I will use this thread to explore the European role in the decline of racialism, something Europeans often accuse Americans of being responsible for. Thanx themistocles for the excerpt. :)

"War and international tension, as well as the business cycle, have made their impact felt upon the pattern of racial relations in the South. The foremost of the Axis powers against which the United States fought in the Second World War was the most forceful exponent of racism the modern world has known. The Nazi crime against the minority race, more than anything else, was the offense against the Western moral code that branded the Reich as an outlaw power. Adolf Hitler's doctrine of the 'master race' had as its chief victim the Jew, but the association of that doctrine with the creed of white supremecy was inevitably made in the American mind. The association is not likely to be broken very easily. American war propaganda stressed above all else the abhorrence of the West for Hitler's brand of racism and its utter incompatibility with the democratic faith for which we fought. The relevance of this deep stirring of the American conscience for the position of the Negro was not lost upon him and his champions. Awareness of the inconsistency between practice at home and propaganda abroad placed a powerful lever in their hands."

Woodward, C. Vann, The Strange Career of Jim Crow. Oxford University Press: New York, 2002. p.130-1.

The decline of racialism in America was in large part the result of international pressure from Europe, in particular, the rivalry with the Soviet Union during the Cold War:

"In this book I argue that the pressure for shifts in the federal government race policy arose internationally; that international events provided leverage and new political opportunities that were successfully mobilized by civil rights advocates at home as well as utilized by foreign governments and non-government entities to criticize the U.S. government."

Azza Salama Layton, International Politics and Civil Rights Policies in the United States, 1941-1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p.9

I can agree with this to some extent, the PC woghuggers here are quite powerful, although I don't buy that they could put such pressure on America, certainly not if America itself would have had a healthy mentality.

Equally certain is that continental Europeans played little role in the rise of white racialism. To be sure, narrow 'racialisms' have enjoyed amazing popularity in Europe and probably will again. But this kind of pseudo-racialism is very different from the magnanimous white racialism that developed in America and Britain. Instead, Europeans are cursed with the disorder of quasi-racialist national chauvinism. This is arguably more destructive to the white race than any other force, internal or external.

"Why did the Executive branch of the federal goverment, in 1946, place civil rights reforms at the top of its domestic policy agenda? Why in the midst of an era marked by civil rights violations and colored by rivalry with the Soviet Union and a national phobia concerning domestic Communism that were used to justify repression at home against unions, universities, business, and even government sectors do we see improvements and a push by the Executive and Judicial branches for civil rights reforms for African Americans? Why did the efforts of civil rights groups produce few advancements under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's liberal progressive administration, yet we see groundbreaking initiatives in civil rights sponsered by President Harry S. Truman's administration? What was the critical motivating factor behind the speedy and comprehensive intervention by the Executive branch in an area historically and traditionally reserved for state and local politics?

The key to explaining why President Truman pushed civil rights reforms to the top of his public agenda following World War II lies, I argue, in the dynamic relation between domestic race policy and U.S. foreign policy interests. America's entry into global politics and the "complex interdependence" of international politics altered the bargaining position of African-Americans and civil rights advocates and also that of Southern Democrats. Geopolitical realities provided new opportunities for civil rights advocates at home and critics abroad to call for race reforms. The increasing international pressures on the U.S. government to "put its own house in order" pushed forward reforms that started with executive and judicial measures. International pressures injected confidence into African American aspirations. These pressures provided new opportunities for civil rights advocates and helped in the peaking and culmination of the civil rights movement and the passage of the long overdue Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Neither the reality nor the prospect of African American political power would have sufficed to produce the attention the Truman Administration devoted to civil rights reform. I argue that the unprecedented presidential racial policy activism following World War II was the result in changes in U.S. foreign policy in the context of a new geopolitical order. In addition, Truman's tenure as president coincided with an era, unmatched in history, of the centrality of race in international politics.

While President Roosevelt was politically secure with historically unprecedented margins of victory at the polls, in 1946 Truman was a nonelected president who enjoyed neither the popularity nor the electoral support of his predecessor. Roosevelt was a social and political liberal who cemented the New Deal coalition of the South and the North, labor and business, the "less fortunate" and the rich, and African Americans and whites. His New Deal reforms successfully lured the black vote away from the Republican Party -- the party of Lincoln, the emancipator. But with the exception of Executive Order 8801, which established a Federal Employment Practices Committee (FEPC), Roosevelt's accomplishments in the arena of civil rights may be described as political rhetoric lacking in substance.

In contrast, Truman, a Missourian who showed signs of racism in earlier years, began his presidency by appointing the first civil rights committee in U.S. history. His action was the first official assault by the Executive branch on black oppression. By proposing an end to racial segregation in schools, housing, and public facilities, equal access to jobs, and equal voting rights, the 1946 Civil Rights Committee established a national agenda that the black civil rights movement would seek for the next twenty years. Truman also issued two landmark executive ordres in 1948 prohibiting discrimination in federal employment and desegregating the armed forces. In 1951, he established the Committee on Government Contract Compliance to prevent employment discrimination by private employers with government contracts.

What explains Truman's crusade in the mid-1940s when "the 1946 Congressional elections seemed to indicate the country was moving to the right and the conservative wing of the Southern Democrat[s] took heart, along with the Republicans[?]" Why did he take the political risk of alienating the Southern Dixiecrats for sponsering civil rights when his predecessor, a politically and electorally more popular figure, refused to take such a risk? Both Roosevelt and Truman needed the Southern bloc not only for electoral votes but also in order to pass their legislative agendas."

Ibid., pp.2-4

I can agree with this to some extent, the PC woghuggers here are quite powerful, although I don't buy that they could put such pressure on America, certainly not if America itself would have had a healthy mentality.Ever hear of Gunnar Myrdal? The decline of racialism in America was largely due to international factors. There was, of course, the destruction that Hitler left from one end of Europe to the other. Then there was the Soviet Union promoting antiracism all across the world. And finally, there were liberal Western Europeans using the United Nations and other nongovernmental organizations as a platform to critique our racial policies.

Fade, I don't like the tone of this. European societies have been monowhite, and still were after WW2. The USA with its racialism in those days was confronted with a weaker Europe than it is today, and like now, it can't have been too eager to let itself be influenced on domestic matters by Europe. You're saying that unlike this rotting carcass of its former self that the USA today is, the USA in all its strength right after WW2 allowed a weak Europe and its sworn archenemy the USSR to dictate them to lose a cultural identitymark which it had had for over 2 centuries? Europe didn't have the power to do that, the USSR didn't have the popularity in the USA to do that. You're blatantly ignoring the huge responsibilty Americansthemselves had in this, while blaming some marginal European influence. Just as dumb as when certain other people place the sole responsability of Germany's demise on Amerikwa if you ask me.

Fade, I don't like the tone of this. European societies have been monowhite, and still were after WW2. The USA with its racialism in those days was confronted with a weaker Europe than it is today, and like now, it can't have been too eager to let itself be influenced on domestic matters by Europe.

*Cough* cold war *cough*.

