What is one of the most blaring contradictions on the Left? It is none other than the ideology or spirituality of “white guilt”. This is amusing considering that the Left prides itself as the RATIONALIST inheritors of the Enlightenment tradition opposed to religion. As rational materialists, leftists staked their claim of intellectual superiority by characterizing their methods, theories, and proposals/policies as ‘scientific’ unclouded by emotions entangled in religious or spiritual notions of ‘good and evil’.
Then, how does one explain the cult of white guilt? What is its rational basis? Is it rational at all? Or, is it really a mindset rooted in spiritual traditions, especially that of Christianity?
Science or reason explores the world of man and matter minutely and specifically and then draws theories from those observations. There is no collective truth in science or reason. Thus, if one apple is rotten, it doesn’t follow that all apples are rotten. Science will find the culprit of the rot in whatever mold or bacteria that settled on the decaying apple. In the realm of man, reason would lead us to blame certain individual, ideas, or policies than entire populations. Thus, the crimes of Nazism should be blamed on Hitler, those who served him, and on its policies. It doesn’t rationally follow that ALL Germans were to blame, and it doesn’t make any sense to say ALL Germans past, present, and future should be tagged with the crimes of the Holocaust and WWII. Yet, the concept of collective German guilt promoted and peddled by the German Left had led to exactly that kind of mentality. Is it rational? Or is it irrational? Now, irrational feelings and values are not necessarily bad. There is much we cannot answer through reason; therefore, people find meaning through faith, mysticism, the concept of the sacred, etc. The problem isn’t irrationalism per se but irrationalism posing as rationalism. And, that is indeed the essence of the modern Left.
Consider the quasi-spiritual ideologies of white guilt, black nobility, and Judeo-philia–aka philosemitism. They are the pillars of what passes for modern leftist view of justice and socio-political agenda. But, what do they have to do with reason? What is rational about the notion that what happened to a one people at the hands of another people should forever define and shape our views of their goodness or evil for all eternity?
Also, what is rational about saying what happened at a particular time in human history was ENTIRELY bad and deserving of eternal apologies from the descendants or racial cousins of the perpetrators. Take American slavery for example. It’s true that mostly Anglo-Americans in the South practiced this institution. But, let’s look at the bare facts. Most whites in the South didn’t own slaves. Though slavery is unjust according to modern Western values, people had different assumptions about slavery, serfdom, and different races/peoples in the past. After all, slavery was universal all over the world until the 20th century.
Black Africans, though oppressed as slaves, also made great progress by having been brought into the bosom of a much more advanced civilization.
And, after waves of immigration, the majority of white Americans are not even Anglo-American. Poles, Czechs, Serbs, Greeks, and Russians had nothing whatsoever to do with slavery in America.
If we use our REASON and deal with facts, it’s quite apparent that American slavery was not the worst evil ever committed by man–not even close–, most whites had nothing to do with it, descendants of slave owners after the Civil War didn’t own slaves(and can’t be blamed for what their parents or grandparents had done), and European immigrants who arrived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries never owned nor profited from slavery.
Given these facts and relying on reason, how can anyone perpetuate the ideology of white guilt as a progressive, rational, and scientific idea? It is something that must be taken on FAITH. It is an idea that bestows eternal victimhood/nobility or wickedness/rottenness on entire groups. Thus, Polish Americans are expected to share in White Guilt though they arrived decades after the American Civil War and though they suffered tragic histories of their own at the hands of both Western Europe–Napoloeon, Prussia, Nazis, etc–and Eastern Europe, especially in the form of Russia or USSR. So, even Polish-Americans are discriminated by affirmative action. They too must pay the price for American slavery that happened long ago and was carried out by non-Polish whites.
Or, consider the fact that black African immigrants enjoy affirmative action benefits though their ancestors were not slaves in the US. If anything, African immigrants are the descendants of slave masters or slaves in Africa. In addition, US did them a great big favor by letting them in. But, instead of expecting gratitude from the African arrivals, we teach them that they are automatically and eternally noble simply because they are black and because all whites–Greek-Americans, Italian-Americans, Russian-Americans, Polish-Americans, etc–owe them something because they are of the same race as the Anglo-Americans in the ante-bellum South owned black slaves.
