Tuesday, April 12, 2011

White Privilege: A Colloquy

The Fjordman Report

For a complete Fjordman blogography, see The Fjordman Files. There is also a multi-index listing here.


The following excerpts are from an email exchange among Takuan Seiyo, Fjordman, and myself. Takuan started the conversation with an extensive list of left-wing groups that stage and support “White Privilege” seminars and similar PC MC scams.

The ensuing discussion between Fjordman and Takuan is worth reproducing, so, with their permission, here’s what they said:

Fjordman: Where is this “white privilege,” anyway? Whites today are not allowed to have a single country, or even a single city, suburb or school, all to themselves. It’s literally considered “racism”, and thus a crime for people of European origins merely to congregate and be themselves.

Anything we have just for us should be broken down through the active intervention of the authorities. There are now more nationalities in the city of Oslo alone than there are member states of the United Nations, despite the fact that Norway has no colonial history and gained its modern independence as late as the twentieth century.

Not only is the country being colonized, it’s a “hyper-colony” for all nations and “people of color” on the surface of the Earth, and the natives are expected to fund this and celebrate their own state-sponsored dispossession. How “privileged” does that make them, really?

The ruling ideology of the USA today is Dark Skin Privilege. That’s why they currently have a President whose primarily qualification is his dark skin color.
 
Takuan: That’s not so much our current privilege they are talking about. They want us to pay for our past privilege. After all it’s a privilege to have invented science and all modern social institutions, and to have an IQ 1-2 sigmas higher on average.

It’s a privilege that we had flintlock muskets, and they had only wooden clubs and bows and arrows.

It’s an unearned privilege (that’s an official term) — particularly for the Anglos, Nordics, Germans and Slavs — to inherit genes that make you tall, white-skinned and blond (the “coloreds” are of course far more hung up on skin color than we are).

A “Hispanic” once told me in an angry tone than not only we have stolen a part of Mexico, but we have stolen the part with better roads and highways.



  Of course it’s all preposterous madness. Not the angry coloreds’ — they are not mad but acting rationally to further their interests. The madness is on the part of whites who support this. Where is the revolt?
 
Fjordman: We should also mention that on the 22nd of March 2011, individuals representing more than one hundred different nationalities gathered in front of the Royal Palace in Oslo, accompanied by Crown Prince Haakon Magnus, to celebrate the diversity of the kingdom.

People from 215 different nations have become “Norwegians” in a few decades. “Norway needed this,” said Fery Nourkami, the non-native who came up with the idea for the gathering.
 
Takuan: As an immigrant addressing this to a not-so, I’d like you to express what “white privilege” meant to the ancestors of those whites who had American ancestors pre-1850s. What it took to build the colony in Virginia, or to settle the Midwest and then the West. What incredible hardships and fortitude, and what perils.

Up to the 1960s, the typical immigrant was conscious of those and grateful that he could build a life based on a foundation laid by the blood, sweat and tears of previous generations of others’ ancestors. No more; since the 1960s they are coming for the government-provided honeypot.

29 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just one example of these seminars:
12th Annual White Privilege Conference,
This Land Is Whose Land?
• Defining Citizenship • Understanding Access • Taking Action
Minneapolis April 13-16, 2011

Conference Partners:
Hamline University
University of Minnesota
The Saint Paul Foundation
Minnesota State Colleges & Univ.

Understanding:
Augsburg College
Gustavus Adolphus College
Ntl Ctr for Race Amity/Race Amity Worker
The Denver Foundation
YWCA-Minneapolis
University of St. Thomas

Respecting:
Goddard College
Rise Up

Connecting:
O Offices.net
Diversity Collaboration Initiative
NAACP

Grassroots:

Kupugani
NDSU equity diversity global outreach-North Dakota
DRAA
YWCA-Duluth
Stephanie Puentes
University of Wisconsin-Stout

ALLIES/INDIVIDUAL DONORS

Flaurie Imberman
Beverly Bennett-Roberts

Barbara Rogers
Canadian Churches' Forum

Jean Kwaterski
Barbara Rogers
Canadian Churches' Forum
World Trust Educational Services Inc.

