No Irish Need Apply

 

The racial discrimination in Canada—and the US and Britain too—has become more egregious now than it ever was in the days of the Civil Rights marches. Today I note this line in a communication from the League of Canadian Poets about an upcoming contest:

“Each submission much be accompanied by an entry fee of $20. Discounted entry fees ($5) are available to Black, Indigenous, racialized, and LGBTQI2S+ poets.”

Such statements are  common now. They are blatant violations of both the US Bill of Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Which shows the sad truth that such charters in the end only protect already-favoured groups. What is needed is a change in hearts. They are in open violation of the principles of Martin Luther King Jr., that we must judge one another not by the colour of our skins, but by the content of our character—the same moral Jesus gives us in the parable of the Good Samaritan.  They are open violations of the principle on which the US, and modern liberal democracy, was founded, that “all men are created equal,” and have the right to equal protection under the law. But that is another example of how such high-sounding principles end up protecting only already-favoured groups. Somehow the US, demanding equality for themselves vis a vis England’s ruling classes, saw no immediate need to free their slaves. 

We thought we had gotten beyond all this in the 1960s; it has all come raging back. It leads to the conclusion from such bitter experience that all people are inherently racist and xenophobic. This is a tendency we must all consciously fight against, as we must always fight against aspects of our animal nature. We are herd animals. Small children will often show a bad reaction to an unfamiliar skin colour; as a dog will. It is a survival instinct to be suspicious of the outsider, the stranger. Couple to that the universal need for scapegoats.

If we forget it, or, yet more stupidly, start claiming that only one particular racial group is subject to racist feelings, we end up doing horrible things to one another. We end up in Holocausts.

... And It Brought Us Justin Trudeau

 

Sunny Hostin, a “black” host on The View, recently learned on-air that her ancestors included slaveowners. Which puts her in an ambiguous situation, since she has been calling for reparations for American blacks over slavery. Kamala Harris is also descended from slaveholders, in Jamaica.

Problem: under slavery, slavers owned their slaves. They could do what they wanted with them. Can anyone doubt they used black slaves for sex?

Probably no Americans tracing descent from the institution of slavery are purely African by genetics. They are probably also descendants of the slaveowners. Even on the African side, they are probably as much descendants of slavers as of slaves; the practice of slavery has been endemic in Africa from ancient times.

So, if any Americans are owed reparations for slavery, they are owed it by themselves. Not by the innocent descendants of European immigrants arriving in America after slavery was abolished, from a continent where the practice was almost unknown, but for the danger of being carried off by Arab slavers from Africa. Not from those whose ancestors laboured alongside the blacks as indentured servants. Only one percent of Americans ever owned slaves.

But of course the whole concept of reparations for those who never experienced slavery is nonsense to begin with. It makes sense only for living survivors of an injustice. We are individuals, responsible for our acts, not for the acts of others. None of us can justly be rewarded or punished for the deeds of our ancestors. The more so since the child of a bad person is most likely already their worst victim. 

The idea of inherited guilt or credit is the essence of human inequality. It is what the American Revolution was meant to end forever. It is the notion of inherited privilege; and it is blood libel.

All the same arguments hold for the idea of special “aboriginal rights” in Canada. There are few if any “pure blood” Indians in Canada. We are all Americans, we are all Canadians, we are all brothers and sisters.

The Real World of Discrimination

 

A typical caricature of the "eternal Jew." Always thinking, God forbid.

The image of Harvard’s black female president refusing to condemn calls for the genocide of Jews—and yet, everyone expects, able to retain her job, despite revelations that she plagiarized parts of her doctoral thesis-- is a neat visual representation of an important truth. Although we falsely conflate them, discrimination against Jews and discrimination against blacks (or women) are fundamentally opposite phenomena.

One never or rarely hears of anyone ever calling for the extermination of blacks or women. If anyone did, the outcry against them would be monumental. If there are occasional claims that someone somewhere once did, if traced back, they turn out to be false claims. The same could be said for aboriginals. If anyone ever called for their extermination, they would be hated more than Simon Legree. (And nobody apparently ever said “the only good Indian is a dead Indian.” That was a slander used against US General Sheridan precisely because it would destroy his reputation if believed.)