What is rational about any of this? What is rational about passing judgment on the past with today’s values? What is rational about ennobling an entire race of people because some of their ancestors or racial cousins had been oppressed by slavery? Do we say Russians are all noble for all time since most Russian peasants had been serfs until the middle of 19th century? And, why are only white people–among all the races in the world–burdened with the guilt of oppression when oppressiveness was the rule throughout human history on all five continents until relatively recently? Even today, most non-white nations are non-democratic, oppressive, and brutal. Yet, the tendency of the Left is to explain everything in terms of white evil and white guilt.
It says non-white nations are poor, backward, and/or non-democratic because of Western imperialism or neo-imperialism, when in fact, they had always been traditionally oppressive even before the first white man set his foot on their territory.
The Left also says that the only or the main reason why the West is rich and powerful is because it robbed and exploited sweat and labor from the toiling third world masses–and does so to this day through the machinery of globalist neo-imperialism. One can argue the merits and demerits of globalism for both the West and the non-West, but it should be clear to any honest and rational person that most non-Western nations are backward because their rulers, the people, and the native cultures are stupid.
Generally, non-Western nations are ‘exploited’ because they are poor than they are poor because they are ‘exploited’. Non-Western nations with intelligent people and smart cultures LEARN from their relations with the West and develop ways to catch up and even surpass the West. The success of East Asia should have made this patently obvious to honest observers. But, the Left still prefers the irrational and convenient ideology of white guilt to explain everything.
The ideology of white guilt is, of course, selective. It has two sets of criteria for white people and non-white people. Thus, it was a great sin of Afrikaners to practice apartheid but not so bad for the Chinese to crush Tibetans or Uighurs. When South African whites killed a handful of blacks, it got more world news coverage than black African nations killing 100,000s.
When white people want to preserve their own racial, national, and cultural heritage, they are said to be SUPREMACIST. But, when Jews do the same vis-a-vis the Palestinians in Israel and the Occupied Territories, it’s just Jews trying to SURVIVE. Whites are held to a higher standard while non-whites–especially blacks and Jews–are allowed to get away with just about anything. White guilt is utterly paralyzing to the white community while emboldening to the black and Jewish communities.
Also, everything white–past and present–is judged morally while most non-white cultures are approached anthropologically. Thus, if a white kingdom waged war and killed a lot of people long ago, it is remembered as having been ‘genocidal’, ‘cruel’, and ‘intolerant’. But, if a non-white culture did the same or worse, we must anthropologically UNDERSTAND why it did what it did and not be quick to pass moral judgment–lest we be ‘Eurocentric’. Never mind that European or Western cultures of the past were nearly as foreign to our modern values as non-European cultures are today. If we shouldn’t pass easy moral judgment on other cultures, then the same should apply to European and Western cultures of the past since people long ago didn’t know, believe, nor feel what we know, believe, and feel today.
White Guilt is also, paradoxically and irrationally, premised on the notion of eternal white domination. There seems to be a ridiculous–even a bit arrogant–conceit among white liberals that they will forever be on top and therefore in the position to feel sorry for everyone else. Indeed, there is an element of condescension on the part of white liberals and leftists, as if they are firmly lodged in positions of power to dispense compassion for all the poor and backward non-whites out there. This idiotic outlook exists not only on the left but also on the right, with such stupidities as ‘compassionate conservatism’. Since Bush Jr. is rich and privileged, he seems to think ALL white people share his power and position to dole our white-guilt-inflected favors to everyone(who isn’t white). Thus, Bush pushed for not only more affirmative action but also affirmative immigration for Mexican Illegals.
But in truth, NO power is forever permanent nor to be taken for granted. At one time, Rome as the most powerful empire in the world. Well, what happened? One time, the Chinese Empire was the most powerful and advanced in the world. By the 19th century, China was the ‘sick man of Asia’ and about to be picked apart by Western imperialist powers. So, any white person who thinks white power is assured and permanent–and therefore, white people shall forever enjoy the privilege of feeling sorry for everyone else–is a naive, ignorant, and moronic fool.