Fade, I don't like the tone of this. European societies have been monowhite, and still were after WW2. The USA with its racialism in those days was confronted with a weaker Europe than it is today, and like now, it can't have been too eager to let itself be influenced on domestic matters by Europe. You're saying that unlike this rotting carcass of its former self that the USA today is, the USA in all its strength right after WW2 allowed a weak Europe and its sworn archenemy the USSR to dictate them to lose a cultural identitymark which it had had for over 2 centuries? Europe didn't have the power to do that, the USSR didn't have the popularity in the USA to do that. You're blatantly ignoring the huge responsibilty Americansthemselves had in this, while blaming some marginal European influence. Just as dumb as when certain other people place the sole responsability of Germany's demise on Amerikwa if you ask me.

Napoleon, you're right, it's not Europe's fault that America is a multicultural cesspool. The American Jews, many who left Europe after sucking their blood for centuries, along with their Gentile lackeys are responsible for the ills that gripped American starting in the 50's and 60's (Civil Rights, or Anti-White Rights if you will, non-White Immigration, Feminism) and continuing to this day.

Fade is falling victim to neocon propaganda that simply states: America, good, benevolent, magnanimous, righteous, strong---Europe and Muslims resposible for all the ills of the world in desperate need of extermination.

Forget what these guys are saying. They live in an alternative universe.
I take no pleasure in saying such things, since I'd rather find common ground with all my White brethren, but with these guys, the common threads are slim.

Equally certain is that continental Europeans played little role in the rise of white racialism.

White racialism wasn't necessary in Europe, because in the New World colonies, 'white' Europeans lived amongst significant numbers of Negroes and indigneous folk who all had much darker skins; hence 'the white race'.

To be sure, narrow 'racialisms' have enjoyed amazing popularity in Europe and probably will again. But this kind of pseudo-racialism is very different from the magnanimous white racialism that developed in America and Britain. Instead, Europeans are cursed with the disorder of quasi-racialist national chauvinism. This is arguably more destructive to the white race than any other force, internal or external.

That's just the natural order of things. It's quite possible that in years distant the USA itself will be a balkanized assortment of regional, antagonistic nationalisms with a quasi-racialist component and common cultural substratum, not unlike Europe, except in the fact that it's(USA) ancestral population consists of all the major races, not just one.

I believe that Europe's direct influence on the civil rights movement in the USA are nil.

Also, the US popular eagerness for involvement in WWII was motivated largely by our opposition to 'totalitarianism' and dictatorship,and of course Pearl Harbor. As the US paradigm shifted, in the late 50ies-early 60ies, towards humanitarianism and 'civil rights' WW2 was increasingly reflected upon as a humanitarian quest to liberate oppressed minorities.

The Phora's readership is over 70% North American, whereas TNP, for example, is less than 33% North American (65% European). So, I would expect such bias to manifest itself over here, and the opposite on TNP. ;)

We still love you lot, anyway. At least I do. ;) :D

Fade, I don't like the tone of this.Its true. America discarded racialism, not because of its own internal preferences, but because it was too much of a burden for America in the postwar era. Containing the Soviet Union took priority. So the pressure for racial reform was not imposed upon Europe at all. On the contrary, it was Europe that was pressuring America to change. European societies have been monowhite, and still were after WW2.Which is precisely why racialism was weaker in Europe than in it was in the United States. France is a typical example. Negroes serving in the American armed forces during the Great War began to push to breakdown Jim Crow in large part because they had received better treatment in France.The USA with its racialism in those days was confronted with a weaker Europe than it is today, and like now, it can't have been too eager to let itself be influenced on domestic matters by Europe. The strategic imperative of the United States in the aftermath of WW2 was containing Communism. The Soviets were using antiracism in their propaganda against the United States. So were the Western Europeans.

"In addition to new allies at home, African Americans found support and sympathy from the four corners of the world. Not only was international public opinion on their side but foreign government and non-government entities intervened on their behalf. African, Asian, Middle-Eastern, and European nations criticized the United States for the way it treated its black population. Activists in nonwhite nations supported the arguments African American advocates made that their conditions resembled the conditions of those living under Western colonialism. Western Europe, reeling from the loss of its imperial powers, was eager to align itself with the international call for democracy, equality, and antidiscrimination. Former colonists found an opportunity to get back at the United States for condemning colonialism. They denounced America's empty rhetoric of leadership of the free world while practicing a worse form of oppression against its own people. The succeeding chapters demonstrate that the international community, as an ally of the African American, put significant pressure on the U.S. government. In short, American racism "acquired a peculiarly new capacity to arouse anger in these years of the rise of American world power."

Ibid., p.19You're saying that unlike this rotting carcass of its former self that the USA today is, the USA in all its strength right after WW2 allowed a weak Europe and its sworn archenemy the USSR to dictate them to lose a cultural identitymark which it had had for over 2 centuries? The U.S. emerged as a different nation from WW2 than the nation it had been before. The U.S. was now the preeminent power in the world and had taken upon itself the burden of containing communism. So the U.S. had much greater international responsibilities and obligations than it did before. Here is another excerpt:

"In addition to the above "domestic" factors, I argue that the end of America's isolation during and following World War II meant a new opening of its institutions to the international community, especially the Executive branch. By 1948, the United States was a member of forty-six international organizations, any with binding charters. As a democratic country and one that hoped to influence the policies of other nations, the United States found that its domestic policies were open to the inspection of other nations. Race policies were no exception."

Ibid., p.12Europe didn't have the power to do that, the USSR didn't have the popularity in the USA to do that. Sure it did. They were able to influence the United States through the United Nations. And this would not be the first time that Europe had interferred in America's internal affairs. The antislavery movement is another example.You're blatantly ignoring the huge responsibilty Americansthemselves had in this, while blaming some marginal European influence.But it wasn't marginal. As the author points out, domestic factors cannot explain why the Truman Administration launched its civil rights crusade.

"I believe that the international context did far more to command specific components of the federal government's attention to civil rights than would have come from the government's own inclinations. Wile there were signs of a new openmindedness among some government officials and Northern urban liberals toward the African American struggle, domestic pressures alone are not enough to explain the Executive branch's push for civil rights reforms in the mid-1940s. It was the international dimension of U.S. race policies that swung the pendulum. The decision by the Executive branch in general, and the Justice and State Departments and the U.S. diplomatic core in particular, to intervene on behalf of African American civil rights in the mid-1940s lies partly in the realization that world events had made the race problem "a global instead of a national or sectional issue to a greater extent than ever before in the history of the world." While race relations were always considered a domestic issue, they ceased to be so as the United States ended its policy of relative isolation and assumed a leadership position in global political and economic affairs. It is within the Cold War context that the federal government decided to take drastic measures (by 1940s standards) to eliminate institutional racism, its number one domestic failure and the number one international handicap."

Ibid, p.8Just as dumb as when certain other people place the sole responsability of Germany's demise on Amerikwa if you ask me.I don't think we should hate the Europeans because of any of this. Obviously, we should all cooperate to deal with our present race problem. The matter is purely of an antiquarian interest.

