Wonderful commentary. I might add that an American author of African descent has written upon such mixing of peoples long ago. Look up some of Thomas Sowell’s works. His findings and conclusions hold up even to this day. Most salient point, quite often the disparity among peoples in culture and ability leads to violence. Examples given abound.
The problem with Thomas Sowell, wonderful as he is, is that he appears to not have heard of genes. For him everything is culture and whence that culture arises, who knows? Several months ago Nathan Cofnas dismantled quite convincingly many of Thomas Sowell's assumptions either on this site or on his own substack.
That certainly is true, but not important (IMHO). Can one reasonably assume that Sowell, a Black man, is going to turn against his race? I don’t. I simply use his research as supportive proof of conclusions drawn with an underlying assumption of genetic influence—albeit at that time I was young and ignorant of heritability theory/causes wrt to these findings.
One thing I’ve found wrt Dissident Right folk, of which I include myself, is their incessant ideological “purity tests” they subject folks to. Even when those folk “punch Right” as they say, someone, somewhere comes up with an objection to including them as allies. Sowell always creates howls of objections, usually because of his race. I’ve given up on promoting pragmatism in these matters.
Yep, fair enough. And purely regarding the topic of getting rid of progressive liberals, we couldn't have a better ally than Thomas Sowell. I think my objection would have been better raised in the context of fighting the blank slate dogma.
I've liked Thomas Sowell for a long time now, from when I first got interested in Milton Friedman's videos on economics and the free market. Sowell was always his reliable younger wingman and in some ways was more effective than Friedman when it came to refuting bleeding-heart liberals who wanted to treat blacks as victims of capitaist excess. They just couldn't understand why a young black man would agree with Friedman's politics and side against them in their desire to protect and patronise blacks. I became so interested in Sowell that as well as a couple of his books on social issues I read his autobiography, which showed a pretty impressive individual, though whether he would be quite so lionized by the right if he weren't black, I'm not so sure. Rather than his race being a problem for the Dissident rightists, I think he is useful to them so they can say, 'Look! Even one of your own, a black man, agrees with us!'
Regarding purety spirals I agree with you, and we (I) should perhaps give our own side more leeway (which can lead to accusations of double standards but hey, too bad). The problem is, and I agree with Cofnas on this, that until you convince liberal elites that the idea of the blank slate is wrong, we will never get anywhere and in this Thomas Sowell is no help at all.
Sowell is in his late 80’s. His time is past. Take the good and work/continue on from there. Indeed, wrt Sowell’s early—and useful—works, there’s no reason to even cite his race, and I’ve never done so. Hell, I think I read a couple of Sowell’s works before I saw a book of his with his picture on the jacket. Never knew he was Black.
WRT Friedman, you are entirely correct. Sowell allowed himself to be paraded around as you say as—“a wingman”. There are video recorded intervals with Friedman and Sowell that are striking in this. I found them disturbing.
As far as Cofnas is concerned, his insight as to the (current) crux of the “problem” is correct. In Sowell’s time, this was not as “known” as today. His error is in bringing Sowell’s race into the picture—my memory is old however and this may be a simplistic/incorrect observation of Cofnas’ writings.
In short, Cofnas “adds” to Sowell’s work (IMHO). This is mainly how I navigate these “waters” today. Such is not isolated to Sowell. Indeed, I have no problem with considering Lynn as a past giant in the field that—while a foundational authority, there is now follow on research and understanding he did not understand/promote at that time. This is particularly seen in his attempt to calculate and interprete national IQ’s and the effect of such.
I didn't see the Friedman/Sowell duet at all in the light you saw it. Friedman was perhaps the world's most famous economist, a nobel prize laureate, and Sowell was just an up-and-coming young economist who believed in all the same things as Friedman. I thought they made a great team, like Starsky and Hutch. Not for a second did I think he was being paraded around or being used. You might as well say that Art Garfunkel was the paraded around for the sole purpose of showcasing Paul Simon's songs.
For the majority of Friedman's working career he employed the same black female secretary, way before it was fashionable to do so. He said that because black people were generally undervalued in the job marketplace he could pick up a jewel for a bargain price (those were not his exact words, you understand, but his point was that racist employers were cutting off their noses to spite their faces).
Perhaps you are right that Cofnas is being a little unfair on Sowell in that the latter was of his time and just as it would be ridiculous to criticise Newton for not foreseeing the theory of relativity or QM, neither should we criticise Sowell for not getting on board with race realism. Yet even in Sowell's prime there were people like Arthur Jenson who were ploughing a lonely furrow and there was nothing to stop Sowell joining him had he been so disposed to do so. Clearly he wasn't then and still isn't now.
Yes I have read quite a bit of Sowell. The Vision of the Anointed should be required reading for anyone concerned about Woke. He saw it all coming.
And he discusses notable group differences at some length. I remember reading about one tiny group of Indians, an offshoot from Hindus I think, who dominated the Indian ship building industry. No one could explain why but something like 95% of all ships were built by this one distinct group. They just had something others lacked.
We don't like to admit it. To do so we are made to appear backward and provincial. In fact, humans are tribal. We may or may not evolve beyond that. Individually, most of us can get along with people of other tribes, if those other people are of the same inclination. However, in large groups, no. Our tribes prefer the ways and values of our tribe's culture. That is why you see the division in states like Minnesota and any others where large groups of immigrants have accumulated.
Nice to read you here on Aporia, Spaceman Spiff. Thanks for hosting him, Aporia.
The genius of America has been the gradual expansion of what we regard as our “tribe” to encompass erstwhile members of other tribes. But that expansion is like making mayonnaise. The key to making mayonnaise is the gradual addition of oil to the egg yolks. If you add too much oil at once, you break the emulsion. And that is what is happening to us now.
And if you substitute traditional oils for modern substitutes in a fit of arrogance, like seed oils, you make it unhealthy. If you then let matters slip further and use incompatible oils, like engine oil, it fails completely.
Thank you. And yes, numbers matter. A handful of immigrants is no problem. Western nations excel at accommodating others and most are curious about different cultures. This includes others marrying into the cultural family, so to speak. No one cares.
But many millions coming to our nations and recreating the old country is more of a problem. Most countries disallow this because it causes problems. Somalia would not accept a million Europeans, for example.
These thoughts are becoming refined and crystallized to a point where they are simply unanswerably true. I am grateful for the work you've done here. These thoughts with this degree of clarity and simplicity, will prove useful in the future. Much like the pamphleteers of the 1700s and 1800s.
Thank you. It is important we think clearly as our cultural destroyers excel in muddying the waters. Concern over immigration equals racism is an obvious example. But we can discuss sensitive topics when we avoid the emotive rhetoric.
Thank you, and I will do. It is a curious thing. I have no doubt some are encouraging it for strategic purposes. But many do embrace it, which I suspect will not end well.
Brilliant exposition of what many on the right - certainly I - think and feel.