But one hears often of calls or sees actual attempts to wipe out Jews. Also, men, Irish, and East Asians. This is not just so in recent “woke” times, either. This is a historical constant.

Society as a whole readily sees fit to give blacks, or women, or aboriginals, special advantages: scholarships, affirmative action programs, easier sentencing in court, extra government benefits.

Society never considers giving Jews, men, Irish, or East Asians any such special advantages. The suggestion would be met with scorn or rage.

These two lists are not exhaustive; but "minority" groups always fall into one or the other decisively: the Jewish side, or the black side.

Antisemitism is fuelled by envy and malice: Jews are hated because they seem superior to the rest of us. So too, if to a lesser extent, men, East Asians, or the Irish. Discrimination “against” women, blacks, or indigenous people, in precise contrast, is almost always done out of good intentions, and is meant to be for their benefit. These groups are loved because they are looked down on as inferior. Nobody hates another for being less then they are; they hate for being better.

Not that this discrimination has ever been good for blacks or women or Indians. It is a deprivation of moral agency, and fosters passivity. People do not thrive as pets. But it also prompts them to complain the loudest about discrimination. Once one ha become accustomed to special treatment, one feels a deep injustice whenever it is not forthcoming. When, by contrast, one is accustomed to being discriminated against, one tends to learn to take it silently as one’s fate.

Opposite motives, opposite actions--and opposite results. The Jews manifestly do unusually well despite severe persecution; such as a widespread and systematic attempt to wipe every last one of them out within living memory. The Japanese have recovered from total defeat and Hiroshima within the same time period. The Irish have recovered from the holocaust of the Great Hunger a hundred and fifty years ago, civil war as recently as the 1990s, and are now the richest nation in Europe. Yet blacks are supposed to have never been able to recover from slavery a hundred and fifty years ago—a custodianship justified at the time as for their own benefit. Women cannot recover from a wolf whistle. And indigenous people have supposedly never recovered from the trauma of first contact.

We need to make the clear distinction between malicious persecution, and misguided charity.

All Men Are Created Equal

 

This essay from AP seems to deliberately obscure the plain sense of the simple passage from the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal.”

“Those words say to me, ‘Do better, America.’ And what I mean by that is we have never been a country where people were truly equal,” Jennings says. “It’s an aspiration to continue to work towards, and we’re not there yet.”

“We say ‘All men are created equal’ but does that mean we need to make everyone entirely equal at all times…?’”

“Robin Marty, author of ‘Handbook for a Post-Roe America,’ calls the phrase a ‘bromide’ for those ‘who ignore how unequal our lives truly are.’”

But if men are created equal, it cannot be the business of government to make them equal. The duty of government is to treat them equally; to value them for their own deeds, as opposed to valuing them for how they were created.

The author then suggests that unless we recognize gay marriage, we are denying gays the right to marry, hence treating them unequally. But we are not—gays always had equal rights to marry; just not to marry men. Is it discriminatory if we still do not allow people to legally marry animals, their grown children, themselves, or multiple partners? No, so long as the same law applies to all for the same act.

Nor is there any question that the term “all men” always referred to black men. There is no way to twist it so that it does not. 

I fear this essay is an example of the postmodern spirit, which insists that we can twist words to mean whatever we want, making them endlessly debatable, and, ultimately, meaningless.

The essay concludes with Ibram Kendi explaining “The anti-racist idea suggests that all racial groups are biologically, inherently equal.”

This is self-evidently false. Racial groups are not biologically equal, because they are not biologically identical. It is the human soul that is equal; in moral worth, because equal in the eyes of the Creator. Not everyone has the mental or physical capacity to be a doctor, or a star athlete, and it is not discrimination if you are not. One gets into these confusions when one gets materialist, and denies the soul of man.

Kendi of course goes further, and insists that all cultures must also be accepted as equal. This is nonsensical. A culture is a set of ideas; this is tantamount to insisting that all ideas are equally true.

Including things like apartheid, genocide, caste, and child sacrifice.

What Equality Does and Does Not Mean

 

Here's a great explanation from To Kill a Mockingbird of what the phrase "all men are created equal," in the Declaration of Independence, is supposed to mean. 

