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Originally Posted by xtremelady
A great and very well thought out argument...you addressed all my personal thoughts on the subject one by one. Ah well one could say for such a so called intelligent Nobel prise winner, his theory is beyond logic...for all the reasons stated. If such an intelligence metre existed separating humans, the only way to conclude this would not be by the sort of intelligence test used. I mean to even make such a comment with any degree of certainty – one would have to experiment extensively {with such things as white children growing up in exactly the same environment as Africans + vice versa} anything beyond this becomes conjecture...but then we enter the realm of ethics. On the other hand evidence exists that Africans growing up in western families – do as well as the other children in that family.
Racism or capitalism? Now you know I fully believe capitalism has created some major issues in our lives and isn’t this marvellous system most fully support – you echoed my thoughts on how enslaving it can be....yet I do find it a bit of a leap to believe capitalism creates racism or that the scientists belief stemmed from any other reason but racist. For me racism follows from tribal times where any outsider is considered with distrust and fear, so it’s hard to accept transferring racism to a capitalist evil and not based on an inner natural distrust for outsiders coupled with social conditioning, which magnifies this instinctual mistrust. I kinda think racism would exist regardless of the social system – people of other nations will always be stereotyped as a collective, rather on individual merit, the colour of ones skin making little difference to this outward perception of other races.
Does capitalism foster racism? Unsure about this; – it has brought us closer to other ppl’s and needs the compliance of nations to create trade between them. Pointing a finger and stating one peoples are less intelligent, thus not capable of self reliance – serves no capitalist function. Their plight is already cemented by years of western interference and slavery, anybody with half a brain knows this. The reason why our capitalist society made an apology necessary, ppl are just not as gullible as they once were. Which leads me to consider the age factor and a possible diminished mental process.
I guess I am of the mind that slavery of others transcends any social system; in the past it was our own ppl’s, long before Africans.
I agree capitalism isn’t sustainable at the present rate of growth, sooner or later practicalities will burst the almost euphoric bubble developed countries are existing in. All the benefits gained from capitalism will be the very things which will eventually destroy the system.
Maybe already it is too late for a smooth transfer to an alternative collective consciousness; there have been reports that in just a few years time, there will not be enough food produced to feed the entire world’s population. If this is correct then someone has to starve....scary thought! No system is going to halt the rise in population.
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Hi xtremelady and thank you very much for these comments. And I am in broad agreement with you in your assessment as to the validity or otherwise of IQ testing. They are indeed, deeply flawed. In my view, it is an abstract way of suggesting human intelligence levels, naturally born of a socio-economic system that is unavoidably crosscut with class antagonisms. It is to the justification of the inevitable superior / inferior human relationships resulting from such social antagonisms that IQ testing has been directed.
I think also to a degree, your concern as to whether or not capitalism per se causes racism is a valid one. How to define 'racism' itself, is an issue in its own right, but if we use even the most basic of definitions - 'any form of discrimination based on human characteristics' - then it becomes obvious that this kind of discrimination has a long history. For example, we could label Plato a racist in this regard, given his assertions as to the relative (albeit unobservable) scale of purported inferiority / superiority in ancient Greece. Some laced with gold, others silver etc....
I think what capitalism does, just as slave relations did in ancient Greece, given that both systems were founded on the exploitation of some humans by other humans, is to necessitate the forming of discriminatory views in the minds of those unable (or unwilling) to see beyond the given form of antagonistic existence, both in a concrete, and thus in a theoretical sense. Watson, as I suggested, is unable to conceptualise capitalism as a transient phenomenon. Something that has arisen, existed and one day, must cease to exist. Therefore, he, and all others like him to varying degrees, is compelled to reason in a way logically suited to the dominant social system to-hand. Or to put it another way, their thinking on such matters is hopelessly crippled.
This is why, for example, Watson supports the activities of Monsanto and others in their efforts to develop GM crops. The fact that such crops are sought is a reflection not of the objective need for such crops (as Monsanto might have us believe), but of the fact that legally enshrined, capitalistic property relations are preventing some humans from helping other humans who are currently starving to death. The fact that social productive capacity here in the West is now able to feed the world's people without any need for GM crops passes Watson completely by. Capitalist property relations subordinate all productive activity to the pursuit of profit through the production of surplus value. It is the amassing of ever-more surplus value that concerns Monsanto, not the assisting of starving people. The fostering of human capacity, the meeting of material and cultural needs and so forth is not, and never could be the aim / function of capitalism, or any other form of exploitation for that matter.
This issue of GM crops ties in with your concerns relating to population in your closing remarks. The issue of population is assuming an accute edge, precisely because the legal and political relations here in the western hemisphere prevent us as mere humans, from addressing such matters in a fundamental way. For example, if we were minded to pour our western scientific and productive capacities into the African continent with the aim of developing the cultural and material requirements of such people (i.e. not relating to them on capitalistic terms), then over time, it is almost certain to be the case, that the objective need for many Africans to have large families would wane away and eventually die out completely.
It is not to issues of race per se then, that we must look if we wish to understand (racial) discrimination (whether in ancient Greece, feudal England or capitalist America and other such places today), but to the kinds of objective, and legally enshrined relationships governing people's productive activities wheresoever in the world these people may be. As you rightly point out (here we must leave aside the particular, concrete qualitative nature of such capitalistic unification), capitalism, more than any other social system has served to 'unite' many millions of people across the globe. Thus it would seem that such a 'uniting of people' alone, is somewhat contrary to the suggested association between capitalism and racism. But this would only be the case if racism and the articulation of particular racist attitudes, such as the recent outburst by Watson, were based on considerations of race and racial supremacy, but in my view they are not. They are based instead, as I argued in the essay, on objective differences of socio-economic class power. Thus, not only can discrimination in one or other form be remarked throughout the entire recorded history of human existence (i.e. not merely under conditions of capitalism), it is also clear that discrimination involves not only antagonistic relationships between groups of black people and groups of white people, but also between white people and other white people, between black people and other black people and so on. Watson himself argues that westerners are more intelligent than Africans. The term 'Westerners' of course subsumes not only those of the Caucasian race but also those from the Negro and Mongoloid races also.
It is worth remembering that before humans can do anything, they must assume one or other historically conditioned form of social organisation as their only collective means of securing the means of life. Since the dissolution of the primitive communes and the emergence of exploitation in times of slavery, it has been one or other pattern of such exploitative social organisation that has ultimately given rise to, nay necessitated, the birth of discriminatory ideas in some people's minds in their relationships to others. To understand issues of race, we must understand issues of class power.
Thanks again Xtremelady for commenting.
Colin