I would add one point: imagine what happens when the dead man’s brake is disengaged and the common folk confirm their suspicion - that they’ve been gaslit, guilted, shamed, and persecuted for decades in service of a dysfunctional lie that harms them and their communities. Imagine if they’re given an outlet for the feelings that follow. Imagine a talented leader who takes advantage of that sentiment...
The sooner the so-called Far Right prevails, the sooner we return to reality, the less extreme the pendulum will swing back to the right.
Funny you should say that. I am writing a piece about that very thing. The people who will embrace nationalism will be normal folks who bought into multiculturalism or at least accepted it. They will be radicalized by reality, not dissident writers. The establishment media seem to misunderstand this.
Should be coming next week. And thanks for your kind comments.
In NZ we have a famous co-author of the term "superdiversity". He's Dr Paul Spoonley and he has overseen the bi and multiculturalism, of which the wheels are falling off.
Xenophilia is a mechanism of elite consolidation. It serves a structural function for the managerial regime: fragmenting coherence in the West's core population, fostering dependent clients, and justifying expanding bureaucratic oversight.
While I agree it has been somewhat weaponized, there are many true believers. It is not all Machiavellian strategy. The artificial elevation of strangers is being championed by people who clearly do not profit from it.
Yes, many people believe things that are untrue or maladaptive, but usually it does not matter. The question is why this particular belief system has become official ideology, enforced by law and policy. To explain that, we need a model grounded in elite theory and civilizational morphology.
Yes, I agree. Things that survive aid elite goals; beliefs that threaten their position, like nationalism, are suppressed.
Although I am interested in the layer that adopts these belief systems despite being harmed by them. Liberal white women undermining the future for their own sons, for instance.
If robust alternative belief systems do emerge is this not a trigger or rallying call for a counter-elite to circulate the incumbents?
That downwardly mobile stratum of educated whites is pivotal. It contains potential radicals — visible in the Corbyn/Sanders surge — yet has been largely co-opted as an auxiliary layer of the regime through identity politics.
Absolutely, robust alternative belief systems (what I call coherent myths) are essential to the formation of a counter-elite. These become effective once they animate symbolic forms that mobilise attachment among the core population. That’s the moment when belief ceases to be just private conviction and becomes a force capable of displacing incumbent elites.
So something like MAGA, or is that too diffuse? No one seems to want to run with nationalism despite its potential, especially for European states. Any thoughts on that? How many discarded white professionals would it take for them to harden their attitudes to immigration and ethnicity?
The MAGA agenda is ultimately unsustainable without a deeper telos (and arguably insufficient in itself). Nationalism has mobilising potential, but struggles to resist the language traps of managerial rule. This is why Christianity is the necessary conclusion: it alone has the symbolic depth and discursive resilience to galvanise attachment and forge a new elite. And it can also subsume the strengths of nationalism (attachment, loyalty) and class struggle (solidarity, justice).
On a separate matter local to here in Italy (unfunded pensions!) recently I was thinking about something adjacent to your essay. I knew off the dead man's brake, but thank you for bringing it back to the fore.
I think it boils down to a perfect storm after years of kicking the can further down the road. We ran out of road a while ago and our own habits and normalcy bias prevents us from enacting reasonable policy to de-escalate from the edge of the cliff.
My own conclusion was we've been living in wonderland for far too long (a combination of easy money (debt, fiat, etc), ease of maintaining false narratives pre-internet/90s (lack of truthful public discourse), dishonest and co-opted political class (left-right, same crap different hat), etc).
Debating and convincing a "xenophiliac", pointing out examples like what happened in Yugoslavia in the mid-1990s after a failed experiment of forced integration decades in the making, is unlikely, given our current propensity to talk (shout) past each other. And normalcy bias prevents unreasonable people to see beyond their ideological vision.
In a way we should be thankful to progressives for having gone out so far into absurdity with the immigration stuff. Ironically they might succeed in bringing down the house, as painful as this is in reality.
Today I listened to a great interview on the Prester Andrews substack with an Italian-American historian (Bonicelli) about political violence in Italy from the mid 60s to the mid 80s, often referred to the years of lead. Even though the subject was not immigration, two relevant key points for this essay are a) until the violence reaches a crescendo where the public rejects it, said violence gets more extreme in a tit-for-tat way. And b) the type of violence isn't between easily identifiable groups, as we'd like to imagine civil wars, but a wild assortment of intra and inter-group rivalry, sub-groups, neighborhoods, etc. It's very messy low level. And state repression goes through the roof as they can't get it under control and/or are part of the problem as it's members are human and have their loyalties and ideologies, except they use a badge.
Being part of a community is going to priceless way of surviving the coming upheavals.
I agree we are living in fantasyland with many things. Monetary policy, male-female relations and birth rates, industry and business formation. Lots going wrong. Too much cheap debt. Lots of economic and cultural distortions.
But real life is always there, and it is the ultimate corrective.
As for low-level civil unrest, yes it seems inevitable now given the volumes of immigration. Where I am there are lots of young foreign men, none with wives. There are no jobs they can do. That alone is dangerous.
I agree. Uncle Clif had an interesting prediction in terms of the retreating hordes last year but it's not quite happening. Besides the inevitable autocratic counterrevolution any civil strife will create, considering we're already in the illiberal age, the best we can hope for is a gradual unwinding as things fall apart. Given the mass psychosis in reality, short of a big badaboom spark, it's hard to see a general revolt happening.
Of course, a brake works better if the foot is taken off the accelerator pedal. As you note, there are "Billion-dollar campaigns" pushing this stuff, propagandizing against nature. Recently some of the funding has been ripped away, e.g. the dismantling of USAID.
You exaggerate, and in doing so you're helping to make the whole situation worse.
People tend to notice and remember conflict and violence. That's the self-protection mechanism you allude to, not fear of 'others'.
Throughout human history various groups in proximity have gotten along just fine. In fact the more similar the greater the chance of conflict; think of the Irish and the English or the Chinese and the Koreans. Generally, though, humans are great at "going along to get along".
As an example, take my own family history in re: the Irish. Italians and Irish (in America) are rumored/assumed to not get along, and we all know of a few examples to support this. But far more common is the opposite. If I ask any of the old people in my family they scoff at the idea of inherent conflict. They lived and worked next to Irish people most of their lives. Some of those relationships were very gratifying or profitable. In fact some of the women seemed to have a particular attraction.
“ Irish. Italians and Irish (in America) are rumored/assumed to not get along”
I would argue that your example is the grouping of closely related peoples and not of the distinctions we now typically see. For example, your family tree above, and then the mention of Chinese and Koreans—who really did fight between themselves historically if one reads history, as did the Koreans and Japanese even though separated by an ocean.
What one should think of when absorbing the author’s point in his missive is the wide divergence of peoples we see imported today. One example, Africans from a backward, third world, continent with little ability and education into the first world, highly technological societies of Europe. Then of course there are the extreme religious differences these peoples bring as well. Perhaps you’ve forgotten the European centuries of war brought about by the Reformation. There was conflict, even in America when the Italians and Irish migrated as we were a Protestant country in the main at that time.
