Introduction

The work of Dr. Frank Salter is of great relevance to racial nationalism and secession. Dr. Salter correctly identifies genetic interests as ultimate interests. Population group interests are ethnic genetic interests, the importance of which is amplified by the large numbers of people who constitute ethnic and racial groups. These interests are threatened by mass immigration and by the multicultural state. Every population group requires a territory in which the continuity of that group can be ensured. Introduction of alien peoples into a territory eventually fills its carrying capacity and diminishes the numbers of the native group. Therefore, the optimal situation for genetic continuity is the ethnostate, in which territorial carrying capacity is utilized for a specific group’s advantage.

In the United States, mass immigration and a multiracial population is highly maladaptive for the genetic interests of European-Americans (“white Americans”). Therefore, it is rational to consider secessionist ideas for safeguarding European-American genetic interests. In this essay, I will evaluate several ideas regarding secessionism, submit my own tentative proposal, and conclude with some final thoughts.

“Reconquest” and “Citizenism”

One school of thought rejects the idea of secession and instead proposes “reconquest,” that the white majority retake control of America.  This “reconquest” would entail turning back the clock to a time of no Third World immigration (legal or illegal), no affirmative action, and no “civil rights” legislation. In the typical version of this scenario, America would still have a large non-white minority population, but that population would become politically quiescent, and the white majority more politically active. Whites would impose laws designed to both maintain their status as the demographic majority as well as reaffirm the principle of freedom of association in employment, housing, and schooling. The most notable proponent of this view was Sam Francis.

While some claim that this scenario is more “realistic” than secession, one wonders if it actually is. Given the rapid decline in white demographics, and the certainty that most non-whites would oppose “reconquest,” this scenario would require a large majority of whites, including white liberals, to support strongly pro-white policies and political candidates. It would necessitate forcing mobilized minority groups, emboldened by decades of multiculturalist advantage, to fade into the background and accept a reversal of their growing power. It would require strict immigration control, at a time when Americans cannot even stem the flow of illegals, and it would require that the white population increase its birthrate to retain its numerical advantage over minority groups.

This scenario would require constant vigilance, guarding against changing demographics, unrest amongst the disgruntled minorities, as well as the possibility of whites agreeing to restore the multicultural regime. To avoid inter-racial crime as well as miscegenation, strict segregation would have to be maintained. Thus, “reconquest” would entail enormous continuing costs, and while such a regime would be superior to the current multicultural system, a large and potentially dangerous minority population would remain. The race-culture problem would not be solved, merely adjusted and made more tolerable.

Granted, some versions of “reconquest” stipulate that all non-whites living in America be repatriated to their ancestral homelands. While this option would maximize territory for the white population, it likely will be more difficult to achieve than the more politically feasible option of ethnostate formation. While repatriation of alien elements is absolutely essential for our crowded European homeland, which is after all the birthplace of the white race, in my opinion the cost-benefit ratio for racial preservation on the North American continent generally favors the ethnostate solution. Separation would be more palatable to all involved, and would result in less damage to the white population and to the nation’s infrastructure, compared to a “reconquest” requiring full expulsion of non-whites.

I also oppose the “citizenist” concept of Steve Sailer. Sailer promotes the idea that our “ingroup” should be that of “fellow American citizens” and that we should build an aracial American identity, focusing on “what’s best for Americans.” Unfortunately, that is already the mindset of most white Americans, and that is exactly the formula for continued dispossession and displacement. Despite Sailer’s claim that “citizenism” is more “realistic” than “white nationalism,” it is folly to believe that ethnocentric non-whites will agree to eschew ethnic identity politics and work for what is best for “most Americans,” when “most Americans” are still white. Real differences in ethnic interests cannot be plastered over by a legally defined status of “citizen.” The only people who would play the game of “citizenism” would be whites, putting them at a competitive disadvantage against organized, ethnocentric minorities.

“Citizenism” does not solve the race problem. In fact, if we are all “equal citizens,” what justification is there for maintaining the homogeneity of a neighborhood or opposing miscegenation? If “high-IQ” Asians are “productive citizens” like white Americans, and if the Asians superficially mouth (but not actually practice) the platitudes of “citizenism,” why not accept mass Asian immigration and displace white Americans? To say that such immigration would not be “best for most Americans” is to imply that “most Americans” have an inherent interest not to be displaced by biological and cultural aliens. Thus, one would need to identify the differences that would make that displacement maladaptive for “most Americans,” and these differences are those of race and culture. In the end, differences of ethnic interest trump patriotic idealism; actual biological and civilizational group membership trumps a manufactured legal group membership. “Citizenism” is exactly the opposite of what we require, which is for whites to defend their specific group interests.

Michael Hart’s Partition Plan

Professor Michael Hart deserves credit for proposing a separatist plan that incorporates a degree of freedom of association, in that an “integrated” state is set aside for those who prefer to live in a multiracial society. That is fair and reasonable. Integrationists do not have the right to force their ideals on separatists; similarly, separatists do not have the right to enforce their views on those who sincerely value diversity. Of course, the decision between separatism and integrationism must be informed, made with all the available facts, and within a free and open marketplace of ideas.

The fundamental problem with the Hart plan is that he proposes only three states: the Integrationist State, a Black Separatist State for those African-Americans who reject integrationism, and a White Separatist State (WSS) for whites who likewise choose greater homogeneity. What about Asians, racially mixed Hispanics, non-European Caucasians, and others who are neither “white” nor “black,” and who may not wish to live in the integrationist state? They have no state or states of their own. Worse, Hart asserts that the so-called WSS may actually include “Asians and others.”

Essentially, Hart is proposing a multiracial, “diverse” “white separatist” state. According to the Hart plan, while African Americans will be given the choice of true separation and homogeneity, European-Americans (as well as Asian-Americans and Hispanic-Americans, Arab-Americans, and others) will not have that choice. The only real separation Hart allows for these latter groups is separation from African-Americans. This is quite clearly unacceptable–promoting diversity within a plan for separatism–and means that an enormous amount of political, social, and economic sacrifice will be made for very limited gain: separation from African Americans but not from any other group. Although the Hart plan has one strong point, that those who value diversity be allowed their choice, the rest of the plan is extremely flawed. We need to look elsewhere for more serious ideas concerning racial nationalism and secession.

The New Racial Compact Partition Plan

In the first draft of this essay, I presented some collegial and constructive criticisms of Richard McCulloch’s “Racial Compact” partition plan. However, it became necessary to rewrite this section, since Mr. McCulloch has updated his Racial Compact plan, as stated in the comments section of TOQ Online:

The revision now basically includes all Gentile Europeans in the same country, instead of proposing separation from the more hard-core distinct Mediterranean types that make up much of the population of southern Europe. This makes my proposal consistent with the “official” TOQ definition of our racial “in-group” although at a racial cost to the northern European racial identity of the country. Still, it has reached the point where it now seems totally unrealistic, even quixotic, to try to separate the hard-core Mediterranean elements in the US population from other Europeans, as so many of them are now largely assimilated, and even more difficult to draw some line between assimilable and unassimilable elements in the Italian-American, Greek-American, or Spanish-American populations. Of course, in Europe itself we still could and should encourage the preservation of the different racial groups in their own historic nations, even perhaps northern Italians as distinct from southern Italians, but in the European-American population it now seems that the political cost of promoting such an effort would exceed the racial benefit.

I essentially agree with these comments (including the points concerning Europe), and see this as a positive development. The updated racial partition map (as of mid-March 2010) at the Racial Compact website now proposes a more general European-American ethnostate, which consists predominantly of white Americans of northern/northwest European ancestry/racial type (termed “Nordish”), with smaller populations of “Alpine-Dinaric-Ladogan” types (essentially central and some northeast Europeans) and “Euro-Mediterraneans” (essentially southern Europeans). This updated partition plan is generally consistent with the “alternative plan” I had outlined in my original partition essay (which is also included in the present revised essay, see below), with a few, relatively minor, differences.

With this new Racial Compact partition proposal, increased possibilities exist for cooperation between various European-American and European peoples on racial preservationist endeavors. I am confident that preservationist activists can incorporate the racial interests of all European-descended peoples in plans for the survival and rebirth of the West. Therefore, besides the actual details of specific separation proposals, it is equally important that all peoples of European descent have a “seat at the table” where decisions about the fate of the West are decided–whatever those decisions end up being. Although history may lead us in directions somewhat off course from carefully laid out plans and proposals, what will lead us to eventual success in achieving our objectives is a sense of teamwork and of a shared destiny.

Preeminence of Core Founding Population and Similar Groups Must be Maintained

Of course it is legitimate to seek to defend narrower ethnies and ethny characteristics which one admires or identifies with. And of course different European populations have some different characteristics and varying levels of genetic kinship. Therefore, for example, it is reasonable for Germany to reject Spanish or Italian immigrants and vice versa. I don’t see that retaining national identity in this way endangers peace or unity in the name of shared interests. However, this position, while appropriate for the homelands of Europe itself, cannot reasonably be fully extended to the United States, where extensive intra-European ethnic intermingling, and assimilation of varied European subgroups/ethnies, has occurred.

I think the 1924 national origins act had it generally right. The core American population is drawn from all parts of Europe, but most of all from England, then Britain, then Germanic (northwest) Europe, then, lastly, southern and eastern Europe. The relative predominance of northwest European populations to America’s white ethnic makeup is a fact, and it is understandable to protect the preeminence of these groups (i.e., British first and then other northwest Europeans). Hence, Lothrop Stoddard, while advocating assimilation of the “white ethnics” in Reforging America, was absolutely correct to assert that maintaining the preeminence of the older, northwest European stocks was a prerequisite for any assimilation of the “white ethnics.” I fully agree with Stoddard’s views in that regard. Indeed, one can argue that acceptance of Stoddard’s prerequisite is a “litmus test” for “ethnic” assimilation into white America. The northwest European core population should assimilate the “ethnics” and not vice versa; the demographic, sociopolitical, and cultural-traditional dominance of the former group must be maintained throughout the assimilatory process. And, if there are some “ethnic” elements who, by their behavior and other characteristics, prove to be truly unassimilable (here I have in mind Jersey Shore types and their equivalents), these can be justifiably excluded from the preservationist project. However, “ethnics” of good stock who are assimilated can be productively included.

An Alternative Plan

I agree in principle that those who strongly believe in the multicultural model should have the chance to live according to their beliefs and life choices; thus, limited territory set aside for an integrated state is included in my plan. It is expected that, given the free marketplace of ideas and dissemination of racial facts that would precede separation, the vast majority of European-Americans would choose to live in an ethnostate; the integrated state would be a relatively minor entity suitable for those “white malcontents” whose presence in an ethnostate would be disruptive and untenable.

A more fundamental part of this plan deals with (normal, non-integrationist) European-Americans, who are here defined as American citizens (and permanent residents) of indigenous European ancestry. First, all European-Americans who wish to be separated from persons of non-European origins would be so separated. Thus, all European-Americans must have the option to live in an ethnostate. The predominant territory of the present United States will serve as the European-American homeland. It would be premature to discuss in detail the particular boundaries of this homeland, but it should include coastal regions, particularly the East Coast which faces Europe. Non-European peoples will be able to form their own ethnostates, with territorial size being proportional to population; in all cases, every attempt will be made to provide groups with ecologically viable niches.

Therefore, the first round of separation will divide the American landmass between a general European-American homeland, various non-European ethnostates which can subdivide as they wish, and, possibly, an integrated multicultural state. It may well be that separation can stop here, which is likely to be the most politically feasible and palatable outcome for most white Americans.

However, in theory, there could also be a secondary phase that would allow further separation amongst the European-Americans; those who have a strong identity with a narrower focus, and who desire greater homogeneity, could also have their own autonomous territories, proportional in size to population. While many possibilities exist, it is most likely that a separatist plan analogous to the revised Racial Compact proposal and/or the general European-American homeland described here, would turn out to be the optimal combination of political practicality and racial preservationism.

At the same time, the traditional peoples and cultures of Europe must be preserved in their specific homelands, and ethno-regionalism within a broader confederation will be an effective way of maximizing ethnoracial preservationism in the white homeland. Therefore, keeping in mind the ties of kinship and of civilization that exist between European-derived peoples, this plan envisions that all of the Euro-ethnostates (America, Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) would be confederated. Through economy of scale and synergistic cooperation for defense and other large scale projects, the confederation idea more easily allows regionalism to be maintained. Any small and isolated Euro ethnostate is unlikely to successfully stand alone in the world arena, particularly when confronted with civilizational blocs opposed to the West (e.g., China, Islam).

However, behind the protective shield of the confederation, regionalism can flourish, allowing for the creation of ethnostates representing more concentrated pools of genetic interest. Such a confederation does not imply panmixia, migration between confederated states, or a lack of local independence; the states making up this confederation would have full local autonomy, and would police their borders in order to safeguard their unique biological and cultural characteristics.

Whatever is ultimately decided, the plans should be conducted within the framework of pan-European comity and cooperation, according to an honest appraisal of all the biocultural facts, without violating any group’s racial identities and racial rights, and in the context of a broader Western Confederation that can preserve and defend our greater race and civilization. The fundamental approach is to realize that broader and narrower racial and civilizational concerns need not be mutually exclusive. They should in fact be complementary.

This global plan is generally consistent with the description of pan-European ethnic genetic interests as a concentric series of circles, in which greater genetic interest is with those groups most similar, while lesser, but still real, genetic interests exist in more diluted form for more distant groups. The scheme outlined here on the one hand recognizes the fundamental similarities, kinship, comity, and cultural cohesion between varied European peoples; however, on the other hand, it recognizes differences and allows for these differences to be preserved, when desired and where practically possible.

In summary, a comprehensive Western nationalism needs to preserve and defend the racial interests, identities, and rights of all persons of European descent. This by no means implies global intra-European panmixia, but requires taking seriously the racial identities, racial interests, and racial rights of all European-derived peoples

Components of Identity

Questions of group identity are fundamental in formulating the ingroup boundaries of prospective ethnostates. What characteristics are particularly important for group identity? As Salter makes clear in On Genetic Interests, genetic interests are ultimate interests. The neo-Darwinian synthesis defines fitness and adaptive behavior in terms of genetic continuity and genetic representation in future generations. Thus, the ultimate striving of biological organisms, the driving force of the development of evolved life, is toward reproducing the genotype; the phenotype is the vehicle by which this is accomplished.