Napoleon, you're right, it's not Europe's fault that America is a multicultural cesspool.I have been studying this issue for the past several weeks now. And I have arrived at the conclusion that multiculturalism did not originate in America. On the contrary, it originated in Europe and was exported to the United States by European immigrants, especially those who came to work in our universities. If you go back and study the history of multiculturalism, then you can also see how it first began to emerge in France, Britain, and West Germany before it took root in America during the 1970s. This emphasis upon "otherness" and this notion of the greatness of "diversity" grew out of continental European philosophy, in particular, the later writings of Heidegger and several of the existentialists. Then it found its way into the nascent postmodernist movement in France where it first triumphed.The American Jews, many who left Europe after sucking their blood for centuries, along with their Gentile lackeys are responsible for the ills that gripped American starting in the 50's and 60's (Civil Rights, or Anti-White Rights if you will, non-White Immigration, Feminism) and continuing to this day.This is false. For starters, Jews and Negroes had been in the United States for centuries. And the civil rights movement was nothing new either. The civil rights movement had long existed. It goes way back into the nineteenth century. Yet the civil rights movement was impotent from the end of Reconstruction to the aftermath of WW2. As the author of the above article points out, Negro political power was too marginal to explain the ultimate triumph of the civil rights movement. The Truman administration began to push civil rights reform because it was a handicap to U.S. foreign policy interests in the Cold War.Fade is falling victim to neocon propaganda that simply states: America, good, benevolent, magnanimous, righteous, strong---Europe and Muslims resposible for all the ills of the world in desperate need of extermination.It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that multiculturalism is not an American way of life. America has traditionally been one of the most racist countries in the world. Furthermore, European immigrants who came to the United States were traditionally put under enormous pressure to assimilate. President Theodore Roosevelt liked to call "hyphenated Americans" traitors. On the other hand, varients of multiculturalism had always existed in Europe. Austria-Hungary is a typical example. Poland is another. Then there is Yugoslavia and Medieval Spain. The examples are endless.Forget what these guys are saying. They live in an alternative universe.Just the opposite is true. I can support my arguments with multiple sources.I take no pleasure in saying such things, since I'd rather find common ground with all my White brethren, but with these guys, the common threads are slim.I think your prejudice against America clouds your objectivity.

Thank You for correcting me, Commandante, so much I didn't know!! Unlike you, I was not trained in Doublethink and Newspeak.
I confess, I read Emmanuel Goldstein's book, Commandate, but didn't you lend it to me?! Please, please don't make me confess on State TV!!
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
War is Peace
Fade is Big Brother

Unfortunately for America, it's long been associated with multiracialism (it wouldn't surprise me to find that multiculturalism has some significant European roots) and, as a "nation of immigrants", it has become a "universal nation".

I think the Jews that Ben was referring to ushering forth white American racial decline were the refugee Jews Frankfurt Germany, the "Frankfurt school" which was established in New York, in particular.

Europe's role in the overall decline of white racialism in the USA was marginal at best; multiculturalism was simply one facet of the struggle of American leftists to marginalise racialism in the USA.

As more and more non-whites flood into the USA, multiculturalism is a preferrable alternative to assimilation, the latter of which would stress that Americans not define themselves by race nor ancestry, but by simply being 'American'.

Egalitarianism [for newbies: the dangerous idea that all humans are equal when much evidence shows otherwise] is a global ideology. It sprang up everywhere. Key to that springing-up was the defeat of eeevil, eeevil Nazism. The Jews, using their magazines, newspapers and films, said: "look!" See? Eeeebil!" [aka "Eeeevil!"]. "See vhat vill happen if dat eeeebil, eeebil Nazism isn't v-v-viped out in every single corner of da globe?? Vhat? Bolshevism?? Nevva hoid of it, you eeebil anti-Semite! Da poisecution! Da poisecution!"

Jewish funster Ashley Montagu set the stage with his 'special little document' in 1950, which claimed that all humans were eeekwal an' other fun stuff. The rest of the Western herd followed with their own little documents-o'-fun. Way c-c-cool!

The rest, as they say, is Jewstory...oops...I mean history.


----

Fade: how can you blame a change in mentality in Europe because the loss of their colonial power when the colonial empires only really dissolved in the first half of the 1960s, and the Jim Crow laws were already getting tons of shit FROM AMERICAN ACTIVISTS by the mid 1950s?

Thank You for correcting me, Commandante, so much I didn't know!! Unlike you, I was not trained in Doublethink and Newspeak.
I confess, I read Emmanuel Goldstein's book, Commandate, but didn't you lend it to me?! Please, please don't make me confess on State TV!!
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
War is Peace
Fade is Big Brotherxmetalhead here has an interesting point of view. It goes something like this:

Europeans good guys. Americans bad guys.

Of course, this is just as a irrational as the neocons who have it ass-backwards. There are good people in Europe and America just as there are bad people. No one is entirely to blame. There is plenty of blame to go around. But this sort of mentality is what happens though when you think fundamentally in terms of binary oppositions. You lose sight of the fact there are other positions. Mynydd has precisely the same problem.

Key to that springing-up was the defeat of eeevil, eeevil Nazism.Yes, the Nazis were a polarizing force.

Fade: how can you blame a change in mentality in Europe because the loss of their colonial power when the colonial empires only really dissolved in the first half of the 1960s, and the Jim Crow laws were already getting tons of shit FROM AMERICAN ACTIVISTS by the mid 1950s?There had long been an anticolonialism movement in France and Britain. You should read up on it. There was massive opposition to the Boer War in Britain. Ditto for Ireland in the '20s. Barnett discusses anticolonialism in Britain in detail. There really wasn't so much of a change in mentality in Europe as it was a previously marginalized mentality rising to predominance.

Unfortunately for America, it's long been associated with multiracialism (it wouldn't surprise me to find that multiculturalism has some significant European roots) and, as a "nation of immigrants", it has become a "universal nation".I disagree. As Samuel P. Huntington points out, race was considered to be an essential aspect of the American identity until the triumph of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. So while there were other races in America, since the beginning, it is rather disingenious to describe America as a multiracial country, as the subordination of the nonwhite was relatively unquestioned into a generation or so ago. The idea that America is a "universal nation" and a "nation of immigrants" is a phenomenon of the postwar era. I described it in the Fall of Anglo-America thread. The critical time period here is 1945 to 1964, not 1939 to 1945, as Franco assumes. As Layton points out, the triumph of the civil rights movement in America was do more than anything else to the international situation. The legacy of Nazism and the beginning of the Cold War gave civil rights activists a golden opportunity to advance agenda. And this is precisely what they were later to do, with support from the United Nations and countless of NGOs.

Of course, this is just as a irrational as the neocons who have it ass-backwards. There are good people in Europe and America just as there are bad people. No one is entirely to blame. There is plenty of blame to go around. But this sort of mentality is what happens though when you think fundamentally in terms of binary oppositions. You lose sight of the fact there are other positions. Mynydd has precisely the same problem.

With this part of your discourse I can agree, but that's about all.

There had long been an anticolonialism movement in France and Britain. You should read up on it. There was massive opposition to the Boer War in Britain. Ditto for Ireland in the '20s. Barnett discusses anticolonialism in Britain in detail. There really wasn't so much of a change in mentality in Europe as it was a previously marginalized mentality rising to predominance.

In fact as I'm sure Fade can tell you in some depth, one of the major reasons for the Emancipation Proclamation itself was to appease European public opinion and thus place European governments in the uncomfortable position of opposing the liberation of American blacks.

In fact as I'm sure Fade can tell you in some depth, one of the major reasons for the Emancipation Proclamation itself was to appease European public opinion and thus place European governments in the uncomfortable position of opposing the liberation of American blacks.