"One more thing, gentlemen, before I quit. Thomas Jefferson once said that all men are created equal, a phrase that the Yankees and the distaff side of the Executive branch in Washington are fond of hurling at us. There is a tendency in this year of grace, 1935, for certain people to use this phrase out of context, to satisfy all conditions. The most ridiculous example I can think of is that the people who run public education promote the stupid and idle along with the industrious—because all men are created equal, educators will gravely tell you, the children left behind suffer terrible feelings of inferiority. We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe—some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they're born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cakes than others—some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of most men. 

"But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal—there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court. It can be the Supreme Court of the United States or the humblest J.P. court in the land, or this honorable court which you serve. Our courts have their faults, as does any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levelers, and in our courts all men are created equal."

We seem to have lost this understanding--or have deliberately falsified it. Just as we have lost or falsified Martin Luther King Jr.s dream that children be judged "not byh the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character."

Where Human Rights and Human Equality Come From

“Another Christian concept, no less crazy, has passed even more deeply into the tissue of modernity: the concept of the 'equality of souls before God.' This concept furnishes the prototype of all theories of equal rights...”

--Nietszche, The Will to Power

Symposium on the Origin and Meaning of Human Equality: The Dessert

Dear Abbot:

Say what you will; I do not believe human rights are absolute. I have never been a believer in absolute truth.

Dr. Who

Dear Who:

Let’s take your statement just as it stands: “I have never been a believer in absolute truth.”

Never? That’s an absolute statement, isn’t it? Which means, you must not believe it. Which means it is not relatively true—it is absolutely false.

Abbot


Dear Abbot:

The US Constitution is not religious in its essence, so neither is its doctrine of human equality. The US Constitution comes from "A Declaration of the Rights of the Inhabitants of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts," which states:

“Article I. All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.”

Notice the absence here of the word "Creator."

Dr. Sax


Dear Sax:

It is quite unlikely that the US Declaration of Independence (note: not the US Constitution) originated from the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Declaration of Independence was written in 1776. The Constitution of Massachusetts was written in 1780.

The latter, unlike the Declaration of Independence, lacks any clear reference to the source of these rights—so it is not relevant to our current discussion. It is illustrative, though, to note the preamble:

“We, therefore, the people of Massachusetts, acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the goodness of the great Legislator of the universe, in affording us, in the course of His providence, an opportunity, deliberately and peaceably, without fraud, violence or surprise, of entering into an original, explicit, and solemn compact with each other; and of forming a new constitution of civil government, for ourselves and posterity; and devoutly imploring His direction in so interesting a design, do agree upon, ordain and establish the following Declaration of Rights, and Frame of Government, as the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”

So whom are they saying all their legislation ultimately originates from?

Note too Article II (you have quoted Article I):

"Article II: It is the right as well as the duty of all men in society, publicly, and at stated seasons to worship the Supreme Being, the great Creator and Preserver of the universe…”

And then there’s Article III:

"Article III: As the happiness of a people, and the good order and preservation of civil government, essentially depend upon religion and morality; and as these cannot be generally diffused through a community, but by the institution of the public worship of God, and of public instructions in piety and morality: Therefore, to promote their happiness and to secure the good order and preservation of their government, the people of this commonwealth have a right to invest their legislature with power to authorize and require, and the legislature shall, from time to time, authorize and require, the several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies politic, or religious societies, to make suitable provision, at their own expense, for the institution of the public worship of God…”

So the functioning of a civil society “essentially depends” on religion and morality.

This sounds religious to me.

That, plus the obvious echoes of the Declaration of Independence, are suggestive.

Abbot


Dear Abbot:

Your argument, that equality is a Christian concept, would offend Judaism and Islam, not to mention Hinduism or Buddhism.

Dr. Sax


Dear Sax:

If you feel that truth offends you, do you have the right to deny it? That would be a license to lie whenever it is to your advantage to do so.

I feel for my Jewish and Muslim brethren. But I cannot change history, nor the doctrines of their religions. If any Hindu, Jewish, or Muslim reader wishes to justify their own religion on this issue, they are welcome to comment.