The foundation of ethnoracial identity is based upon kinship and ancestry in an extended family tree encompassing one’s co-ethnics. While there is certainly a rough approximation, particularly on a group level, between genetic and phenotypic distance, it is the former which is the more direct and objective measure of kinship and ultimate interests. After all, the best measure of genetic interests is genetic information itself. Therefore, while of course phenotype and culture/civilization are crucially important factors to be considered, I view as flawed any racial nationalist worldview that does not give primacy to the ultimate interest of genetic continuity.

However, that said, genes are not all there is to identity. Genetic interests may be ultimate interests, but proximate interests are important as well. More to the point, ultimate and proximate interests cannot be truly separated, as they influence each other. Behavioral traits that influence culture are likely heritable. Conversely, proximate issues such as culture, religion, and sociopolitical beliefs influence the pursuit of genetic interests.

Traditional Christians who identify with the Occident are more likely to promote European genetic interests than are Buddhists, Hindus, or Muslims who identify with the Orient. It is highly likely that the Turkish gene pool is further from the European median than is the Greek. However, it is theoretically possible that a given individual Greek and a given individual Turk may not be genetically significantly different. But this is not the whole story. A traditionalist Greek of European Christian background, who identifies with the West, is likely to have a quite different view of European genetic interests than an Asian Turk who identifies with the East.

Culture matters. The civilizational divide of “the West against the Rest” matters. Even if the genetic gradients between certain areas are not very steep, superimposed on top of these genetic differences are profound differences in civilization and culture. The whole composite picture distinguishes the “Men of the West” from others. It is not biology alone, although genetic interests are paramount. It is not ethnic identity alone, or culture/civilization alone. It is all these things together, reinforcing each other. The organic solidarity of the West can be our shield and our sword, protecting our genetic interests from those non-Western competitors who threaten us all.

Practical Possibilities

Of course, the practical aspects of secessionist plans are questionable. However, secession represents a long term goal to which we aspire. Further, articulating a separatist plan, even one that has little chance of attainment in the foreseeable future, has an important symbolic importance. Defining the boundaries of “us” for the purposes of separatism also defines the boundaries of “us” for everyday activism, and for various forms of sociopolitical organization within the present multicultural establishment.

Even if a given separatist plan seems to have no immediate prospects of success, the specifics of the plan, particularly the “in/out” designations, provide the foundation upon which activists, reasonably seen as “in,” can cooperate to achieve their mutual interests. A proper separatist proposal will provide a framework in which activists–even those who prefer specific narrower ingroups—can still cooperate in a collegial manner, since such a plan will not violate any group’s legitimate identity, nor marginalize the group by a de facto ejection from membership in the Western family of peoples.

Obstacles

The reader is likely familiar with the varied obstacles to secession, and I will only touch upon some of these here. Virtually the entire American establishment–politicians, celebrities, academics, businessmen–speaks in one voice in favor of the multiracial, multicultural experiment. Further, we are told that race is an “illusion,” and that “socially constructed” racial groupings do not differ in innate intelligence or in any other meaningful traits. Dissident voices are suppressed; readers are familiar with the problems of individuals such as Kevin MacDonald, J. Philippe Rushton, and James Watson.

The Republican Party serves as a safety valve for white discontent and directs traditionally minded whites toward dead-end issues. Even among those more familiar with the race problem, one may encounter a patriotic resistance to secession; thus, a maladaptive “rally around the flag” mentality, geared to aracial constitutional patriotism, short-circuits any sense of ethnic identity politics. Some people draw away from secessionist ideas because of the perceived economic and social costs; some may fear civil war. Foreign policy concerns must be considered; an America in the throes of a secessionist break-up could not effectively oppose the aggressive objectives of, for example, a resurgent China.

There is no easy way to get around these obstacles. I would suggest a sustained effort to legitimize and mainstream “white identity politics” and secessionism; perhaps this can be initially achieved by political campaigns at the level of local congressional districts. It is absolutely crucial that these politics replace the dead-end of “implicit whiteness” with an open and explicit call to defend specifically white (European) American interests. It will be essential to bring Salter’s ideas to the thoughtful fraction of the population; it is high time the debate shifted from proximate issues to fundamental concerns about demographic displacement and the continuity of our people. Translating the work of Salter into practical biopolitics is a challenge that must be met.

Finally, given the choice between “balkanization” and “citizenism,” we must always choose the former. As Salter states in On Genetic Interests, for a people being displaced, the only thing worse than a multiculturalism that does not work is one that does. “Citizenism” is nothing more or less than a “repair and reform” job to make destructive multiculturalism more workable and sustainable.

Conclusion

It is unlikely that any of the separatist schemes discussed here will be achieved in the foreseeable future. This is not defeatism, since I propose that we pursue the objective of secession despite the odds; I believe that the separatist option is the only way to ensure the long term survival of Europeans on American soil. However, it is crucial to understand reality as we face the future. While we must constantly strive for the separatist solution, it is important to realize that, if this goal is ever achieved, few if any of those reading this essay will get to see this “promised land.” Each generation has its own battles to fight. We will do what we can today.

However, we should understand the benefits of current discussions of secession. The short-term and medium-term objectives that we will set and meet will themselves have inherent value, even independent of the final goal of secession. We will organize. We will articulate a vision for the future. We will enter the sociopolitical realm, to the extent possible, and promote agendas consistent with the interests of peoples of European descent. We will delineate the boundaries of our varied ingroups and establish cooperative networks when and where interests overlap.

The point of this essay is not to detail the specific characteristics of a separatist ethnostate, but to establish a general framework within which individuals and groups can find their proper place in this endeavor. We need to lay the foundation for the short-term and medium-term projects that fall within the scope of the lifetimes of the present readers of this journal.

Forward looking people of many ethnic backgrounds can see major conflicts on the horizon in which the white majority will fight back. We can expect the number of white nationalist groups to multiply as market demand grows for this brand of politics. Therefore, different people, with varying agendas, will attempt to define the mass white nationalism that is likely to arise in the next 20 years in one form or another. Discussions of separatism and secession, albeit premature from a strictly practical standpoint, are part of this attempt to define the future movement. Some of these directions will prove unfruitful. Some of the emerging groups will fail, some will merge, and some will split. Many will apparently achieve little or anything of value, but to the extent that they may get some serious and thoughtful individuals involved in the process, some good may come of it. People they attract will be primed for more authentic ideas.

It is not possible to completely separate proximate and ultimate interests. The memes which we will formulate need to be forged into the intellectual weapons required to defend our genes. It is hoped that this essay will constitute a positive addition to our memetic arsenal.

Read Part 1 here.
Read Part 2 here.
Read Part 3 here.
Read Part 4 here.

13. How do you explain the fact that a major football rivalry for Tunisians seems to be with other North Africans, Moroccans, rather than with people more distantly related?

Because Morocco is there. Close by. That’s one answer. But this is a frequent phenomenon in sport and is essentially the same issue as in sibling rivalry. You, a Québécoise girl, compete for mummy’s attention with your sibling because she is there. Some girl in China is not there, so why would you worry at all about her? Suppose, however, that both you and your sister are gymnasts and compete with each other initially, but your sister goes on to the Olympics and beats out a Chinese gymnast. Would you be happy for her? Or would you rather the Chinese won? Well, maybe if the sibling rivalry had been especially severe… But you get the point.

14. What is wrong with interracial marriage?

From your point of view, maybe nothing—provided you can accept the consequences. These can vary enormously depending on circumstances and personalities. But be prepared:

On the plus side, the girl/guy from the other race you are staring at may be incredibly attractive. Think of the sometime attractiveness of black men and white women for each other; or of white men and oriental women.

A modest degree of out-breeding could also be good for one’s kids. Here’s the story, according to standard biology texts: All your genes come in pairs, one allele of each pair from each parent. If a pair contains an allele that is bad for you but also “dominant,” meaning dominant over the other member of the pair, it will cause the person carrying it to die, be sick, or be otherwise unattractive as a mate. So we tend not to worry too much about dominant bad genes in our planning, since they tend quickly to self-destruct. But recessive genes don’t get “expressed” unless matched up with exactly the same allele. Outbreeding reduces the chance of a recessive bad gene you are carrying being matched up with its like, and thus being expressed. On the other hand, you don’t need to go very far afield to be sufficiently “outbred,” and certainly not as far as what we think of as another race or species (the defining feature of species is the inability to successfully interbreed with other species). In outbreeding to another race, your offspring may be picking up some surprises, either unpleasant (e.g., genes that encourage diabetes or sickle cell anemia) or pleasant (e.g., genes for high IQ or some more specialized talent). Ethnic and racial groups undoubtedly vary in “genetic load,” the number of bad recessive genes in their gene pool, although geneticists don’t seem to have a completely clear picture of all that. In any case, in picking a spouse it’s hard to know what you are getting into without at the very least a thorough genetic background check; the more ethnically/racially different a person is, the harder in general it is to vet that person for quality in any trait. There is one speculative aspect you might want to entertain. Racial differences are thought to have originally arisen through natural selection favoring those traits that made a person better adapted to a particular climate and ecology. Black skin was protective in tropical climates, while white skin encouraged penetration of rays from the sun when northern climates made them beneficial. These climatic selection pressures may not be all that strong today where modern technologies can mitigate them (Vit D supplements are extra important for Blacks living far from the equator). But the benefits of such natural selection may one day again be appreciated if the earth undergoes unexpected climate change. Intermarriage would reduce the traits that had once been useful in particular climates.

Here’s an ethical consideration: We are importuned daily to regard other ethnies/races with tolerance and respect. Well, if we really do value another group’s cultural and physical traits, why would we want to do anything that would contribute to the destruction of those traits? If you dislike your own race so much that you want to marry into another, aren’t you implying that other races are justified in negatively “profiling,” or looking down upon, yours? In any case, the destruction of one’s people would happen only one intermarriage at a time, but it would happen. One intermarriage might seem like a drop in the bucket for one’s whole ethny, but overwhelming for one’s immediate family.

The major threats to the success of interracial marriages would have to be (a) the strong chances of cultural incompatibility and (b) the lack of the social cohesion that is normally achieved with the relatively close kinship of a within-ethny marriage. The former is a problem on its own merits but it also can act as a marker for degree of biological relatedness which affects cohesion. Cultural incompatibility doesn’t necessarily show up right away. People’s lives go through stages, each with its own set of customs and expectations that might not be apparent until one reached a particular stage. For instance, whether, where, how, and with whom will we be buried after death? And what sort of lives will the children of such a marriage have to look forward to? There are some horror stories, e.g., the isolation of offspring of Americans (especially blacks) and Vietnamese women as a result of the Vietnam War. (Yes, it does depend on what the kids look like.) And where are children of a Jewish-Arab marriage to live? Palestine? If they can form a larger community of people like themselves, they could mitigate the effects of social exclusion, as did the “mulattoes” of Haiti following the war of independence from France. If not, they remain isolates, neither fish nor fowl, possibly handicapped in finding a mate or a welcoming community and a good job. Wishing it otherwise is no help.

15. How do you decide how much immigration to have?

Easy. “Enough immigration” is when you feel in your heart that there has been enough. The problem is that different people will come up with different estimates. For anyone desperate for more labor, cheap or expensive, there is never enough immigration. For people wanting to live among people like themselves and to maintain their culturally specific ways and political systems, nearly any immigration by other ethnies constitutes a potential threat. “None is too many,” a high-level Canadian government official is reputed to have said when asked how many Jews should be accepted during the 1930s. Canadian Jews are still a tiny minority but they certainly did come to exert considerable political and cultural influence through their lobbying efforts (e.g., the strongly pro-Israel Conservative government of Harper of 2010) and via the media (a major newspaper publishing and broadcasting empire, CanWest, built by Izzy Asper and his sons, stridently and successfully promoted a pro-Israel foreign policy). Members of immigrant groups see the sky as the limit. They argue that they constitute no threat whatsoever to the indigenous ethnies/cultures, so not to worry. They naturally ignore the fact that any human being, once he feels at home, will want to adjust his surroundings to his own taste, which means “taking over,” to whatever degree becomes possible. If your city eventually becomes majority Chinese, expect the cultural norms to become Chinese as well…sooner or later.

So there is no sacred answer. The best that can be done in a democratic society is to put it to a vote. When was the last time anyone voted on whether to increase or decrease the level of immigration? Can’t remember, can you? Anyway, each person’s favored immigration rate will reflect some trade-off between a concern for one’s own culture and people going down the tube and some mix of attractions perceived in out-group immigration, including the above economic factors.

16. How can a small territory, enclave, ghetto, neighborhood) control immigration?

It’s not easy, today, what with laws established, in the interest of minorities, to outlaw “discrimination” in residential housing. Notice that no one is outlawed from discriminating when it comes to marriage (cf. personal ads in newspapers asking to meet, say, a “white heterosexual Catholic female” for friendship and possible marriage, etc.). And few object to exceptionally religious people establishing certain types of social enclave for their own group (a Yeshiva University for Jews or a Bob Jones University for white Christian fundamentalists), since who else would want to go to them? The strongest objectors to the state of Israel discriminating in favor of Jews and against gentiles in immigration are those gentiles whose land was taken to make way for Israel, plus a few sympathizers. So the seeming illegitimacy of discrimination depends entirely on its context, on those doing the discriminating, and whether it involves theft or violence, not on the act of discrimination itself. Today in N. America, discrimination is nearly impossible except against whites.

When multicultural ideologies become fashionable, about the only sure way to favor one’s own (or a culturally compatible) ethny in an enclave would be to form a sovereign state. Meanwhile, one might avoid making public any announcement of housing for sale or rent and, instead, advertise by word of mouth or with the help of a sympathetic real estate agent. Perhaps one could set up a housing association with various covenants, conditions, and restrictions that discourage, if not prevent outright, people coming into a community who would be culturally incompatible.⁴² Then we have “ethnic cleansing”, à la Palestine and the late Yugoslavia , or repatriation – which Abraham Lincoln and many other great Americans favored for American Blacks.