I can see that point, however, the foremost reason was to incite blacks to rebel against the plantation owners/families, which would force a withdrawal of Confederate troops to quell these uprisings, since up until that time the Confederates had been winning all the major battles.

The Union naval blockade was strong, and foriegn support for the CSA was doing little, if anything, to stymie the Union's plans to defeat the south.

It's also worthy to note that the emancipation proclamation 'liberated' the slaves in states which were in rebellion, not the Union ones, significantly weakening it's supposed role as a appeaser of international opinion.

There had long been an anticolonialism movement in France and Britain. You should read up on it. There was massive opposition to the Boer War in Britain. Ditto for Ireland in the '20s. Barnett discusses anticolonialism in Britain in detail. There really wasn't so much of a change in mentality in Europe as it was a previously marginalized mentality rising to predominance.

The way I see it, anticolonialism got a major boost post-wwii because the most destructive war in the history of mankind had just been fought, mainly because of imperialism, competition for limited resources. Case in point- III Reich Germany wanted to colonise the USSR (lebensraum), same with Japan vs. China.

Some info here on how European ideas have corrupted American intellectual life. Notice how such ideas are exported to the English-speaking world from continental Europe.

"One of the crucial elements underlying this problematic right-left synthesis is a strange chapter in the history of ideas whereby latter-day anti-philosophes such as Nietzsche and Heidegger became the intellectual idols of post-World War II France -- above all, for poststructuralists like Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Gilles Deleuze. Paradoxically, a thoroughgoing cynicism about reason and democracy, once the hallmark of reactionary thought, became the stock-in-trade of the postmodern left. As observers of the French intellectual scene have frequently noted, although Germany lost on the battlefield, it triumphed in the seminar rooms, bookstores, and cafés of the Latin Quarter. During the 1960s Spenglerian indictments of "Western civilization," once cultivated by leading representatives of the German intellectual right, migrated across the Rhine where they gained a new currency. Ironically, Counter-Enlightenment doctrines that had been tabook in Germany because of their unambiguous association with fascism -- after all, Nietzsche had been canonized as the Nazi regime's official philosopher, and for a time Heidegger was its most outspoken philosophical advocate -- seemed to best capture the mood of Kulturpessimismus that predominated among French intellectuals during the postwar period. Adding insult to injury, the new assault against philosophie came from the homeland of the Enlightenment itself."

Richard Wolin, The Seduction of Unreason: The Intellectual Romance With Fascism From Nietzsche to Postmodernism (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2004), p.4

"An assault on humanism was also one of French structuralism's hallmarks, an orientation that in many respects set the tone for the more radical, poststructuralist doctrines that followed. As one critic has aptly remarked, "Structuralism was . . . a movement that in large measure reversed the eighteenth-century celebration of Reason, the credo of the Lumières." In this spirit, one of the movement's founders, Claude Lévi-Strauss, sought ot make anthropology useful for the ends of cultural criticism. Lévi-Strauss famously laid responsibility for the twentieth century's horrors -- total war, genocide, colonialism, threat of nuclear annihilation -- at the doorstep of Western humanism. As he remarked in a 1979 interview, "All the tragedies we have lived through, first with colonialism, then with fascism, finally the concentration camps, all this has taken shape not in opposition to or in contradiction with so-called humanism . . . but I would say almost as its natural continuation." Anticipating the poststructuralist credo, Lévi-Strauss went on to proclaim the goal of the human sciences "was not to constitute, but to dissolve man." From here it is but a short step to Foucault's celebrated neo-Nietzschean adage concerning the "death of man" in The Order of Things.

For Lévi-Strauss, human rights were integrally related to the ideology of Western humanism and therefore ethically untenable. He embraced a full-blown cultural relativism ("every culture has made a 'choice' that must be respected") and argued vociferously against cross-cultural communication. Such a ban was the only way, he felt, to prserve the plurality and diversity of indigenous cultures. . . .

During the 1960s among many French intellectuals cultural relativism came to supplant the liberal virtue of "tolerance" -- a precept that remained tied to norms mandating a fundamental respect for human integrity. When combined with anti-humanist inspired Western self-hatred, ethical relativism engendered an uncritical Third Worldism, an orientation that climaxed in Foucault's enthusiastic endorsement of Iran's Islamic Revolution. Since the "dictatorship of the mullahs" was antimodern, anti-Western, and antiliberal, it satisfied ex negativo many of the political criteria that Third Worldists had come to view as progressive. . .

The Seduction of Unreason is an exercise in intellectual genealogy. It seeks to shed light on the uncanny affinities between the Counter-Enlightenment and postmodernism. As such, it may also be read as an archaeology of postmodern theory. During the 1970s and 1980s a panoply of texts by Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, and Lyotard were translated into English, provoking a far-reaching shift in American intellectual life. Many of these texts were inspired by Nietzsche's anticivilizational animus: the confict that our highest ideals of beauty, morality, and truth were inherently nihilistic. Such views found favor among a generation of academics disillusioned by the political failures of the 1960s."

Ibid., pp.5-8

Those wascawy Euwopeans.

There is a circular quality to the argument that "the Europeans made us do it" which does not hold water. The US was, frankly, isolationist when it was not eagerly gobbling up former European holdings. Historically, we've never given a rat's ass for what Europeans think and still don't. Lincoln himself favored deportation of slaves. His main purpose was in dividing and conquering and increasing the ranks of the Union army. In the period after WWII, most people in the US, particularly in the South, were ardent racists and this philosophy was reflected in local and state governments.

Anti-racism in the US was entirely homegrown, and was incubated in New York City and the District of Columbia. A Republican appointee to the Supreme Court, Earl Warren, and a Democratic president from Texas, LBJ, were most directly responsible for anti-racism's implementation. I don't think either of them read much French deconstructionism.

Those wascawy Euwopeans.Compare the Revolutions of 1848 to the Mexican War.There is a circular quality to the argument that "the Europeans made us do it" which does not hold water. I would be happy to discuss the matter. Where would you like to start? Frans Boas, Herbert Marcuse, or Felix Adler? When did anti-racism triumph in the United States? Why did it do so?The US was, frankly, isolationist when it was not eagerly gobbling up former European holdings.What is isolationism? Since when has the United States been isolationist? For example, throughout the 1920s, the United States intervened again and again in Latin America although this is commonly described as the isolationist era. Similarly, the United States played an active role in European affairs at the time due to the war debts accumulated by the Allies, especially the French.Historically, we've never given a rat's ass for what Europeans think and still don't.The American intelligentsia has always paid attention to intellectual developments in Europe, especially since so many Europeans have found employment in American universities. The Founders of the United States were thoroughly versed in contemporary European political theory. Emerson was infatuated with German literature and a friend of Thomas Carlyle. I could go on and on but it would really be unnecessary. Lincoln himself favored deportation of slaves. His main purpose was in dividing and conquering and increasing the ranks of the Union army.Its true that Lincoln was a racist. He was also in favor of deporting the slaves. William Seward even advanced a rather crude version of white nationalism at the time.In the period after WWII, most people in the US, particularly in the South, were ardent racists and this philosophy was reflected in local and state governments.That's true. White supremacy was brought down in the United States only in the 1960s. It was later to fall in Rhodesia and South Africa several decades later. Multiracialism triumphed first in Western Europe shortly after World War 2 and radiated outwards from there. The so-called Civil Rights Movement had been a failure in the United States for almost a hundred years before WW2. Jim Crow grew stronger throughout the 1930s.Anti-racism in the US was entirely homegrown, and was incubated in New York City and the District of Columbia.This is simply not true. Kaufmann addresses this subject at some length in his book the Rise and Fall of Anglo-America. Americans have traditionally defined themselves in racial terms. This was more or less true up until the 1960s as well when the cosmopolitan outlook finally triumphed. But where did this cosmopolitan outlook come from? The truth is that it first took root here amongst radical leftist European immigrants in major urban areas like New York City and Chicago. But this worldview only triumphed in the aftermath of World War 2, largely because racialism became a burden for the United States in the Cold War. The Soviet Union was using American racialism at the time to incite anti-Western Communists revolutions throughout the Third World.A Republican appointee to the Supreme Court, Earl Warren, and a Democratic president from Texas, LBJ, were most directly responsible for anti-racism's implementation. I don't think either of them read much French deconstructionism.Its interesting that you should mention Earl Warren of all people. It was the Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal's book The American Dilemma which provided the intellectual justification for Warren's decision in Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954.