Of course, some white people think otherwise, in a more devious and disingenuous way. They push White Guilt as a template for what they hope will morph into Guilt of All Stripes. Some white liberals do indeed fear the day when the West and white people will be eclipsed by the power of non-whites–Chinese in the area of international trade, Mexicans or Muslims via waves of invasive immigration, blacks and Africans in terms of higher birthrates, etc. Thus, white liberals hope that if they establish the ideology of White Guilt and maintain high moral standards for themselves, they will be in a better position to judge non-whites and eventually pressure them to develop their own forms of collective guilt.
For example, if Germans apologize for the Holocaust over and over and renounce all forms of ‘racism’, then they will have gained the right to judge others who have yet to purge their ‘racist’ views. Indeed, some white liberals in Europe have admitted that they support hate crimes legislation in the hope that it may used against non-whites when they become the majority over the whites.
One may ask why don’t white liberals everywhere push for sensible measures such as a moratorium on non-white immigration and expulsion of illegal aliens? Wouldn’t that be the rational thing to do for the preservation of white survival and well-being? Yes, but modern white liberalism is, above all, anti-racist and cannot abide by any idea or policy that suggests that the West primarily belongs to Westerners or whites. Also, the Left has long embraced the ‘rational’ and ‘scientific’ theory that all races are the same except for skin color. All truly rational and scientific people know this to be false, but what prevails in the liberal community is more scientism than real science–at least in the human realm. Scientism, as we all know, has the appearance of science but isn’t really science–any more than imitation crab meat is really crab meat.
White Guiltism is EMOTIONALLY paralyzing and, as such, cannot be deemed rational. Truly rational thought motivates and encourages us toward necessary action. Reason is supposed to be active and applicable, not apologetic and apathetic. Suppose rats are spreading germs and killing people left and right in a community. The rational thing would be to decrease or eradicate the rat population. But, suppose the people in the community see rats as divine creatures and feel guilt about having to kill them. That would be irrational though perhaps beautiful in a spiritual way. White Guiltism is, similarly, a one-sided pacifism which says whites cannot take necessary measures to save their race, culture, heritage, and power. It emotionally paralyzes white people from waking up to reality, facing hard facts, and doing what is necessary.
Of course, one could argue that even the will to RACIAL survival isn’t rational but essentially irrational. The Life Force within every living creature is not a function of reason but the fierce will to live. People use reason to facilitate their animalistic survival instinct. Also, the desire for CULTURAL survival is also irrational at its root. People want to preserve their culture because it has become ‘sacred’, just as a rare faded family photograph may be emotionally and ‘spiritually’ precious to its possessor. Reason follows universal logic, but this cannot be said of cultures or personal items. Cows are sacred to Hindus but hamburger meat for Americans. One woman’s heirloom is just old junk to another person.
So, it would be wrong to say that the White Right is rational and the White Left is irrational. Both are irrational at their intellectual root. But, the instinct for survival and self-preservation is more useful than gushy pompous emotions about the unworthiness of one’s own people. It’s better to fight to survive and hopefully win than to seek dissipation and defeat in the name of some elusive notion of ‘higher morality’. Higher morality is fine and wonderful for individual seekers of wisdom; there’s nothing wrong with gurus, hermits, or monks searching for otherworldly or inner-worldly truths. It just cannot be sought in a collective fashion.
Also, this isn’t to suggest that everything in life is a either/or kind of zero-sum game. There may be choices other than fight-to-win or lay-down-and-lose. The human world is not the animal world. A community can have rich and meaningful minorities groups. Indeed, human progress wouldn’t have been possible without the movements of populations and ideas. Many ancient civilizations had cities where diverse peoples arrived to travel, learn, and teach. But, stability was generally possible only when a geographical domain had a sufficient majority to maintain a degree of social, cultural, and political cohesiveness. Too much homogeneity and xenophobia led to isolation, stagnation, and eventually defeat at the hands of more advanced peoples. Too much diversity led to division, dissension, and chaos.