As a matter of historical fact, the doctrine of human equality and inalienable human rights as we know it comes from Christianity and Christian theology. It can be traced back from Jefferson, through Locke, through the Jesuits of the Salamanca School, to St. Thomas Aquinas. Perhaps further.

Locke based his argument on Genesis—the point that we are all descendants of Adam, and all made in God’s image. That makes us all brothers, and all of equal, and inestimable, value.

As the Genesis creation story is shared verbatim with Judaism, and in essence with Islam, theoretically, these religions are equally committed to the concepts of human equality and human rights.

However, it would be a distortion not to note that the New Testament gives important boosts to this idea of equality—the Messiah as ordinary man, the parable of the Good Samaritan, the communal life of the early Christians, St. Paul’s dictum that there is “neither man nor woman, Jew nor Greek, slave nor free” in Christ; and, crucially, the idea that the divine covenant is now open to all men. Without this, the Jewish idea of a “chosen people” does tend in the opposite direction. Similarly, Islam seems stricter than Christianity in limiting equality to believers—albeit this “chosen people” is a larger group than in Judaism, and an easier one to join. It can be a bit harsh on “kaffirs” or “unbelievers.”

Now let’s look at Hinduism. The original Hindu story of the creation of man is from the Rg Veda. It explains that man was created, along with the rest of the world, from the dismemberment of the cosmic person, Purusa. But, unlike Genesis, there are four distinct types of men created at the outset:

“The Brahmin was his mouth, of both his arms was the Rajanya made. His thighs became the Vaisya, from his feet the Sudra was produced.” (Rg Veda 10:90:12)

This leads to very different conclusions. The different classes or castes are, in this conception, no more similar to one another than they are to other species, or indeed to rocks and stones.

To be fair, Hinduism has several different creation stories. The later Laws of Manu and Puranas give a single creation, more like the Judeo-Christian Genesis, and like Genesis implying that all men are, ultimately, brothers, as descendants of Manu. But the Laws of Manu and the Puranas are, for Hinduism, less authoritative than the Vedas.

In classical Greece and Rome, ancient Egypt, China, or Japan—in polytheistic societies—it was common for royal houses to claim an independent creation, and a uniquely divine descent. This, of course, implied a radical inequality.

Abbot


Dear Abbot:

If human equality is a religious concept, how to explain great tragedies brought about by religious warfare?

Dr. Sax


Dear Sax:

Not so hard. It’s the same question as “police brutality.” Yes, police forces are responsible for some violence. But would society be less violent without the police?

And, of course, many wars are fought for human equality and human rights—at least on one side.

Abbot

What is Equality, and from Whence Does It Come?

I have engaged on an email list in a discussion on the Slate article linked to here recently.

It seems to me the result reads a bit like a Socratic dialogue, and might be worth reproducing in paraphrase for others here.

The question on the table at this symposium was, what is human “equality,” and where does it come from?

The author of the Slate piece makes this important point:

"If this suggestion makes you angry-if you find the idea of genetic racial advantages outrageous, socially corrosive, and unthinkable-you're not the first to feel that way. Many Christians are going through a similar struggle over evolution. Their faith in human dignity rests on a literal belief in Genesis. To them, evolution isn't just another fact; it's a threat to their whole value system. As William Jennings Bryan put it during the Scopes trial, evolution meant elevating 'supposedly superior intellects,' 'eliminating the weak,' 'paralyzing the hope of reform,' jeopardizing 'the doctrine of brotherhood,' and undermining 'the sympathetic activities of a civilized society.'"

Just as this suggests, apparently Bryan's concerns over evolution have been widely misrepresented—what most of us know is the character in “Inherit the Wind,” not Bryan himself. And “Inherit the Wind” is fiction. Bryan objected to Darwin more as a liberal than as a Christian, feeling Darwin's ideas promoted class and race superiority and violated the doctrine of the equality of man.

And, historically, he proved right. The Nazis made much of Darwinian evolution in their race theories.

Indeed, as is often forgotten today, John Locke based his argument that men were equal not on any principle of science, but on the Book of Genesis. Chuck out Genesis, and the doctrines of liberal democracy are in trouble.