It’s the “Western world” vs the “Third world”, not Irish vs Italians. There is a “cline” to be considered wrt to such mixing of people and their cultures. You’ve simply focused on a small segment of a larger gradient and in such minimized differences while applying such understanding to the entire breath of race/cultural intermixing situations.
I won't argue against your point. But I think a greater problem is the huge increases in the rate of immigration; the comparative numbers are frightening. It takes time for newcomers to assimilate. If they live in large, isolated communities it takes much longer.
I'm not writing about the Europeans. They have it much worse; thanks to the EU and Merkle.
No disagreement there. The influx of too many immigrants of a particular (foreign) culture leads to “ghettoization” and reduced assimilation. We see such today. I would not assume out of hand however, that all peoples can mix. There are cultures it might seem that simply cannot “blend in.”
"But our leadership class want more. Their ideas are based on a rejection of group differences, a dangerous conceit."
You said as much in a reply to me, but I do think the impetus is to destroy societal cohesion. I believe our 'leadership class' knows damn well that group differences are destabilizing.
Yes I agree. The use of the terms "multiculturalism" and "diversity" are predicated on observable differences. But they publicly denounce any discussion of group differences while simultaneously depending on them for their philosophy.
Feminists do the same. Women are our equals but simultaneously our helpless victims.
Yes I agree. Although they are many examples of similar peoples not getting along. The Northern Irish, ironically enough. Cultural differences despite being genetically identical.
But millions from alien cultures is not workable and can only end in conflict.
Alas I am not exaggerating. Conflict between peoples is the norm throughout history. Harmony is the exception. In most cases the exceptions are nothing of the sort, but instead the consequence of one overarching dominant culture everything else is subjugated to. Like the various groups living under Roman occupation. They were tolerated if they toed the line. When they didn't they were eradicated. Just ask the Jews.
The example you give is not representative of xenophobia. The groups you describe were sub groups of Americans, both of whom were by the second generation English speaking American catholics with a lot in common.
The Italians in America are a troublesome group to discuss for a number of reasons. Of all the Italians who went to America almost 70 percent went home as they couldn't hack it. They self-selected for America's northern European culture. Those hostile to it left.
As s group they were famously enthusiastic about becoming American. Most refused to speak Italian to their children and often gave them English names not Italian ones.
As a result they quickly became American; within a single generation in most cases. They also had better high schools back then that hammered civics into the kids.
Compare with today where we have members of congress openly boasting about their foreign status. A different world.
So I don't agree. Xenophobia is the norm. That doesn't mean people are unfriendly or hostile. But almost no countries allow mass immigration, and the reason is what I call defensive xenophobia. The far east it is much closer to what we would call racism. The Indians are just as bad. And the middle east is aggressively tribal. Just a handful of examples. None of them are xenophiliacs. Not even close.
“As a group they were famously enthusiastic about becoming American. Most refused to speak Italian to their children and often gave them English names not Italian ones.”
Déjà vu all over again…. You are talking to one of these “immigrants”. Actually 2nd generation. I was born here to immigrants. My mother thought it cute to give me a foreign name, not very different from America names as we were Northern European, but it’s on my birth certificate. My father never used such, nor would allow it to be used on documentation and in household use. Only the American version of the name.
Further he had friends from the “old country” who of course attempted to speak the “old language” when they got together at my home. I would sit around the table with the men and listen to the conversation. One of my earliest memories was my father admonishing them to “Speak English…If I wanted to speak (old country) language, I’d have stayed over there!” Thus ended my voyage into multilingualism. ;-)
Took me years to understand just how lucky I was to have such a hard headed father. He made me an American. My hero’s are the Founding Fathers—not some group of notables from a country long past in meaning and significance.
I think people can celebrate their heritage. But assimilation into the new country is essential. Without it nothing gels. We just recreate the world inside our borders.
—As a group they were famously enthusiastic about becoming American. Most refused to speak Italian to their children and often gave them English names not Italian ones.
My Sicilian grandparents all spoke Italian (obviously), yet their kids (my parents' generation) knew only a few words/phrases, and by the time I was born Italian was mostly spoken when they didn't want us to know what they were saying.
They also had the immigrant's natural tension bw maybe cocking an eyebrow at the unfamiliar customs of other tribes, and happily telling crass jokes about them, but at the same time having many close relationships with them, such as my Irish dad and Italian mom.
I think the difference bw then and now was a confident and stable larger culture that you had no choice but to assimilate into if you wanted to have a better life. My grandfather was born in Italy and a few decades later he was fighting as an American soldier in Italy, and he had no qualms and saw no tension and was proud to be a GI.
Our age of the global-corporate state, mass immigration, white guilt and performative xenophilia has robbed young people of roots and patriotism, which (along with no religion) is partly why they seem so lost, angry and miserable and are always looking to pledge their souls to a political cause. We have sadly traded a nation and its patrimony for cheap Chinese crap and to appease the god called GDP—we may have unraveled our social order, but the Dow is hitting record highs!
Indeed. Couldn't agree more. All this destruction so line goes up on graph.
But I suspect it will have the opposite effect. We will be drawn to those most like us. We will balkanize for a bit then coalesce around shared characteristics. But by then I suspect we will shrug off the white guilt and all the other bullshit.
America is resilient and has experienced eras of upheaval before and emerged different yet stronger, so I think there will be some future coalescence around a shared identity. It's just what we'll have to live through to get there.
I think what you're missing or omitting here is that Irish Americans and Italian Americans were living under the mostly peaceful, stable and prosperous order of America, thus there was very little need to attack neighbors for their resources or because their presence seemed like an existential threat.
I am descended from immigrants from both groups and my grandparents seemed mostly occupied with working and protecting/advancing their families and didn't worry too much about the Micks or the Wops (lol)—what they wanted most was to be proud, patriotic Americans and the same for their kids.
Humans respond to incentives. In America, all the incentives usually point toward aiming for a safe and stable middle-class life; but in other places, the incentives might be toward expelling your outroup (or worse), if that seems necessary for group survival. As the piece said, a mild and mostly tolerant xenophobia seems to work best, as both a way to maintain group cohesion, safety and stability. Aka good fences make good neighbors.
I've been thinking about this issue long enough now that I no longer feel uncomfortable calling myself "racist." It's not about treating those different from me badly or unfairly; being "racist" is just a form of honesty.
I understand the idea that many White people engage in "anti-racist" behaviour as a way of virtue signalling. I have to confess I used to do this. But I think the behaviour goes deeper than just virtue-signalling...
I think on an unconscious level, we all understand (instinctively, as Spiff points out) the dangers of difference. And yet post WWII, there has been an accelerating agenda to force Western peoples to live amongst others who are very different from us, via mass-immigration.
Like it or not, we're living in "multicultural" societies in the West.
I think one of the most common defences to this (instinctively) dangerous situation is to react with fear - and then to try to assuage that fear by "playing nice."
