I just got up, haven't finished coffee yet and you are asking me to defend the rotten corpse of leftism, so named by this bizarro world Nick Land. I had to do a quick Google consult to find out who Nick Land was and what "dark enlightenment" meant.

Land argues that the alt-right is reaction to a Left that has placed race on an untouchable holy altar. — frank

There certainly are leftists / liberals / progressives (whatever term...) who are focussed on race and marginalized, under-represented, and disadvantaged groups. They have substituted D.E.I for the class and labor issues of the "old left". The alt-right, ultra-conservatives, far right, etc. are quite exercised about D.E.I., but that isn't the big game they are hunting for.

What I think the alt-right and various fellow travelers are after is a retrenchment of mainstream liberal programs, such as the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid which help poor and poorer people; (mostly local) minimum wage laws that give workers something resembling a living wage;; regulatory programs which provide protection from egregiously exploitative businesses; and the like. There is an old core of conservatives who never liked Social Security, Unemployment and Disability Insurance, and Medicare and contested these programs in court -- just as younger conservatives took the ACC to court.

The alt-right isn't screaming about unions because, as important as organizing labor is, it's at low tide in most fields, except maybe public employment.

The primary beneficiaries of alt-right politics are members of the 1% / ruling class. Their rag-tag army of supporters and voters are not material beneficiaries. The riff-raff right wingers may get solace from suppressing various D.E.I. initiatives; they may like seeing food programs for the poor cut back; they may think that Godliness, the Flag, and National Honor will be restored. But in the end, they'll be shafted along with everybody else.

systemic racism — frank

It's an irritating catch phrase. Negative and positive race consciousness has been part of American culture for it to be anything other than 'part of the system'. After slavery, a civil war, Jim Crow, rampant racial exclusion and deliberate limits on opportunity, just about no body is free of race consciousness. Which is the source of the insight that we have to stop talking about race all the time if we are going to reduce racism.

I have to leave now for a lunch meeting. More later.

Just one quick addition: The alt-right most wants to destroy the gains which the 'old-left/liberals' achieved over the decades. Getting rid of DEI is just gravy.

I think both of you are supremely missing hte crux of why these two (general) camps cannot see eye to eye: they see things from different perspectives and 'broadness' is basically the only relevant determinate.
Whenever i've pinned down a (at least self-identified) conservative on some particular issue, it turns out mostly they have coherent but, for me, erroneous values. If you truly believe a bare zygote (as such) is a human being worthy of all moral rights a post-birth baby is, that explains that belief without any recourse to some kind of knuckle-dragging 'retrenchment' concept coming into it. This applies to most issues - homelessness, civil rights, etc... as they affect the person and their closest relatives and friends only (in general). Their approach to the moral boundaries of sex is a perfect example of this.
However, there are two areas where I think these sorts of comments (the post posts above(three i guess)) are totally apt: LGBT stuff - I think, in reality, what's happened is what old mate says in book quoted by frank. But what the 'right' see, is something other than what's actually happened and they seem to be willfully pushing a narrative that supports that erroneous basis. The other is drugs. That one is fraught, given that staunch anti-drug sentiments also exist even in harder-left-leaning minds. But it seems obvious that they still want the same thing liberals want with regard to drugs - reduced harm.

Whenever I have pinned down a (at least, self-identified) "leftist" the only thing I can discern from their arguments beyond "yep, that sounds reasonable" is that they truly don't care about the 'facts' or counterintuitive thinking. They want the broadest possible benefit for the the widest number of people - excluding those who do not believe what they do - and often at the expense of their closest family and friends (in general). Luigi Mangioni and the absolutely morally bankrupt response from most leftists exemplify this.
But Race is an area where I cannot get anything reasonable out of a leftist. It's probably hte one issue I think "the right" sort of approaches from the right place but hten just gets caught up in social media-type vying for likes. A shame, really. Conversations should start from "what do you want to achieve" and taken at face value. Inconsistencies would actually help change someone's views if they know, that you know, that they want the same things. No one is immune to 'missing something'.