"An American Dilemma, written by the Swedish economist, Gunnar Myrdal, is unquestionably the most influential book ever written about race relations in America. Published in 1944, this 1,400-page treatment of “the Negro problem” went through 25 printings--an astonishing record for a heavily academic work--before it went into a second, “twentieth anniversary” edition in 1962. It influenced presidential commissions and Supreme Court decisions, and established rules for public discussion about race that endure to this day. More than any other book, it laid the groundwork for integration, affirmative action, and multi-racialism, and destroyed the legitimacy of white racial consciousness. . .

Meanwhile An American Dilemma was helping change the United States. Myrdal was a personal friend of Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, and his book was cited in the Brown v. Board of Education decision. When President Truman established a presidential commission on civil rights, its members used An American Dilemma as their central text. In 1947 the commission issued a report, “To Secure These Rights,” which followed Myrdal's recommendations. Truman implemented the report in his 1948 civil rights program that abolished segregation in the armed forces, set up a civil rights division in the Justice Department, and promoted national legislation to combat racism. During the first sit-in demonstration, in Greensboro, North Carolina, blacks cited Myrdal as an important influence."

http://www.pat2k.com/civil_rights/gunmyr.html

"During the first sit-in demonstration, in Greensboro, North Carolina, blacks cited Myrdal as an important influence."

Ha ha ha

My sides. :D

It appears that the European role in the decline of racialism in the United States can be distilled to:

- The Nazis giving racism a bad name
- The Russians making mischief in the third world
- Disgruntled ex-colonial powers giving the hypocritical Yanks one in the eye for insisting they unload their colonies after WW II
- Quite a few radical Jews ending up in US universities from the 1920s onwards

Is that it?

Would that be sufficient to cause the 'pre-eminent power' to change course so radically without there being an internal constituency for such a change? Or was it something that would have happened anyway?

It appears that the European role in the decline of racialism in the United States can be distilled to: Is that it?No. It goes much further than that. You simply cannot unload all the responsibility onto the shoulders of the Jews. Gunnar Myrdal wasn't a Jew. Jean-Paul Sartre wasn't motivated by outrage over the end of the French colonialism. The fact of the matter is that antiracism triumphed first in Western Europe. Europeans spent much of the fifties and the sixties attacking the United States on account of its 'racism' in the UN, just as they were later to do in the case of Rhodesia and South Africa. This was a burden for the United States in the Cold War, a source of division within the anticommunist alliance, so the U.S. Government took up civil rights reform as a consequence.Would that be sufficient to cause the 'pre-eminent power' to change course so radically without there being an internal constituency for such a change? Or was it something that would have happened anyway?Layton and several other scholars have demonstrated numerous times now that the changes brought about in domestic U.S. race relations was motivated primarily by the concern the segregation was damaging to the American interests abroad. It was imposed from the top down, starting with the Truman Administration in 1947 and the Supreme Court in 1954.

OK, I'm happy to include Myrdal and Sartre in the shit list.

But concerning the assertion that 'anti-racism triumphed first in Western Europe', it was my recollection that the Civil Rights Act in the United States preceded any legislation of similar scope in Europe. The UK, for example, did not fall into line until the 1976 Race Relations Act.

While we are on the subject of Jews, I might note that the primary architect of the 1976 RRA was "Lord" Lester of Herne Hill. The legislation he created was unique in Europe for its scope and reach, at least until the recent introduction of new EU legislation that has essentially superseded it.

I am also a little puzzled by the remark that "...changes brought about in domestic U.S. race relations was motivated primarily by the concern the segregation was damaging to the American interests abroad."

Does this not support my earlier point, that it was the interests of an internal constituency or constituencies that caused the US to abandon its racialist principles, rather than the bleating of a few toothless Europeans?

OK, I'm happy to include Myrdal and Sartre in the shit list.It was much broader than that. I will respond to the rest of your post later but lets start off with an old story close to home. Its a paradigm example used in the introduction of a recent book that deals with the subject. The U.S. government took up civil rights reform in the United States because it was a burden for the U.S. in Europe during the Cold War. And it was a burden for the U.S. precisely because Western Europe had already converted to antiracism in the immediate aftermath of WW2. I am looking forward to documenting this in detail in this thread. Lets begin.

"Jimmy Wilson's name has not been remembered in the annals of Cold War history, but in 1958, this African American handyman was at the center of international attention. After he was sentenced to death in Alabama for stealing less than two dollars in change, Wilson's case was thought to epitomize the harsh consequences of American racism. It brought to the surface international anxiety about the state of American race relations. Because the United States was the presumptive leader of the free world, racism in the nation was a matter of international concern. How could American democracy be a beacon during the Cold War, and a model for those struggling against Soviet oppression, if the United States itself practiced brutal discrimination against minorities within its own borders?

Jimmy Wilson's unexpected entry into this international dilemma began on July 27, 1957. The facts of the unhappy events setting of his travails are unclear. Wilson had worked for Estelle Barker, an elderly white woman, in Marion, Alabama. He told a Toronto reporter that he had simply wanted to borrow money from her against his future earnings, as he had in the past. As Wilson told the story, Barker let him into her home one evening, they had an argument, she threw some money on her bed and he took it and left. The coins would not be enough to cover the cost of his cab home. Barker told the police that his motives were more sinister. After taking the money she had dumped on her bed, she said he forced her onto the bed and unsuccessfully attempted to rape her.

Wilson was prosecuted only for robbery, for the theft of $1.95. Over the objections of Wilson's attorney, Barker testified at trial about the alleged sexual assault. Wilson was quickly convicted by an all-white jury. Robbery carried a maximum penalty of death, and the presiding judge sentenced Wilson to die in the electric chair. When the Alabama Supreme Court upheld Wilson's sentence, news of the case spread across the nation. Because other nations followed race in the United States with great interest, the Wilson case was soon international news.