17. What do you mean by group structure?

Humans are not bees. Bees have highly preprogrammed (by genes) brain mechanisms that cause them to work for the whole hive, their “group.” Humans may be a little bit “groupy,” instinctively, but a variety of cultural strategies have had to be devised over millennia for accentuating the willingness of group members to act as cohesive, cooperative group members. Some strategies work better than others; some are more enjoyable to live with. There are rules, such as for distinctive clothing – e.g., the Amish, or Hasidic Jews. But if Hasidic men’s garments are unbearably hot in summer, inspiring major investment in air conditioners, they also serve as a test of group loyalty: Anyone willing to put up with the hot clothing must surely be willing to adhere to the less visible and hopefully internalized rules of the group, and hence must be trustworthy within the group. If the garments were simply functional and comfortable, they wouldn’t constitute a good test of trustworthiness. The same goes for a woman’s more or less uncomfortable hijab in the Middle East. If it’s hot enough, women stay indoors and out of trouble (from their husband’s point of view); but if they do venture out, wearing their hijab suggests trustworthiness. Their husbands can then get on with their work without worrying so much about what their wives are up to.

Rules for helping each other within the group can vary, some seemingly more shortsighted than others. The “bucket of crabs” analogy is cited by North American aboriginals for the case, say, of a person who is awarded a fellowship for educational purposes but who ends up giving away so much of the money, in his in-group’s spirit of sharing, that he never does get the degree which would presumably enable him later to help others get ahead. Put crabs in a bucket and as each one tries to climb out of the bucket, the others in trying to climb out themselves, latch onto him and pull him back down. The relevant rule was adaptive for one set of conditions (hunter-gatherer) but is less so for the modern world. So groups vary in willingness to help their talented maximize the use of their talents (e.g., via scholarships paid for by other members); and those who take advantage of the help vary in their willingness to contribute to the group later on.

There has never been a guarantee that devising rules for one’s own group would lead to an optimal set. (Try inventing a set, yourself, to see how hard it is.) Much mental energy must have been expended by humans in such trial and error. The Biblical “Ten Commandments” are just one such set, created for use within Jewish communities (but, interestingly, not for relations with “gentiles”), and Jewish scholarship has devoted thousands of years to elaborating upon these rules (the Talmud). The longevity of Jewish groups, in the face of massive pressures to assimilate, is testimony to the effectiveness of their group rules and structure.

A challenge for any modern nationalist is to come up with a set of rules for the group that are both effective, attractive, legal, and do not become unbearable to live with. A major dilemma involves finding a balance between sacrifice for the group vs. working for oneself.

18. Should everyone be a nationalist?

Nationalists would love to have all fellow coethnics be nationalistic, but any person’s answer depends on his point of view, and, as we have seen, people often have different psychological interests. However, anyone who criticizes others for their nationalism, rather than simply being uninterested, is likely being either hypocritical or envious.

11. Doesn’t the success of multiculturalism show that having the same ancestry is not necessary for a harmonious society as long as people do speak a common language?

It depends on how much “harmony” you would settle for. To achieve the harmony of an ethnically homogeneous nation, you would need more than just a common language. Immigrants would also have to love, accept, and thoroughly learn the host culture, and then intermarry over and over so that any distinctive physical features receded or blended. And they would probably have to forget their ancestral history, so that they wouldn’t end up with dual loyalties.

It is very true that in economically well-off countries such as Canada, in contexts that force many different peoples to brush up against each other daily in factories, universities, schools, etc., there are innumerable instances of harmonious interethnic relations. Things are so harmonious, in fact, that these countries are still merrily promoting multiculturalism year after year, and show no sign of desisting in their invitations to people around the world to “come on over.” Increasingly, however, there are voices to the contrary. The evidence points to a loss of community and mutual trust among citizens as the ethnic homogeneity of a territory is lost. Special interests in control of immigration policy have, in effect, given away the farm.

There are important things to note about multiculturalism. Particularly fascinating is the fact that Jews have arguably been the most vociferous of its advocates in the West, but are ferociously against it when it comes to their own state of Israel. Wonder why? Guess.

Second, multiculturalism has never been the subject of a referendum wherein a majority of the citizens of a country could declare themselves in favor of it—with or without their consent being fully informed as to the possible or likely consequences. Africans were brought to the United States by a small minority of people—e.g., plantation owners—who wanted cheap labor. The result may be good American jazz, but it has also been a long history of miserable racial tension and conflict.

Employers looking for cheap labor are still encouraging more illegal migrants from Mexico. Now “La Raza,” as many Mexican Latinos call themselves, is planning a takeover of the American Southwest. At the present rate of demographic change, they are likely to be a majority in California and several other states before long. They will then have avenged the earlier American takeover of what was once Mexican territory. And their ethny will be dominant. In anticipation of this, many whites are now moving out of California. Regardless of the legal justification for any of these political moves, it should be evident that not all the human beings involved have the same attitude toward these events; that is because they have different psychological “interests.” People the world over can have an interest in moving to economically prosperous lands, and they often succeed, because the majority populations in those lands are not organized effectively to control immigration. Some countries of the West have now probably reached the point of no return, of never being able to stop immigration, and thus prevent another “tragedy of the commons”: alien ethnies will now want to promote further immigration of their own people, so that there will be even less chance of avoiding the overexploitation of a territory’s resources.

Meanwhile, in, e.g., Toronto, various immigrant groups vie with the Hell’s Angels for the highest homicide rate. Jamaican blacks argue that they aren’t the only murderers, that homicide certainly is not in their genes, and that they shouldn’t be racially profiled; their detractors don’t really care whether it’s poverty, genes, or culture: They just wish the Jamaicans would go back to Jamaica. They don’t say that publicly, because such political incorrectness can be prosecuted as a “hate crime.” Then there are the twenty-plus years and 130 million dollars it took Canada to try to prosecute the allegedly Sikh perpetrators of the 1985 Air India crash (only one was finally convicted), thanks in part to ethnic barriers to collecting evidence. Recently Muslim immigrants have demanded the introduction of elements of “sharia” (Muslim law) into the Canadian legal system, while other immigrants screamed that they had just fled sharia. Other Canadians have preferred a more traditional separation of church and state…or full public financing of private Jewish schools…or a Christian imposition of the “right to life” against abortions.

Isn’t multiculturalism wonderful? Well, it is, if you are one of the immigrants who successfully made it to Canada or the U.S. (either recently or in an earlier era), especially if you fled conflicts in the old homeland. Immigrants are mainly looking for improved living conditions, and are not too concerned with their acceptability to host ethnies beyond avoiding serious hostility. Upon arrival, most seem to coalesce around preceding members of their own ethny. Even the aboriginals, who came in several waves, probably did not ask permission from previous waves—any more than did the much later Europeans. The point, for the moment, is not which ethny was right or wrong, but what happens when they all find themselves under the same roof. Multiculturalism, beyond a modest cultural variety in restaurants and the like, is not attractive to those who fear that their political and other cultural ways will be challenged or, sooner or later, overwhelmed and displaced by incompatible mores.

12. Why isn’t everyone nationalistic?

a. Individualism

b. No nation

c. Attachment to one’s ethny is overridden

d. Fear of offending others

e. Deception

Clarifications:

a) Individualism

The self-sufficient individualist feels that he can achieve happiness on his own; any form of nationalism may seem like a giant, oppressive handicap, given all the anticipated time and effort expended in in-group activities. People vary for constitutional reasons on nearly every imaginable biological trait, including personality and motivational factors. Thus attachment to a group can be expected to vary as well. Demanding role requirements can make it difficult to herd many people into a cohesive ethnic grouping; not all roles are equally attractive to or suitable for every person. Good leadership is rare. Most humans are easily frightened sheep. So if there is a military or paramilitary role to be played, only a few reasonably macho males are likely to volunteer to take the necessary risks. The fighters in the IRA and UDA in Ireland are hardly random samples of their populations. Ironically, such “hard men” are sometimes not even supported by many members of their people who later benefit from their sacrifice, e.g., pacifists terrified of violence, true Christians who invariably favor turning the other cheek, devotees of Gandhi, or people who object (on principle or out of fear of retaliation) to their own nationalists’ theft of land and resources from other groups, and so on.

b) No nation

It might not be clear who one’s people are because of mixed ancestry, so that one is an isolate among other ethnies; or one’s “people” consist of a mix of equally salient and historically conflicting groups, such as half-Jewish and half-Arab, or half-African and half-British, that lends itself to identity conflicts or ambiguities. The more mixed our perceived ancestry, the more diffuse should be our conception of our people, unless people with the same mixed ancestry can get together to form a new ethny, e.g., the “Métis” of western Canada (a mix of aboriginal and French ancestry), or the growing coalition of half-Jews. At one extreme, there are people whose ancestry is so incredibly complex that apart from humanity as a whole, they don’t feel especially close to any single present-day ethny. Ethnicity for such “isolates” ought to be pretty much meaningless—unless, of course, they are somehow discriminated against by people who do belong to a specific ethny and regard them as outsiders. But apart from their immediate family, it ought to be hard for them to form strong bonds to any particular large grouping—compared to, say, the average Croat, whose ancestry is more homogeneous. There are naive idealists, often (erstwhile) communists, who recommend as much mixture of ancestry as possible. They urge this, first, because they see ancestry as unimportant: marry whomever you like. But often they see vast amounts of intermarriage as an antidote to war or other vicissitudes of ethnic competition, an inadvertent recognition that ethnic homogeneity is indeed meaningful. What would be the result? While one batch of multiculturalists is joyfully mixing their children’s ancestry, other batches will be sticking to the path of homogeneous ethnicity, with all the competitive advantages that accrue to especially cohesive groups. The isolated idealists will gradually be squeezed to the margins, perhaps under some form of exploitation or even “slavery” (just think of the millions of unprotected Russian and Eastern European women who are currently being forced into prostitution [“white slavery”]), if not eventually lost to the forces of natural selection. Inter-group relations may not be inevitably competitive, at least to the point of unpleasantness, but they sometimes are—in which case, who is likely to win, or at least to successfully defend themselves?

c) Attachment to one’s ethny overridden

It can be overridden by a lack of pride in one’s people, or by a dislike or hatred resulting from a harrowing family or group life. Nearly any motive can be overridden by other more urgent needs and motives. Not everyone is hungry at suppertime. Hunger is obviously a “biological need,” but can easily be overridden by an exciting television program.

People also vary in how hunger driven they are, some becoming obese, others anorexic. It’s the same for ethnic cohesion. Individualism, the desire to go it alone, love of solitude—all these tendencies may be somewhat heritable (so that if one identical twin were like that, it’s a good bet that the other twin of the pair is similar). Ask them to behave like a hive of Hutterites or Hasidic Jews and they will instantly feel suffocated and run for the door.

Unfortunate family experiences, or the feeling that one’s own people are a bad lot, can prompt a search for another ethny/culture with which to gradually acculturate and eventually assimilate through intermarriage (e.g., Princess Diana’s attraction to the warmth of Egyptian culture).

Serendipitous, wonderful experiences with an out-group can, especially if following upon earlier misery, inspire hope for a new and better life, a feeling of paradise found. This is what many emigrants hope for and, if found, can lead to a desire to change their ethny and assimilate, or else to frustration if the host ethny is not as welcoming as had been hoped.

Family ties can be overridden by romantic/sexual attractions. But imagine the bind if the respective ethnies are at loggerheads, e.g., a mixed Serbian and Muslim couple in Bosnia during their internecine strife. Imagine their offspring torn in two by pressures from both sides. Such unfortunates must surely feel impelled to just clear out of that part of the world to find solace elsewhere. Hence the effort seen in so many ethnies to prevent their offspring coming in too close contact with out-groups during life stages important for mate choice. Again, think of “honor killings” in which a woman is killed by her father or brother for having contravened the marital choice rules designed to maintain family cohesion where such cohesion is felt to be absolutely crucial for success in life. Such people know instinctively that it’s not just a matter of maintaining cultural compatibility but, in addition, has to do with the degree of trust that comes from optimal kinship and from obeying a family’s chief decision maker. “Optimal” here refers, also, to the fact that one shouldn’t marry someone too closely related, either, since too much inbreeding (as in incest, or the equivalent with small endogamous tribes) courts the hazard of genetic defects. See FAQ #14 re interracial marriages.

d) Fear of offending others

A person with friends in out-groups might sense that professing a nationalism of his own would conflict with such affections. But need that be the case? After all, a powerful love for one’s own parents needn’t prevent anyone from having friends and lovers outside one’s own family. A reunion that is fundamentally one of family ties on Thanksgiving or Christmas has never prevented families from inviting all manner of friends and acquaintances home for at least some of its celebrations. Having one’s own family as a first priority does not preclude positive relations with any other person, or even other species of animal and plant.

Still don’t think such prioritizing is necessary? Well, again, think about whom you would turn to when in severe difficulty? Do you have the backup of people you can trust? Who will take responsibility for you during severe illness and old age? Or are you all alone to fend off whatever sort of gang you are up against? Whom would you try to save from falling off a cliff when the choice is among individuals varying in kinship to you? Please try your best when doing this mental exercise to equate these individuals on variables other than kinship, such as how nice they are as persons, how healthy they are, their age. Try out different combinations. Your sister vs. your cat; your sister vs. a chimpanzee; your sister vs. your cousin; your father vs. your uncle, a fellow Icelander vs. a Swede; a fellow Icelander vs. a Vietnamese; etc. Which choices are easiest to make? Why?

e) Deception

The most vehement criticism of nationalism often comes from members of a minority ethny who are cleverly attempting to reduce the competitive power of other, larger ethnies by reducing their cohesion. Make nepotism, nationalism, or any kind of in-group appreciation “politically incorrect” enough and an ethny’s nationalism is sabotaged. To override kinship is nothing new. In the past, children have been induced to denounce their parents for not being communist enough or religious enough. It’s all very ironic if the people doing the criticizing, e.g., Jews, are themselves highly and cohesively nationalistic. But it’s a neat trick if they can pull it off.

Religious doctrine can override kinship by, in effect, deceiving a person into treating out-group members as if they were kin: “We are all brothers under the skin,” they might say, when of course literally this is patently untrue. Christianity may have succeeded so well in such sleights of hand in part by creating a confusion between an altruistic spirit of reciprocity vs. altruistic sacrifice in which one’s own people are, in effect, handicapped.

To be concluded . . .