So, you can see that this is just a vicious cycle of poo-pooing each other's value set. It will, and could, not get anywhere.

There certainly are leftists / liberals / progressives (whatever term...) who are focussed on race and marginalized, under-represented, and disadvantaged groups. They have substituted D.E.I for the class and labor issues of the "old left". The alt-right, ultra-conservatives, far right, etc. are quite exercised about D.E.I., but that isn't the big game they are hunting for. — BC

Nick Land came from an academic setting, so I think that must be the group of leftists he thinks made race "holy." I guess some of the things you've said in the past made me think you would agree that the progressive stance on race is like doctrine that can't be discussed, it just requires agreement? The picture he paints is of a Leftism that's solidified into doctrine so that reasonable discussion can't be had. Is that totally wrong?

The alt-right isn't screaming about unions because, as important as organizing labor is, it's at low tide in most fields, except maybe public employment. — BC

Right. But both tariffs and migration control have the potential to shore up the power of American labor. I'm not trying to be naive here, it's just that for real, it's the first substantial movement I've seen in my lifetime toward protecting American labor. It may well be that it's the bone thrown to the dogs to make them think things are getting better, but still, it's the truth. And that's what Nick Land's views leave me thinking about: telling the truth.

Just one quick addition: The alt-right most wants to destroy the gains which the 'old-left/liberals' achieved over the decades. Getting rid of DEI is just gravy. — BC

I've been looking for whether people like Land and Vance understand the population they're cozying up to. Do they understand that the alt-right is where Neo-Nazis go? Or are they just not afraid of that?

I guess some of the things you've said in the past made me think you would agree that the progressive stance on race is like doctrine that can't be discussed, it just requires agreement — frank

Whatever I said in the past, this is what I think is true about Americans [other people have their own problems]:

Discrimination by the dominant group against people who are considered subordinate varies in form, intensity, duration, severity, and pervasiveness. There have been on-going efforts from the late 18th century going forward to ameliorate, soften, moderate, or eliminate discrimination. Battles have been won against most forms of discrimination--abolition of slavery, women's suffrage, labor organization, gay rights, and laws against religious and ethnic discrimination, and so on. Despite significant victories, discrimination continues.

There is a master-narrative that makes it difficult for Americans to see the various systems of discrimination: The master narrative holds that there is opportunity for any hard working American to a) get ahead b) be a success c) get rich. If you don't a) get ahead b) become a success c) get rich, that is a result of your own personal failure. You, individually, were evidently too lazy or too stupid to even get ahead, much less become a success or get rich.

As a result of very long periods of symbolic and material discrimination, some groups are less likely to "get ahead". Their collective experience is counted as personal deficiency. "It's your own fault."

It is not only Donald Trump who, per Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is living in a bubble of misrepresentation.

a fairly large majority of Americans are in such a bubble, where the reality of current symbolic and material discrimination, severe maldistribution of wealth, prejudicial policy and law, and so on isn't registered as something that can and should be eliminated.

The master-fact of the matter is that 10% of Americans are wealthier than the remaining 90%. Most Americans (the 90%+) are wage earners (aka wage slaves) who will not do better than "get ahead" to some degree. They won't be a success and they won't become rich despite their best efforts.

All workers -- White, Black, Asian, Aboriginal; men, and women; gay and straight; Catholic and Hindu are the victims of exploitation and systemic discrimination by the very wealthy ruling class.

White workers bear the double burden of recognizing how they themselves are the victims of discrimination (as wage slaves) and how they may discriminate against other workers. Don't feel guilty about it; just recognize reality and do better in the future. Blacks are not your #1 enemy: it's the 1%, the rich man who is your enemy and the black man's enemy alike. Unite in solidarity.

I've been looking for whether people like Land and Vance understand the population they're cozying up to. Do they understand that the alt-right is where Neo-Nazis go? Or are they just not afraid of that? — frank

That's a very good question.