Headlines around the world decried this death sentence for the theft of less than two dollars. The Voice of Ethiopia thought "it is inconceivable that in this enlightened age, in a country that prides itself on its code of justice, that, for the paltry sum of $1.95, a man should forfeit his life." An editorial in the Ghanian Ashanti Pioneer urged that the underlying law be repealed. According to that paper, it was "the High, inescapable duty of every right thinking human being who believes in democracy as understood and practised on this side of the Iron Curtain to venture to bring it home to the people of Alabama." The Jimmy Wilson story was widely publicized in West Africa, prompting American businessmen to call the U.S. embassy in Monrovia to express their concern that Wilson's execution would undermine "American effort to maintain sympathetic understanding [of our] principles and government" in that part of the world.

Petitions and letters of protest poured in. Hulda Omreit of Bodo, Norway, describing herself as "a simple Norwegian housewife," wrote a letter to the U.S. government. She wished "to express her sympathy for the Negro, Jimmy Wilson, and plead for clemency for him. It makes no difference whether he is black or white; we are all brothers under the skin." Six members of the Israeli Parliament sent letters of protest. The Trades Union Congress of Ghana urged American authorities "to save not only the life of Wilson but also the good name of the United States of America from ridicule and contempt." The Congress thought Wilson's sentence "constitutes such a savage blow against the Negro race that it finds no parallel in the Criminal Code of any modern state." The Jones Town Youth Club of Jamaica was just one of the groups that held a protest in front of the U.S. consulate in Kingston. In one extreme reaction, the U.S. embassy in The Hague received calls threatening that the U.S. ambassador "would not survive" if Wilson were executed. After a story about the case appeared in Time magazine, someone in Perth, Australia, hung a black figure in effigy from the flagpole of the U.S. consulate. Above it was a sign reading "Guilty of theft of fourteen shillings."

John Morsell, a spokesman for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), though that it would be "a sad blot on the nation" if Wilson were executed. The NAACP was worried about the international repercussions. According to Morsel, "We think the communists will take this and go to town with it." Sure enough, the Communist newspaper in Rome, L'Unita, called Wilson's death sentence "a new unprecedented crime by American segregationists," while front-page stories in Prague appeared under headlines proclaiming "This is America." Even those friendly to the United States were outraged, however. A group of Canadian judges was disturbed about the sentence and passed a resolution conveying its "deep concern" to Alabama Governor James Folsom. The judges warned that "if Alabama electocutes Jimmy Wilson it will shock the conscience of the world." From St. Paul's Cathedral in London, Canon John Collins urged every Christian in Britain to protest the execution. The secretary of the British Labour Party thought it was unfortunate that "those who wish to criticize western liberty and democracy" had been given "such suitable ammuniation for their propaganda."

Before long, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was involved in the case. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) had urged Dulles to intervene, calling the Wilson case "a matter of prime concern to the foreign relations of the United States." CORE warned that "if this execution is carried out, certainly the enemies of the will give it world-wide publicity and thus convey a distorted picture of relations betwene the races in our country." A flood of dispatches about the case from U.S. embassies around the world would make Dulles's participation inevitable.


Secretary Dulles sent a telegram to Governor Folsom, informing him of the great international interest in the Jimmy Wilson case. Folsom did not need to be told that the world had taken an interest in Jimmy Wilson. He had received and average of a thousand letters a day about the case, many from abroad. The governer had "never seen anything like" it and was "utterly amazed" by the outpouring of international attention. He called a press conference to announce that he was "'snowed under' with mail from Toronto demanding clemency" for Wilson. Folsom told Dulles that he stood ready to "aid in interpreting the facts of the case to the peoples of the world." After the Alabama Supreme Court upheld Wilson's conviction and sentence, Governor Folsom acted with unusual haste to grant Wilson clemency. The reason he acted so quickly was to end what he called the "international hullabaloo."

Jimmy Wilson's case is one example of the international impact of American race discrimination during the Cold War. Domestic civil rights crises would quickly become international crises. As presidents and secretaries of state from 1946 to the mid-1960s worried about the impact of race discrimination on U.S. prestige abroad, civil rights came to be seen as crucial to U.S. foreign relations."


Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War, Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2000), pp.4-6

I thought it was only Europeans were in the dock for the decline of Americam racialism, but it seems that every man and his dog (except of course any actual white Americans) had a hand in it, viz:

The Voice of Ethiopia thought....

Ghanian Ashanti Pioneer urged ....

...[the] story was widely publicized in West Africa, prompting American businessmen to call the U.S. embassy in Monrovia to express their concern...

Those dastardly European imperialists, though, couldn’t resist a dig, like, ....

Hulda Omreit of Bodo, Norway....

But then we have ...

Six members of the Israeli Parliament ....

The Trades Union Congress of Ghana ....

The Jones Town Youth Club of Jamaica.....

And, not least,

“someone in Perth, Australia,..”

while predictably

the Communist newspaper in Rome, L'Unita, ......

got in on the act, as did

A group of Canadian judges

and

From St. Paul's Cathedral in London, Canon John Collins urged every Christian in Britain to protest the execution [incidentally the same Canon Collins who as Bomber Command chaplain called the WWII bombing campaign ‘immoral’]....

as well as

The secretary [sic] of the British Labour Party thought it was unfortunate that "those who wish to criticize western liberty and democracy" had been given "such suitable ammunition for their propaganda."

But isn’t the the point really that it was only the tenor of the times, since

....As presidents and secretaries of state from 1946 to the mid-1960s worried about the impact of race discrimination on U.S. prestige abroad, civil rights came to be seen as crucial to U.S. foreign relations."

and America's re-racination was a self-inflected wound for which Americans have nobody more to blame than themselves.

Egalitarianism [for newbies: the dangerous idea that all humans are equal when much evidence shows otherwise] is a global ideology. It sprang up everywhere. Key to that springing-up was the defeat of eeevil, eeevil Nazism. The Jews, using their magazines, newspapers and films, said: "look!" See? Eeeebil!" [aka "Eeeevil!"]. "See vhat vill happen if dat eeeebil, eeebil Nazism isn't v-v-viped out in every single corner of da globe?? Vhat? Bolshevism?? Nevva hoid of it, you eeebil anti-Semite! Da poisecution! Da poisecution!"

Jewish funster Ashley Montagu set the stage with his 'special little document' in 1950, which claimed that all humans were eeekwal an' other fun stuff. The rest of the Western herd followed with their own little documents-o'-fun. Way c-c-cool!

The rest, as they say, is Jewstory...oops...I mean history.


----

Franco is right. First, "American" ideals are merely European ideals, so what Fade is actually saying is that the European ideals of the kind found in say, Locke, are superior to the European ideals (or counter-ideals) of say, a Nietzsche or a Foucault. But is it the later, nihilist European ideals that Fade opposes which is responsible for turning America away from racialism, or is it that somehow the "civil rights movement" in America merely forced America to take the egalitarian rhetoric found in the Declaration of Independence seriously? All it took was a radical immigrant group (and we all know who they are) to put the proper "spin" on that document. But Fade doesn't blame Locke or his admirer Jefferson for providing the language to the later radicals to manipulate.

As far as the "Nazis gave racialism a bad name" explanation, is the problem Hitler, or the demonization of Hitler? If the problem is the demonization, then running from the object demonized only buys you some time...it's intellectual "White flight," because the same set of practices can be used--has been used--to demonize good, old-fashioned homegrown American "nativism." And this analogy makes some sense in this context, as I've seen Fade insist on this board that America is large enough a land mass that Whites can move around indefinitely into the future to avoid living next to the Third Worlders pouring into this country.

