[Peace-discuss] Is racism innate?

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Interesting comment on source and function of racism, anent our recent
discussions.  --CGE]

Q: Is racism something that's learned, or is it innately endowed?

A: I don't think either of those is the right answer. There's no doubt
that there's a rich, complex human nature. We're not rocks. Anybody sane
knows that an awful lot about us is genetically determined, including
aspects of our behavior, our attitudes. That's not even a question among
sane people.

When you go beyond that and ask what it is, you're entering into general
ignorance. We know there's something about human nature that forces us to
grow arms, not wings, and undergo puberty at roughly a certain age. And by
now we know that acquisition of language, growth of the visual system and
so on, are part of human nature in fundamental respects.

When you get to cultural patterns, belief systems and the like, the guess
of the next guy you meet at the bus stop is about as good as that of the
best scientist. Nobody knows anything. People can rant about it if they
like, but they basically know almost nothing.

In this particular area we can at best make some reasonable speculations.
I think the one I've outlined may be a reasonable guess. It's not so much
that racism is in our genes. What is in our genes is the need for
protecting our self-image. It's probably in our nature to find a way to
recast anything that we do in some way that makes it possible for us to
live with it.

It's the same in the broader social sphere, where there are institutions
functioning, and systems of oppression and domination. The people who are
in control, who are harming others -- those people will construct
justifications for themselves. They may do it in sophisticated ways or
nonsophisticated ways, but they're going to do it. That much is in human
nature. One of the consequences of that can turn out to be racism. It can
turn out to be other things too.

Take the sophisticated ones. One of the intellectual gurus of the modern
period in the United States was Reinhold Niebuhr. He was called the
"theologian of the establishment." He was revered by the Kennedy liberal
types, by people like George Kennan. He was considered a moral teacher of
the contemporary generation.

It's interesting to look at why he was so revered. I went through his
stuff once. (There was supposed to be a chapter about him in one of my
books -- but the publisher thought it would be too arcane for the
audience, so I didn't include it.) The intellectual level is depressingly
low -- you can hardly keep a straight face.

But something made him appealing -- his concept of the "paradox of grace."
What it comes down to is this: No matter how much you try to do good,
you're always going to do harm. Of course, he's an intellectual, so he had
to dress it up with big words, but that's what it comes down to.

That's very appealing advice for people who are planning to enter a life
of crime -- to say, "No matter how much I try to do good, I'm always going
to harm people. I can't get out of it." It's a wonderful idea for a Mafia
don. He can go ahead and do whatever he feels like. If he harms people,
"Oh my God, the paradox of grace."

That may well explain why Niebuhr was so appealing to American
intellectuals in the post-World War II period. They were preparing to
enter a life of major crime. They were going to be either the managers or
the apologists for a period of global conquest.

Running the world is obviously going to entail enormous crimes. So they
think, "Isn't it nice to have this doctrine behind us? Of course we're
superbenevolent and humane, but the paradox of grace...."

Again, if you're an intellectual, you dress it up and write articles about
it. The mechanisms, however, are quite simple.

I suppose all of that is, if you like, part of our nature, but in such a
transparent way that we can't seriously call this a theory. Everybody
knows from their own experience just about everything that's understood
about human beings -- how they act and why -- if they stop to think about
it. It's not quantum physics.

--The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many (Interviews with Noam Chomsky)
Copyright © 1994 by David Barsamian