I suspect that few of the conservatives who are doing the cozying up have thought through to the conclusion that they are flirting with ideas which are not part of the conservative tradition. If they did they would either take their warm blanket and cozy up with somebody else, or they would be in bed with the Neo-nazis.

Some have probably found Neo-nazis to be good in bed, and like it. I spend as little time as possible contemplating the far right, let alone Neo-nazis, so I don't know who's in and who's not.

:up: Thank you.

White workers bear the double burden of recognizing how they themselves are the victims of discrimination (as wage slaves) and how they may discriminate against other workers. Don't feel guilty about it; just recognize reality and do better in the future. Blacks are not your #1 enemy: it's the 1%, the rich man who is your enemy and the black man's enemy alike. Unite in solidarity. — BC

That final note cannot be achieved by the prior imperative.

The primary beneficiaries of alt-right politics are members of the 1% / ruling class. Their rag-tag army of supporters and voters are not material beneficiaries. — BC

White workers bear the double burden of recognizing how they themselves are the victims of discrimination (as wage slaves) and how they may discriminate against other workers. Don't feel guilty about it; just recognize reality and do better in the future. Blacks are not your #1 enemy: it's the 1%, the rich man who is your enemy and the black man's enemy alike. Unite in solidarity. — BC

:100:

In his introduction, Land argues that the alt-right is reaction to a Left that has placed race on an untouchable holy altar. He's saying that the media reinforces a climate in which it's not acceptable to question certain assumptions, such as the existence of systemic racism, and he goes on to say that this intransigence actually created the alt-right.

Everything about the right-wing resurgence seems to me some way or another of shouting, "if you're going to do it, so shall we!" And in this sense they're right. If power is all that matters, how can you complain when the people you trample use it to trample you? Left wingers trample right wing beliefs, values, and ideas daily – like it or not. Right wingers trample in the reverse direction.

How do all power disputes begin? Mind, not brawn. During times of peace, brawn says 'because of this or that, I will harm you, or don't care if I harm you, to get what is or should be mine.' Then when the defender fights back or resists the change, the instigator appears to think that they are now in defence and this goes on and on recursively. Brute force is in control. Thing is, this is all well and good, because when the other side is in control one can sit back and say 'It's not me, I'm not responsible.' But if it's power that you want, isn't it also the impotence that you desire? Someone to rule over you in a paternalistic sort of way; in a Hobbesian sort of way. Safe and secure while the foil runs around doing all the dirty work.

Question is really, are you serious that these discussions are only tossing and turnings over power, or is there something more? If not, everyone might as well just keep playing the game and expect it to stay the way it is.

Land argues that the alt-right is reaction to a Left — frank

The Alt-Right is the Frankenstein monster progressivism has built — frank

Typical right-wing tactic of blaming the Left for creating their own ideology. Regardless, I'm not at all convinced that the "alt-right" view of race is a novel conviction distinguishable from prior conservative views, some of which stem hundreds of years ago and echoed by prominent Enlightenment philosophers.

I'm not at all convinced that the "alt-right" view of race is a novel conviction distinguishable from prior conservative views, some of which stem hundreds of years ago and echoed by prominent Enlightenment... — Maw

Reactionary Mind from Corey Robin?

Everything about the right-wing resurgence seems to me some way or another of shouting, "if you're going to do it, so shall we!" And in this sense they're right. If power is all that matters, how can you complain when the people you trample use it to trample you? Left wingers trample right wing beliefs, values, and ideas daily – like it or not. Right wingers trample in the reverse direction. — kudos

"Trample" is the key word there, each side viewing the other as a stampeding herd. No nuance allowed, no variation.

The Left does contain braindead zombies, and if you lean left, you're going to be lumped together with them. Land complains that the same is happening to the right. No conversation is possible about the nature of systemic racism. If you ask, you're racist.

But if it's power that you want, isn't it also the impotence that you desire? — kudos

Land's claim is that Libertarians are not sitting still. They're "exiting" regular politics, although I'm still working on understanding what that implies.

