The reversal

Ben W. writes:

There was a time where the black race in America was for many reasons on the bottom rung. A major reversal has occurred in American culture so that the black race now occupies the top rung. No critical assessment of Michael Jackson or Steve McNair is permitted.

To review their personalities from an ethical point of view is tantamount to racism (as is criticism of Obama). The Titans football club will allocate two days to celebrate and honor Steve McNair who died in adultery. Jackson died due to self abuse, and blacks are looking for who is responsible. As if the black race is exempt from moral scrutiny.

It’s as if “the oppressed” and “the lower class” have somehow risen to the top and must be accorded this “respect.” Even as Obama’s presidency is viewed as “finally” the coming to fruition of the long withheld rise to the top.

Of course this means the displacement of you-know-who from the top of the ladder. It is a zero-sum game in the eyes of the black race and culture in America, and now they are getting their dues. Even as people such as Charles Gibson (who wouldn’t know a Jackson tune from a Presley song) pays his dues at the Staples center.

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Mark A. writes:

There hasn’t been a reversal, Ben. This is merely affording a few “house negroes” the ability to come in from the butler’s quarters into the parlor and shuck and jive with the guests or possibly play a tune on the piano. The black race is still at the bottom and they know it. High status produces much guilt and anguish (see WASPs, Jews), while low-status produces visceral anger and hostility (thus blacks hate Korean and Mexican immigrants viscerally for a reason: six months after they step off the boat or hop over the fence, they are in a higher-status position than a black).

Don’t worry, Ben. There isn’t a reversal. Americans are bored. They don’t work or produce finished goods of any kind these days. They merely get fat, rack up debt, and await the next moment of entertainment. In a culture like that, Michael Jackson is a god.

LA replies:

Would that that were all it was. But I don’t agree with Mark.

James P. writes:

Ben W. writes:

“There was a time where the black race in America was for many reasons on the bottom rung. A major reversal has occurred in American culture so that the black race now occupies the top rung. No critical assessment of Michael Jackson or Steve McNair is permitted.”

I think an excerpt from this Mencius post captures it nicely. Put simply, blacks are the new hereditary nobility in America:

Let’s say you were a person who didn’t care at all about the Constitution, and you wanted to take America back to the past and establish a new order of hereditary nobility. What could be more deliciously reactionary than that? Real, live nobles, walking around on the street. So let’s see what it would take to make it happen.

First, we need to define noble status. Our rule is simple: if either of your parents was a noble, you’re a noble. While this is unusually inclusive for a hereditary order, it is the 21st century, after all. We can step out a little. And nobility remains a biological quality—a noble baby adopted by common parents is noble, a common baby adopted by noble parents is common.

Fine. What are the official duties and privileges of our new nobility? Obviously, we can’t really call it a noble order unless it has duties and privileges.

Well, privileges, anyway. Who needs duties? What’s the point of being a noble, if you’re going to have all these duties? Screw it, it’s the 21st century. We’ve transcended duties. On to the privileges.

The basic quality of a noble is that he or she is presumed to be better than commoners. Of course, both nobles and commoners are people. And people do vary. Individual circumstances must always be considered. However, the official presumption is that, in any conflict between a noble and a commoner, the noble is right and the commoner is wrong. Therefore, by default, the noble should win. This infallible logic is the root of our system of noble privilege.

For example, if a noble attacks a commoner, we can presume that the latter has in some way provoked or offended the former. The noble may of course be guilty of an offense, but the law must be extremely careful about establishing this. If there is a pattern of noble attacks on commoners, there is almost certainly a problem with the commoners, whose behavior should be examined and who may need supplemental education.

If a commoner attacks a noble, however, it is an extremely serious matter. And a pattern of commoner attacks on nobles is unthinkable—it is tantamount to the total breakdown of civilization. In fact, one way to measure the progress that modern society has made is that, in the lifetime of those now living, it was not at all unusual for mobs of commoners to attack and kill nobles! Needless to say, this doesn’t happen anymore.

This intentional disparity in the treatment of unofficial violence creates the familiar effect of asymmetric territorial dominance. A noble can stroll anywhere he wants, at any time of day or night, anywhere in the country. Commoners are advised not to let the sun set on them in noble neighborhoods, and if they go there during the day they should have a good reason for doing so.

One of the main safeguards for our system of noble authority is a systematic effort to prevent the emergence of commoner organizations which might exercise military or political power. Commoners may of course have friends who are other commoners, but they may not network on this basis. Nobles may and of course do form exclusive social networks on the basis of nobility.

Most interactions between commoners and nobles, of course, do not involve violence or politics. Still, by living in the same society, commoners and nobles will inevitably come into conflict. Our goal is to settle these conflicts, by default, in favor of the noble.

For example, if a business must choose whether to hire one of two equally qualified applicants, and one is a noble while the other is a commoner, it should of course choose the noble. The same is true for educational admissions and any other contest of merit. Our presumption is that while nobles are intrinsically, inherently and immeasurably superior to commoners, any mundane process for evaluating individuals will fail to detect these ethereal qualities—for which the outcome must therefore be adjusted.

Speaking of the workplace, it is especially important not to let professional circles of commoner resistance develop. Therefore, we impose heavy fines on corporations whose internal or external policies or practices do not reflect a solid pro-noble position. For example, a corporation which permits its commoner employees to express insolence or disrespect toward its noble employees, regardless of their relationship in the corporate hierarchy, is clearly liable. Any such commoner must be fired at once if the matter is brought to the management’s attention.

This is an especially valuable tool for promoting the nobility: it literally achieves that result. In practice it makes the noble in any meeting at the very least primus inter pares. Because it is imprudent for commoners to quarrel with him, he tends to get what he wants. Because he tends to get what he wants, he tends to advance in the corporate hierarchy. The result, which should be visible in any large business without dangerous commonerist tendencies, will be a predominance of nobles in top executive positions.

Ben W. writes:

LA replies: “Would that that were all it was.”

As Lawrence has frequently written, he is tired of the white man having to have the black man tied to him at the hip in order to prove the white man’s legitimacy and right to exist. The uplifting of the black man has become the raison d’etre of American history. Supposedly American history will only find its fulfillment when the black race achieves full equality with the white race. As another VFR post indicated (Obama’s 4th of July speech), this is the goal of American history.

Therefore the movement of American history can only finally be judged with respect to the movement of the black race. This indicates how the black race has reached the apex at the summit of American history. However to have a negative morally judgment concerning the luminaries of black culture is to assert that American history and society CANNOT be ultimately judged within the context of the black race.

Perhaps it is time to assert explicitly that the black experience of American history is not the essence of the American spirit. It is incidental, not essential. And as such it has minor significance and merits minor attention.

LA replies:

Absolutely. Two key elements in the traditionalist agenda are: (1) the restoration of America’s white majority as the majority people of America, and (2) the rejection of the false belief that different races have the same abilities, which in turn will lead to (a) the elimination of white guilt over the fact that nonwhites are behind whites, (b) the elimination of nonwhite racial preferences, and (c) the elimination of the inverted morality of left-liberalism, under which the worse the behavior of nonwhites, the more nonwhites are covered up for and praised. Therefore it goes without saying that in a re-traditionalized America the sacralization of blacks that we’ve had for the last 40 years will come to an end.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 08, 2009 08:25 PM | Send