It's very, very difficult to call out what is actually going on - i.e., speak up against immigration of unassimilable peoples into the West - but it is very, very easy to pretend that we can deal with the problem by just being sweet and "more loving."
Yes. This is what the propaganda is designed to encourage. Passive acceptance and enforcement using nice language. Those who sense the danger and speak out can then be characterized as various forms of not-nice. Racist, extremist, fascist. All interchangeable to those who uncritically accept their programming. They all mean not-nice, which means justifiable ostracism or worse. We saw what the liberals thought of Charlie Kirk after his murder. He was not-nice in their book.
But it takes a lot of resources to overcome our evolved sensibilities. And the cash is running out. What happens when the propaganda machine can't keep up? What happens when the reality of the rainbow nation, kumbaya, race-is-a-social-construct philosophy asserts itself?
Instincts are powerful. When you encourage anti-racism as virtue signaling you get a lot of apparent anti-racism. But you leave the instincts intact. Diversity champions aren't living in ghettoes alongside their favoured groups. We saw how quickly they cleared out Martha's Vineyard. They get it.
All this works while you can keep the foreign hordes somewhere else. But those days are over. Soon everyone will need to grapple with their instincts. Mine are already honed and I suspect so are the liberals'. Time will tell.
'What then?' indeed. I would have quite liked the author to have a crack at predicting what comes next. Civil war? Mass deportations? Simmering resentment that goes nowhere?
It would be nice for many Europeans if they could have their countries back, and if not that then at least send back all the undesirables. I just can't see that ever happening. And the idea that Europeans or Americans will ever be rid of the race that perpetrates the vast majority of crime is a joke.
Nope. I can see the situation getting worse but by then Europeans will be too old and weak to do much about it. America still has a chance with Trump in charge but I think the damage has been done and old America is unrecoverable.
That is a complex subject, and it is tricky to make predictions. We cannot continue like this forever. I think reality will intrude and America will balkanize along ethnic lines. The European states are not big enough to do that, so I think nationalism will emerge and attempt a full reset. That seems to be already happening.
Ah, interesting. Quite how you tease apart the welfare-sponging, west-hating Pakistani Islamists from the children of Indians whose parents arrived In Britain in the 1970's and became west-supporting doctors, dentists and pharmacists I don't know. Of course, anyone with eyes to see can discern the former from the latter but how you draft an deportation plan that catches the one and not the other is not clear to me. Of course, we could leave it to mob-rule and the rabble who can't distinguish one from the other but even I, who would like my country back, don't want it back at such a high cost to the good, decent immigrants who have been here for 50 years. Yet in a certain light, in large enough numbers even these good people are replacing us and our culture.
If I read you right, Trump's attempt to turn the American economy around is a double-edged sword. In making America great again, there will still be enough monies slushing around to fund the NGOs and charities that support the 'No one is illegal' mindset. Only when the money runs out will the scrabble for what is left lead to us dividing up into ethnic tribes. Have a got that right?
I believe European nations will become unpleasant for anyone not a native. Arguments about doctors etc won't cut it. In Britain doctors are now unemployed. They need work and will support serious change through necessity. A tiny handful of immigrants would be accepted, but not millions. Most people are not really racists or racial purists, but nor do they accept being replaced by foreigners. So I suspect a backlash is coming, although the establishment are digging in deep.
I couldn't say about the details of America. I just believe the current situation is not sustainable. We are learning the hard way about group differences. I think people will gravitate into ethnic groups for safety reasons. We already see more open discussions about black crime for instance.
Interesting thoughts. I hope you are right in saying that the current situation is not sustainable. Even a descent into open hostility would be preferable to this endless limbo in which everyone sort of muddles through in a constant state of mild dissatisfaction.
Maybe this is always how things feel at all times throughout history, but I am now beginning to understand why some people prior to WWI just wanted SOMETHING to happen, ANYTHING that would break the stalemate and cause the weather to finally break. However, I'd prefer that not to happen until work has been completed on my government-subsidized house insulation. Let the apocolypse begin after that.
Western liberalism itself is not sustainable for much longer. That is the real issue. The basis for most Western nations is now dying. It has become absurd.
What comes after is anyone's guess. But it will be painful.
I disagree. I qualified my use of the term. Defensive xenophobia and mild xenophobia I think I used.
It does not necessarily mean a hatred of others.
The phenomenon I was discussing as wariness versus the intentional elevation of strangers, which is abnormal. But it is what is now happening in Western nations with diversity quotas etc.
Nothing to disagree here. And you whole article is indeed not about hate or disdain toward foreigners. Why to use term xenophobia then?
Sorry to use such a provocative example, but in the same manner there could be "mild racism" to denote consciousness of cultural differences linked to race and its potential implications.
Those differences do exist. Should there be then justification of some form of racism aka "mild racism"?
But again, im picking here on wording. Not on the content of the article.
The term "racism" has become so loaded it probably can't be modified to a milder form. It would be sensible to use alternatives to avoid being misunderstood. I tend to say ethnic differences, or ethnicity rather than race. Even "cultural groups" can work.
I suppose we have to define our terms if there is any ambiguity. The main argument is something like a wariness of those who seem different from us is innate. We must be trained to overcome it. And its opposite, xenophilia, is abnormal and this has repercussions for society.
Perhaps. But its antonym, xenophilia, is the focus. Its existence needs to be explained even if people find the term xenophobia problematic. If I changed xenophobia I'd need to find an alternative to xenophilia.
But I concede the point. It is a word that most would normally equate with racism in the sense of active animosity towards members of a different ethnic group. This is not how I see it of course.
Wonderful commentary. I might add that an American author of African descent has written upon such mixing of peoples long ago. Look up some of Thomas Sowell’s works. His findings and conclusions hold up even to this day. Most salient point, quite often the disparity among peoples in culture and ability leads to violence. Examples given abound.
The problem with Thomas Sowell, wonderful as he is, is that he appears to not have heard of genes. For him everything is culture and whence that culture arises, who knows? Several months ago Nathan Cofnas dismantled quite convincingly many of Thomas Sowell's assumptions either on this site or on his own substack.
That certainly is true, but not important (IMHO). Can one reasonably assume that Sowell, a Black man, is going to turn against his race? I don’t. I simply use his research as supportive proof of conclusions drawn with an underlying assumption of genetic influence—albeit at that time I was young and ignorant of heritability theory/causes wrt to these findings.
One thing I’ve found wrt Dissident Right folk, of which I include myself, is their incessant ideological “purity tests” they subject folks to. Even when those folk “punch Right” as they say, someone, somewhere comes up with an objection to including them as allies. Sowell always creates howls of objections, usually because of his race. I’ve given up on promoting pragmatism in these matters.
Yep, fair enough. And purely regarding the topic of getting rid of progressive liberals, we couldn't have a better ally than Thomas Sowell. I think my objection would have been better raised in the context of fighting the blank slate dogma.