JS123 said...

"Anything we have just for us should be broken down through the active intervention of the authorities."
This is called neikophilia. There is ax explanation of it here: http://apoxonbothyourhouses.blogspot.com/2009/09/cultural-homeostasis-and-multicultural.html

Jewel said...

White privilege was punished soundly in Zimbabwe, and now we see the benefits this nation has reaped from punishing the privileged whites either by slaughter or mass exodus. Everyone one is now filthy rich, having confiscated the wealth created by privileged whites. They are all billionaires in Zimbabwe. A handsome payoff, indeed. And we are also seeing it now in South Africa, where that nation of musical geniuses have bestowed upon the world the one note vuvuzela...representative in its annoying and relentless buzzing, like all the oppressed of the world whining about white privilege.

Takuan Seiyo said...

HRW,
That's a telling link. What I found telling is that the copyright on this thing is iterated at the bottom:
2011 University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. That is supposed to be the most rightwing theocon town in the United States. So if even in Colorado Springs this ugly fungus proliferates so, it means that modern-day higher education is ipso facto a contaminant, akin to Islam.

JS123
Never heard of neikophilia. But even necrophilia will do in this case. Our task is to get off this stainless steel slab so that the large contingent of masochist moron mutilators among us can no longer bugger the rest of us as though we were an inanimate corpse.

Blogger said...

I find this article sad and flawed. It is Christianity, not whiteness of skin, that has made the west a success. See Rodney Stark's book "The Victory of Reason". Everyone should read this book. You don't have to suddenly become a church going Christian, but merely to embrace its ideas on issues such as indiviual conscience; http://www.amazon.com/Victory-Reason-Christianity-Freedom-Capitalism/dp/0812972333/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1302660909&sr=1-1

As for IQ tests, they are flawed. I work in the field of psychiatry myself and have explored this subject in some detail. There are many facets to this IQ issue, and here is just one; overall there are many more males with high IQs than women, but the vast majority of criminals are male.

Zenster said...

Takuan Seiyo: That’s not so much our current privilege they are talking about. They want us to pay for our past privilege. After all it’s a privilege to have invented science and all modern social institutions, and to have an IQ 1-2 sigmas higher on average.

It’s a privilege that we had flintlock muskets, and they had only wooden clubs and bows and arrows.

It’s an unearned privilege (that’s an official term) — particularly for the Anglos, Nordics, Germans and Slavs — to inherit genes that make you tall, white-skinned and blond (the “coloreds” are of course far more hung up on skin color than we are).


Hidden within this racist ― not "reverse racist", as no such thing exists ― diatribe is the recurring theme of how White culture has done all of the heavy lifting despite constant criticism by these Third World ingrates.

After all, the "privilege to have invented science and all modern social institutions" only required the agonizing process of Christianity molting its once theocratic skin.

How many Whites died in the wars of European Reformation?

Just the "privilege to have invented science" required countless budding White scientists to be burned at the stake or endure other far more hideous tortures for contradicting the predominant theological meme. How many young Galileos or Madame Curies were snuffed out before they could even make their world-changing discoveries?

Likewise those "social institutions" whose secure emplacement merely required immersing Europe and then the entire globe in massive wars that cut these human rights in stone for all time.

How many Whites died in that process?

We can all rest assured that Africa and Asia experienced similar massive upheavals. Darfur, Cambodia, Burma and Rwanda all stand in stark testimony to that fact. What remains curious is how little they have to show for the slaughter that was so gleefully indulged in.

At least White culture obtained and retained what they fought for with respect to advancing human rights and civilization in general.

The irony of spineless PCMC weasels actively contravening these precious hard-won liberties will not be discussed at this time.

Then there's the "privilege that we had flintlock muskets".

All in all, a simple little affair that only involved the often tediously demanding invention of science, chemistry, metallurgy, resource extraction technology backed by endless trial-and-error experiments to perfect. No Whites lost their lives in those laboratories, mines, smelters or gunpowder manufactories, now did they?

As to our supposedly "unearned privilege … to inherit genes that make you tall, white-skinned and blond".