Question is really, are you serious that these discussions are only tossing and turnings over powe — kudos

In the background, authoritarianism looms, so not just more status quo.

Typical right-wing tactic of blaming the Left for creating their own ideology — Maw

So it's more surprising that Land was influenced by Marx and Deleuze in his academic youth. Now he's a libertarian going on about how democracy doesn't work.

The Left does contain braindead zombies, and if you lean left, you're going to be lumped together with them. Land complains that the same is happening to the right. No conversation is possible about the nature of systemic racism. If you ask, you're racist.

When it comes down to it, I couldn't care less if someone individually throws around the word 'racist' carelessly. I find it more disturbing is when this happens publicly, or some ridiculous change of policy is introduced, and everyone just stands around silently like it's OK just to save their own skin. None performs their duty to defend the common understanding. It's like this person is now some sort of human sacrifice for the cause, the unlucky few that it's not even worth the small effort of speaking in the defence of, just crushed under the weight of a gigantic mass of apathy. On top of that, it is a good cause this is happening for, as in stopping real racism, so this cashing out on principle turns something good into something wrong. I've seen this happen so many times now that I'm sure each time some of the people watching change their viewpoint from left-leaning to right.

. Conversations should start from "what do you want to achieve" — AmadeusD

That sounds reasonable.

So, you can see that this is just a vicious cycle of poo-pooing each other's value set. It will, and could, not get anywhere. — AmadeusD

In practice, it's worse than that. What often gets poo-pooed is a caricature of the other side's position.

This is the 'leftist corpse' Land complains about. All posturing, no anchor to reality.

Conversations should start from "what do you want to achieve" and taken at face value. — AmadeusD

I agree wholeheartedly.

We are too quick to ignore the individual we engage with on the issue of race, and too afraid to be the individuals we are when talking about race, and instead hide ourselves in the rightness of our side of history (as if we actually know the truth of where we are and where we are headed) and force individuals back into their ugly groups - facists, haters, leftists, rightists, sub- humans unworthy of being heard.

We remain fearful cavemen, which is the irony of the racist. The racist must view all of us as animals first because it is the animal, the physical, alone, which grounds a category like race. Superior race? How is that even possible?

And the immense contradictions of setting one race apart from others only follow.

We need to venture out of the cave and realize we are as different from our own parents as we are from the farthest “race” of person who might exist in Asia, or Canada, or the Ukraine, or Qatar, or 10,000 years ago.

There are no races of human beings. Once human, we have the cake, and the deepest description of racial realities only adds color to the icing. And what would life be like without color? Such a shame.

The whole conversation about race, to me, should be “why are you afraid of your brother?”

The whole conversation about race, to me, should be “why are you afraid of your brother?” — Fire Ologist

Because he stood on my neck in the middle of the street until I was dead? It's a complicated issue.

Because he stood on my neck in the middle of the street until I was dead? It's a complicated issue. — frank

So matters involving people are complicated?

Helpful tip.

Then maybe the first question should be, do we really want to take the time to have this conversation? Cause it’s a slog.

Then maybe the first question should be, do we really want to take the time to have this conversation? Cause it’s a slog. — Fire Ologist

We need a diagram.

We need a diagram. — frank

No. We need a supercomputer. :razz:

We need a diagram. — frank

And maybe some non-culturally appropriated refreshments.

I've been looking for whether people like Land and Vance understand the population they're cozying up to. Do they understand that the alt-right is where Neo-Nazis go? Or are they just not afraid of that?

You should check out Land's concept and advocacy of "hyperracism." In general, Land tends to at least tacitly support the conclusions of some sort of "race realism" (their term). Such views conclude that cognitive and behavioral differences grounded in genetic variation across races is such that it makes DEI efforts counterproductive for society as a whole, and makes equality (in terms of sector participation, income, etc.) an unrealistic and unhelpful goal (a similar sex realism often goes along with this).