I've liked Thomas Sowell for a long time now, from when I first got interested in Milton Friedman's videos on economics and the free market. Sowell was always his reliable younger wingman and in some ways was more effective than Friedman when it came to refuting bleeding-heart liberals who wanted to treat blacks as victims of capitaist excess. They just couldn't understand why a young black man would agree with Friedman's politics and side against them in their desire to protect and patronise blacks. I became so interested in Sowell that as well as a couple of his books on social issues I read his autobiography, which showed a pretty impressive individual, though whether he would be quite so lionized by the right if he weren't black, I'm not so sure. Rather than his race being a problem for the Dissident rightists, I think he is useful to them so they can say, 'Look! Even one of your own, a black man, agrees with us!'
Regarding purety spirals I agree with you, and we (I) should perhaps give our own side more leeway (which can lead to accusations of double standards but hey, too bad). The problem is, and I agree with Cofnas on this, that until you convince liberal elites that the idea of the blank slate is wrong, we will never get anywhere and in this Thomas Sowell is no help at all.
Sowell is in his late 80’s. His time is past. Take the good and work/continue on from there. Indeed, wrt Sowell’s early—and useful—works, there’s no reason to even cite his race, and I’ve never done so. Hell, I think I read a couple of Sowell’s works before I saw a book of his with his picture on the jacket. Never knew he was Black.
WRT Friedman, you are entirely correct. Sowell allowed himself to be paraded around as you say as—“a wingman”. There are video recorded intervals with Friedman and Sowell that are striking in this. I found them disturbing.
As far as Cofnas is concerned, his insight as to the (current) crux of the “problem” is correct. In Sowell’s time, this was not as “known” as today. His error is in bringing Sowell’s race into the picture—my memory is old however and this may be a simplistic/incorrect observation of Cofnas’ writings.
In short, Cofnas “adds” to Sowell’s work (IMHO). This is mainly how I navigate these “waters” today. Such is not isolated to Sowell. Indeed, I have no problem with considering Lynn as a past giant in the field that—while a foundational authority, there is now follow on research and understanding he did not understand/promote at that time. This is particularly seen in his attempt to calculate and interprete national IQ’s and the effect of such.
I didn't see the Friedman/Sowell duet at all in the light you saw it. Friedman was perhaps the world's most famous economist, a nobel prize laureate, and Sowell was just an up-and-coming young economist who believed in all the same things as Friedman. I thought they made a great team, like Starsky and Hutch. Not for a second did I think he was being paraded around or being used. You might as well say that Art Garfunkel was the paraded around for the sole purpose of showcasing Paul Simon's songs.
For the majority of Friedman's working career he employed the same black female secretary, way before it was fashionable to do so. He said that because black people were generally undervalued in the job marketplace he could pick up a jewel for a bargain price (those were not his exact words, you understand, but his point was that racist employers were cutting off their noses to spite their faces).
Perhaps you are right that Cofnas is being a little unfair on Sowell in that the latter was of his time and just as it would be ridiculous to criticise Newton for not foreseeing the theory of relativity or QM, neither should we criticise Sowell for not getting on board with race realism. Yet even in Sowell's prime there were people like Arthur Jenson who were ploughing a lonely furrow and there was nothing to stop Sowell joining him had he been so disposed to do so. Clearly he wasn't then and still isn't now.
A fair rebuttal. Thanks for the insight.
Yes I have read quite a bit of Sowell. The Vision of the Anointed should be required reading for anyone concerned about Woke. He saw it all coming.
And he discusses notable group differences at some length. I remember reading about one tiny group of Indians, an offshoot from Hindus I think, who dominated the Indian ship building industry. No one could explain why but something like 95% of all ships were built by this one distinct group. They just had something others lacked.
Lots of examples of that.
We don't like to admit it. To do so we are made to appear backward and provincial. In fact, humans are tribal. We may or may not evolve beyond that. Individually, most of us can get along with people of other tribes, if those other people are of the same inclination. However, in large groups, no. Our tribes prefer the ways and values of our tribe's culture. That is why you see the division in states like Minnesota and any others where large groups of immigrants have accumulated.
Nice to read you here on Aporia, Spaceman Spiff. Thanks for hosting him, Aporia.
The genius of America has been the gradual expansion of what we regard as our “tribe” to encompass erstwhile members of other tribes. But that expansion is like making mayonnaise. The key to making mayonnaise is the gradual addition of oil to the egg yolks. If you add too much oil at once, you break the emulsion. And that is what is happening to us now.
And if you substitute traditional oils for modern substitutes in a fit of arrogance, like seed oils, you make it unhealthy. If you then let matters slip further and use incompatible oils, like engine oil, it fails completely.
Thank you. And yes, numbers matter. A handful of immigrants is no problem. Western nations excel at accommodating others and most are curious about different cultures. This includes others marrying into the cultural family, so to speak. No one cares.
But many millions coming to our nations and recreating the old country is more of a problem. Most countries disallow this because it causes problems. Somalia would not accept a million Europeans, for example.
These thoughts are becoming refined and crystallized to a point where they are simply unanswerably true. I am grateful for the work you've done here. These thoughts with this degree of clarity and simplicity, will prove useful in the future. Much like the pamphleteers of the 1700s and 1800s.
Thank you. It is important we think clearly as our cultural destroyers excel in muddying the waters. Concern over immigration equals racism is an obvious example. But we can discuss sensitive topics when we avoid the emotive rhetoric.
Thanks for reading.
Excellent article.
As I have said before, xenophilia is just one of many efforts to disrupt societal cohesion. The purpose of course is to divide and conquer.
Here is a video that you should watch.
https://www.amren.com/videos/2025/09/why-we-lose-and-how-we-will-win/
That was quite a tour through the European mind. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you, and I will do. It is a curious thing. I have no doubt some are encouraging it for strategic purposes. But many do embrace it, which I suspect will not end well.
Brilliant exposition of what many on the right - certainly I - think and feel.
I would add one point: imagine what happens when the dead man’s brake is disengaged and the common folk confirm their suspicion - that they’ve been gaslit, guilted, shamed, and persecuted for decades in service of a dysfunctional lie that harms them and their communities. Imagine if they’re given an outlet for the feelings that follow. Imagine a talented leader who takes advantage of that sentiment...
The sooner the so-called Far Right prevails, the sooner we return to reality, the less extreme the pendulum will swing back to the right.
Funny you should say that. I am writing a piece about that very thing. The people who will embrace nationalism will be normal folks who bought into multiculturalism or at least accepted it. They will be radicalized by reality, not dissident writers. The establishment media seem to misunderstand this.
Should be coming next week. And thanks for your kind comments.
We will look back on this piece in 10 years time and it will sound if anything a bit utopian.
We will probably not be allowed to look back at this in 10 years time.
Quite possibly.