All that required was braving some of the most hostile environments on earth in order to eke out a living from an unforgiving land that just as often killed you as fed you.

What a privilege it must have been for newly arrived proto-Scandinavians to endure those first few grueling Nordic winters with little more than animal skins and carefully tended fires to keep them alive. Let the embers fade out and everybody risked a frigid death.

Beneath all of this are stark parallels with the myth of White male privilege. That will be grist for another post but rest assured that both of these topics are fruit of the same poisoned tree.

Takuan Seiyo said...

A related event and mindset here: These are the resolutions of the California Federation of Teachers Convention of 2011 (pdf file):
http://www.cft.org/uploads/Convention2011/docs/2011_CFT_Conv_Report.pdf
It's long; try Numbers 15, 17, 19 and 20 for starters.
These people are quite literally insane, and I can defend that statement by rigorous clinical definitions of "insane." And they have been in charge of educating Americans since the 1910s, and on an accelerated march since the 1960s...

gsw said...

What 'past privilege' is that exactly? The last of the British left India and SriLanka shortly after I was born (Elizabeth II freed India).
All us post-WWII born people have never been colonists.
We have never kept slaves.
We have never lived in luxury on the earnings of 'inferior' beings.

There are however, many other so-called 'ethnic groups' (read religions) who still hold to these practices.

I suggest we start condemning them - starting with those living in our countries and enslaving women and living on jiza.

Fjordman said...

To the comment above: I don't hate Christianity but no, European civilization is not identical to it. Ideas matter, but genes are primary, ideas secondary. European civilization existed before Christianity and could exist without it. On the other hand, if native Europeans were to be displaced by Nigerian, Iraqi and Filipino Christians I would not consider this to be a "victory." Europe is a real place, the great homeland for a multitude of distinct nations with strong historical ties to the land. Europe is not some random space on the map, an empty vessel just waiting to be filled with Christianity, human rights, shopping or the dictatorship of the proletariat. As much as I hate Islam, it is not our primary enemy. The proposition nation is.

Sagunto said...

Blogger -

I second your comment. You did well to include reference to Rodney Stark's book. Other sources: Thomas E. Woods ("How the Catholic Church built Civilization"); Joseph A. Schumpeter ("History of economic Analysis"); Murray N. Rothbard ("Economic Thought before Adam Smith"); Alejandro A. Chafuen ("Faith and Liberty: the Economic Thought of the Late Scholastics"). To name but a few fine scholars.

Zenster -

You wrote:

"After all, the "privilege to have invented science and all modern social institutions" only required the agonizing process of Christianity molting its once theocratic skin.

How many Whites died in the wars of European Reformation?

Just the "privilege to have invented science" required countless budding White scientists to be burned at the stake or endure other far more hideous tortures for contradicting the predominant theological meme. How many young Galileos or Madame Curies were snuffed out before they could even make their world-changing discoveries?"


Well, perhaps you could try and answer that last question yourself and provide an educated guess? ;)
But seriously, what exactly are you saying about the nature of the so-called "Reformation" in Europe. That it was predominantly about "Science versus Church"?
I'd like to hear more, perhaps with some references to scholarly publications.

Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.

Rollory said...

"As for IQ tests, they are flawed. I work in the field of psychiatry myself and have explored this subject in some detail. There are many facets to this IQ issue, and here is just one; overall there are many more males with high IQs than women, but the vast majority of criminals are male."

This is not a flaw in the tests, it is a flaw in your understanding and expectations of what they should reveal. Both results are correct, and consistent with each other, and with biological reality.

Zenster said...

Sagunto: But seriously, what exactly are you saying about the nature of the so-called "Reformation" in Europe. That it was predominantly about "Science versus Church"?

Obviously not. Look who led the Reformation, another church scholar in the form of Martin Luther. However, buried within Protestant doctrine were seeds of change away from the more rigorous and ossified forms of Catholicism.

Dispensing with theocratically-based laws against vivisection and usury were two important examples of what allowed Northern Europe to make such stunning advances over the Mediterranean region.