There's considerable danger in allowing the opposition to define "the limits of permissible dissent." If you redefine yourself from Nazi to nativist, egalitarian opponents will neutralize you by changing the thrust of the current Nazi taboo to match whatever their definition of "nativism" will become. You see, there's no way to make a clean cut here, determining what exactly constitutes "Nazism" to jettison, as the elements that form Nazi ideology existed before 1933, after 1945, and outside of Germany. Again, Fade himself said that up to World War Two, Americans were deeply anti-Semitic despite an increasing Jewish presence within the mass media. So if pre-Nazi American nativists were anti-Semitic, and Nazis were also anti-Semitic, how does this escape the demonization-machine that Fade wants to avoid as he tries to appeal to the "mainstream American public?"

Here's where Fade is absolutely right: there is an element out there in American far-right circles that is counter-productive. There is a "PR" problem. When I say that, I'm thinking "costume-fetish," and so on. I say, "be a Nazi, but you don't need an armband, and you don't need to use the actual term 'Nazi."

I don't think the anti-Hitler demonization-machine is a permanent or immovable fixture of the American political scene, because there are indications that the machine is getting rusty. The ADL put out a study based on some poll where they found that the younger people in this country held "anti-Semitic" attitudes. The ADL was shocked that the attitudes were stronger than in generations past, and that the numbers were somewhere around 20 to 30 percent, if I recall.

"Hitler" has been denounced so many times and in so many places, the denunciations have become meaningless and laughable among more and more people. If I could see that high school field trips to the theater to watch _Schindler's List_ are motivated by an agenda, then a fair number of high school and college students could see it too, even if they don't make this publicly known (which is probably wise, since you tend to get attacked for saying un-PC things). I don't recall if I myself was in high school when that movie came out, I might have been in college by then, but I had a number of "moments" like that, where I realized, for example, that the teacher's dramatized reading of the "World War Two" section of our history book is meant to sell me something. That sort of thing is what encouraged me to move toward far-right politics--people resent being "sold" things, resent being mass-programmed in service of an agenda, and they resent having people's emotional pity-parties and minority-victimology shoved down their throats.

There's still a lot of fear and stigma attached to being called a Nazi, but I suspect this is just inertia and it won't last. The "norm" is about to burn itself out, largely because it triumphed a long time ago and outlived its usefulness--there was a point nearly everybody denounced the Nazis. With the norm no longer having a credible target to suppress, it's begun to fade--allowing the re-emergence of the thing it was originally designed to stamp out. The Internet spawned the rule that you forfeit the argument as soon as you mention "the Nazis believed in [x]." It's called "Godwin's Law." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law) But certain sectors of the population keep furiously denouncing them over and over, and people are starting to feel that the ADL has cried "wolf" too many times (no pun intended, of course).

As far as the "Nazis gave racialism a bad name" explanation, is the problem Hitler, or the demonization of Hitler?


Given the fact that, by the time I reached the 6th grade in school, I had heard about t-t-those eeeeeeevil Nazis 3,359 times already, and the H-H-HollowCost 3,723 times already, I'm guessing.....the demonization of Hitler. :|

I would like Fade to address that matter specifically.




[edited]




--------

Here's where Fade is absolutely right: there is an element out there in American far-right circles that is counter-productive. There is a "PR" problem. When I say that, I'm thinking "costume-fetish," and so on. I say, "be a Nazi, but you don't need an armband, and you don't need to use the actual term 'Nazi."

Yes.


----

. . . and America's re-racination was a self-inflected wound for which Americans have nobody more to blame than themselves.I disagree. And that is because if we go back and examine the academic literature that has been done on the subject, we clearly see that there is widespread agreement that civil rights reform in the United States only became a priority for the U.S. government after it became a matter of international concern in the Cold War. Internal factors cannot explain why the Truman Administration chose to push civil rights reform, as Layton explains in detail. The pressure was being applied to the United States primarily from abroad, especially from Western Europe. For more information on this subject see Azza Salama Layton's International Politics and the Civil Rights Policies in the United States, 1941-1960, Thomas Borstelmann's The Cold War and the Color Line: American Race Relations in the Global Arena, Brenda Plummer's Window on Freedom: Race, Civil Rights, and Foreign Affairs, 1945-1988, and Mary Dudziak's Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy.

A question: To what extent is Europe's attitude on race different from America, and why is it different?

In the sports section of this board, there are two threads mentioning many incidents which appear common place that fans at sporting events (soccer and ice hockey) throw bananas and generally act belligerent in a racist way towards black players. It dawned on me that such behavior is unthinkable and would be considered barbaric if anyone attempted such a thing on American soil. Hell, throwing an object on the field/ice/court of play in America gets you jailtime and perhaps a ban from the venue (the justification being that it's dangerous to throw things at people, the law considers practical justification, nothing racial). Yet this sort of thing occurs in Europe regularly.

Europe does not have a relatively recent history of slavery or Jim Crow, as the United States does. I think comparing the evolution of "racialist" acceptance between the US and Europe might be interesting. While racism is more taboo here than in Europe, we don't have the restrictive hate crimes legislation Europe does (American hate crimes legislation exists, but you would never know).

While racism is more taboo here than in Europe, we don't have the restrictive hate crimes legislation Europe does

Something I noticed as well. In general, states only outlaw what they see as really problematic. Racialist and nationalist parties are of great significance too in Europe, while being of zero importance in the USA. I'm sure Fade will put a spin on this.

Something I noticed as well. In general, states only outlaw what they see as really problematic.


I see. Europe has far more gun control than the United States. Does that mean there are no problems with firearms in the United States?

It seems to me that European racialists believing in a secret hotbed of racialism in Europe are living in a pipe dream.

It seems to me that European racialists believing in a secret hotbed of racialism in Europe are living in a pipe dream.National chauvinism, yes. 'White Racialism,' no. "White Nationalism" per se is largely an American phenomenon.

"Americans think it is perfectly natural to divide humans up into four or five 'races', usually 'black', 'white', 'Asian', 'red', and possibly 'Hispanic'; but in Nazi Germany the division was 'Aryan (= 'Nordic', 'Alpine'), 'Dinaric', 'Jewish', 'Gypsy', 'Slavic', etc."
--Eugene Holman

- "It seems to me that European racialists believing in a secret hotbed of racialism in Europe are living in a pipe dream."


When you push even sworn liberals enough, you're going to get a reaction, and possibly quite a nasty one - let's call it a "Death Wish"-syndrome...


Petr

Racialist and nationalist parties are of great significance too in Europe, while being of zero importance in the USA. I'm sure Fade will put a spin on this.All third parties whatsoever are of zero importance in the USA. But it would be a fallacy to infer that racial consciousness is somehow higher in Europe than it is in the United States from that. That would be a gross error. Americans defined themselves explicitly in racial terms for almost three hundred and fifty years. To be an American was to be a white man, a Protestant Christian, and a liberal in politics. As Huntington points out, they were all the same thing. On the contrary, Europeans have traditionally defined themselves in terms of things like class, religion, culture, ethnicity, nationality and so on.