Like all religions or faith-based ideas, White Guiltism comes with taboos. Taboos are always irrational and based on notions of the sacred and profane. For example, beef is taboo among Hindus because cows are considered sacred, and pork is taboo among Jews and Muslims because pigs are seen as profane–spiritually polluted. A devout Muslim will not even eat a perfectly clean piece of pork because his revulsion goes beyond microbes or health concerns. Eating pork is seen as an affront to Allah.
True reason has no use for taboos and works according to logic regardless of whether something is regarded as sacred or profane. So, a true man of Reason must reject social and ideological taboos that get in the way of logic and truth-seeking.
But in historical reality, Reason has been as much a religion as a science. Just consider the cult of The People during the French Revolution or how Marx’s theory of history was read and revered as sacred text–and how those who dissented were labeled as heretics and treated accordingly.
So, the fact that White Guiltism is riddled with taboos is nothing new to the real history of Reason and “Progress”. For all the bragging on the Left about its respect for reason and science, certain ideas are forbidden in public–sometimes even behind closed doors. Thus, James Watson got in hot water for his views on black intelligence. Instead of debating or disproving his views, the liberal academic establishment just told us to accept on faith that Watson is wrong and that views such as his have no place in ‘respectable’ discourse. Worse, some liberals have said that EVEN IF people like Watson are correct, their views should be suppressed because they may have ‘evil’ consequences. They are worried about the use of ‘racist’ ideas to oppress blacks and Jews. But, couldn’t one argue that anti-racist ideas are leading to the oppression of whites under blacks and Jews? After all, blacks are physically stronger than whites, and integration will hurt whites. And, Jews are smarter than whites and also happen to be generally leftist. Since Jews use their superior intelligence AGAINST the interests of whites, shouldn’t whites embrace racist truths than anti-racist lies?
Besides, in any true practice of real reason there is no place for ‘good or evil’. Good and evil are essentially emotional or spiritual concepts or notions. They are beyond reason. Yet, the cult of White Guiltism is all about ‘good and evil’. How is it that Rational liberals and leftists are so hung up with the concept of ‘racist evil’? To a true Rationalist, there can only be one definition of good vs bad. Truth and honesty are good, falsehood and dishonesty are bad. According to real reason, something is either true or untrue, logical or illogical, functional or dysfunctional.
A rationalist may find some things less useful, pleasant, or illuminating. For his purposes, he may say some things are worse than others. But, he cannot say something is ‘evil’, a spiritual concept which cannot be explained by reason–though many have tried.
White Guiltism is nothing without taboos and obligations. One is forbidden to speak or even think certain thoughts. One is obligated to ‘redeem’ one’s soul by prostrating before non-whites, especially blacks and Jews. White Guilt forbids stating the obvious and enacting necessary measures because it says all whites must pay a special price for their GREATER sins and evil throughout history–for which there is no evidence whatsoever.
White Guilitism also says that white people must not only suppress their racial consciousness but feel responsible for the well-being of all the less fortunate non-whites around the world–especially for blacks in Africa. Indeed, White Guiltism is at the heart of so many major issues and agendas around the world. Take the issue of Global Warming or Climate Change or Whatever It’s Being Called Today. Its proponents claim that Africa is in social and economic decline because evil and greedy white people have messed up the world climate. Whenever some ‘progressive’ activist wants donations, grants, or important positions, he adds ‘racism’ to whatever happens to be his pet cause. Thus, environmentalism gets a boost if it denounces ‘environmental racism’. Or, nutrition activists will yammer about how blacks are fatter than whites, as if it’s white people’s fault that blacks consume too much fried chicken, biscuits, and malt liquor.
Whatever problem that exists among non-whites, the burden always falls on whites. Consider Somalia and Rwanda. In the early 90s, US was blamed for getting involved in Somalia. Then, it was blamed for not getting involved in Rwanda. And, though the enmity between Hutus and Tutsis predated European imperialism, the liberal media told us that everything had been hunky dory between the two groups before Europeans introduced ‘racism’ in the Garden of Eden that had been Africa. So, everything that is wrong in black Africa or black America is explained in terms of having been the work of the White Serpent.