Being able to charge interest without religious censure stimulated investment patterns that permitted formation of syndicates which invested in spice ships destined for the Far East. Upon their return, these silk and porcelain-laden boats made instant millionaires out of individual investors by the hundreds.

That surplus of wealth built exceptionally prosperous economies which were a requisite in order for the "rare genius" to flourish. These particularly talented individuals brought about world-changing technologies, like that of James Watt and his improvements upon the Newcomen steam engine.

Another earlier "rare genius" named Gutenberg contributed the printing press which would eventually be used to issue vulgate editions of the Bible that finally broke Rome's stranglehold upon access to and interpretation of religious doctrine.

As an indirect result, legally allowed vivisection permitted William Harvey and other medical forerunners to finally undertake the study of physiology in a truly scientific manner. The rocket propulsion that this provided in terms of medical advances would soon see Northern Europe wrest the mantle of scientific superiority from all other contenders for centuries to come.

Again, this was not so much a "Science versus Church" affair as it was a relatively logical outgrowth of increasing human liberty that arose from casting off strictures imposed by the overly-political Catholic Church of that era.

Regardless of such a distinction, the Reformation and emergence of science both involved a birthing process drenched in the blood of European Whites. Those religious, technological and scientific advances went on to better the lives of everyone on earth and were not held back as some privileged right of Europeans alone.

Far be it from jealous Third World backbiters to recognize this basic fact as they set about bludgeoning the White race for introducing firearms that these throwbacks demonstrate such an uncommon fondness for.

Sagunto said...

Zenster -

"Look who led the Reformation, another church scholar in the form of Martin Luther. However, buried within Protestant doctrine were seeds of change away from the more rigorous and ossified forms of Catholicism."

"Dispensing with theocratically-based laws.."

"Being able to charge interest without religious censure stimulated investment patterns that permitted formation of syndicates which invested in spice ships destined for the Far East."

"That surplus of wealth built exceptionally prosperous economies which.."

"Again, this was not so much a "Science versus Church" affair as it was a relatively logical outgrowth of increasing human liberty that arose from casting off strictures imposed by the overly-political Catholic Church of that era.

"Regardless of such a distinction, the Reformation and emergence of science both involved a birthing process drenched in the blood of European Whites."


Again, which scholar is the source of your assertions? I'm really interested to hear about the economy of Western-Europe flourishing as a result of the "Reformation". I also like to hear more about the "ossified" Church. Did you read the letters exchanged between Erasmus, Luther, Zwingli and Melachton, by any chance. Luther, one of the most rabiate anti-Semitic churchmen Europe has ever seen? Luther who sought the power of the state to drench peasant revolts for freedom in blood? Birth of liberty? Hardly.

Where have you read about Galileo?
If you haven't been able to find any references to your tale yet, let me fill you in with a real good one, written by eminent scholar Maurice A. Finocchiaro: "Retrying Galileo, 1633 - 1992"

Who wrote about the "overly political Catholic Church of that era"? What scholar? And did that writer posit this caricature in opposition to another, that of "increasing human liberty"?

Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.

Blogger said...

Male IQs have been found to be higher than female IQs overall. Does this mean there should be privelege of males over females? That males should be allowed ownership and not females?

Anonymous said...

"Male IQs have been found to be higher than female IQs overall."

Yeesh! Brought to you by the same "scientists" who discovered global warming.... :(

jeppo said...

OT

More good news out of Germany:

"So Duvarci is doing what thousands of other highly skilled workers of Turkish origin have been doing even as Germany faces a severe shortage of skilled labor and a shrinking population: returning to the ancestral homeland.

Turks came in the millions to Germany in the 1960s — unskilled laborers who were part of a so-called "guest worker" program aimed at rebuilding the country from the ruins of postwar Germany. Their children were born here, grew up here, and were educated here. Many have German citizenship.

Now they are heading back in droves, saying they are still treated as outsiders in Germany and can't land the high-paying jobs that match their skills and training. Other ethnic groups express similar frustrations, but Turks are by far the biggest group."

"More than one-third of Germany's ethnic Turkish professionals and university students, many German citizens, are thinking of returning to their parents' homeland, according to a 2010 poll by Futurorg Institute in Dortmund."