In NZ we have a famous co-author of the term "superdiversity". He's Dr Paul Spoonley and he has overseen the bi and multiculturalism, of which the wheels are falling off.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/292157452_Superdiversity_and_why_it_isn't_Reflections_on_terminological_innovations_and_academic_branding
Can you elaborate? A basic precis would be ideal. I can't access the URL.
I've not heard of Spoonley or superdiversity.
Xenophilia is a mechanism of elite consolidation. It serves a structural function for the managerial regime: fragmenting coherence in the West's core population, fostering dependent clients, and justifying expanding bureaucratic oversight.
We need to go beyond decrying the seemingly suicidal logic of progressive illiberalism and understand the social forces which it serves. https://www.aporiamagazine.com/p/woke-as-managerial-ideology
I've not read your piece yet, but will do so.
While I agree it has been somewhat weaponized, there are many true believers. It is not all Machiavellian strategy. The artificial elevation of strangers is being championed by people who clearly do not profit from it.
Yes, many people believe things that are untrue or maladaptive, but usually it does not matter. The question is why this particular belief system has become official ideology, enforced by law and policy. To explain that, we need a model grounded in elite theory and civilizational morphology.
Yes, I agree. Things that survive aid elite goals; beliefs that threaten their position, like nationalism, are suppressed.
Although I am interested in the layer that adopts these belief systems despite being harmed by them. Liberal white women undermining the future for their own sons, for instance.
If robust alternative belief systems do emerge is this not a trigger or rallying call for a counter-elite to circulate the incumbents?
That downwardly mobile stratum of educated whites is pivotal. It contains potential radicals — visible in the Corbyn/Sanders surge — yet has been largely co-opted as an auxiliary layer of the regime through identity politics.
Absolutely, robust alternative belief systems (what I call coherent myths) are essential to the formation of a counter-elite. These become effective once they animate symbolic forms that mobilise attachment among the core population. That’s the moment when belief ceases to be just private conviction and becomes a force capable of displacing incumbent elites.
So something like MAGA, or is that too diffuse? No one seems to want to run with nationalism despite its potential, especially for European states. Any thoughts on that? How many discarded white professionals would it take for them to harden their attitudes to immigration and ethnicity?
The MAGA agenda is ultimately unsustainable without a deeper telos (and arguably insufficient in itself). Nationalism has mobilising potential, but struggles to resist the language traps of managerial rule. This is why Christianity is the necessary conclusion: it alone has the symbolic depth and discursive resilience to galvanise attachment and forge a new elite. And it can also subsume the strengths of nationalism (attachment, loyalty) and class struggle (solidarity, justice).
Great essay!
On a separate matter local to here in Italy (unfunded pensions!) recently I was thinking about something adjacent to your essay. I knew off the dead man's brake, but thank you for bringing it back to the fore.
I think it boils down to a perfect storm after years of kicking the can further down the road. We ran out of road a while ago and our own habits and normalcy bias prevents us from enacting reasonable policy to de-escalate from the edge of the cliff.
My own conclusion was we've been living in wonderland for far too long (a combination of easy money (debt, fiat, etc), ease of maintaining false narratives pre-internet/90s (lack of truthful public discourse), dishonest and co-opted political class (left-right, same crap different hat), etc).
Debating and convincing a "xenophiliac", pointing out examples like what happened in Yugoslavia in the mid-1990s after a failed experiment of forced integration decades in the making, is unlikely, given our current propensity to talk (shout) past each other. And normalcy bias prevents unreasonable people to see beyond their ideological vision.
In a way we should be thankful to progressives for having gone out so far into absurdity with the immigration stuff. Ironically they might succeed in bringing down the house, as painful as this is in reality.
Today I listened to a great interview on the Prester Andrews substack with an Italian-American historian (Bonicelli) about political violence in Italy from the mid 60s to the mid 80s, often referred to the years of lead. Even though the subject was not immigration, two relevant key points for this essay are a) until the violence reaches a crescendo where the public rejects it, said violence gets more extreme in a tit-for-tat way. And b) the type of violence isn't between easily identifiable groups, as we'd like to imagine civil wars, but a wild assortment of intra and inter-group rivalry, sub-groups, neighborhoods, etc. It's very messy low level. And state repression goes through the roof as they can't get it under control and/or are part of the problem as it's members are human and have their loyalties and ideologies, except they use a badge.
Being part of a community is going to priceless way of surviving the coming upheavals.
Thank you.
I agree we are living in fantasyland with many things. Monetary policy, male-female relations and birth rates, industry and business formation. Lots going wrong. Too much cheap debt. Lots of economic and cultural distortions.
But real life is always there, and it is the ultimate corrective.
As for low-level civil unrest, yes it seems inevitable now given the volumes of immigration. Where I am there are lots of young foreign men, none with wives. There are no jobs they can do. That alone is dangerous.
Who knows where it will end up.
I agree. Uncle Clif had an interesting prediction in terms of the retreating hordes last year but it's not quite happening. Besides the inevitable autocratic counterrevolution any civil strife will create, considering we're already in the illiberal age, the best we can hope for is a gradual unwinding as things fall apart. Given the mass psychosis in reality, short of a big badaboom spark, it's hard to see a general revolt happening.
People are too distracted. Their little glowing rectangles keep them amused. But it only takes a few percent to change things.
Steep decline is coming. That might wake some up.
"People are too distracted."
Yes, that is my point...bread and circuses all around.
Absolutely. And they love it.
Of course, a brake works better if the foot is taken off the accelerator pedal. As you note, there are "Billion-dollar campaigns" pushing this stuff, propagandizing against nature. Recently some of the funding has been ripped away, e.g. the dismantling of USAID.
A deadman’s switch is normally considered to be a safety feature.
Indeed. The key element here is it requires energy to operate. It cannot happen naturally.
Historically, unwelcome groups that couldn’t be expelled, or couldn’t take the hint, got buried in the soil.
Yes, exactly. The British killed a lot of vikings before they were tamed, converted and absorbed.
You exaggerate, and in doing so you're helping to make the whole situation worse.
People tend to notice and remember conflict and violence. That's the self-protection mechanism you allude to, not fear of 'others'.
Throughout human history various groups in proximity have gotten along just fine. In fact the more similar the greater the chance of conflict; think of the Irish and the English or the Chinese and the Koreans. Generally, though, humans are great at "going along to get along".
As an example, take my own family history in re: the Irish. Italians and Irish (in America) are rumored/assumed to not get along, and we all know of a few examples to support this. But far more common is the opposite. If I ask any of the old people in my family they scoff at the idea of inherent conflict. They lived and worked next to Irish people most of their lives. Some of those relationships were very gratifying or profitable. In fact some of the women seemed to have a particular attraction.
As did some of the men; for obvious reasons.
“ Irish. Italians and Irish (in America) are rumored/assumed to not get along”
I would argue that your example is the grouping of closely related peoples and not of the distinctions we now typically see. For example, your family tree above, and then the mention of Chinese and Koreans—who really did fight between themselves historically if one reads history, as did the Koreans and Japanese even though separated by an ocean.