6. How do we reach reciprocity from “might-makes-right”?

The same way it was done in the Wild West. Try to introduce the “rule of law” (a form of reciprocity insofar as it results from social contract, not imposition) and hire good sheriffs who shoot straight—something never appreciated by the outlaws or by governments of powerful countries that don’t think they will ever have to reciprocate. (“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”) World War I and then World War II were supposed to mark the end of ethnic holocausts. But these have persisted, albeit on a smaller scale. So the rule of law is certainly very hard to establish. Ever since the League of Nations was proposed as a way of substituting self-determination and peaceful arbitration for interethnic warfare, humans still haven’t gotten their act fully together. Hypocrisy seems to be built into nearly everyone (“let he who hath not sinned…”). In which case, while we’re waiting, nationalism is still a rational and absolutely necessary strategy for self-defense. Use it or lose it.

7. Doesn’t nationalism inspire a feeling of superiority that is used to justify dominating other ethnies?

Obviously a nationalist will feel that his own culture is best for himself and not want it to be displaced by another. However, it is common, especially for successful nations, to feel superior to and to want to impose their rule or culture on others (as the U.S. government and Israel are attempting to do in the Middle East, early twenty-first century), but that is not a logically or empirically necessary adjunct to ethnic, in-group favoritism. The Swiss cantons, ethnically and linguistically different, have lived for many happy generations with no serious inclination to take over their neighboring cantons, although recently there was a brief cantonal readjustment to better achieve cantonal homogeneity.

8. What is the relationship between reciprocity and kinship?

They aren’t 100 percent mutually exclusive. There is no reason why we can’t have reciprocal dealings with kin. It’s just that it’s not quite such a disaster if they don’t reciprocate—after all, they are carrying some of our genes. On the other hand, there is often an understanding in families that if the family is to be “always there” for its members, the members ought to always be there for the family. So that if a member is not willing to contribute to the family’s vitality, he shouldn’t expect the family to be forever there to help him out. The so-called honor killings of some societies follow that logic and go a step further in not only withdrawing their help but in actually killing the individualist who has, say, married someone not acceptable to the family. The loss of “honor” comes from that person ruining the family’s reputation for trustworthiness in defense of group interests. Who in that culture would want to marry into that family if it is perceived as careless in making marital alliances? Also, having already invested a great deal in that person, the family would resent seeing all their investment wasted—as they perceive it. Obviously people will disagree about how much they are contributing to or detracting from the common good. But in reciprocal relations there is no getting away from such calculations. The value of cleverness in the context of exchange may have been a major selection pressure behind the evolution of the large human brain.

One can have kinship-like dealings with non-kin insofar as non-kin are able to simulate kin. But by and large, kin relationships end up being restricted to kin—with due allowance for the flexibility of who are considered “kin.” We are often extremely fond of other animals, not to mention members of completely different ethnies or races. Yet these affections, however powerful, are arguably not quite the same as close family ties, even though people may try to treat them as such. Example: the adopted child who, even though very fond of her foster parents, eventually has an urge to find her birth parents and (re-)establish a real kin relationship. Another example: Compare marriages between cousins with marriages between spouses who are much less closely related. The great worldwide popularity of the former may relate to the fact that cousins have both kinship ties as well as attraction based on reciprocity, while a marriage of non-kin is dependent entirely on reciprocity.

Members of a human group based on kinship can afford to help each other without too much regard for being “paid back,” since as long as their genes are being reproduced by at least someone in the group, who cares very much whose survival and reproductive success are being most advantaged? In a group of unrelated people (e.g., a labor union), however, members have to continually evaluate whether they are receiving their money’s worth from their common endeavors. Hence the extra effectiveness of nationalist groups in struggling for goals which will benefit their members. The efficacy is so great that there may well have been a natural selection for instinctive mechanisms for group loyalty, willingness to sacrifice oneself for the group (e.g., suicide bombers), patriotism, etc. Some animals have such instincts, as when a mother doesn’t simply flee from the nest at the sight of a predator but rather acts, at some risk to herself, as a decoy to distract the predator from her young. So it shouldn’t be surprising to find humans preprogrammed to take risks for kin. Humans are also at times willing to risk their lives for non-kin, it is true. But the willingness tends to be less than for kin and to take place in contexts where a certain amount of reciprocity can be expected—e.g., only in small communities where everyone knows each other and reputations for risk-taking on behalf of others can be acquired. So we might expect some sacrificial risk-taking in small communities of unrelated humans (e.g., an army unit), but expect even more in ethnically homogeneous communities.

If someone doesn’t reciprocate, words such as “cheating” or “parasitism” come to a biologist’s mind. Social dilemmas can turn on what should, in fact, have been expected. Usury, the charging of interest for a loan, was historically considered illegitimate for Christians and Muslims (for Jews, too, but not when dealing with non-Jews). Perhaps the value of the interest paid by a borrower was perceived as being more than the cost of the loan to the lender and so represented a form of unequal exchange—or cheating. Or, in a small homogeneous community, loans might have been something everyone could be expected to need sooner or later, and thus be reciprocated in kind. Close kin, as in members of a tribe, might not anticipate “interest” on a loan that benefited common genetic interests.

Consider Christian (or other) ideologies that encourage people to give, charitably, to non-kin without any expectation of getting something in return. Are the people doing the giving being cheated? If it happened enough, they might be severely handicapped relative to competitors. At another level, it might not be cheating if the charity were seen as promoting human biodiversity via a form of reciprocal altruism (insurance), provided it does not come at too great a cost to one’s own people.

9. Why would anyone doubt the relationship of family or extended family to ethnicity and nation?

First, unconscious psychological processes cannot easily be brought to conscious awareness, where they can be evaluated or seen for what they are. Westerners brought up without material suffering, never having lived through a war or other serious crisis, may simply have no idea how they would behave in severe ethnic conflict. Normally they are ever so tolerant and outgoing to people of other ethnies and races, never imagining that they would ever behave otherwise. But if suddenly terrorized by a gang from one of those out-groups, they might well find themselves searching desperately for a familiar face, i.e., someone as much like themselves, ethnically/racially, as possible. This will be done instantly and instinctively, without thought for what is politically correct or egalitarian or nice or prejudiced. Notice how quickly “racial profiling” became de rigueur for security agencies following the demolition of the World Trade Center by Arabs and subsequent terrorist acts.

Second, nationalism is not an inevitable or automatic phenomenon, however likely it may be by virtue of belonging, objectively, to an ethny. (Why? See the next FAQ, #10.)

A major reason for confusion over the connection of family to ethnicity is that there have been mischievous ideologies that have propagandized over the years against the positive aspects of biological relatedness, or anything biological at all. One has only to think of all the extreme environmentalists (in the nature-nurture debates) and egalitarians who promote not just equal rights but also the idea that humans have equal abilities across groups, if not as individuals, as if biological variation has ceased to apply to humans. Bring up anything biological and they go through the roof. Won’t discuss it. Hysteria reigns.

Finally, there is the ready observation that all is not sweetness and light in nearly any family, sibling rivalry being only one example. The Ottoman sultans routinely killed their own brothers. However, this issue seems to have been pretty well laid to rest by those who noticed that if you can hold all other factors constant except for varying degree of kinship, it turns out that one is still clearly better off and safer by being surrounded by kin than by non-kin. Other factors are not normally constant, though, so when there is not enough of a resource to go around, or there is a vast amount up for grabs, there is good reason for a bias in favor of all one’s own genes at the expense of even an only slightly smaller set of them present in close relatives, never mind people of a very different ethny or race. So expect competition for resources to take place throughout the relatedness hierarchy whenever competition at a higher level doesn’t take precedence. E.g., expect Jews in Occupied Palestine to argue and fight even more with each other than they do now if the Arab-Israeli conflict is ever resolved. That will be “subsidiarity” at work. However, a healthy family or nation finds ways of balancing the virtues of kin solidarity with rivalries.

Objectively, parents’ biological “interests” are maximally fulfilled if their parental investment is distributed to those offspring with the greatest chance of survival, success, and further reproduction. And so parents sometimes discriminate, whereas no child wants to be discriminated against. Parents can try to treat children equally, especially if their prospects seem comparable, but also in order to minimize counterproductive rivalry and promote cooperation among them. Family unity in Iran is promoted by outlawing unequal inheritance among sons. (To get around this, when one’s heirs seem to have very different potentials, would require performing a triage while still alive.)

Similar logic pertains to the larger ethnic group. Helping one’s kin does not necessarily mean helping all of them equally, since some are more valuable to the group than others. There is no point in expecting otherwise. To ask of someone what he cannot give is simply to guarantee disappointment and resentment toward a person who cannot rise to the occasion as one might have liked.

Thus the most “worthy” of the group’s aid are those who appear to carry the best genes and have the best character and talents relevant to the group’s success—much as scholarships are normally given to the best students. It doesn’t mean that others have to be thrown to the dogs. The least talented did not wish their bad luck. And a nation benefits if all members are encouraged to contribute to their full potential, however meager, and are appreciated for whatever role they can play. Nationalists living together will want a good safety net for their ethny and are typically willing to pay taxes to a communal pot for both common services and communal insurance systems. But in multicultural societies “…it becomes more difficult to sustain the legitimacy of a universal risk-pooling welfare state…” The perceived risks of parasitism become too high and sympathy for other ethnies too low – as in the reticence of many Americans to support Obama’s Health Care proposals.

A successful nation must appreciate and honor differences in talent in many areas—in political leadership, capacity to recognize danger, expertise in technology or agriculture, courage in warfare, charisma, good health (including good genes), promotion of psychological and social health, noblesse oblige, leadership in community rituals and celebrations.

There will always be some individuals that deliberately, if not out of weakness, sabotage or otherwise work against the interests of the group. These individuals must somehow be neutralized: either placed in a position where their weakness cannot fail the group, or, in extremis, ejected from the group.

10. Why aren’t cultural differences the reason for nationalism?

Well, they are—in a sense. It’s just that they aren’t the fundamental basis of it. Nevertheless, today many think that cultural differences are what cause nationalism. Even people who ought to know better, such as the majority ethny of Québec, the French-speaking Québécois. These days they focus chiefly on protecting the French language, one of the more salient of cultural traits (meaning traits that people learn rather than exhibit instinctively). The result has been that they think that all they have to do to protect their nation is to make sure everyone speaks French, regardless of their ancestry. You can be from China or Haiti, but as long as you speak French, Québec nationalists don’t seem to worry much about your effect on the future of Québec. On the other hand, they have the expression, “Québécois de souche,” which certainly does mean Québécois by virtue of common ancestry—all the way back to the early French immigrants out of St. Mâlo—and which betrays an instinctive understanding of the importance of that ancestry. But they return uneasily to language in an effort to appease various other ethnies now living in Québec who would be affronted to think that they weren’t considered full-fledged “Quebecers”. They are confusing citizenship with ethnicity.

The sociologist Pierre van den Berghe pointed out that cultural differences are very often the best clue people have to their genetic differences, that is, differences in ancestry. Historically, most competition or warfare has been between groups of people who looked much the same physically. Thus differences in clothing, vocabulary, accent, behavior, tattoos, customs, or personal acquaintance were what they had to go on in deciding whose extended family or tribe they belonged to. Genetically transmitted physical features (the basis of “racial differences”), when they are more common in one group than another, can be especially good “markers” for ancestry. Returning to the question at hand, think of a hen: FAQ#10 is like asking whether the reason the hen sits on her eggs is that they carry her genes or, alternatively, because of the environmental aspects of the eggs’ appearance and location in the nest. The question makes little sense, since she must use any available and appropriate markers, such as appearance or location, in order to ensure that the eggs’ role in reproducing genes is carried out.

But nothing is perfect: To the extent that one can fake markers for an ancestry, one will be treated as though one had that ancestry. Teaching a recent immigrant to speak French like a Québécois de souche would be like placing duck eggs in a hen’s nest: Are the markers similar enough? In fact, some hens will still sit on them as though they were their own eggs. Yes, the eggs hatch and the little ducks then imprint on the mother hen and follow her around and she just goes about her own business oblivious to the “error” she has made. Apparently natural selection has not prepared that species of hen for such trickery. Similarly, speaking Quebec style French will clearly help the immigrant to Quebec become accepted, as well. But will it be sufficient? See below.

To be continued . . .

3. Why aren’t the nearly 100 percent of our genes that everyone shares more important than those few that vary?

Indeed, around 99.9 percent of all the genes that a human being carries can be found in all other humans, and 98 percent in chimpanzees. Similar percentages of shared genes are found in most other animal species. So obviously it’s the tiny handful of remaining genes (perhaps 30 or so out of 30,000), each of which can have different versions (alleles), that cause people, primates, and other animals to differ from each other. It is those genes that can and do differ which are the basis for an increase in altruism as biological relatedness increases. Perhaps this is the basis for the oft-repeated phrase from Freud, the “narcissism of small differences.”

Suppose that a mutation (a new allele) happens to be useful. It makes sense (from the point of view of the whole package of genes within which the mutation is immersed) that there be some way to keep it from being lost to posterity. How? Well, surely not by worrying solely or mostly about the 99.9 percent of genes all humans share. No, you have to give proper attention to that new allele. The person carrying it has to reproduce it by making babies with his or her spouse. And while some animals can just walk away at this point, leaving offspring to their own devices, humans take care of their kids, e.g., that child now carrying the good mutation. That mutation might be one that encourages a parent to take better care of her child—who may, in turn, be carrying the same good mutation. That’s the feedback loop enabling altruism in the first place.

All this requires being able to recognize one’s kids. How? There are many possible ways: Look at whose body they came out of and who had sex with the mother, or physical resemblance, or what people say about the child’s ancestry, etc. Some of these clues are more reliable than others hence the attention to “small differences.” Then the parents have to be motivated to take care of their child—who is carrying half of each parent’s genes (since mammals undergo sexual and not asexual reproduction, or cloning). For all of this to happen reliably, via accurate detection of whose child is whose, plus a desire to take care of one’s own child (rather than any child or any object in the neighborhood), there have to be genes which program us to do the right thing. Notice that if one had a desire to take care of someone else’s child rather than one’s own, that would be the end of one’s own genes—including that lovely mutation. One doesn’t have to know about genes, but one has to have the right genes in order to do the right thing for this object (child) that came out of the mother’s body and the father’s sperm. Other objects come out of our body that we certainly do not take care of (no offense intended). So what’s the difference? Genes. Genes that program the “instincts” which enable us to identify and take care of our children properly (along with what we’ve learned from our parents). And since our children have inherited those genes, 50 percent of them in each child, the genes will be self-perpetuating. Get rid of those genes for “caring-for-own-kids” and the self-perpetuation evaporates.