The Slate writer is wrong here, though:

"Evolution forced Christians to bend or break. They could insist on the Bible's literal truth and deny the facts, as Bryan did. Or they could seek a subtler account of creation and human dignity."

Nope. It was not the doctrines of Christianity that were in trouble. This was an issue only for a certain sort of Protestant. The Catholic Church had never believed in any special value to a "literal" reading of scripture, and did not see any fundamental conflict between its own views and Darwin's theory.

This conversation ensued:

Dear Abbot:
Men are not equal, but all men have equal value in human society. Some are better at one thing, some another -- but everyone, weak and strong, is human and therefore, "equal."

I do not see a conflict here with Darwin.

Dr. Sax

Dear Sax:
Okay, here it is: "value" in Darwinian terms is ability to survive and propagate—"survival of the fittest." Not all humans are equal in these terms—if they were, the Darwinian theory of evolution would not work. The Nazis logically extended this: survival, prosperity, and propagation of the race and species are best served by favouring the fit and getting rid of the unfit. As, indeed, they are.

You need therefore to define clearly what you mean by "value," when you say "all men have equal value." What is this value? As we have seen, it is obviously not value to the evolutionary process. It is obviously not economic value—ability to generate material wealth. It is obviously not intelligence, the enemies of Watson to the contrary—otherwise there could be no Mensa.

What is this "value"?

It is easy for one who accepts Genesis to answer this. But can you give a purely "scientific," let alone “Darwinian,” answer?

Abbot

Dear Abbot:
I think speaking of “value” and “scientific” together is an oxymoron. Value by definition is subjective and depends on the domain in which it is used. Value would be whatever contributes to achieving commonly-held objectives within that domain.

Darwinian value would be to possess attributes that would aid in adaptation. Financial value would be to contribute to stable and increasing worth.

Dr. Who

Dear Who:
It seems to me you are reinforcing Bryan’s concern. If Darwin was right, it looks as though Hitler was right, too—survival of the species being a “commonly-held objective.”

I'm not sure what you mean by saying that "value by definition is subjective," but it does not look like you are going to a good place. Oxford defines "subjective" as "based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions." Do you think, then, that the value of a human life, say, is just a matter of taste or opinion? The value of human rights? Does truth or the value of truth differ depending on "domain"?

Abbot

Dear Abbot:
Value is by definition something worth having. And we humans, regardless of religion or lack of it, have decided that equality is something worth having. Where is the confusion?

Dr. Sax

Dear Sax:
It's here: if value is simply a question of consensus, of “commonly-held objectives,” it follows that any other consensus would be as legitimate. So--lets imagine a different one, and see how it sounds. How about a consensus that life is of no value, and we are all free to murder? Or how about a consensus that we are free to kill a specific group--say, the Jews? Then it would be okay?

If so, of course, Hitler did nothing wrong, did he? But Oskar Schindler--he did. He did not follow the consensus--so he was acting immorally.

Abbot

Dear Abbot:
I do not believe in absolute truth. When the state of Texas executes one of its citizens, do we have to conclude that Texans do not value human life?

I think we must understand the context. …

Dr. Who

Dear Who:
I don't think the argument over capital punishment is really a dispute over the value of human life, but rather over how best to defend it.

As to truth not being absolute, does that mean you believe that 2 + 2 only sometimes equals 4? That every now and then it may equal 5, or 47? That two parallel lines may cross every now and then?

Abbot

Dear Abbot:
How about a consensus that we stop arguing about "this self-evident truth that all men are born equal" and simply hold this value dear to our heart.

Dr. Sax

Dear Sax:
Let's not lose the thread of the discussion here. I think we can assume that we all share the opinion that all humans are in some sense of equal value. That has never been in dispute. The question is, what is the nature of that “equality,” and where does it come from? Can it be derived from Darwin, or from "science"?

I take it you are now saying, with the US Declaration of Independence, that it is simply "self-evident" that all humans are equal. That lets Watson off the hook, in any case. But note the full sentence from which you are quoting:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created [not 'born'] equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." (italics mine)

That's the full contention--all of that is held as self-evident. Now, if you deny the creation and the Creator, deny the stated source of this equality and these inalienable rights, aren't the rights themselves similarly up for grabs?


Abbot