Aristotle on 'race'

[jonathandupin]

I was browsing this forum yesterday and in a thread I came by a passage cited from Aristotle in his Politics. I had read it years ago, but it never retained. It struck me differently this time. I'm curious what people think about it.

Part VII (Politics, Aristotle)

Having spoken of the number of the citizens, we will proceed to speak of what should be their character. This is a subject which can be easily understood by any one who casts his eye on the more celebrated states of Hellas, and generally on the distribution of races in the habitable world. Those who live in a cold climate and in Europe are full of spirit, but wanting in intelligence and skill; and therefore they retain comparative freedom, but have no political organization, and are incapable of ruling over others. Whereas the natives of Asia are intelligent and inventive, but they are wanting in spirit, and therefore they are always in a state of subjection and slavery. But the Hellenic race, which is situated between them, is likewise intermediate in character, being high-spirited and also intelligent. Hence it continues free, and is the best-governed of any nation, and, if it could be formed into one state, would be able to rule the world. There are also similar differences in the different tribes of Hellas; for some of them are of a one-sided nature, and are intelligent or courageous only, while in others there is a happy combination of both qualities. And clearly those whom the legislator will most easily lead to virtue may be expected to be both intelligent and courageous. Some say that the guardians should be friendly towards those whom they know, fierce towards those whom they do not know. Now, passion is the quality of the soul which begets friendship and enables us to love; notably the spirit within us is more stirred against our friends and acquaintances than against those who are unknown to us, when we think that we are despised by them; for which reason Archilochus, complaining of his friends, very naturally addresses his soul in these words:

"For surely thou art plagued on account of friends. "

[jonathandupin]

Can this be why European culture and its antecedents has always been a phenomenon of a latitude in between, stretching from ancient Sumer to Imperial Spain ? Even the British Isles and its legacy, according to the ethnographic maps of Madison Grant, are considered a melting line in between north and south.

[Skeptikos Examiner]

With Germany its similar, Germany constitutes the melting line between the people of the north and the Celts.

[Menydh]

The "antecedents" occured before any such melting before north and south. Or didn't they?

[Señor Malo]

this sounds like an attemp to a moderate neo-nordicist theory: There's nothing wrong with Southern-Europeans but they work much better with a "little" help of the Nordic fella

[Skeptikos Examiner]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

The "antecedents" occured before any such melting before north and south. Or didn't they?

In Germany or the Greek states? In Germany the Celts were there before the arrival of the Nordic people around 2000 years ago. And in the Greek states around 1500B.C. people from other parts of Europe and north Africa like Egypt and Skythien arrived which brought knowledge, culture, and arts with them and were thus responsible to a high degree for the rise of Greece in later centuries. The art of working with iron for example came from Skythien and the art of mathematics from Egypt - at least that is what the old Greeks believed.

Originally Posted by Truth-Finder

There's nothing wrong with Southern-Europeans but they work much better with a "little" help of the Nordic fella

Southern people are often happy people who know how to celebrate, having some deficits when it comes to organization. With Nordic people it is pretty much the other way around and so indeed they work very well together and balance the deficits of each other out.

[Lutiferre]

I doubt Aristotle meant by race what we mean by race today, as in biological stock. He meant with race people, nation, tribe.

Originally Posted by Skeptikos Examiner

Southern people are often happy people who know how to celebrate, having some deficits when it comes to organization. With Nordic people it is pretty much the other way around and so indeed they work very well together and balance the deficits of each other out.

I dont credit such stereotypes to the point of accepting them. Whether they have any truth to them, I dont know. But its always been my experience that people in this country at least know how to celebrate - and party. And the emerging party culture among the youth is if anything just a degenerate echo of this. And of course, it also depends on the definition of "north".

[Señor Malo]

Originally Posted by Skeptikos Examiner

and the art of mathematics from Egypt - at least that is what the old Greeks believed

I do not think Maths knowledge in anceit Egypt was so high. i think Babilonians were stronger on that matter and anuway, none of these civilisations reached such a high level and refinement in maths as ancient greeks, starting by Thales.

Originally Posted by Skeptikos Examiner

Southern people are often happy people who know how to celebrate, having some deficits when it comes to organization. With Nordic people it is pretty much the other way around and so indeed they work very well together and balance the deficits of each other out.

I can accept a spartly true yet, whenever a thread of this kind is opened I cannot help seeing an attemp to give some credits to Nordics(*) in the founding of the greek civilisation
==================================
Nordic= Europoid leptomorphic "racial type" or better said, Morphological type, term usually Ill-defined when used by nordicsit or when applicated in discussions about ancient European civilisations

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Skeptikos Examiner

In Germany or the Greek states? In Germany the Celts were there before the arrival of the Nordic people around 2000 years ago. And in the Greek states around 1500B.C. people from other parts of Europe and north Africa like Egypt and Skythien arrived which brought knowledge, culture, and arts with them and were thus responsible to a high degree for the rise of Greece in later centuries. The art of working with iron for example came from Skythien and the art of mathematics from Egypt - at least that is what the old Greeks believed.