However, Land, being something of an elitist who also tends to conflate sci-fi and reality, also thinks that racial categories are not the most relevant dividing line here. He thinks that a sort of "cognitive sorting" in mate selection (of the sort Charles Murray discusses in the Bell Curve) is creating a new class of cognitive elites.

Basically:

• Universities (and university entrance exams that are heavily G loaded) act as huge cognitive sorting apparatuses. People tend to find mates at school.
• Employers do the same thing. People tend to find mates at work.
• So, do housing markets, by pricing low to medium income people (who tend to have lower intelligence) out of many locales. People tend to find mates who live around them.
• People tend to have kids with people who have the same level of educational attainment as them, and moreover who went to the same tier of educational institution, and who have careers with similar earnings or at least prestige.
• Intelligence and other factors (e.g. Big Five personality traits, impulse control, etc.) that play a role in career success appear to be fairly heritable.
• Hence, the elite will increasingly become a genetically distinct class.
• Also, wealthier parents provide better environments for their kids. So do more intelligent/educated parents, regardless of their wealth, so there is a positive feedback loop related to the environment in play here too. Point being, elites are those who are best equipped to manage society and to help it develop.
• The same thing plays out at the level of the collective, social environment, e.g. in neighborhoods, schools, peer effects, etc.

Land adds to this his tendency to think sci-fi technology is closer than it probably is. So:

• Elites will have priority access to gene therapies, selective IFV, etc., which will further increase their advantages.
• They will also have priority access to cybernetics, etc.
• At the same time, they will be the ones who own AI, which will shift earnings away from labor and towards capital (a trend in advanced economies over the last 60 years anyhow).

The result is an elite that holds all the cards and is superior to the lower classes (with genetic engineering and other enhancements, plus a much better environment they would in theory be smarter, stronger, healthier, faster, etc.)

A more general point is that liberalism, particularly a commitment to equality, preferences the desires of the lower cognitive classes at the expense of the highest achievers (recalling Nietzsche a bit). But at a certain point enforcing equality must become draconian. Yet most of the gains in our standard of living, life expectancy, ability to defend ourselves, etc. come, at least on some tellings, from this small group at the top (creating new technology , etc.). Not allowing them freedom to "push the envelope" is in some ways the greatest restriction on freedom imaginable, since it is a restriction of the capacity of mankind as a whole in order to serve the needs of the current many (arguably to the detriment of future generations who will miss out on innovation and advancement).

He sees the collapse of liberalism as inevitable. Hence, accelerationism simply tries to accelerate the process by which liberalism destroys itself.

A related point I don't recall Land ever speaking to is that AI and automation are also making it so that mass mobilization and "the people" are increasingly irrelevant to winning wars. The shift might be every bit as relevant as the stirrup (which ushered in feudalism) in that both prioritize small, elite, highly skilled and expensively equiped cadres of soldiers over mass mobilization. This has obvious follow on effects because the rights of commoners and the growth of the welfare state itself can be seen as largely an outgrowth of the need for states and elites to court "the people" to win wars, and to head off revolts. Changes in military and surveillance technology might allow far smaller groups to have an effective monopoly on force in terms of both inter and intra state conflict.


His views on race seem to be that conventional racists are "more right" than "race deniers" (who say race has nothing to do with things like career success, etc.), but that their view is still deficient (they are essentially racial plebians). They fail to see that existing racial categories are not the categories that will come to define the future elite, and so not particularly relevant, nor that the "superior stock" is likely to come from a diverse background.

There are all sorts of questions one might have about this sort of speculation. It's based on a quite loose and speculative extrapolation of empirical data, and unfortunately, since argument is rarely taught, mounding up citations is taken as the gold standard of argument, and someone like Charles Murray can mound up citations quite well. Since the generic response to this sort of thing has been to simply shout "racist" at it, the more substantial critiques that could be offered up against it never get off the ground. After all, why even engage with what is obviously evil? Stephen Pinker makes this point in a few places, including The Blank Slate. Liberal discomfort with racism is such that they essentially cede the ground on whether the racists' conclusions about public policy and ethics would hold up even if their empirical case had merit. So, unfortunately, the people who find themselves swayed by this sort of thinking never see the "even if they are right about x, y, and z, they would still not be justified in asserting p, q, and r" sorts of rebuttals.