"There are some 3 million people of Turkish origin in this country of 82 million. Around 700,000 of them carry a German passport. After steady growth for decades, the numbers dropped for the first time in 2008 — by 2,200."

"In 2009, their ranks went down by more than 8,000, with some 35,400 Turkish citizens leaving Germany for good, and 27,000 moving here, according to the Federal Statistical Office."

"As a child growing up in Germany, she experienced so much prejudice, that she wanted to get out of the country the moment she finished high school.

"My class mates told me I smelled because I didn't take enough showers and ostracized me in so many other possible ways — it was really bad," Erdem recalled. "I was so unhappy that my parents eventually had to send me to a different school."

Link

Zenster said...

Sagunto: I'm really interested to hear about the economy of Western-Europe flourishing as a result of the "Reformation".

Let's put it another way: Why is Spain such a cellar-dweller in terms of GDP when compared to other modern European economies?

I also like to hear more about the "ossified" Church.

Comparatively speaking, Protestant doctrine, at least as it evolved, left a lot more wiggle room for personal interpretation and individual practice than the Catholic Church did at that time. What about that is unclear? Do you dispute that publishing the Bible in common language was not only a radical and revolutionary departure for Christian Europe but one that had far reaching effects upon the grasp that Catholicism had previously enjoyed?

Luther who sought the power of the state to drench peasant revolts for freedom in blood? Birth of liberty?

Where do I paint up Luther as some great liberator? All I noted was that the Reformation was led by another clergyman and not by any scientific figure.

Nevertheless, it is perfectly arguable that the Reformation's release of Northern Europe from Catholic doctrinal strictures contributed, in some part, to its overall scientific advancement. If not immediately thereafter, most certainly in the long tun.

Who wrote about the "overly political Catholic Church of that era"?

Do you dispute that the Roman Catholic Church in early Europe did not seek to install itself as, or at least assume the functional role of, a theocracy? Where did I make any attribution whatsoever of that statement to someone other than myself?

Takuan Seiyo said...

A debate of the relative merits of the Christian denominations is taking us back to an era when Europe tied itself in knots and in rivers of blood for 300 years for spurious reasons. So let us say that under the Reformed church trials of witches, cats and pigs were no longer being held, the Inquisition was not putting suspects to the so-full-of-Jesus'-mercy "Question," indulgences were not being sold, and the people were generally motivated to seek fulfillment in productive work rather than in penance and preparation for the next world. Yes, the Protestants were far from perfect, and I’ve seen the townhouses in Amsterdam with concealed chapels, and have experienced as well the marked reduction in joie de vivre and romanticism as one moves from the lands of the RCC to the lands of the Reformation. Ingmar Bergman and the film “Babette’s Feast” are a perfect evocation of this syndrome. Still, militant Catholics (and the Orthodox too; they are even worse) ought to pipe down. Those differences had better not matter anymore; what unites Western peoples is more important.

Sagunto said...

Zenster -

"Sagunto: I'm really interested to hear about the economy of Western-Europe flourishing as a result of the "Reformation".

Let's put it another way: Why is Spain such a cellar-dweller in terms of GDP when compared to other modern European economies?"


Let's not put it this way, but stay with the historical period under discussion. Moreover, let's provide some scholarly references to back up your assertions about European (economic) history. I'm really interested to know who wrote all of this.

Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.

Sagunto said...

TS -

"So let us say that under the Reformed church trials of witches, cats and pigs were no longer being held, the Inquisition was not putting suspects to the so-full-of-Jesus'-mercy "Question," indulgences were not being sold, and the people were generally motivated to seek fulfillment in productive work rather than in penance and preparation for the next world."

Same as with Zenster: some scholarly backup references would be nice. I'd really like to know about the source(s) of this quasi-historical story telling.

Sag.

Sagunto said...

Zenster -

For the moment, I'll leave aside your interesting injection of today's economic situation (I can already hear some Tea Party enthusiast asking you to explain why it is that the US govt. debt is the largest on the planet today).