Now then, if that logic works so well for one’s own children, couldn’t it work, in principle at least, in regard to individuals who didn’t come out of our own bodies but who nevertheless are carrying many of our genes because we have ancestors in common that came out of the same bodies? Providing, that is, that we can identify them and then want to promote their survival and reproductive careers. Apparently we have such propensities. And that must be the basis for whatever extra cohesion we find among extended relatives compared to nonrelatives. How do you feel about your own brothers and sisters? Your nieces, nephews, uncles, aunts, cousins? Some people find themselves alienated from even their closest relatives, but that is usually because of something extremely unpleasant that happened (e.g., excessive sibling rivalry). Were it not for that unfortunate matter, surely they would not be so seemingly indifferent to them. Notice what transpires when long lost relatives suddenly find each other after decades of separation due to war, adoption, or exile. Very touching, no? All because they share genes. What alternative is there? Remember, if genes were not running the show, you wouldn’t likely have the same show repeated across every other culture. Rather, just by chance you would expect a few different shows: such as cultures in which people routinely prefer non-kin and foreigners to their own kin, where they routinely prefer to raise other ethnies’ children and give their own away to foreigners (if they have them at all). But think natural selection: Whose kids, on average, are most likely to be best off and most likely to reproduce?

Frank Salter, whose book on nationalism is strongly recommended here, uses the phrase “genetic interests” in conceptualizing the relationship between genes and their reproduction. He doesn’t mean that genes or most animals carrying genes are capable of imagining their genes’ interests, even if they act as if they could. Genes just program their carriers to act that way. Such interests are more analogous to financial interests a person might have without being aware of them, an educational fund, say, that one day a child will inherit. A rock doesn’t have an interest one way or another in remaining intact or in becoming crushed rock. But that’s because it lacks any semblance of a process dedicated to even self-interest, never mind reproduction.

It’s an empirical question how and if a human being will go about promoting his genetic interests. Just because an Icelander’s genes are heavily represented in other Icelanders and, metaphorically, have an interest in being reproduced, does not mean that they, their carrier, or anyone else will have the necessary psychological motive for, or psychological interest in, reproducing them. He might or he might not. Is there any point in saying to a reluctant Icelander, “Hey, your genes have an interest in getting reproduced, so get busy and do the right thing”? It might be worth bringing up the subject in case he had the right motives but had merely been distracted, or didn’t realize he had so many virtual brothers on the island. (Incidentally, Salter, citing recent DNA data, is confident that Europeans in general are much more closely related to each other than heretofore imagined, thanks to the small size of their early prehistoric breeding pool following initial migrations to Europe. Imagine the thousands of present-day Icelanders growing to a hundred million or so. If additional immigration were restrained, they would find themselves with millions of virtual siblings.) However, if our Icelander friend is not at all interested in those previously unimagined relatives, there may not be any point in haranguing him. If he were nationalistic, though, the fact that his genes are scattered among other Icelanders would make it all understandable; that is i.e., it would make sense that he had an evolved mechanism for acting as if he knew that they, too, were carriers of his own genes—just as a mother bird acts as if she knew that her eggs carried her genes. Look at a bird for the first time, and for all you know she may be a one-off creature that just came into the world and is unique. But if she has eggs and takes care of them and if you know all about DNA and genes, you say to yourself, Aha! She very likely has some sort of built-in, preprogrammed brain mechanisms for getting her to do all that—sitting on eggs, feeding chicks after they hatch, etc. So now when we see Icelanders or the Irish acting nationalistically, we know about the genes they share, and so it makes sense to us that they should be nationalistic—rather than, say, run off en masse to volunteer to be slaves for Africans. A few Irish are not at all nationalistic, but there are probably a few birds now and then that don’t sit on their eggs properly. No machinery is totally impervious to malfunction. And the many interesting things to do in life and the many wonderful people in other cultures can easily distract humans. One could distract a bird from sitting on her eggs.

4. Why is kinship “relative”?

If the above account of kinship is true, it means that who we consider to be “our people” will normally depend on whom we actually are most closely related to and on our ability to reliably detect who those relatives are. But “most closely” is a relative concept. How close is “close” depends on whom we are comparing, which often means whom we are competing with. Compared to chimpanzees, Africans are “closer” to Icelanders. Compared to Africans, Swedes are closer to Icelanders. Compared to Swedes, other Icelanders are closer. Our identical twin is closer than our ordinary sibling. So there are no absolutes here. But the logic implies obvious priorities. Whom we consider “our people” and ally ourselves with in a crunch will follow that logic, other things being equal. It will depend on context and on whom, if anyone, we find ourselves competing against. Confusion here is the reason for arguments over whether one should identify oneself as a “white” or as a “Englishman” or “Spaniard”.

As a practical matter, the idea of ethnic relativity may have something to do with the notion of “subsidiarity” discussed frequently by Europeans (especially the British, and especially the British magazine The Economist) in connection with the European Union. This is the idea that all problems in life should be dealt with initially at the lowest possible political level (family, or neighborhood, or municipality, etc.), and that only if insoluble at that level should they be moved to the next higher level, and finally even to Brussels and the European Union—or to the United Nations. Subsidiarity would seem to follow a general logic of human concern. The first interest of any human is normally his own welfare and future, followed by his family and up through his extended family and ethny, extending eventually to all human beings and finally to the continued existence of life in general on the planet. At the higher levels of subsidiarity, we find a universal nationalist’s respect for ethnic and cultural diversity—in contrast to homogenizing globalization.

5. Doesn’t nationalism promote wars between ethnies?

Of course. Not a problem if you love the excitement and fulfillment of warfare, and the booty. Indeed, the genetics of kinship do partly account for the wars that occur between different peoples. Race wars (big genetic differences) may come to mind as especially horrible. However, frequency of warfare has recently been reported to be positively [sic] related to genetic similarity, even after controlling for geographic proximity. Reason suggested: genetic similar means similar economic and other interests that can more easily conflict. E.g, Palestinian Jews and Arabs (genetically similar) both feel entitlement to the same land. Nevertheless, expect even closer kinship within than between such groups if they are endogamous.

But suppose you aren’t a war lover? Then go for the “reciprocity” mentioned earlier. And yes, there is a biological underpinning to it all. If that draws a blank, here’s a brief intro.

Genes can be promoted not only by squashing your competitors but also by mutual aid arrangements—between individuals who don’t necessarily share any genes at all. Think of bees pollinating flowers and getting nectar in return; or the tiny fish that nourish themselves by helpfully cleaning the teeth and gills of very large fish in coastal waters. The only way these mutually beneficial arrangements can work, long term, is by ensuring that it’s a two-way street. It can work between nearly any organisms if their mutual benefit is simultaneous, so that if either one ceases to benefit, the other automatically gets cut off, too, and so neither can exploit the other. But humans are capable of reciprocity over time. You help me today and I will, in return, help you tomorrow, thanks to our big brains that can minimize exploitation. It’s division of labor, the economists’ “law of comparative advantage,” It may account for an enormous amount of human sociality, including warm friendships across ethnic and racial lines as well as more prosaic sorts of trade and commerce. Some people’s careers make them exceptionally prone to this type of interethnic relation, e.g., academics, political and professional elites; those involved in trade and the transport of goods and people between countries, etc.

Much of our emotional make-up (genetically evolved machinery in the brain) is thought to be devoted to monitoring and regulating these reciprocities. Feelings of friendship, attachment, obligation, or guilt toward nonrelatives exist because the capacity to feel these emotional incentives promotes beneficial reciprocity. The outrage felt when we are cheated motivates us to stop giving anything to those who don’t reciprocate. Vengeful feelings motivate us to punish those who cheat on us or betray us. Specialized cognitive systems serve us in detecting cheaters. Since all humans seem to be prone to self-interested bias, cheating requires constant management. Reciprocity may have originated in relations with relatively close kin, gradually becoming extended to genetically more and more distant humans as natural selection rewarded such commerce.

Read Part 3 here.

Editor’s Note: The following essay is a slightly revised version of one that appeared in print in The Occidental Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 1 (Spring 2005). For ease of online reading, it is presented here without notes, which can be found in the archived version of the print edition. I should, however, mention that Dr. Hilton’s argument is heavily indebted to Frank Salter’s theory of Ethnic Genetic Interests presented in his On Genetic Interests: Family, Ethnicity, and Humanity in an Age of Mass Migration. This is the first of five parts.

Explanation

These thoughts on “nationalism” were put on paper for the benefit of several young relatives who have misunderstood or been puzzled by my position on certain family and political issues.* Arguing about individual bits of a puzzle without an overall framework has been a waste of time and emotion. So I’ve tried to give, first, a brief overview or “manifesto,” followed by several specific explanations. Perhaps these considerations will help others faced with critics unfamiliar with the biology of human nature.

Here’s a thought: You either like your own people or you don’t. If you don’t, well, too bad, and we’ll get back to you in a minute. But if you do like your own people—that is, your own children, family, extended family, clan, tribe, or ethnic group, hereinafter called your “ethny” or nation (and we’ll get back to these words, in a minute, too)—this memorandum offers some considerations concerning life on this planet that today, oddly, many people and conventional wisdom seem to ignore. You may also appreciate the fact that our planet contains many other cultures and ethnies/nations, whose continued existence you might also be in favor of in accordance with today’s quasi-ideology of “bio-diversity.” That is, if you claim to love and respect other cultures, races, or ethnies as well as your own, you would do nothing to destroy or unduly change them. You would then be a “universal nationalist.”

Most people ought to be able to answer quite easily, when asked, “Yes, I would like to see my own people and culture continue to exist, not disappear,” or else, “No, my people and culture are not worth saving—I couldn’t care less if they vanished from the face of the earth.” To favor the continuation (the non-disappearance) of one’s people does not mean that one wouldn’t like to see improvements in flawed individuals (and who doesn’t have a few flaws?) or find some way of keeping flawed individuals from sabotaging the cause. One might like to see improvements in certain cultural details or personality traits common in one’s group, and the eugenic elimination of nasty genes wherever feasible. But such improvements would not be intended to remove either the major cultural traits or the vast majority of the characteristic genes that one’s people carry around and reproduce each generation.

Now then, if (and only if) you do not want your people to disappear, wouldn’t you necessarily have to favor the following policies?

First, you would favor a protective/defensive “nationalism” in regard to your own extended family and ethny. This need not be to the exclusion of commerce and other valuable reciprocal relationships with other families, other peoples, other ethnies. There is no good reason why your nationalism can’t be thoroughly compatible with other nationalisms and even synergistic with them—at least, or especially, if there is provision for some sort of regulatory-adjudicative body and police force to prevent any one ethny from being unduly predatory and pounding the stuffing out of its neighbors. Predation was not always irrational, as long as the odds were good that your side would win out and claim all the booty. But predators have to worry about their victims taking revenge (as in “terrorism”). No one likes to be the loser in a war, and in today’s wars often everyone is the loser, not least because wars pollute and interfere with depolluting the planet. Genocide, the slaughter of an ethny in its entirety, or its complete assimilation into another ethny, is analogous to the extinction of any species of plant or animal.⁵ Just as “biodiversity” is regarded as potentially beneficial across the animal and plant kingdoms, so, arguably, is human diversity in particular. One never knows when or how another culture or ethny may turn out to benefit one’s own, but if they go extinct, they are lost forever. Maybe there are some cultures that you detest, but maybe you should hold your nose and hope that they survive, too—someplace.

Second, you would want at least one territory, including a homeland, for your own people and culture as the easiest, most practical way to protect your ethny from being swamped by other ethnies. With a territory for every ethny, each is then responsible for not overloading its carrying capacity. The territory need not be large, e.g., a Swiss canton. Most of today’s cities contain micro ethnic enclaves (however vulnerable to invasion) along with areas that are heterogeneous.

Third, you would want at most a very modest amount of immigration into your territory, along with tourism, to provide exposure to alternative and possibly better cultural ways, without being forced to adopt them. Guest workers can provide extra labor when needed. Notice that most people can’t get past an all-or-nothing statement of the issue: You either allow immigration or you don’t; they can’t think in terms of “a little, but not a lot.”

Fourth, at most a very modest amount of intermarriage with other ethnies to counter the genetic effects of too much inbreeding, or to achieve other eugenic goals, e.g., to have smarter kids.

Fifth, you would need some sort of group structure or community (with rules, customs, laws, etc.) designed to help achieve the above goals.

Sixth, group structure and community would, for many people, be handicapped without a full embrace of the spiritual world, which, in essence, seems to be a conscious and unconscious acceptance of and celebration of the “sacred,” i.e., of the extreme importance of certain aspects of our lives, both social and physical, and a devotion to the quest for paradise in this best of all possible worlds. Nowadays, of course, any spiritual or religious dogma that is contrary to the findings of modern science, typified by the antipathy of some Christian and Muslim doctrines to the idea of biological (Darwinian) evolution, will likely alienate the most talented of one’s people. This antipathy has obscured what is surely the most sacred priority imaginable, the survival on this planet of one’s people, however defined: one’s “sacred nation.” What is sacred is essentially what is vitally important. Rituals that are sacred are those that surround important milestones in life (birth, marriage, death, etc.) and that promote successful negotiation through these stages of life.

There are people who are nationalistic without calling themselves “religious,” but to exclude the spiritual is to ignore the enormous fulfillment which a focus on the spiritual can provide for many people in matters of success, love, tragedy, and death, and in encouraging a healthy and cohesive community. A major problem historically has been that so much that characterizes well-known religions seems contrary to common sense, irrational or silly (some concepts of the hereafter), maladaptive (the “promiscuous” altruism of some Christians), hypocritical (“Onward Christian Soldiers”), unnecessarily hazardous to outsiders (Zionists, Crusaders, Taliban), and therefore unnecessarily alienating. For many of us, they also originated in foreign lands, in people and cultures that lived in different times, ecologies, and circumstances. Surely all this can be improved upon.

