently to meat and drink, and such other things as nature affords for their subsistence: or revelation, which gives us an account of those grants God made of the world to Adam, and to Noah, and his sons, it is very clear, that God, as king David says, Psal. cxv. 16. has given the earth to the children of men; given it to mankind in common. But this being supposed, it seems to some a very great difficulty, how any one should ever come to have a property in any thing: I will not content myself to answer, that if it be difficult to make out property, upon a supposition that God gave the world to Adam, and his posterity in common, it is impossible that any man, but one universal monarch, should have any property upon a supposition, that God gave the world to Adam, and his heirs in succession, exclusive of all the rest of his posterity. But I shall endeavour to shew, how men might come to have a property in several parts of that which God gave to mankind in common, and that without any express compact of all the commoners.