Occassionally I check pings, and today I noticed that Conservative Commentary linked to my post where I cut & pasted an email from a Dutch friend. Guessedworker comments on that thread that “First off, razib is NOT a friend of the European or European-American…He is probably very aware of race and his own racial interest,1 like me. But unlike me that awareness leads him to the politic of cosmopolitanism – that is, anti-whiteness.” I am aware of my own racial interest, but that interest is simply implied from the particulars of my individual interest, if racial & individual interest conflict the latter has clear precedence since for me personally as the former has no salience outside of the context of the latter. What I found interesting is that many who accept intergroup psychological differences seem unable to imagine that a natural spectrum of human variation exists oustide of their own understanding of what is good, right and beautiful in the world. I have spoken of this in the context of ethno-autism before, where blindness to the motivations and character of other groups can lead to a false perception of the world. I don’t know why GW is commenting on that post anyway, the person who Peter quotes, David, has had “relations” far outside his own “ethne,” so despite his worry about Muslim radicalism in The Netherlands I suppose he too is no friend of Europe or Europeans.
1 – Someone who is a natural egoist like me can only react but quizzically to assertions of one’s own racial interest. I can understand having an economic interest, having a personal interest, but having a racial interest? Ultimately racial interests seem to decompose into individual interests, that is, your own well being is furthered by assocation with kin & kith, those like you with whom you are most comfortable. Since that has never been the case for me, I simply don’t have an emergent racial interest, unless you attempt to apply inclusive fitness standards, but this does not (I believe) bear upon the proximate motivations of my behavior in any case.
Posted by razib at 12:59 PM