An incidental note: To say that you favor the above policies doesn’t necessarily imply anything about what you are personally prepared to do about them, only that you would necessarily favor them if you want your people to be protected. E.g., you might be too busy, distracted, discouraged, or lazy to do much about them. Maybe you’re so far along in your life that you can only hope others will do the job. Encourage them.

So, in brief, that’s about it. However, thanks to a half century or so of massive ideological campaigns against the relevance of biology for human social relations, any defender or critic of nationalism should become familiar with a few essential understandings. Perhaps the following will help.

_____________________

FAQs

In which we address a number of misunderstandings or frequently asked questions.

1) What is meant by “our own people”?

2) What is biological kinship all about? Why is it such a strong glue?

3) Why aren’t the nearly 100 percent of our genes that everyone shares more important than those few that vary?

4) Why is kinship “relative”?

5) Doesn’t nationalism promote wars between ethnies?

6) How do we reach reciprocity from “might-makes-right”?

7) Doesn’t nationalism inspire a feeling of superiority that is used to justify dominating other ethnies?

8 ) What is the relationship between reciprocity and kinship?

9) Why would anyone doubt the relationship of family or extended family to ethnicity and nation?

10) Why aren’t cultural differences the reason for nationalism?

11) Doesn’t the success of multiculturalism show that having the same ancestry is not necessary for a harmonious society as long as people speak a common language?

12) Why isn’t everyone nationalistic?

13) How do you explain the fact that a major football rivalry for Tunisia seems to be with another North African country, Morocco, rather than with countries that are much more distantly related?

14) What’s wrong with interracial marriage?

15) How do you decide how much immigration to have?

16) How can a small territory (enclave, ghetto, neighborhood) control immigration?

17) What do you mean by group structure?

18) Should everyone be a nationalialist?

___________________________

1. What is meant by “our own people”?

This can vary all over the lot. Situations differ in how salient they make certain degrees of closeness among kin. A holiday may focus our minds on immediate family, while a family reunion could bring together a large collection of people with the same last name. A war can make us concerned for our whole ethny or nation (e.g., Irish Catholics or Serbs or Jews) as it is aligned against an enemy nation. Note that we often belong to associations such as a flying club, or a labor union, or to a management team. But we’re mostly concerned here with groupings that are based on some degree of biological kinship, which seems to be an especially powerful glue for group formation, rather than common economic or other interests. American workers tend to resent their jobs being outsourced to “fellow” workers in Southeast Asia or to illegal immigrants: Where is the worker solidarity there?

2. What is biological kinship all about? Why is it such a strong glue?

Most people around the world understand something about the importance of “blood,” or family, as a primary source of help, backup, love, and social cohesion, a fundamental basis for sociality. Several sharp minds managed to convince many gullible minds to the contrary, during the twentieth century, but fortunately their forces seem now to be in retreat.

Common sense tells us that a first and very natural impulse for most of us (with due allowance for abnormal individuals or situations) is the promotion of our own lives and self-defense. Thanks however to important insights by biologists (see, e.g., Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, for an introduction), it is now clear that we share many of our distinctive genes (the all-important DNA strands that are blueprints for proteins out of which human beings are constructed) with kin. (Note: We are talking about only those distinctive genes [“alleles”] that can vary across humans, not the vast number—well over 90 percent of our genes—that all of us have in common.) If the recent insights are correct, the ultimate meaning of life, and the raison d’être for any altruism and social cohesion at all, is the promotion of our distinctive genes along with the others. The way DNA gets perpetuated is by building a body that looks and acts in ways that lead to reproduction of those same strands of DNA molecules. No reproduction, no more DNA. Thus, one way of promoting this reproduction is by helping our kin as well as ourselves. One sees this dramatically in the ultra-cooperation between identical twins—who share all their genes with each other. It can also be seen in the considerable social cohesion exhibited by small, ethnically homogeneous societies such as exist in Iceland. Given their degree of within-island, yet non-incestuous, marriage, the average Icelander has the equivalent of over a thousand siblings in the community, if one considers that she will likely share at least a few of the Icelandically distinctive genes with each of the several hundred thousand people in Iceland. Add them all up—that is, across all the individuals with whom she shares at least one—and it makes perfect sense that Icelanders should be cohesive: helping other Icelanders would be like helping all those virtual siblings. Genetic commonality means a certain amount of commonality of interest. Common interest is a basis for trust, since insofar as people want the same thing for each other, they are unlikely to betray each other.

Read Part 2 here.

Strange Fruit: Why Both Sides are Wrong in the Race Debate

However, there are really two types of human interests. With respect to the present discussion, these can be defined as follows. As the name suggests, preference interests describe a concern for objects or activities that a person or group has a conscious preference for; e.g., “my friend Joe has an interest in baseball.” This is the type of interest most people are familiar with, and Malik exploits this familiarity by framing his “argument” in these terms. However, such a narrow definition of “interest” as our “wants, needs, and desires” leads us to conclude that non-sentient organisms have no interests and that, for example, a recent heart attack victim can have an interest in smoking, eating deep fried Twinkies, and drinking melted lard – if he so “wants” and “desires.”

Therefore, we must consider welfare interests – which describes those objects and activities that contribute to the well being (defined in very broad terms, including the evolutionary) of any organism, independent of their “wants or desires” (if they are even capable of having “wants and desires”). Therefore, although a bacterium does not have preference interests, it does indeed have welfare interests in its survival and reproduction – reproduction contributing to genetic continuity, which is the core measure of “success” or “fitness” from an evolutionary perspective. And it should also be noted that Salter refers to the interests of evolved organisms (individual organisms and groups thereof), not the “interests” of genes per se. If Malik or anyone else wants to critique the “genes have interests” paradigm, I refer them to Richard Dawkins.

One of the defining characteristics of life on Earth is reproduction; indeed, as stated above, genetic continuity is so fundamental to evolutionary theory that biological “fitness” itself is defined in terms of reproductive success and genetic representation in future generations. It is therefore a quite unusual definition of “interests” that excludes as a fundamental concern the central tendency of all evolved organisms. It is more reasonable to see genetic continuity as one of – if not the – most important aspect of welfare interests for all life on Earth. After all, “welfare” presupposes existence; a group that does not exist cannot have “welfare” for any of its non-existent members to have an interest in. Thus, in a real sense, life does have a welfare interest in genetic continuity. All life on Earth reproduces using genetic material; therefore, genetic continuity of life equals the existence of life itself.

It is clear that evolved organisms have interests – welfare interests – in genetic continuity. The idea of kin selection recognizes that it doesn’t matter from an objective standpoint whether the genetic information to be continued is yours or identical, or relatively more similar, information in “kin.” “Kin” is a relative term, so that co-ethnics who share more of your genetic information in a relative sense compared to non-ethnics are also “kin” from the standpoint of genetic continuity. It therefore stands to reason that if genetic continuity constitutes a welfare interest for evolved organisms, and if the continuity of “kin” (including co-ethnics) is part of this continuity, then organisms have a welfare interest in the genetic continuity of their “kin,” relative to others. The word “relative” must be stressed. One does not say that an organism has a greater interest in a random “kin” member compared to self, but it does have an interest in “kin” compared to others of the same (or different) species who are genetically more dissimilar. And, the greater the numbers of co-ethnic kin vs. non-ethnics involved, the greater the welfare interests in the (genetic) continuity of kin over non-kin.

If we accept welfare interests as legitimately encompassing genetic continuity – and, after all, for life on Earth, genetic continuity is continuity itself, and existence must be an interest, is it not? – then the next line of “argument” against Salter involves the “naturalistic fallacy” (see note). In other words, the accusation is that Salter derives a preference interest for genetic continuity directly from welfare interests in that continuity, and one cannot directly derive an “ought” from an “is.” In other words, one cannot directly derive preferred human action from natural laws and biological facts.

However, Salter repeatedly makes clear that he does not do this – he intersperses “values” in between nature and human action. After all, why can’t humans “want” and “need” and “desire” genetic continuity? Why can’t they “want” and “need” and “desire” ethnic/racial continuity? Why is this an invalid value? Why can’t people value biological fitness? We are not saying they are obligated to do so from the reality of biological fitness; however, we are saying that if people choose to behave adaptively, then valuing genetic continuity is the way to achieve that objective.

Therefore:

Preference Interests in Genetic Continuity = Welfare Interests in Genetic Continuity + Values Favoring Fitness

If Malik believes that the values favoring fitness are morally or aesthetically or rationally wrong (at least for whites) then he needs to explicitly say so. He should go on the BBC and tell native Britons that a concern for their own continuity is bad and stupid – in the context of honestly and completely explaining evolutionary theory and biological fitness. He needs to openly express the opinion that native Britons should be unconcerned with their own survival as a (biological) group and that they should be unconcerned with displacement by others. It is clear that any group that takes Malik’s advice and eschews genetic continuity as a value will be replaced by groups that do hold such a value as a fundamental interest. Indeed, a lack of interest in group continuity is not evolutionarily stable – any groups that lack such an interest will replaced by those groups that value that interest, and if all groups lack this interest then the entire species may become extinct.

In addition, issues of preference interests and welfare interests begin to overlap – to declare that people have children only because of “desires and wants” for parenthood misses the point that most prospective parents want their own biological children, sometimes going to extreme lengths to achieve that objective. Isn’t then the preference interest for parenthood – manifested as a “need” and “desire” for one’s own children – an evolved instinct for personal genetic continuity? Can one continue to insist that genetic continuity is not an interest when so much of the “striving” of life is toward that goal?

Further, the idea that ethnocentrism is no longer adaptive today, although it may have been in the past, is ludicrous, since ethnocentrism is most adaptive in the context of ethnic/racial competition – a competition most salient in today’s globalist world, and in multiracial “western” nations. Indeed, ethnocentrism is likely more adaptive (at least for Westerners) today than in any other time in human history. The stakes have never been higher.

While genetic interests, like all ideas, should certainly be subjected to rational critique, the absurd assertion that human groups have no interest in their own continuity – which goes against evolutionary theory – is way beyond the limits of rationality. Why would Malik promote such an idea? Perhaps the first sentence of this abstract holds a clue (emphasis added):

The term Darwinian fitness refers to the capacity of a variant type to invade and displace the resident population in competition for available resources.

Indeed.  Given that Salterism can be viewed as a tool that the “resident population” can use to resist displacement by an invading “variant type,” is it surprising that a representative of a quite variant type wishes to delegitimize that tool so as to facilitate the invasion? Isn’t it in the genetic interests of the variant to deny the very existence of those same genetic interests when addressing the resident population, to disarm that population in the competition for “available resources” (e.g., territory)?

Note:

I in fact have become skeptical of this, and a number of other, commonly cited “fallacies.”  It is too easy for people to dismiss unwelcome ideas by stating that the promoter of those ideas has “committed the XYZ fallacy,” thus ending debate on the topic. It may be useful to, at some point in the future, revisit the idea of whether the “naturalistic” and/or “is/ought” fallacy is indeed a fallacy in the light of modern evolutionary theory.

Kalash girl with European features

From The Occidental Observer, October 11, 2009

I am sure most people are familiar with the typical definitions of ‘cuckoldry’ in which a woman is unfaithful to her unknowing male partner. Genetically speaking, the most severe form of cuckoldry occurs when the woman’s unfaithful behavior results in being impregnated by the “other man” — with the unknowing male partner being tricked to raise the other man’s offspring as if it were his own. This extreme example of maladaptive behavior is similar to the phenomenon of brood parasitism as practiced by several species, including the cuckoo bird, from which the term “cuckoldry” is derived. Humans or birds – the cuckolded organism suffers a drastic loss of biological fitness by raising as offspring young not their own.

As Dr. Frank Salter indicates in his ground breaking work on genetic interests (On Genetic Interests: Family, Ethnicity, and Humanity in an Age of Mass Migration), these interests – which are ultimate interests to all evolved organisms – can exist at higher levels than mere individual and family. Genetic interests also exist at the level of population groups (“ethnies”). Thus, if cuckoldry occurs at the individual/family level and damages genetic interests, can it not also occur at the level of ethnicity and race, with even wider spread damage done to genetic interests? Can Racial Cuckoldry exist, in which people are misled into thinking that the genetically alien is actually a co-ethnic, and so invest in people with whom they share relatively little distinctive genetic information?

Note by “racial” in this context I mean pertaining to the “ethny” — which can be any genetically defined population (ethnic group, sub-race, race, etc.). Note also that Racial Cuckoldry — defined as the maladaptive investment in genetically alien ethnies and/or alien individuals who are mistakenly considered as belonging to your ethny — is linked to mimicry, that is, Racial Mimicry. Racial Mimicry is fairly straightforward — a member of one ethny mimics the outward characteristics of another ethny and, therefore, may be mistaken for a member of that other ethny.

An example of the racial cuckoldry paradigm is the case of the Kalash, as indicated by this post and comments thread at American Renaissance. The Kalash are an Asian Caucasian group that are, in general, fairer complexioned that the surrounding Pakistani population. Some fraction of the Kalash population, particularly children, are fair even by European standards (i.e., light-haired and light-eyed), and an even smaller percentage of the population may resemble some Europeans in facial features (although most Kalash are, clearly, phenotypically distinct from Europeans). . . . Read the whole article.

Dr. Kevin MacDonald is a brilliant man whom I admire and whom I agree with on almost everything.  Dr. MacDonald states:

But what I take away from this is that the greatest danger to the cultural establishment is the existence of intelligent, well-written, well-documented, and fundamentally honest articles arguing for the importance of white identity and white interests.

Certainly, I am motivated to contribute such articles, to TOQ and to other forums, to assist in the process of promoting white interests.

I may agree with Prozium and Michael O’Meara considerably less than 100% of the time; however, I find no fault in their contributions to this series.  Prozium, who recently soundly thrashed Lee John Barnes [and here] of the British National Party and Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com, writes:

I had a rare personality type (one that I suspect many intelligent racialists share) that inclined me to care far more about truth than social status.

I believe the same applies to my case.  For example, in a debate between, say, Jared Taylor and Peter March or Tim Wise, the “socially acceptable” position is to agree with March/Wise and mindlessly denounce Taylor as a “hater.”  But, which positions represents truth?  Represents logic?  Whose position in these debates, if followed through on, would lead to adaptive behavior for persons of European descent?  And whose positions would lead to maladaptive behaviors leading to the destruction of the West and its peoples?  Taylor speaks for truth and for adaptive behavior, thus it is Taylor, and not the establishment mouthpieces, who should hold our attention and support.