What one should think of when absorbing the author’s point in his missive is the wide divergence of peoples we see imported today. One example, Africans from a backward, third world, continent with little ability and education into the first world, highly technological societies of Europe. Then of course there are the extreme religious differences these peoples bring as well. Perhaps you’ve forgotten the European centuries of war brought about by the Reformation. There was conflict, even in America when the Italians and Irish migrated as we were a Protestant country in the main at that time.
It’s the “Western world” vs the “Third world”, not Irish vs Italians. There is a “cline” to be considered wrt to such mixing of people and their cultures. You’ve simply focused on a small segment of a larger gradient and in such minimized differences while applying such understanding to the entire breath of race/cultural intermixing situations.
I won't argue against your point. But I think a greater problem is the huge increases in the rate of immigration; the comparative numbers are frightening. It takes time for newcomers to assimilate. If they live in large, isolated communities it takes much longer.
I'm not writing about the Europeans. They have it much worse; thanks to the EU and Merkle.
No disagreement there. The influx of too many immigrants of a particular (foreign) culture leads to “ghettoization” and reduced assimilation. We see such today. I would not assume out of hand however, that all peoples can mix. There are cultures it might seem that simply cannot “blend in.”
Numbers do matter. A few dozen Somalis are absorbed and essentially disappear. A million recreate Somalia.
But our leadership class want more. Their ideas are based on a rejection of group differences, a dangerous conceit.
"But our leadership class want more. Their ideas are based on a rejection of group differences, a dangerous conceit."
You said as much in a reply to me, but I do think the impetus is to destroy societal cohesion. I believe our 'leadership class' knows damn well that group differences are destabilizing.
Yes I agree. The use of the terms "multiculturalism" and "diversity" are predicated on observable differences. But they publicly denounce any discussion of group differences while simultaneously depending on them for their philosophy.
Feminists do the same. Women are our equals but simultaneously our helpless victims.
"But they publicly denounce any discussion of group differences while simultaneously depending on them for their philosophy."
Yes, a charade, a distraction.
Yes I agree. Although they are many examples of similar peoples not getting along. The Northern Irish, ironically enough. Cultural differences despite being genetically identical.
But millions from alien cultures is not workable and can only end in conflict.
Thank you for your comment.
Alas I am not exaggerating. Conflict between peoples is the norm throughout history. Harmony is the exception. In most cases the exceptions are nothing of the sort, but instead the consequence of one overarching dominant culture everything else is subjugated to. Like the various groups living under Roman occupation. They were tolerated if they toed the line. When they didn't they were eradicated. Just ask the Jews.
The example you give is not representative of xenophobia. The groups you describe were sub groups of Americans, both of whom were by the second generation English speaking American catholics with a lot in common.
The Italians in America are a troublesome group to discuss for a number of reasons. Of all the Italians who went to America almost 70 percent went home as they couldn't hack it. They self-selected for America's northern European culture. Those hostile to it left.
As s group they were famously enthusiastic about becoming American. Most refused to speak Italian to their children and often gave them English names not Italian ones.
As a result they quickly became American; within a single generation in most cases. They also had better high schools back then that hammered civics into the kids.
Compare with today where we have members of congress openly boasting about their foreign status. A different world.
So I don't agree. Xenophobia is the norm. That doesn't mean people are unfriendly or hostile. But almost no countries allow mass immigration, and the reason is what I call defensive xenophobia. The far east it is much closer to what we would call racism. The Indians are just as bad. And the middle east is aggressively tribal. Just a handful of examples. None of them are xenophiliacs. Not even close.
“As a group they were famously enthusiastic about becoming American. Most refused to speak Italian to their children and often gave them English names not Italian ones.”
Déjà vu all over again…. You are talking to one of these “immigrants”. Actually 2nd generation. I was born here to immigrants. My mother thought it cute to give me a foreign name, not very different from America names as we were Northern European, but it’s on my birth certificate. My father never used such, nor would allow it to be used on documentation and in household use. Only the American version of the name.
Further he had friends from the “old country” who of course attempted to speak the “old language” when they got together at my home. I would sit around the table with the men and listen to the conversation. One of my earliest memories was my father admonishing them to “Speak English…If I wanted to speak (old country) language, I’d have stayed over there!” Thus ended my voyage into multilingualism. ;-)
Took me years to understand just how lucky I was to have such a hard headed father. He made me an American. My hero’s are the Founding Fathers—not some group of notables from a country long past in meaning and significance.
I think people can celebrate their heritage. But assimilation into the new country is essential. Without it nothing gels. We just recreate the world inside our borders.
—As a group they were famously enthusiastic about becoming American. Most refused to speak Italian to their children and often gave them English names not Italian ones.
My Sicilian grandparents all spoke Italian (obviously), yet their kids (my parents' generation) knew only a few words/phrases, and by the time I was born Italian was mostly spoken when they didn't want us to know what they were saying.
They also had the immigrant's natural tension bw maybe cocking an eyebrow at the unfamiliar customs of other tribes, and happily telling crass jokes about them, but at the same time having many close relationships with them, such as my Irish dad and Italian mom.
I think the difference bw then and now was a confident and stable larger culture that you had no choice but to assimilate into if you wanted to have a better life. My grandfather was born in Italy and a few decades later he was fighting as an American soldier in Italy, and he had no qualms and saw no tension and was proud to be a GI.
Our age of the global-corporate state, mass immigration, white guilt and performative xenophilia has robbed young people of roots and patriotism, which (along with no religion) is partly why they seem so lost, angry and miserable and are always looking to pledge their souls to a political cause. We have sadly traded a nation and its patrimony for cheap Chinese crap and to appease the god called GDP—we may have unraveled our social order, but the Dow is hitting record highs!
Indeed. Couldn't agree more. All this destruction so line goes up on graph.
But I suspect it will have the opposite effect. We will be drawn to those most like us. We will balkanize for a bit then coalesce around shared characteristics. But by then I suspect we will shrug off the white guilt and all the other bullshit.
America is resilient and has experienced eras of upheaval before and emerged different yet stronger, so I think there will be some future coalescence around a shared identity. It's just what we'll have to live through to get there.
Great piece, Thanks!
You are welcome. Thanks for reading.
I think what you're missing or omitting here is that Irish Americans and Italian Americans were living under the mostly peaceful, stable and prosperous order of America, thus there was very little need to attack neighbors for their resources or because their presence seemed like an existential threat.
I am descended from immigrants from both groups and my grandparents seemed mostly occupied with working and protecting/advancing their families and didn't worry too much about the Micks or the Wops (lol)—what they wanted most was to be proud, patriotic Americans and the same for their kids.
Humans respond to incentives. In America, all the incentives usually point toward aiming for a safe and stable middle-class life; but in other places, the incentives might be toward expelling your outroup (or worse), if that seems necessary for group survival. As the piece said, a mild and mostly tolerant xenophobia seems to work best, as both a way to maintain group cohesion, safety and stability. Aka good fences make good neighbors.