Let's instead go back to the historical period under discussion, and allow me to come up with a writer, the eminent sociologist Max Weber, whose seminal work called "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" might have influenced your tale about post-medieval economic history in Europe, directly or indirectly.

Q: Have you read his work? Do you think his general thesis is in correspondence with your own assertions about economics during the period under discussion?

Must get back to work now, be back tomorrow.

Take care,
Sag.

Takuan Seiyo said...

@Sagunto
If you want to question basic tenets of history that I have been taught in a 100% Catholic commie country, 50% Catholic Western country, and then Protestant USA, and saw countless evidence of in Europe’s museums when it was still Europe, sorry, I cannot oblige. For a similar reason I do not discuss their creed with Holocaust deniers, no matter how many academic letters after their name and intelligent their argument. Ars longa, Vita brevis.
I know you are a well-read man, so I am not trying to be condescending here, just sensible. If you want the lucidly predigested version, try Paul Johnson’s (a Catholic, he) “A History of Christianity.” If you want to go the more laborious way, from original sources, try the "Malleus Maleficarum.” For more outlandish fun, with cats, pigs and Satan, quite a number of books have been published ever since Evans’s 1906 “The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals.” For the more laborious, primary sources approach, I suggest you study the career of the famed 15th century French jurist Bartholomew Chassenee and his advocacy on behalf of animals in the docket. For witches, try “Ein erschröcklich geschicht Vom Tewfel“ (incl pix) but you could easily fill a giant container ship with historical evidence culled just from Germany, Austria and Switzerland – where I have seen it – and much more from other European countries where I have not seen it (e.g. Inquisition Museums in Spain, in Peru etc.)
None of which means that we should join the Mea Culpa procession of the white privilege self-flagellants. We did it; get over it and move on. Others did too, even worse, though for different reasons (e.g. for racist-tribal or slavery trade purposes in Africa, hegemony maintenance in Imperial China etc.)

Rollory said...

"Male IQs have been found to be higher than female IQs overall."

IQ is a probabilistic distribution. A bell curve. The male and female curves are different. The male one is somewhat flatter - with a higher proportion of individuals in each tail, while women have more in the center - and the male one is centered slightly higher on the IQ axis. Lots of arguments can be made about the causes of this and the implications, but the data is pretty consistent regardless of how you collect it - as long as you are objectively trying to measure complex reasoning ability.

There are differences in the center point when comparing between racial groups. Also when differentiating between national ethnic origin, although it's much smaller than when comparing, for example, sub-saharan Africans to Orientals. The difference in shape of the curve is of a similar nature between men and women in any population.

"Yeesh! Brought to you by the same "scientists" who discovered global warming.... :("

If you have something to add other than deliberate and intentional fabrications that have nothing to do with the facts, please do.

Hesperado said...

I recall from my college years the odd pleasure I felt learning in a history lecture one particular fact about Western history (the odd pleasure being one of many similar experiences on my long road to escaping the pleasantly breezy Gulag of PC)-- namely, that the phenomenon of witch trials and witch-burning only began to expand in earnest throughout Europe when the Renaissance -- you know, that open-minded humanistic movement away from the "Dark Ages" onward to the Progress of the Englightenment -- was in full swing.

Zenster said...

Takuan Seiyo: None of which means that we should join the Mea Culpa procession of the white privilege self-flagellants. We did it; get over it and move on.

Le bingo.

It is also important to note the commonalities between Liberals, Muslims and the Third World anti-Whites who all participate in this lash-fest.

All of them ― in their efforts to deconstruct Western civilization ― must first step up and firmly plant their feet on one or another cornerstone that was agonizingly lifted into place by White culture.

Liberals love to bash the Pale Male™ but, in order to do so, usually require the venue of Free Speech that was fought for and died for by so many of those same White males to begin with.

That they then go on to use the Internet, universities and many other accouterments of White culture to destroy White culture is just more hypocritical icing on their monstrous, cognitively dissonant cake.

Muslims adore killing everybody else ― chiefly White folks like Jews and Christians ― but are conspicuously unable to do so without resorting to the use of weapons and technology that they could not have invented given centuries of extra time and, instead, must beg, borrow or steal their armaments of choice from those who manufacture them according to discoveries made largely by …

… wait for it …

Yep. White folks!