The usually insightful O’Meara submits:

At this hopefully not-too-distant point, when white Americans awake to their fate as a people in the grips of an ethnocidal regime, I expect TOQ to become the metapolitical organ NOT of a revitalized, racially conscious right, but of a revolutionary nationalism assertive of the white man’s unique identity. It is for this that I write.

The key point there is “revolutionary.”  I am not at all interested in any form of “conservatism” whether it is of the “traditional,” “paleo,” or, especially, “neo” varieties.  What I am interested in, politically, is palingenetic themes and an avant-garde and Futurist orientation.  If this sounds much like the textbook definition of “fascism” then, very well, I am a “fascist” in the true sense of the word — not in any way associated with the layman’s use of the word as some sort of pejorative against reactionary rightists who are, in no way, shape, or form, truly fascist.

Revolutionary, palingenetic, avant-garde, and Futurist politics — while of some importance in and of themselves — are, more fundamentally, the means to achieve certain ends.  What are those ends?  They are the preservation of our ultimate interests — the continuity and/or expansion of our unique genetic information (i.e., our genetic interests) — in the context of a sociopolitical system that will both ensure the long-term stability of those interests while providing the environment for Western man to express his true nature and reach for the stars.  To the stars should be our goal — literally as well as figuratively — instead of to the gutter which is to where we are presently descending in this era of globalist multiracialism and multiculturalism.

An important part of my work is promoting, defending, extending, and integrating the fundamentally important work of Dr. Frank Salter on genetic interests, particularly ethnic genetic interests.  Promoting is important since an unfortunate reality is that this work has been ignored by the people — including nationalist politicians and racialist activists — who need it the most.  The scant attention Salter’s work has heretofore received has been in inverse relation to its world-historical importance.  Defending the work is important because a mendacious group of individuals hostile to the ideals of TOQ have unfairly maligned Salter and his work; e.g., leftist “academics” (with “beautiful” mixed race relatives), Asian supremacists and their white puppets, etc.  Extension is important because I, and others, see Salter’s work as incomplete without the inclusion of genetic structure into the equation.  Finally, the work of Salter must be integrated into the philosophy of nationalism and ethnoracial identity.  Here is where the whole Empiricism (e.g., Guessedworker) vs. Myth (e.g., O’Meara and Prozium) debate went off the tracks.  This is a topic to be dealt with later; however, there is a misunderstanding perhaps between means and ends.

The ENDS in question are those described above, the preservation of European genotypes and the creation of environments where those genotypes, and the phenotypes resulting from those genotypes, can flourish.  The MEANS to achieve those ends can be flexible and dependent upon context.  For some individuals, rational empiricism will suffice.  For many (most?) others, some sort of overarching “myth”– some type of inspiring, not purely materialistic worldview — is required to motivate to engage in the battle to achieve the ends in question.  As long as a given type of “mean” does not harm the ultimate “ends” then whatever works is good.  One must be careful — very careful — to ensure that means do not conflict with ends; thorough analysis is necessary.  Any means, no matter how effective, that ultimately impair the achievement of the ends, are means that must be eschewed.  But as long as the means truly do help achieve the ends, does it matter whether these means are “myth” or empiricism?  It would be great if empirical rationalism could directly motivate; but the struggles to get people to digest the work of Salter suggests that the medicine of genetic interests must be sweetened with a healthy dose of “myth.”  These two perspectives need not be incompatible.

I also promote a form of pan-European nationalism which is wholly compatible with narrower focused interests in nation and/or subrace.  Here is where Barnes of the BNP is totally wrong.  Barnes completely misrepresents what “white nationalism” is about.  To him a Briton has the choice between either (1) being interested only in the British peoples without caring one whit about any other Europeans, or (2) being interested in all Europeans exactly equally and not caring if native Brits are replaced by Poles.  That is absolute stupidity; nothing prevents a British “white nationalist” from having as his primary allegiance his own national ethny, but also having a strong interest in the well being of the European peoples as a whole.  I certainly do not expect a BNP member to spend his time agonizing over ethnic competition between Russians and Chinamen in the Russian Far East; this activist has more pressing concerns in London, Liverpool, and Edinburgh.  On the other hand, why should this activist be completely indifferent about whether Slavs or Mongolids prevail on the Amur?  Why can’t a British activist invest his energies along a sliding scale of ethnoracial identity and genetic relatedness, with the most invested for his core ethny, but reserving a healthy portion for the greater race and civilization?  And can’t guys like Barnes understand that enlightened self-interest mandates a less purely provincial attitude?  How will the long term survival of the British peoples be better maintained — as part of a greater, white, European West, or as an isolated white island in a brown, black and yellow ex-”European” sea?  Doesn’t it matter whether the nation across the channel is a white, western, French France, or if it is a non-white Third World Islamic Republic?  There are none so blind and those who will not see — time for Barnes and cohorts to get Seeing Eye dogs.

Pan-European cooperation and solidarity need not be at odds with more restricted particularisms.  Both the whole and all constituent parts of that whole need to be preserved and defended.  This can, and should, be synergistic and not antagonistic.

I have other interests as well, but the major point here is that I wish to make the contributions that I am capable of, focusing on certain key issues such as genetic interests, nationalism, and politics, joining with others (e.g., MacDonald, Prozium, O’Meara) to create an intellectual Western nationalist vanguard to help save both race and civilization.

Jerry Z. Muller a professor at Catholic University, (“Us and Them,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2008, and “Replies,” July/August 2008) argued that the power of ethnic nationalism “will drive global politics for generations to come” because it “corresponds to some enduring propensities of the human spirit,” which often manifests in the “need for each people to have its own state.” His essay provided a valuable corrective to the position that ethnic identity is a mere social construction that globalization will steadily eradicate.

But Muller’s argument would have been strengthened by understanding why people prefer genetic similarity in others.

Ever since the 1994 publication of The History and Geography of Human Genes by Stanford University geneticist Luigi Cavalli-Sforza, it has been possible to measure genetic distances between population groups in terms of family equivalents. Anthropologist Henry Harpending showed that against the background of worldwide genetic variance, the average similarity between people within a single population is the same as that between half-siblings. Political scientist Frank Salter calculated that compared to the Danes, any two random English people have a kinship of 1/32 of a cousin. Two English people become the equivalent of 3/8 of a cousin by comparison with people from the Near East, 1/2 cousin by comparison with people from India, half-siblings by comparison with people from China, and like full-siblings compared with people from sub-Saharan Africa.

Thus, the aggregate of genes people share with co-ethnics dwarfs those shared with extended families. Rather than being a poor relation of family nepotism, ethnic nepotism is virtually a proxy for it.

The pull of genetic similarity explains why members of ethnic groups move into the same neighborhoods, join together in clubs and societies, and are prone to develop ethnocentric attitudes toward those who differ in dress, dialect, and other appearance. In The Ethnic Phenomenon (1981), by Pierre van den Berghe, a sociology and anthropology at the University Of Washington, found that even relatively open and assimilative groups “police” their boundaries against invasion by strangers using cultural “badges” to mark group membership, such as scarification, linguistic accent, and clothing style. Another study calculated coefficients of consanguinity within and between Eskimo tribes in the Hudson’s Bay region of Canada and found prosocial behavior such as wife exchange, and anti-social behavior such as genocidal killing during warfare, followed lines of genetic distance, albeit mediated by ethnic badging such as dialect and appearance. [A study in the evolution of ethnocentrism, by C.  J. Irwin, in The Sociobiology of Ethnocentrism, 1987]

From an evolutionary perspective, the reason why people construct ethnic identities and engage in ethnic nepotism is that by doing so they increase the survival of their genes. Central to discussion is the concept of inclusive fitness.

As Richard Dawkins explicated in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene, it is genes that survive and are passed on across generations. Some of the individual’s most distinctive genes will be found in fellow ethnics as well as in offspring, siblings, nephews, cousins, and grand-children. By benefiting extended kin, people benefit copies of their genes.

Of course, altruism has always posed a conundrum for Darwinism. How could altruism evolve through “survival of the fittest” if altruism means self-sacrifice? If the most altruistic members of a group sacrifice themselves for others, they will leave fewer offspring to pass on the genes that made them altruistic. At first glance, it would seem that altruism could not evolve, while selfishness would.

Yet altruism is common in all animals, even to the point of self-sacrifice. When bees defend their hive and sting intruders, the entire stinger is torn from the bee’s body. Stinging an intruder is an act of altruistic self-sacrifice. In ants, if nest walls are broken open, soldiers pour out to combat foragers from other nests; at the same time, worker ants repair the broken walls, in the process leaving the soldiers outside to die.

Evolutionary psychology answers the Darwinian conundrum. From an evolutionary point of view, an individual organism is only a vehicle, part of an elaborate device, which ensures the survival and reproduction of genes with the least possible biochemical alteration. So even when an altruist sacrifices its life for its kin, it ensures the survival of common genes. In this case, the vehicle has been sacrificed to preserve copies of its precious cargo. . . . Read the rest of the article.

Michael O’Meara has responded to GuessedWorker. I was going to post my two cents over there, but the brief comment grew into a blog entry.

The most persuasive case for the efficacy of myths is the debate over “scientific racism” itself: the manner in which “progressives” will twist themselves into a pretzel to avoid even the most obvious facts (racial differences exist, at least in morphology). These people will undoubtedly respond to Salterism in the same Foucaultian manner in which they dismiss all of racial science (it’s a power grab by the white man, a discourse that justifies his domination over us!).

The myth of the colorblind society overpowers the facts cited by the race realists time and again. I’ve lost count of how many times I have seen it happen. The most notorious case that comes to mind is Robert Lindsay, a progressive blogger, who is honest enough to admit that the race realists are usually right on their facts. He has studied the IQ data and racial crime statistics at length (going into international comparisons), knows the score, but isn’t moved by raw data.

He says openly that he wants to believe the progressive line on race. It is too comforting of an illusion. In Lindsay’s case, which is about the best we can hope for out of a progressive, the myth of the colorblind society is powerful enough to override facts, self-interest, and critical thinking. It is always this way with these people. Their vision of  “social justice” (or whatever they call it) drives their behavior. It is primary; data points are secondary, and are molded and interpreted to fit the preconceived conclusion.

Here’s another angle to the race realist/human biodiversity community: the nerd factor. The Sailersphere tends to disproportionately attract a certain type of individual, the sort of people who really are driven by data points, or “nerds” as we colloquially call them. Sometimes when you see them parsing GSS data, you can almost hear Skolnick, Poindexter, and Wormser chortling behind their computers in the background. You can imagine a pin up calender of “Asian babes” hanging on the wall. I have long suspected that their defense of the Jews, attacks on White Nationalists and “Nazis,” their obsession and crowing about IQ might have more to do with nerd solidarity (social class) than anything else. I’m skeptical that HBD/RR [Human Bio-Diversity/Race Realism--ed.] will ever rise above being a nerd subculture.

Americans are not analytical/empirical/objective. I have mentioned elsewhere that Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind series has sold 65 million copies. Even within academia, the progressive mythos dominates entire disciplines, especially in the culture sensitive humanities. I just can’t see an appeal to science winning out (without substantial culture wind behind it); look what happened to James Watson (with all his prestige) when he stepped across the line of political correctness. Geneticists bend over backwards to avoid using the word “race” in lieu of Watson’s fall from grace. Most try to avoid it altogether (smart career move there). They bend to popular opinion and the progressive party line. Remember all that talk about how the Human Genome Project had discredited racialism? That and God talk has done wonders for Francis Collins’ career.

What can be said for self-interest? In our current political environment, it reinforces the LDC [Liberal-Democratic Capitalist--Ed.] system. The career-minded, family-minded selfish individual prefers to go along with the flow. He is content to live in his whitebread suburb, shop at the Big Box stores for plasma televisions, pull the (R) lever at the ballot box in November. The first rule of conservative politics: Number One always comes first, second, and last. If such an individual is feeling really brave, he might go teabagging or do something really radical like visit a paleo website.

Just think about it: the tide of self-interest against us is so strong that White Nationalists have to cheer for a national catastrophe like a Second Great Depression, Hurricane Katrina or Kunstler’s Long Emergency to disrupt the status quo. Self-interest will come into play whenever our success appears plausible (think of the NSDAP) or catastrophic circumstances intervene. That’s when the opportunists and conservatives will flock into our ranks.

Looking at our situation objectively, even with the eye of an analytical empiricist (a bent of mind I share with GuessedWorker), what is needed right now (in the embryonic stage) is fanaticism. There are few incentives to join our movement. Racially conscious Whites are the most despised minority in America. I’m willing to wager we are hated even more than the atheists.

We need myths that are powerful enough to move a vanguard beyond their own rational self-interest. An alluring vision is needed comparable to the colorblind utopia that animates the left. It has to be expressed in art, literature, music and film; vehicles more accessible to the masses than academic texts. I have in mind the role played by the hippies and beatniks (and rock music) in the socialization of the counterculture’s cosmopolitan/expressivist mythos in the 1950s and 1960s. This is a task for artists, not intellectuals.

As for EGI [Ethnic Genetic Interests--Ed.], that ship will sail in the scientific community (only) when the headwinds of a popular movement are behind it. Myth, facts, self-interest — in that order, a mass movement progresses from infancy to maturity.

From Occidental Dissent, August 20, 2009

"The Dream of Ossian" by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

My ponderous English friend GuessedWorker of Majority Rights has weighed in on Michael O’Meara’s prize winning essay on White Nationalism and my response to it. He inclines toward the view that a materialist account of ethnic genetic interests will prove more persuasive than seductive mythic appeals in any future White racial rejuvenation in North America.

GuessedWorker has spent many years now searching for a philosophy to justify British nationalism. He sees liberalism as something of an ideological straitjacket (a view I happen to share) wrapped around the English mind. Like JW Holiday, who now seems to have disappeared from the blogosphere, GuessedWorker sees in Salterism a potent vehicle to wreck this mental logjam.

