The concept of racism did not always exist: in fact, it only really began with the ideas of the Enlightenment, mainly those that focused on evolution. And it was not solely influenced by Charles Darwins theory of evolution: even before the one he put forth in Origin of Species, other evolutionary theories such as Lamarckism - proposed by Jean- Baptiste de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck, and modified by German zoologist Ernst Haeckel - a certain version of Lamarckism - already existed. Although the theories of the last two evolutionists did not involve natural selection, they also managed to inspire racism that was justified: it had science as its basis. Even as early as 1774, Edward Long - a Jamaican physicist - insisted that peoples of { African descent } were a lower order of humanity, probably a different species of the same Genus. The predominant colonial theory of race was the great chain of being, the idea that human races could be lined up from most superior to most inferior. That is, God, white people, and then an arrangement of non-white people, with blacks at the bottom. It was a central tool in justifying efforts to colonize, enslave, and even exterminate people. If it could be established that certain kinds of people were indeed less than, even less than human, then it was acceptable to treat them as such. This is a “generalizable tactic of oppression. During the period of intense anti-Irish sentiment in the U.S. and Britain, the Irish were routinely compared to apes as well. Native Americans were used as slaves, especially in the Spanish colonies, also in northern ones as well. I found the inclusion of American Savages alongside Negroes interesting. It seems to me that Native Americans were also considered subhuman and treated as such. I wonder which were thought closer to the primordial source - one suitable only for manual labor, the other only for extinction. So, there you have it. Connections have been drawn between black people and primates for hundreds of years. Whatever else you want to think about modern instances of this association – the Obama sock monkey, the Black Lil’ Monkey doll, and a political cartoon targeting Obama – objections are not just paranoia. The great chain of being is not a desiccated, fossilized idea, a mere subject of scholarly study whose influence has vanished totally from the world. It appears at first glance metaphysical and irrelevant to the natural sciences and indeed to any view of physical reality that would purport to call itself “modern.” Its basic assumptions, however, are echoed whenever one speaks of more “highly-evolved” or “lower” life forms, whenever one imagines evolution as a progression, ever-upwards, from the primordial ooze to forms of increasing complexity and advancement. It shows up across cultures and across the ages with essentially similar features, this worldview has, indeed, formed the core of not only the worlds great wisdom traditions, from Christianity to Buddhism to Taoism, but also of the greatest philosophers, scientists, and psychologists of both East and West, North and South. So overwhelmingly widespread is the perennial philosophy...that it is either the single greatest intellectual error ever to appear in humankinds history, an error so colossally widespread as to literally stagger the mind or it is the single most accurate reflection of reality yet to appear. One does conclude that while the great chain of being was a contributing factor to the demarcation and ranking of races, it was in no way the contributing factor. It did not enjoy the ubiquity necessary to prevent the emergence of alternative notions antithetical to its core principles, and it was one of these principles that eventually superceded it, first in taxonomy, and then, eventually, as a basis for judgments about race. These notions, as it has been plausibly stated, had a hand in shaping the scientific racism, and the great chain of being, astonishingly long-lived and a paradigm in and of itself, must retire to its place as one racist influence among many.
Posted on: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 05:31:18 +0000
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