It wasn’t easy, but the devil knew what he wanted. He wanted the European people, the Christ-bearing people, to see existence through the eyes of a scientist. Where is God in the natural world? Where is the scientific evidence that skin pigmentation is anything but skin pigmentation? Who dares say that white skin connotes a distinct people with spiritual attributes different from people without white skins? Once the Europeans’ God became a propositional God, the European people became a propositional people. ~ CWNY
I once attended a pro-white event where Jared Taylor was one of the speakers. Taylor, as many of my readers know, represents the more intellectual and scientistic side of the racialist camp. Perhaps to his annoyance, the conference was hosted by a group that represented the last of the politically active segregationists from the old South. The master of ceremonies spoke with the “can-do” chipperness of a Baptist pastor. At a point during his motivated cadence, he said: “…and we’ll even get brother Taylor baptized before we’re done!”
I was sitting at the table next to Mr. Taylor and had a good look at his expression. A genuine hurt came over him and he replied to the room: “I *have* been baptized…” I can’t recall the specifics but I think he said he was baptized as an infant, perhaps as a Presbyterian. In any case, those old Southern “racists” saw him as a secular academic on scene to learn ’em on the finer points of genetics. Having met him many times and read a few of his books, I suspect Taylor holds to the old line that religious convictions are best not spoken of in public – a sentiment which goes well with the rank and file of his movement, most of whom have little regard for Christianity at all (speaking anecdotally).
Opposite to him in the recent great debate was E. Michael Jones, who’s been on the fringes of “alt-right” circles for awhile, but since the decline of the more vocal leaders post-Charlottesville, has moved closer to center stage. As an active Roman Catholic intellectual, he’s garnered support from the maligned “Trad-Cath” segment of the pro-white movement. He’s controversial, however, for emphasizing ethnicity and religion to the point of excluding race all together. Hence the debate topic: Is Race an Important Reality or a Fiction? (With Taylor taking the affirmative and Jones taking the negative).
Both men are wrong, of course. Both see existence through the eyes of a scientist. Their errors are odd in that Taylor, the ostensible materialist, is too universal, while Jones, the likely champion of spirit, is too enamored of the particulars.
I’ll begin with Taylor…
Many of the neo-pagans in white nationalist circles are hyper focused on genetics, building on the scientistic racialists of the 20th century (like Madison Grant). They’ve accepted the Devil’s Darwinian Lie and seek to be consistently “scientific” in their analysis. Liberals are wrong, on this view, because they don’t respect science enough! From my point of view, this is not a rebellion against liberalism at all. These neo-pagans are just in a doctrinal dispute about certain religious tenets of it. They want white people to have a place at the devil’s table. Richard Spencer – as a convenient avatar for this group – was like Martin Luther, pounding his racially self-conscious 95-Thesis on the door of some Liberal church, not to overturn Liberalism, but to reform it! And Taylor, baptized or not, is the champion of this contingent.
I’ve often asked these racial materialists if they’d consider an African, born to black parents, but, owing to pollution in the soil or some other oddity from the heart of the jungle, is born with similar genetics to Europeans, if he would be a white man. They all quibble with the illustration saying my thought experiment would be impossible. Yet, thought experiments need not be possible to show weakness in a position. It seems to me they’d have to say yes, that genetic oddity of a baby would be a white man, even though we all have a strong intuition he wouldn’t be anything of the sort. After all, there are disorders of the skin where some black men, over time, develop white skin. No one says they change their race because of it. Something deeper than mere genetics is needed.
But what of Jones, then?
In a half-cocked appeal to Aquinas’ metaphysics he wants to wax philosophical about “categories of the mind” and “categories of reality.” “Race” as Taylor defends it, is a mere “category of the mind” and thus, isn’t real and was only invented by evil capitalists to exploit the poor minorities.
I’ve worked hard to absolve myself of my past study of philosophy so I wont give in to the temptation to dive in here. All I’ll say is that if “categories of the mind”, as Jones lays them out, are not “real” then he ought to be consistent and not talk about individual persons either! He brings up Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump, for example. Consistency would demand he consider these names, not as denoting actual people, but rather, as denoting mental categories that “we” (“we” here, indicating another mental category), use to describe a series of Hilary and Trump-like events that seem to have both temporal and conceptual (if not rational) relation to each-other!
As silly as this may sound to the average person, philosophers do ponder about the relationship between events and our perception of continually-existing objects through time, leading many to give up believing objects exist at all. These metaphysical “anti-realists” – more consistent in their philosophy than Jones – recognize that unless “mental categories” are real, in some sense, then we can’t even consistently talk about something as mundane as a table or a chair. We just have a series of chair-like temporal events that seem to be related in time which our minds aggregate together and call “chair”…
Why couldn’t Jones think that God, Himself, is the author of these “categories of the mind” and through creation, imposes them on the random, particular, objects of our experience? There. There’s my Kinism seeping back in – a Van Tillian analysis of racial categories…
I am *not* suggesting we ought to try philosophizing our way to respecting racial categories! Please don’t misunderstand me. All I’m suggesting here is that if we love Christ and we love our people, then we could easily wiggle around with these philosophers and find a way to intellectually justify (if such a ridiculous thing were ever required) what our hearts ought to have known all along.
~ Our little systems have their day
they have their day, then cease to be.
They are but broken lights of Thee,
And thou, oh Lord,
Art more than they. ~