In his account of the American West, GuessedWorker sees rational self-interest as being fundamentally operative, not some myth or highly altruistic national purpose; settlers moved West for their own selfish reasons, namely cheap land and freedom from government interference. He doesn’t touch upon the views of American policymakers whose influence was historically decisive.

Thomas Jefferson was undoubtedly the most important. He dreamed of an “empire of liberty” in Transappalachia and the Louisiana Territory. As president, Jefferson’s mythic vision of the sturdy Anglo-Saxon republican yeomary played a decisive role in his acquisition of Louisiana from France. He spoke glowingly of the destiny of Anglo-Americans to spill over and control the North American continent.

In The Rise and Fall of Anglo-America, Eric P. Kaufmann wrote extensively about the Anglo-American myth complex, its origins and duration, the depth of its penetration into the American psyche, its power and appeal, decline and eventual eclipse in the 1930s by the cosmopolitan mythos of the Jewish New York Modernists. Reginald Horsman covered the topic in even greater detail in Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism. A strong argument can be made that American racial decline tracks exactly the decline of the indigenous Anglo-American mythos.

Generations of Southerners were raised on the myth of the Lost Cause. Southern nationalism emerged after the War Between the States when the heroism and wartime sacrifice of Confederate soldiers and the bitter memories of Reconstruction became an object of myth-making. From Texas to Virginia, the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy raised stone monuments in town squares to honor the fallen dead. It is difficult to find a small town in the South without some form of Civil War memorial. The mythology of the Lost Cause was closely intertwined with Southern identity and the white supremacist ideology of the Jim Crow South.

In the early twentieth century, the myth of the Ku Klux Klan as presented in D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation sparked the revival of the defunct organization. As I wrote in the previous thread, the Second Klan swelled to millions of members in the 1920s. It was easily the largest American nativist organization of its time. There can be no doubt about the power of myth to inflame the popular imagination. The arresting image of the Confederate dead rising phoenix-like from the ashes to defend Southern womanhood had a powerful appeal to Anglo-Protestant nationalists in the Midwest who sought to preserve American purity from the corrupting influence of European immigrants.

When Americans look back at the Antebellum South, even today they do so through the prism of Gone With The Wind, one of the most popular novels and films of all time. In the 1850s, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin went on to become the best selling novel of the nineteenth century. It colored Northern attitudes towards the Old South for over a hundred years. More recently, the Roots series of 1970s is shown in almost every high school classroom when the subject of slavery is being discussed.

Our enemies have their own myths. In the U.S., the progressive movement is driven less by facts and figures than by a vague notion of racial transcendence. The myth of the colorblind society as articulated by MLK in his I Have a Dream speech is at the heart of the anti-racist status quo. It has its own martyrs like Emmett Till, Rosa Parks, James Meredith, Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner; its own demons like Bull Conner, George Wallace, and the Klan. The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States is the culmination of the myth of the Civil Rights Movement. From the beginning, the symbolism of the Obama campaign was the story, not his plan for, say, health care reform.

There will always be men who are driven by data points. At the same time, there will always be far more who are driven by art and drama. The common man wants to see and hear about good vs. evil, justice vs. injustice, heroes vs. villains. He doesn’t have the patience or the inclination to grasp complex topics like evolutionary fitness or ethnic genetic interest.

Something more is obviously needed. The academics who spend the most time rehearsing and arguing about racial data points rarely become white separatists. Charles Murray wrote The Bell Curve and Human Accomplishment, but married and reproduced outside his race. Steve Sailer has argued against White Nationalism. Jared Taylor hasn’t endorsed anything beyond repealing the civil rights laws and ending third world immigration. At least from my perspective, the race realism movement has been a disappointment.

In the U.S., publicly embracing White Nationalism often entails career and marital sacrifices. When it is done, racial altruism overrides the narrow pursuit of self-interest. It is much easier to start and raise a family (to maximize one’s EGI) if you go along with the status quo. An incredibly appealing myth is usually needed to overpower the actualization of normal human desires; to inspire someone to go above and beyond his own self interest in pursuit of a collective goal.

In the early twentieth century, there was no conflict between myth and self interest. The new racial science (Darwinism and Mendelian genetics) complemented the mythic-inspired nativist movement. Both will undoubtedly be needed for White Nationalism to ever triumph in North America.

From Occidental Dissent, August 12, 2009. Be sure to scroll down and read the comments.

The suicide of the West is far more than a figure of speech. All Western societies — and only Western societies — are voluntarily allowing mass immigration of peoples who are not ethnically connected to historical Europe. Not only are they allowing massive non-White immigration, it is being promoted as fulfilling the lofty ethical goal of increasing ethnic diversity rather than any practical goal such as the needs of the labor force.  What this means in the long run is that Europe will cease to be Europe, not only culturally, but also genetically.

There are several ways that one might think about this phenomenon, but certainly a compelling one is to think in terms of Frank Salter’s concept of ethnic genetic interests. EGI is of fundamental importance for ethnic and racial nationalism, and for the preservation of European-derived peoples because it provides a powerful intellectual counterargument to those on the left who deny the reality of race. . . . Read the rest of the article

Concerned individuals have awaited a comprehensive and honest study of these issues. The wait is over. Dr. Frank Salter has published just such an analysis in the journal Population and Environment (Vol. 24, No. 2, November 2002, pages 111-140), entitled: “Estimating Ethnic Genetic Interests: Is it Adaptive to Resist Replacement Migration?” He has then followed this crucially important article with an even more detailed study in the book, On Genetic Interests: Family, Ethnicity, and Humanity in an Age of Mass Migration, 2nd ed. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2007). The following summarizes Dr. Salter’s work.

Basic Considerations
Essentially, life as we know it is ultimately about the propagation of distinctive genetic information from one generation to the next. Living organisms can be seen as the vehicles by which this propagation occurs. Family members share many of the same distinctive genetic information, so a person’s fitness is increased by the survival and reproductive success of his or her family. This is true also for population groups, or “ethnies,” a term which can refer to races, ethnic groups, and/or various subgroupings of these. Like families, members of an ethny have more distinctive genetic information in common with each other than they do with people of other populations. Although the genetic relationship of ethny members is more diluted than that of family members, ethnies are larger reservoirs of genetic interests for their members because of their size, which can number in the many millions Therefore, it can be as adaptive, or more so, to support one’s ethnic or racial group as it would be to support one’s own family.

A defined territory is crucial for the survival of an ethny. In the long run, territory is crucial for survival, and human history is largely a record of groups expanding and contracting, conquering or being conquered, migrating or being displaced by migrants. The loss of territory, whether by military defeat or displacement by migrants, brings ethnic diminishment or destruction–precisely what is happening in the “multicultural” West today. An important part of Dr. Salter’s work is a quantitative analysis of this negative genetic impact.

Carrying Capacity
Dr. Salter’s analysis is based on two concepts: carrying capacity and genetic kinship. Carrying capacity is the maximum population that can live in a given territory. Although technology and increased economic efficiency can increase carrying capacity, there is a practical limit above which further population growth is not possible.

Many ecologists believe we are approaching, or have surpassed, the practical carrying capacity of the Earth. Even if these ecologists are wrong about the Earth as a whole, it is clear that carrying capacity has already been exceeded in those areas where over-population has badly damaged the environment or depleted natural resources.

Immigration undermines the interests of natives even if their territory has not reached its carrying capacity. For example, the carrying capacity of the United States is probably significantly greater than its current population. However, one day its carrying capacity will be reached, and if at that point part of the country is filled with the descendants of today’s immigrants, natives will have no room into which they can expand. In other words, even if the carrying capacity of the United States is as high as 600 million or more, if that population figure is ever reached, some portion will be the descendants of alien immigrants. The presence of millions of non-whites will make the parts of the United States they occupy unavailable to whites. We may reach carrying capacity later rather than sooner, but since the earth is a “closed system,” it will happen eventually. The same principles apply to any other nation, including the nations of Europe, many of which are more densely populated that is the United States.

Kinship and Child Equivalents
It is important to note that Dr. Salter treats the arrival of immigrants, not as a simple addition to the population, but as a one-for-one displacement of natives. This is methodologically correct, because when a nation reaches its carrying capacity, it is the presence of immigrants and their descendants that makes it impossible for natives to increase their numbers. What may not appear to be one-for-one displacement today will, in retrospect, be seen to be precisely that. The other concept central to Dr. Salter’s argument is genetic kinship. Even though all humans share much genetic information, kinship is a measure of the genetic similarities and differences above and beyond this general genetic sharing.

Dr. Salter expresses the loss of genetic interest in units he calls “child-equivalents.” In other words, Dr. Salter is asking: for any given member of the native population, what is the number of lost children that would equal the loss of his or her genetic interests caused by the arrival of a certain number of alien peoples? Note that we are not talking about actual children, but genetic equivalents put into the form of the parent-child relationship.

Put differently, the arrival of immigrants from other ethnies will change the genetic character of a population, and make it more alien to every member of the native ethny. The amount of genetic change, from the point of view of any given member of the native group, can be calculated as the equivalent of the number of children not born to that person. This is putting a number on the replacement of members of one group by members of another. Some examples will make this clearer.

The data that Dr. Salter used for these calculations derives from genetic assays. Please note that these specific studies are somewhat dated, although the most basic findings have been replicated in more recent research. It is very important to note that these data almost certainly underestimate the extent of genetic interests and underestimate the genetic damage done by immigration and multiracialism. That is because not only are the original studies somewhat dated and not as detailed as later work, but the findings do not include differences inherent in higher order genetic structure, which also contribute to genetic interests.

Dr. Salter begins by considering the English as the native population, and examines the effects of the immigration of 10,000 Danes, an ethny that is genetically very close to the English. Replacing 10,000 Englishmen with 10,000 Danes changes the genetic characteristics of the population so much that the resulting “post-displacement” population differs from the undisturbed population by the equivalent of an Englishman (or woman) “not having had” 167 children! Again, we are not talking about actual children, but of the genetic equivalent.

Effects of Immigration and a Multiracial Society
Let us consider other examples. What if the immigrants were Bantus–a population very genetically distant from the English–rather than Danes? Here the genetic cost to any given Englishman of the arrival of 10,000 Bantus is the equivalent of 10,854 lost children! Clearly, the extent of the genetic transformation of a population depends on the genetic distance between the native and immigrant populations.

What if the levels of immigration were greater, and more in keeping with the massive displacement of Western peoples we observe today? If 12.5 million Englishmen were replaced by an equal number of Danes, the genetic loss to each individual Englishman would be the equivalent of 209,000 children not born; if the immigrants were from India, the loss would be 2.6 million children; if the immigrants were Bantus, 13 million.

These figures are not “guesses”; they are objective, mathematical results based on genetic data. As stated above, these figures likely underestimate the real genetic damage.

It is also important to stress that this loss is not somehow reduced by being spread over the entire native population. The loss in terms of genetic equivalents reflects the change in population from the point of view of every member of the native populace. Dr. Salter writes: “For a native woman it is equivalent to the loss of her children and grandchildren, for a native man it is equivalent to the loss of his children and grandchildren, though on a much larger scale” (emphasis in original paper).

To further illustrate these points Salter then determines the number of immigrants of group y necessary to reduce the genetic interests of a random member of native group x by one child equivalent. For Europeans, an average of only 1.1 African or 1.7 Northeast Asian immigrants is sufficient for the loss of one child equivalent. In other words, using conservative genetic data that likely underestimate these effects, the presence of about one African, or about two Northeast Asians, damages the genetic interests of a typical white (i.e., of European ancestry) person to a degree equivalent to that of losing a child. This is a powerful and personal argument against racially alien immigration and against a multiracial society.

While plunging birthrates may be damaging for European-derived peoples, their replacement by genetically alien immigrants is much worse. A falling birthrate reduces the population but does not transform it, and a future increase in birthrates can always make up for the loss. Once immigrants have established themselves in a territory their genes are a permanent addition.

From the standpoint of genetic interests, the idea that “immigration makes up for low native birthrates” is pathological. The assertion that immigrants must be imported for “economic” reasons, or for some other short-sighted rationale, is therefore exposed as incredibly destructive to the interests of the natives.

Any consideration of the costs vs. benefits of immigration–or of a multiracial society in general–must absolutely consider the costs incurred at the most basic, most personal, and most fundamental human level. After all, humans are living, breathing organisms–”economic growth” or other issues are important only insofar as they influence real, living humans and human interests. A people do not “benefit” from “X” if “X” results in that people’s displacement and their replacement by others to an extent equivalent to mass murder.

Genetically, mass alien immigration is genocide. Similarly, a multicultural, multiracial society that manages the demographic eclipse of its majority population is also practicing genocide. These are facts which cannot be responsibly evaded.

Biopolitics
This is not meant to inspire dislike or anger towards immigrants–or towards any other people. On the contrary, such emotions are self-defeating and counter-productive. After all, these peoples are only taking advantage of the opportunities given to them for a better life and to expand their numbers in other peoples’ lands.

No, the ultimate causes of Western decline are that the governments and “leaders” of the West are openly and actively betraying the interests of their own peoples, and that the peoples of the West themselves, all too comfortable and unconcerned with their own demise, are seemingly uninterested in defending their interests. Or is it that Westerners are grossly uninformed about where their real interests lie?

Thus, this essay has three basic purposes. First, to introduce the fundamentally important concept of genetic interests–which are ultimate interests–to Western peoples. Second, to explain, succinctly but precisely, what is at stake: the demographic decline of an entire people, with a consequent devastating personal loss for each and every member of that people. Third, to encourage Western peoples, so informed, to engage in legal, peaceful, non-violent, and rational sociopolitical activism to pursue their genetic interests. Which means: to ensure their own survival.

What is required is the practice of biopolitics –the fusion of biological, human concerns with political action and public policy initiatives. Westerners need to stop focusing exclusively on secondary issues such as economics and economic growth, “cultural assimilation,” employment opportunities, funding for pensions, and a myriad of other concerns which–while certainly important and certainly worthy of interest and consideration–pale in significance compared to the ultimate problem of demographic displacement.

Survival comes first. All else comes second. Genetic interests come first. Other interests come second. Biopolitics will reorder priorities in the recognition that the well being of the Peoples of the West first requires that these peoples continue to exist. Biopolitics will ensure that they do.

This essay is adapted from an analysis of Dr. Salter’s work that was published in the February 2003 issue of the journal American Renaissance.