Just for one example, it seems like one could have easily made this sort of case for the superiority of the aristocracy prior to the end of noble privileges given their existence as a discrete, inbreeding class. Wasn't becoming a noble a sort of difficult to pass "genetic filter?" And yet the nobility did not tend to fare well with meritocratic reforms. Second, the most famous subgroup in intergroup intelligence research are Ashkenazim Jews, who tend to score about .75-2 standard deviations higher in verbal-logical IQ metrics than the general European population (and about the same on visio-spatial IQ).

This finding is fairly robust, showing up even countries where Jews tend to be a marginalized, lower income group. There are a number of hypotheses about how this might have occured. The big one is that, since Jews were often excluded from owning land (and thus the main occupation back then, farmer) and from trade guilds, they tended to work in more cognitively demanding fields (e.g. medicine, banking, as merchants, etc.). Those who lacked the abilities to succeed in these environments could always convert, and leave the community. These pressures, combined with quite strict restrictions on mixed relationships, and perhaps some other factors (e.g. a long-term status preference for scholarship) is at least one hypothesis for this divergence.

Yet this difference is still not that wide, and, even if this hypothesis was right (it is still quite speculative), the effect plausibly took around 1,500+ years to emerge, despite vastly stricter "sorting" in terms of relationships than what we see today. Land, Murray, and co. extrapolate from single generation studies taking place largely in ceteris paribus contexts (twin studies have some minor variability in social class, although impoverished families do not tend to adopt, and are almost always within the context of developed countries). However, genetics is not the sort of thing where we would expect to see perfectly linear relations, where this sort of "sorting" would necessarily produce effect sizes that carry over from generation to generation. Indeed, the general trend has been the opposite, natives across social classes in developed countries are becoming less intelligent. I have not heard of the wealthy or well-educated bucking this trend, which is what Murray, Land, etc.'s theses would suggest. Maybe researchers have just missed this (although it seems unlikely since this sort of hypothesis is quite old and well known), so it would seem that even if the hypothesis was correct it is being outweighed by environmental effects and perhaps the skyrocketing age of high SES mothers and fathers.

Not to mention there are all sorts of other problems here. Height is correlated with basketball success; almost all NBA players a huge outliers. Height is quite heritable. The Netherlands, Denmark, and Estonia are the tallest countries on Earth. Yet, you'd hardly select these populations as the ideal places to recruit a superstar basketball team if you knew anything about basketball, nor would you want some random 6'11 Dane on your team over 5'9 Isaiah Thomas. Land and Murray would probably allow for this sort of idea, that the best way to screen job candidates is never wide population metrics; I take it their point is more about the relative worthwhileness of various DEI efforts. However, in general the "race realists" do try to argue that racial (and often sex) discrimination is actually a good heuristic for things like employee selection, which it quite obviously is not.

Not to mention there are all sorts of other problems here. Height is correlated with basketball success; almost all NBA players a huge outliers. Height is quite heritable. The Netherlands, Denmark, and Estonia are the tallest countries on Earth. Yet, you'd hardly select these populations as the ideal places to recruit a superstar basketball team if you knew anything about basketball, nor would you want some random 6'11 Dane on your team over 5'9 Isaiah Thomas. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not only are there actually more African-Americans than there are people in Netherlands, Denmark and Estonia, but one should also notice how much more popular basketball is in the US as in these countries. The popularity of a sport among the youth is extremely important.

But this naturally is a side issue, you can obviously note the difference in track and field and athletics. China is a country that really puts large effort in winning medals in the Olympics and got the second most medals after the US, but they aren't at all dominating in athletics (running, jumping and so on). In fact, in all Athletics competitions last time in the Paris Olympics, China got just one gold medal, in women's 20km race walk. And I think two other medals and that's it, from over 40 different competitions.