Then we have the remaining lot of Third World savages who, if they aren't Muslim, tend to behave a lot like them and ― big surprise here ― typically require all of the preceding inventions in some combination, if not all of them together, in order to adequately express their violent distaste for the White culture that routinely sends them medicines, vaccines, agricultural equipment, water treatment technology, crop seeds, bulk fertilizers, farm animals, disaster and famine relief plus a host of other benisons without which sloughs of them would died off en masse a long time ago if not gone extinct altogether.

It's long past tea to simply withdraw access to all of these potent tools and let the lot of them rot in their own feces until they learn to show a little respect.

Sagunto said...

Hesperado -

You wrote:

"I recall from my college years the odd pleasure I felt learning in a history lecture [..] that the phenomenon of witch trials and witch-burning only began to expand in earnest throughout Europe when the Renaissance -- you know, that open-minded humanistic movement away from the "Dark Ages" onward to the Progress of the Enlightenment -- was in full swing."

That history class of yours could well have been inspired by the work of French historian and médiéviste Régine Pernoult. Troughout her career she has published extensively about the Renaissance. Her studies (and that of other specialists in the field) have revealed the notion of this period, as the first post-medieval "liberation" of man, to be a myth.

As is the notion behind the standard textbook storytelling going on in this topic, i.e. the sublimely onesided (and unwarranted) tale that the trias Renaissance - Reformation - Enlightenment were somehow all neccessary steps in the struggle against tradition and the positive march of the human race towards ever more "liberation".

One would almost be tempted to call this view the "Gnostic interpretation of history" ;-)

Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.

urah2222 said...

Zenster -

Not so sure that it is "Long Past Tea" Institute a trade regime for those nations so they pay in CASH or GOODS and it accomplishes the same thing.

Dr. Shalit

BunBun4life said...

Haven't read this yet, but, someone please try to say that blacks don't have 'black privilege in Africa, and Chinese don't have Chinese privilege in China, Muslims don't have privilege in their country, and in Turkey the Turks have privilege even over other muslims.

Why the hell are WE supposed to be the only ones SORRY FOR IT !!??

ENVY jealousy, ignorance, brainwashing, media lies, low intelligence and many many other crap reasons !!

Anonymous said...

My family comes have been living in Africa for over 300 years and we are spread out across south Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe. I am white. I am tired of hearing daily from every liberal being it a liberal from the USA, Eu, Nordic countries, black Africans or the media that I can never be a citizen and don't belong in Africa. These same people cannot explain to me why black people can live as citizens in the USA, EU etc and be fully accepted as citizens. They cannot explain to me why I dont "qualify" as an African in spite of having lived here for over 300 years yet a Indian or Pakistani can become a full recognized citizen in 2 years with more rights than I have. I am tired of being accused of stealing land, stealing all the mineral wealth while in reality I grew up poor, wore for a long time "hand me down" clothes, had to work very hard, study to enable me to live a middle class live. I have searched high and low for shares that my family have supposedly received free in some mining company but only found British citizens and black people as share holders? My family have never had a "farm in Africa" although it would be nice to have one. I am tired of hearing how the West brutalized Africa by slavery but not one black man or liberal can explain why the Arab slave trade, which is much older and on the scene long before Europeans arrived, did not have the same impact as they claim the western slave trade had> they cannot explain why certain great African Kings became very rich and powerful by selling rivals and their own citizens to the slave trade or why the so called AU still allows slave trade to continue in African Islamist countries. i have never burned down a school, medical clinic, water purification works because the governing party I voted for does not keep its elections promises, I just use my right to vote the party out of power come the next election yet they cant explain why they keep voting for the same people that abuse them and then blame the West. I am tired of hearing how we white people will all be killed in mass and that the USA and EU will do nothing! I have fought in the wars against the Angolans, SWAPO, Cubans, Russians east Germans and my great grandfather fought against the British, we don't expect any help from the USA or EU they never really helped us anyhow, we will not move and we are ready and we wait for them.