I have a theory that the Strong Gods of the 1920s are reanimating in the 2020s. We are
helpless to prevent the revenge of history.
Let's go through them together. First, the view there are fundamental biological
differences between classes of race, otherwise known as 'Scientific Racism.'
Galton had proposed this in the 1880s, but it took until the 1920s and '30s to gestate into
a political program. According to the scientific racist, humanity can be divided into
classes and objectively ranked. There were the Nordics and Anglo-Saxons (regarded,
sometimes, as 'The Great Race'); the inferior Southern Europeans, consisting of the Greeks
(Turks…), Spanish, Portuguese, and Southern Italians; and odd degenerates, like the Irish,
Basque, and Rural Scots. Going East, we find the feudal Slavs (the Russians believing
themselves to be superior to their country bumpkin relatives); the repressive, autocratic,
medieval Middle Eastern kingdoms; and, according to some race scientists, the dynamic,
hard-working, highly intelligent, but culturally backwards Chinese.
World War II killed scientific racism, but largely through political rather than
scientific means. Educated elites in the post-war era came to believe that race science
would inevitably lead to genocide and colonialism. A good example of this attitude is the
promulgation of the UNESCO statements on the racial equality of mankind: the Statement
on race (Paris, July 1950); and the Statement on the nature of race and race
differences (Paris, June 1951). Both asserted that mankind was biologically equal.
Biologists objected at the time to these declarations, arguing that although scientific
racism was bogus pseudo-science, it was a matter to be resolved through evidence rather
than political fiat.
But even if that was so, it was beside the point. Consider the following
thought experiment: you are a biologist carrying out research into physiological
differences between Northern English factory workers and Bangladeshi farmers. Let's say you
have two possible theses: Thesis A and Thesis B. Would you abandon your research if it
turned out Thesis B increased the likelihood of the Holocaust being repeated by 2%? Or, if
it was too late to abandon your research, would you suppress Thesis B, even if the evidence
showed otherwise? If a possible result of your research is fascism, or colonial
extermination, or genocide, then the question is one of evidence but the morality of the
inquiry itself. A good example of this is the Bell Curve debacle, in which the study of
racial differences in IQ was criticised for, amongst other things, 'being fascistic.'
The Holocaust, in the post-war Theology, has infinite negative utility. The 2% figure
above could be replaced with 1% or 0.00000001%, it doesn't really matter. Does your action
increase the likelihood of the Worst Possible Outcome? If so, then don't even
think about it. Theodore Adorno, and the wider Frankfurt School, extended this logic to all
forms of 'authoritarian' behaviour. Insistence on the authority of the Church, of the
Father, of the School, of the Court, all manner of 'conventional social norms', could be
coded in terms of their likelihood to lead to Fascism. All of the following would lead to a
higher score in the 'F-Scale':
It is best to see the UNESCO rejections of scientific racism as a wider project
against a variety of cultural beliefs. The American Anthropological Association (AAA)
statement of Human Rights in 1947 made this clear when it asserted:
'Man, biologically, is one.'
It is not just race that has no biological difference, but every traditional social
category. Differences between social classes are arbitrary (except when meritocratic), just
as differences between gender, nationality, and race are a load of Rubbish. Popularly, this
thesis is known as 'Blank Slatism.'
Most educated Westerners, from the 1960s and '70s onwards as blank-slatism percolated
more widely, have lived in a world where asserting biological differences between
traditional social groups, whether sexual, national, or racial, is obviously false. It has
generated a vast governmental program to undo the equalities which remain, for any that do
exist, whether between races, gender, or between the 'smart' and the 'dull' in school, must
be social rather than essential. But can you feel it? The air is changing. The old racial
science of the 1930s is returning, assisted by two relatively recent, post-2016 changes.
First, media gatekeeping has completely atrophied and now cultural elites can no
longer suppress the return of race science. X is replete with biological racists asserting
all the old tropes, from the corruption of Sicilians and Irishmen, to the laziness and
stupidity of African Americans, to the East Asian 'bugman' obsession with maximising stats.
The bizarre measurements, of 'cephalic index', of the 'Great Races', of 'the classical
form', are returning in charts little different from their 1920s predecessors.
Second, WWII has almost completely passed out of living memory. Dismantling the so-
called 'Strong Gods' of the 1930s (Nationalism, Crown, Church) had been justified on the
ground it would ensure Never Again. In the 1980s, Allan Bloom asked why modern
youths had no strong moral views, no powerful 'prejudices' they would defend; why were they
so blandly tolerant and meekly nice? The answer was that anything else was a little scary,
a little 'problematic', just a bit 'off': it might risk the resurrection of an Evil so
immense that it had to be stopped at any cost.
All of this goes deep into the mythos of WWII. The persecution of the Jewish people is
the central pillar in showing why the Allies were the 'good guys.' Initially, their motives
were not so clear. The Allies entered the war on the basis of mutual defence treaties in
much the same manner as they had in WWI. Churchill was pro-Mussolini and was a committed
eugenicist. Nicholson Baker, the modernist author, published a book called Human
Smoke which argued this point and, more controversially, suggested the Allies should
never have fought in the first place. Historians blasted him into smithereens for the
latter claim but were unable to substantially challenge the former. After all, the Allies
were somewhat unconcerned by the persecution of the Jews (taking in relatively few
refugees), and were clearly far more motivated by the threat of Germany to their
territorial interests.
What the Holocaust provided was a symbolic tool to convert the allies into the
liberators of the oppressed and the only force strong enough to prevent the worst evil
imaginable. Thus, the vast industrial complexes spun up to generate the planes, tanks, and
guns necessary to fight the war, the conscription, the strategic bombing campaigns, the
naval blockades, were all justified. WWI had placed too much weight on a Christian
war and had buckled under the pressure; the Great War is therefore seen now as a rather
pointless and tragic war. The persecution of the Jews in the Holocaust transmuted WWII from
the dull and bloody WWI into a Great Fight for Freedom, one which could spin up endless
movies, books, and memorials about the great humanitarian crusade.
Sometimes people do bad things which have good consequences. I break into my
neighbour's house to steal his television and prevent him murdering his wife. We would
probably prefer the world where he did so rather than obeying the law, even if his initial
motivations were impure. I am not making the point that WWII should not have been fought
(the claim that destroyed Baker's career). I am pointing out that WWII's remembrance is
closer to mythology than fact. And, like all myths, it can weaken over time: as the 1930s
drift out of living memory, and Fascism is detached from its specific meaning, the codes
become confused. Recently, the mythos has been even more destabilised by Israel. A nation
supposed to stop the Holocaust ever happening again is now engaging in ethnic cleansing.
Imagine, if you like, a world where Jesus starts to behave like the Devil, tempting people
into Sin, deceiving his followers, engaging in the deadly sins. What the hell is going
on?
The historian of Protestantism Alec Ryrie has called this 'The End of the Era of
Hitler', in which the old symbols of WWII lose their moral impact. Without the Moral
Authority of Never Again, not only is Scientific racism rejuvenating, but a whole
cast of regressive monsters. Scientific proof for the superiority of the aristocracy
becomes possible, as do the old theories about the differences between men and women.
Traditional social norms, such as socially conservative Christianity, traditional gender
norms and their related memes ('women are irrational and ruin politics'), and elite
hierarchies based on heredity start to appear not only possible but natural. The old
attempts to reject these theories using 'Never Again' are
appearing puny and milquetoast as the 'fascism' label grows weaker. Just as
traditional conservatism got outflanked in the '60s and '70s, now so too is the WWII
mythos.
Dr. Alexander Thompson