How important is race in connection to culture?

[Menydh]

Don't get me wrong. There is no denial of the value of race in what I'm saying. But a rejection to overstating, or overplaying this value.

[Der]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

Who knows if because they did not enter into contact with the Graeco-Roman Civilization?

Alright, that's a part a joke. And part serious too.

I mentioned the germans because that was the example that Leipreachán inicially posted but I could have equally said the Greeks or Italians.

So it doesn't quite work like you would like to imagine it. But it should be noticed that the example that has been chosen is a bit too extreme. There are some races which are certainly more primitive than others, as is the case of the Australian Aborigines and the Khoi-San from Southern Africa.

Having said this, I do not deny the differences but I warn against generalizing and overplaying the roles of these differences, while not putting them within context.

Speaking of generalizing, you have named the Mongolids. I should strongly remind you here of the millenary Civilization of the Chinese, when the Europeans were far behind them.

I intentionally chose the most extreme examples; it would be absurd in this context to compare races belonging to a same family group, especially when many nations are usually made up of different races from a same family group. This is the reason why I chose to compare different racial family groups: Caucasoids, Australian Aboriginals, Negrids, Mongolids.

While there are races which like you well said are more primitive than others and may not have the same cultural abilities as other races for example Australian Aboriginals or Negrids.

There are other races like Mongolids who do have equal mental and cultural abilities to those of Caucasiods yet one cannot measure these in the same way because they are so different from one another, this is due to psychological factors, every race has its own values, this is something that we must accept and respect, you may think that I am the sort of person who judges if the values of one culture or race are better than the values of another, this couldn’t be further from the way I see it, in this aspect I have always inclined my self towards racial relativism, Mongolids clearly have the same capacities as Caucasoids yet these aren’t comparable, that’s why Europe wouldn’t be Europe should its racial composition be made up of Mongolids.

And, in fact, if it had not been because the Portuguese set themselves to voyages of Discovery that allowed Europeans to expand and dominate the World, at a time when a Chinese Emperor had already decreed a strict policy of isolation and restricted their navigation voyages, Europe again would have been something very different.

Social and enviromental factors are important, yes, I do not deny this.

So what is important in connection to culture? Race? Well, it is to a point but then again its importance is arguable and certainly overplayed on certain circles. It is for those whose insignificance is a role model of life to cry out and overplay its importance in civilizational terms, as it is their only means to hold to it.

Well it could be argued to what extent race is important in connection to culture, are other factors more important than race? Well all factors are important, from the moment you give some importance to race no matter how little it is you accept that a given culture would not be the same without the racial factor, it’s obvious that there are many other factors, but a car without tires won't work properly even if it has wheels and engine.

In any case I understand what you are trying to point out.

[Susi]

I think here the whole key is the climate which is a cause of culture and race.

[Carnyx]

Originally Posted by Faustas

What else enters into it, then?

What about genes for instance? One cannot possibly deny their influence.
The abilities of individuals inside a same core family differ already, and yet they have the same genetic patrimony. Now this applied to a whole population inside a same group, and to different groups set apart...
I know it's much of a taboo but what is to argue here? If race doesn't play a role, if it is only climatic conditions mattering... then Papuan civilization=Mesopotamian one=Indus one=Polynesian one=Chinese one=Mesomarican one=Antic Rome=Antic Greece=Australian one=..., etc. (I humbly beg pardon for those great cultures around the world I forgot, Mea culpa) Does race even exist in the end?

Anyway race is connected to culture in that it was neither Negrids nor Mongolids painting Lascau, neither were Europids playing Deejeridoo until some neo-primitive crack heads did it at the end of the XXth c.

Originally Posted by Gnist

How do you know that Northern Africa wasn't ruled by Europid people before the Vandals? What would be your opinion on the race of this man for example, who lived cirka 185 to cirka 254 Anno Domini, and who according to tradition was an "Egyptian": http://forum.stirpes.net/anthropomet...damantius.html

Black man!! Black man!!

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

Originally Posted by Sergius

Race as in what? Subracial traits and types? And how should it affect anything?

Nobody knows, not even those who say it does affect something have no clue how.

Originally Posted by Sergius

This discussion comes up every now and then, and it makes no sense to me.

To me neither.