This is extended to other parts of the world as well. So, even as leftists agree that Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, they argue that evil white imperialists put him in power. Now, I’m not one to deny that Western governments did their share of bad shit and are culpable for them. But, the habit of the Left is to offer one answer to why the world is so messed up. It’s always one or more of the following: (1) whites did too much (2) whites didn’t do enough (3) whites did it badly (4) whites did it stupidly (5) whites did it with ulterior motives. Just as Jews could never live up to God’s expectations, whites can never live up to White Guiltism’s expectations of White Redemption.
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Thus, whites were blamed for conditions in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina though blacks had run that city to the ground long before the storm arrived. And after the hurricane, blacks all sat on their ass and waited for HEP than getting off their ass and trying to do something for themselves. Bush got so much blame for this that he sought to redeem his white guilty self by giving billions in aid to Black Africa. He sought forgiveness and approval from blacks and white liberals by being a good ‘compassionate conservative’ white boy. But, did they show him any gratitude, shower him with praise, or forgive him? No, Bush got nothing out of it, just like Richard Nixon had gotten nothing out of expanding Great Society programs.
What are the roots of White Guilt? It probably goes back to Christianity with its notion of Eternal Sin and the Promise of Redemption through the one true Messiah. According to Christianity, Jews were forever guilty of having killed the Son of God unless they converted to Christianity. But, this has roots in Judaism as well. In the Bible, God protects his Chosen People and eternally condemns and ruins entire peoples for all time for having harmed His children. Or, there is the promise that God will one day send a messiah to curse and defeat certain peoples forever. Thus, all of the Egyptians are cursed for all time in the Bible. Because of the sins of the Ham folks, it is said that the sons of Ham shall be slaves of sons of Schlam.
But, the concept of spiritual guilt is not a problem as long as it remains spiritual. If there is indeed God, we can never measure up to his greatness or perfection. Our lives are filled with lies, betrayals, cowardice, treachery, and etc. Even when we don’t commit transgressions, our hearts are filled with vanity, envy, hatred, and cruelty. So, in a spiritual sense we are all guilty, and religious people feel a need to pray to God and ask forgiveness. Spiritual guilt makes sense because the assumption is that the only figure who has the right to judge our souls is God.
But, when spiritual guilt is applied to the secular realm, it means some groups get to play god over other groups. Thus, Jews and blacks put on airs of divine wisdom. They act like Jesus Christ–as both the Son of God and as the saintly martyr of (white) Man. But, aren’t Jews and blacks human too? Aren’t their hands also stained with the blood of Cain? What did blacks do throughout history? They waged wars, conquered, raped, and robbed while they ruled Africa. What did Jews throughout history? They committed their share of ‘crimes’.
In the secular world, guilt must be defined in a legal and specific manner. So, if John commits a transgression against Roger, John must be blamed for what HE DID. And, John must pay for what he did–for his specific crime–than for the ‘wickedness’ of his soul. This is why HATE CRIME LAWS are irrational and ‘spiritual’. They force the justice system to judge people according to the ‘spiritual stain’ in their hearts. It criminalizes thoughts and emotions as well as the specific crime.
Now, this isn’t to say that intention behind crime is irrelevant. The difference between first degree and second degree murder is that the former is pre-meditated. And, we do make distinctions between murder and manslaughter. So, the judge must take into the WHY of the crime in sentencing the criminal. But, to separately criminalize the WHY is to bring spiritualism into the courtroom. The criminal is being specifically judged and sentenced for the wickedness of his soul.
Even worse is the fact that this kind of spiritual guilt, when applied to the secular realm, favors or targets specific groups. Thus, whites are held to greater account for racial hostility than other races. A white ‘hate criminal’ is not judged only for what HE did but judged within the context of what white society might have done in the past. He is being spiritually judged for the collective sins of his entire people.
God has the right to see all of us as guilty in heart and soul as He is supposedly all-knowing. But, secular law, if it claims rationality and objectivity, cannot judge individuals this way.
Posted by Andrea Ostrov Letania 2009-12-09
Views may be unsuitable for millennials allergic to honesty and truth and easily ‘triggered’ into crying fits and tantrums. If you are panicked and traumatized, you might seek counseling at http://www.psychiatry.org. If it is an emergency, call 911 or Big Brother.