The denial of racial differences is one thing, but then the racist extrapolation from this is the real problem and it's effects on social cohesion. And what makes the whole discussion even worse is that we hear dog whistles everywhere. Discussions quickly transform into lithurgies. And people shun away from any discussion, as they fear to be marked.

What I think will be very damaging is when Trump is now firing from the US military black and female generals even without giving any reason (other than Hegseth saying they are fighting DEI). Well, the US armed forces has actually been a success story in combating real structural racism in the US, and hope it's not to backtrack here with the quite nonsensical and ludicrous "anti-DEI" policies.

What's interesting to me about his tone is that the Enlightenment was supposed to be about freedom from the dark grip of religion. It was supposed to be about seeing the truth for the first time, and being able to speak about it: 'we aren't this way because God ordained it, we made it this way!." Land appears to be trying to crawl out from under what he sees as a rotten corpse of Leftism. But what I see when we push this corpse aside is a history of intolerance and nationalist bloodshed. The original Enlightenment didn't have that problem. — frank

What I think this comes down to is a 'Blood and soil'-type of reasoning. Historically different cultures arose from various peoples living over the world in different circumstances. Values are not reasoned out by some dialectical process, but evolve out of communities of people living in a certain place, tied to the land as it where.

The enlightenment as an outgrowth of universalist Christianity (and platonism before) sees morality rather as something objective and universal springing from (pure) reason or something like that.

If reason or ideal forms is the presumed origin of morality, then there is no apparent link to place or particular events anymore, and notions of seperate traditions of peoples connected to their land suddenly don't make a whole lot of sense.

If you believe however that any culture or morality worth its salt comes not from abstract universals, but from real historical traditions of people living their lives in certain places, then it starts to make more sense why you wouldn't want to much immigration.

Dark enlightenment seems something like the realisation that ideal forms or 'reason' is merely another justification for a people that has forgotten that its beliefs are really only the particular beliefs of a certain tribe from a certain place in time.

This is maybe overly generous, but I think there's way to read this as being about culture and ethnicity rather than race ultimately.

And of course it leads to conflict and bloodshed if you have various peoples with diverging interests and values. If you are to have a defined 'we', a group of people uniting to work together for a common goal, then you also have an 'other', otherwise the 'we' isn't delineating anything.

The question is what do you lose if you try to do away with the other? An all-inclusive 'we' that doesn't really mean anything anymore and nobody really cares for? Atomised individuals feeling like they don't belong to anything? Nihilism?

In practice, it's worse than that. What often gets poo-pooed is a caricature of the other side's position. — Relativist

Very good point. Steel-manning is a practice few can actually carry out. I have a hard time, so i usually dont engage in those arguments.

And the immense contradictions of setting one race apart from others only follow. — Fire Ologist

Yes, and it's possible this is the reason for the pushback. Stupid people will see the hypocrisy in this, but not notice their own.

The whole conversation about race, to me, should be “why are you afraid of your brother?”
— Fire Ologist

Because he stood on my neck in the middle of the street until I was dead? It's a complicated issue. — frank

My question is actually for the guy with the boot, not the guy with the boot on his neck. The guy who persecutes other people based on race is the chickenshit afraid of his own shadow, and ignorantly looking to his own brothers to blame for his insecurity. It’s a complicated question.

You're knowledge of this is pretty in depth. I didn't realize they were thinking along eugenics lines when they condemned DEI. I thought it was just racism. Plus eugenics had it's day. Wasn't the science behind it debunked?

This is maybe overly generous, but I think there's way to read this as being about culture and ethnicity rather than race ultimately. — ChatteringMonkey

And if we add in the part about eugenics, it's about genetic fragmentation of Homo Sapiens into different subspecies, and maybe eventually different species.

Imagine we're at a crossroads where we could remain fairly closely related, or we could start splitting apart as in HG Wells' Time Machine. The philosophy of staying together is liberalism and egalitarianism. The philosophy of splitting is what Land is talking about.