Ex Orientis Lux. I would never deny the reality behind it. I loathe the preconceived and often ignorant readings of civilization that many construct with the sole intention of clinging to where they barely belong.

Southern people are often happy people who know how to celebrate, having some deficits when it comes to organization. With Nordic people it is pretty much the other way around and so indeed they work very well together and balance the deficits of each other out.

Incidentally, the nothern peoples who overrode the high organization that was Rome, when they "learned" from it and tried to maintain that organization, they failed miserably.

[Weltschmerz]

@Truth-Finder: You see what you want to see. It was said by Aristotle that Greeks are superior.

[Señor Malo]

Originally Posted by Gnist

@Truth-Finder: You see what you want to see. It was said by Aristotle that Greeks are superior.

Pls kindly quote to which one of my sentence you refer to

[Weltschmerz]

Originally Posted by Truth-Finder

this sounds like an attemp to a moderate neo-nordicist theory: (1) There's nothing wrong with Southern-Europeans but they work much better with a "little" help of the Nordic fella (2)

Originally Posted by Truth-Finder

I can accept a spartly true yet, whenever a thread of this kind is opened I cannot help seeing an attemp to give some credits to Nordics(*) in the founding of the greek civilisation
================================== (3)
Nordic= Europoid leptomorphic "racial type" or better said, Morphological type, term usually Ill-defined when used by nordicsit or when applicated in discussions about ancient European civilisations (4)

It would have been easier to say which sentences I didn't refer to.

[Señor Malo]

Originally Posted by Gnist

It would have been easier to say which sentences I didn't refer to.

Not that easy, I was convinced that you actually was refering to this sentence only:

I do not think Maths knowledge in ancient Egypt was so high. I think Babilonians were stronger on that matter and anyway, none of these civilisations reached such a high level and refinement in maths as ancient greeks, starting by Thales.



See that was not so self-evident?

[Lutiferre]

I might add to all this, Aristotles view on this is obviously ethnocentric, and focused on the superiority of the Greeks, or the Hellenic race, and not all Mediterraneans. Further, interpreting his views cross-time to a modern north versus south context will only be even more chaotic.

[Skeptikos Examiner]

Originally Posted by Truth-Finder

I do not think Maths knowledge in anceit Egypt was so high. i think Babilonians were stronger on that matter and anuway, none of these civilisations reached such a high level and refinement in maths as ancient greeks, starting by Thales.

That I never denied, I just wanted to point that the Greeks did not start from scratch but that their cultural and scientific revolution was triggered by an influx of culture and knowledge from other IE cultures somewhere around 1500B.C. Before that the old Hellenians pretty much lived like the old Germanic people in tribal societies of mono-ethnic composition. I just recently wrote something on the subject so I have still have the sources and quotes at hand some may find educating.

The fallowing is from Hegel's "The Philosophy of History":

"In their mythology we have a definite record of the introduction of agriculture by Triptolemus, who was instructed by Ceres, and of the institution of marriage, etc. Prometheus, whose origin is referred to the distant Caucasus, is celebrated as having first taught men the production and the use of fire. The introduction of iron was likewise of great importance to the Greeks; and while Homer speaks only of bronze, Æschylus calls iron “Scythian.” ..

We thus observe a colonization by civilized peoples, who were in advance of the Greeks in point of culture: though we cannot compare this colonization with that of the English in North America, for the latter have not been blended with the aborigines, but have dispossessed them; whereas in the case of the settlers in Greece the adventitious and autochthonic elements were mixed together. The date assigned to the arrival of these colonists is very remote — the fourteenth and fifteenth century before Christ. Cadmus is said to have founded Thebes about 1490 B.C."

And a quote by Aristotle himself on the origin of the art of Mathematics from his book "Metaphysics":

"the sciences which do not aim at giving pleasure or at the necessities of life were discovered .. first in the places where men first began to have leisure. This is why the mathematical arts were founded in Egypt; for there the priestly caste was allowed to be at leisure."

Originally Posted by Mynydd

Incidentally, the nothern peoples who overrode the high organization that was Rome, when they "learned" from it and tried to maintain that organization, they failed miserably.

But was that because of inability or because the people rejected this kind of organization at first? I remember that the wish to preserve their way of life against the Roman influence was probably THE the main driving force behind fighting the Roman empire. When Arminius united some of those Germanic tribes to drive out the Romans it was to preserve their way of life.