The Irish and the English.
Like during the Troubles in the 1970s?
I've been thinking about this issue long enough now that I no longer feel uncomfortable calling myself "racist." It's not about treating those different from me badly or unfairly; being "racist" is just a form of honesty.
I understand the idea that many White people engage in "anti-racist" behaviour as a way of virtue signalling. I have to confess I used to do this. But I think the behaviour goes deeper than just virtue-signalling...
I think on an unconscious level, we all understand (instinctively, as Spiff points out) the dangers of difference. And yet post WWII, there has been an accelerating agenda to force Western peoples to live amongst others who are very different from us, via mass-immigration.
Like it or not, we're living in "multicultural" societies in the West.
I think one of the most common defences to this (instinctively) dangerous situation is to react with fear - and then to try to assuage that fear by "playing nice."
It's very, very difficult to call out what is actually going on - i.e., speak up against immigration of unassimilable peoples into the West - but it is very, very easy to pretend that we can deal with the problem by just being sweet and "more loving."
Yes. This is what the propaganda is designed to encourage. Passive acceptance and enforcement using nice language. Those who sense the danger and speak out can then be characterized as various forms of not-nice. Racist, extremist, fascist. All interchangeable to those who uncritically accept their programming. They all mean not-nice, which means justifiable ostracism or worse. We saw what the liberals thought of Charlie Kirk after his murder. He was not-nice in their book.
But it takes a lot of resources to overcome our evolved sensibilities. And the cash is running out. What happens when the propaganda machine can't keep up? What happens when the reality of the rainbow nation, kumbaya, race-is-a-social-construct philosophy asserts itself?
Instincts are powerful. When you encourage anti-racism as virtue signaling you get a lot of apparent anti-racism. But you leave the instincts intact. Diversity champions aren't living in ghettoes alongside their favoured groups. We saw how quickly they cleared out Martha's Vineyard. They get it.
All this works while you can keep the foreign hordes somewhere else. But those days are over. Soon everyone will need to grapple with their instincts. Mine are already honed and I suspect so are the liberals'. Time will tell.
'What then?' indeed. I would have quite liked the author to have a crack at predicting what comes next. Civil war? Mass deportations? Simmering resentment that goes nowhere?
It would be nice for many Europeans if they could have their countries back, and if not that then at least send back all the undesirables. I just can't see that ever happening. And the idea that Europeans or Americans will ever be rid of the race that perpetrates the vast majority of crime is a joke.
Nope. I can see the situation getting worse but by then Europeans will be too old and weak to do much about it. America still has a chance with Trump in charge but I think the damage has been done and old America is unrecoverable.
That is a complex subject, and it is tricky to make predictions. We cannot continue like this forever. I think reality will intrude and America will balkanize along ethnic lines. The European states are not big enough to do that, so I think nationalism will emerge and attempt a full reset. That seems to be already happening.
Ah, interesting. Quite how you tease apart the welfare-sponging, west-hating Pakistani Islamists from the children of Indians whose parents arrived In Britain in the 1970's and became west-supporting doctors, dentists and pharmacists I don't know. Of course, anyone with eyes to see can discern the former from the latter but how you draft an deportation plan that catches the one and not the other is not clear to me. Of course, we could leave it to mob-rule and the rabble who can't distinguish one from the other but even I, who would like my country back, don't want it back at such a high cost to the good, decent immigrants who have been here for 50 years. Yet in a certain light, in large enough numbers even these good people are replacing us and our culture.
If I read you right, Trump's attempt to turn the American economy around is a double-edged sword. In making America great again, there will still be enough monies slushing around to fund the NGOs and charities that support the 'No one is illegal' mindset. Only when the money runs out will the scrabble for what is left lead to us dividing up into ethnic tribes. Have a got that right?
I believe European nations will become unpleasant for anyone not a native. Arguments about doctors etc won't cut it. In Britain doctors are now unemployed. They need work and will support serious change through necessity. A tiny handful of immigrants would be accepted, but not millions. Most people are not really racists or racial purists, but nor do they accept being replaced by foreigners. So I suspect a backlash is coming, although the establishment are digging in deep.
I couldn't say about the details of America. I just believe the current situation is not sustainable. We are learning the hard way about group differences. I think people will gravitate into ethnic groups for safety reasons. We already see more open discussions about black crime for instance.
Interesting thoughts. I hope you are right in saying that the current situation is not sustainable. Even a descent into open hostility would be preferable to this endless limbo in which everyone sort of muddles through in a constant state of mild dissatisfaction.
Maybe this is always how things feel at all times throughout history, but I am now beginning to understand why some people prior to WWI just wanted SOMETHING to happen, ANYTHING that would break the stalemate and cause the weather to finally break. However, I'd prefer that not to happen until work has been completed on my government-subsidized house insulation. Let the apocolypse begin after that.
Western liberalism itself is not sustainable for much longer. That is the real issue. The basis for most Western nations is now dying. It has become absurd.
What comes after is anyone's guess. But it will be painful.
With all due respect definition of xenophobia is not "a wariness of strangers".
It is " a deep antipathy to foreigners" or "fear or hatred of strangers or what is foreign,". So "not hatred or disdain of them" is just incorrect.
Which means further passage is a whitewashing of xenophobia.
I disagree. I qualified my use of the term. Defensive xenophobia and mild xenophobia I think I used.
It does not necessarily mean a hatred of others.
The phenomenon I was discussing as wariness versus the intentional elevation of strangers, which is abnormal. But it is what is now happening in Western nations with diversity quotas etc.
Nothing to disagree here. And you whole article is indeed not about hate or disdain toward foreigners. Why to use term xenophobia then?
Sorry to use such a provocative example, but in the same manner there could be "mild racism" to denote consciousness of cultural differences linked to race and its potential implications.
Those differences do exist. Should there be then justification of some form of racism aka "mild racism"?
But again, im picking here on wording. Not on the content of the article.
The term "racism" has become so loaded it probably can't be modified to a milder form. It would be sensible to use alternatives to avoid being misunderstood. I tend to say ethnic differences, or ethnicity rather than race. Even "cultural groups" can work.
I suppose we have to define our terms if there is any ambiguity. The main argument is something like a wariness of those who seem different from us is innate. We must be trained to overcome it. And its opposite, xenophilia, is abnormal and this has repercussions for society.
Yeah, I don't question or argue with your main argument. It is clearly and unambiguously presented in the article.
I'm picking on the usage of term xenophobia. Don't you think it as loaded as racism with the meaning of hate?
I would imagine absurdity of xenophilia could be set forth without opposing it with a term full of disgraceful connotations.
Perhaps. But its antonym, xenophilia, is the focus. Its existence needs to be explained even if people find the term xenophobia problematic. If I changed xenophobia I'd need to find an alternative to xenophilia.
But I concede the point. It is a word that most would normally equate with racism in the sense of active animosity towards members of a different ethnic group. This is not how I see it of course.