This just goes to show how far America has been utterly Europeanized in the last fifty years or so. Kaufmann describes this process in detail in his book The Rise and Fall of Anglo-America. Take the notion that America is a 'nation of immigrants'. Several generations ago, Americans would have found this proposition to be absurd. Americans thought of themselves at that time as being the descendents of the Pilgrims, Puritans, and the Pioneers. They thought of themselves as being descended from the original settlers of the thirteen colonies that won their independence in the American Revolution, even if their ancestors were German or Irish immigrants in the 19th century. Immigrants who came to the United States were expected to assimilate and become Americans by adopting this national mythology.

This began to change in the twentieth century due to massive immigration to the United States from Europe. Many of these people did not assimilate. And as they began to rise in social status throughout the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, they gradually rewrote American history and what it meant to be an American to suit their own preferences. Cosmopolitanism is not an American idea. Neither is antiracism. On the contrary, Americans exported racialism to Europe. This notion that America is some sort of ideological nation, like the Soviet Union, is a profound piece of nonsense. So is the notion that race simply really isn't all that important to being an American. Here is a chart that describes the transition in Kaufmann's book:

American Dominant Ethnicity

Boundry Symbols: U.S. English language, British surname, North European Phenotype, Protestantism, Liberalism and Egalitarianism, American Landscape.

Communal Narrative/Myth of Descent: Pilgrims, Puritans, Founding Fathers, American Revolution, Pioneers, Settlers.

Territory: United States

Art Form: New England and Appalachian Traditions

Iconic Figures: Yeoman, Pioneer

Myth of Immortality: Communal Eternity

Destiny: White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, Liberal-Egalitarian Millennium


Avant-Garde Community

Boundry Symbols: Egalitarianism, Modernism, Urban Residence, Cosmopolitan Education/Experience

Communal Narrative/Myth of Descent: Myth of the Outsider in History, Myth of the Avant-Garde (from Socrates and Christ to 1789, 1848, 1917, 1968 and more)

Territory: Scattered Urban Enclaves Worldwide

Art Form: Modernist

Iconic Figures: Progressive Outcast, Revolutionary, Marginalized Masses

Myth of Immortality: Humanity's Eternal Gratitude, World Historical Recognition

Destiny: Expressive-Egalitarian Utopia

This notion that America is some sort of ideological nation, like the Soviet Union, is a profound piece of nonsense.

GK Chesterton, observing the United States eighty years ago, disagreed (http://www.libertynet.org/edcivic/chestame.html) --

It may have seemed something less than a compliment to compare the American Constitution to the Spanish Inquisition. But oddly enough, it does involve a truth, and still more oddly perhaps, it does involve a compliment. The American Constitution does resemble the Spanish Inquisition in this: that it is founded on a creed. America is the only nation in the world that is founded on creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and also great literature. It enunciates that all men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give them that justice, and that their authority is for that reason just. It certainly does condemn anarchism. And it does also by inference condemn atheism, since it clearly names the Creator as the ultimate authority from whom these equal rights are derived. Nobody expects a modern political system to proceed logically in the application of such dogmas, and in the matter of God and Government it is naturally God whose claim is taken more lightly. The point is that there is a creed, if not about divine, at least about human things...

... America invites all men to become citizens; but it implies the dogma that there is such a thing as citizenship. Only, so far as its primary ideal is concerned, its exclusiveness is religious because it is not racial. The missionary can condemn a cannibal, precisely because he cannot condemn a Sandwich Islander. And in something of the same spirit the American may exclude a polygamist, precisely because he cannot exclude a Turk.

I might add that this attitude has now also taken root across the Atlantic: Turks are welcome in Europe, so long as they abandon their Muslim "customs" - polygamy, presumably, among them

Although I look upon the outcome in a more positive light than yourself, FaDe, I'm in broad agreement with the thrust of this thread. However, like Otto, I think the emphasis should have been put on the Cold War, particularly as a struggle for the hearts and minds of those in the developing world, rather than on Europe alone, or even predominantly.

Anyhow, I came across the following article, by chance, which lends some support to your position: John David Skrentny, 'The Effect of the Cold War on African-American Civil Rights: America and the World Audience, 1945-1968, Theory and Society, Vol. 27No. 2 (Apr., 1998), 237-285. It's well reasoned and available via JSTOR.

The emphasis here, however, is on the novel importance of the non-European audience in terms of the American quest for moral-political legitimacy as a "World Leader" during the Cold War. It also places more emphasis than you have given room for in your quoted extracts and commentary to the way that agents seeking civil rights reform for African-Americans (the NAACP etc) maximised the political leverage granted by the disjuncture between (the then only relatively recently) established "world cultural norms" in the field of race relations and US treatment of certain minority groups. The point clearly made is that whilst most southern politician felt little vulnerability to charges made in the court of world opinion regarding racial discrimination, internationally oriented US agencies engaged in a Cold War propaganda struggle, exemplified in the State Department, were not in a position to rebuff such accusations lightly, especially when made in international arenas such as the UN, and correctly interpreted the unequal position of African Americans in US society as political liability.

For example, Secretary of State Dean Acheson wrote in 1946:

... the existence of discrimination against minority groups in this country has an adverse effect upon our relations with other countries. We are reminded over and over by some foreign newspapers and spokesmen, that our treatment of various minorities leaves much to be desired. While sometimes these pronouncements are exaggerated and unjustified, they all too frequently point with accuracy to some form of discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin. Frequently we find it next to impossible to formulate a satisfactory answer to our critics in other countries; the gap between the things we stand for in principle and the facts of a particular situation may be too wide to be bridged. An atmosphere of suspicion and resentment in a country over the way a minority is being treated in the United States is a formidable obstacle to the development of mutual understanding and trust between two countries. We will have better international relations when these reasons for suspicion and resentment have been removed.

I think that it is quite obvious ... that the existence of discriminations against minority groups in the United States is a handicap in our relations with other countries. The Department of State, therefore, has good reasons to hope for the continued and increased effectiveness of public and private efforts to do away with these discriminations."

Quoted in, ibid., 246-7.


Also, I found the following from the article's conclusion to be interesting:

... the data ... suggest[s] a profound change in the United States. A few examples will suffice to illustrate. When asked, "Do you think white students and black students should go to the same schools or separate schools?" only 32 percent of Americans responded with "same" in 1942. This figure jumped to 50 percent in 1956, 73 percent in 1968, and was 90 percent in 1982. Questions regarding support for equal opportunities for blacks at jobs increased from 45 percent in 1944 to an astonishing 97 percent in 1972, and the percentage of Americans supporting integrated public transportation increased by 42 percentage points between 1942 and 1970. ... What was publicly accepted as proper had changed. "Civil rights" and the principle of racial equality thus became a solidly legitimate part of American political culture.

Ibid., 273-4.


It is my view that this change in US public opinion is more or less permanent. For instance, even current conservative criticism of programmes like Affirmative Action employs the language of equality to challenge the basis of the scheme: i.e. it accepts the new established cultural norms of racial equality and argues against AA due to the fact that it discriminates.

Also, I remember seeing a Soviet movie, called Circus, from the mid-1930s, that placed great emphasis on US racial discrimination. The central heroine was a American circus performer who was chased out of America for having a baby fathered by an African-American. She goes to the USSR and finds peace, love, tolerance and racial harmony (lots of stuff about the USSR's minorities as one family) etc. Quite a good propaganda vehicle and remarkably like many US musical comedies of the same era ...