Originally Posted by Sergius

The only way it can be turned into a matter that can be formulated in questions and answers, as far as I can tell, is by asking if, say, Germany would be different if Germans were racially similar to Aboriginals. That is not what I would call a meaningful discussion. Please tell me another way of looking at it, if there is one.

Not meaningful simply because Germans are not Aboriginals. Period.

It is a question like. "What if Earth revolved around the moon?"...or similar.

[bombadillo]

Originally Posted by Sergius

What else enters into it, then?

A particular environment encourages certain genes, discourages other ones over a sustained period of time. Genes and environment interact in a complex manner (i.e., I don't know exactly how ) to produce a culture and civilisation. As has already been pointed out, there is an element -- large element? -- of contingency in the makeup of a culture and what has happened historically (e.g., discovery of the Americas). "Race" is still ill-defined (maybe always will be, because definition in terms of certain clusters of genes is arbitrary).

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

Originally Posted by bombadillo

A particular environment encourages certain genes, discourages other ones over a sustained period of time. Genes and environment interact in a complex manner (i.e., I don't know exactly how ) to produce a culture and civilisation.

Influences from other cultures; language also shapes some cultural traits (although it sometimes tends to be overstated by proponents of the Sapir -Whorf hypothesis); events affecting a community which is bearer of a culture in question ("contingency", as you said); climate to some extent (though I wouldn't exaggerate its impact on spiritual creations of a community); economic factors (for example, the eminent role the economic development of European cities played in shaping the modern European culture and civilization).

And also, individual efforts of outstanding individuals play a significant role.

Moral and social principles of societies/communities, a general "ideological" (religion, customs, system of rule etc.) framework wherein they operate, make that some achievements are highly valued, while others are not, thus spurning or discouraging creativity of various gifted individuals. Many talents never came to their full realization, sometimes due to lack of individual will to cultivate them, at other times due to social negative disposition or indifference towards them.

To reduce culture and civilization to "race" or to exaggerate the role of race therein smacks of egalitarianism, as Menydh also remarked several times. Race fetishists often point to achievements of civilization (rarely to culture) to prove some alleged racial superiority, thus concealing their own inferiority. Thus some "white" from lower strata of "Western society" and with very small intellectual abilities, would brag about "the achievements of the white race", for something the great majority of "whites" never contributued to in any meaningful sense, for example, about the fact that a "White man" like Ian Fleming invented penicilline. Makes this less-than-average "white" feel that he is at the same level as Fleming. Though the fact is that Fleming discovered what he did, not because he was a "white man", but first and foremost because he was an outstanding individual, operating in a society the moral habitus of which tended towards the appreciation of such achievements. To make just one example....

If "white" or Europid race is so superior in every aspect, how come then that it attained all those great achievements in the last several hundred years only and not before that? In all those tens of thousands of years it existed...

[bombadillo]

Originally Posted by Marulus

To reduce culture and civilization to "race" or to exaggerate the role of race therein smacks of egalitarianism, as Menydh also remarked several times. Race fetishists often point to achievements of civilization (rarely to culture) to prove some alleged racial superiority, thus concealing their own inferiority. Thus some "white" from lower strata of "Western society" and with very small intellectual abilities, would brag about "the achievements of the white race", for something the great majority of "whites" never contributued to in any meaningful sense, for example, about the fact that a "White man" like Ian Fleming invented penicilline. Makes this less-than-average "white" feel that he is at the same level as Fleming. Though the fact is that Fleming discovered what he did, not because he was a "white man", but first and foremost because he was an outstanding individual, operating in a society the moral habitus of which tended towards the appreciation of such achievements. To make just one example....

If "white" or Europid race is so superior in every aspect, how come then that it attained all those great achievements in the last several hundred years only and not before that? In all those tens of thousands of years it existed...

I agree. In passing, outstanding individuals are so engrossed in their work they probably don't even know what "race" they belong to.

If you read some of the rubbish on the supremacist sites, even the ancient Egyptians and Indians were really "white" (unbeknownst to themselves!). By this preposterous argument, every civilisational advance has been brought about only by white people (with a grudging admission that maybe the Chinese made some inconsequential contributions).

As you say, the self-congratulation is coming from sub-par whites and for obvious reasons (I may not be great, but I am part of a great "race," and hence some it rubs off on me by virtue of membership).