Do We Have an Instinct for Racial Loyalty?
By • 2/12/08An argument broke out recently in the comments section of a recent post over a matter of fundamental concern to race realists and white activists. The question was whether or not humans feel an instinctual loyalty to their race. The commenters Irish and Hal K argued that we do have such an instinct. According to them, people are naturally motivated by a special instinct to preserve and advance the interests of their race. I argued that there was no evidence for any such instinct, and a few other commenters made tentative noises in support of my position.
I said in my comments that if people had an instinct for racial loualty, how would the behavior of modern-day whites be possible? Not only do most whites today not care about the preservation of their race, but they find the idea that they should disturbing. Try telling whites that you seek white racial preservation, and 99 times out 100, they will view you as a lunatic, and possibly a dangerous one. If humans had an instinct for racial loyalty, how could a whole population simply lose it? I know of no other case that would confirm that such an epidemic of instinct-loss is possible. Whole populations don’t simply lose the instinct to care for their children. Whole populations of men don’t simply lose their instinctive sexual preference for younger women over older ones. Instincts even survive large-scale campaigns to eradicate them. All efforts to curb violence in the media, for example, have failed. Movies and video games today are just as violent as ever, or even more so, because the instinctive male fascination with physical combat won out in the end.
One of the reasons why race realists believe in an instinct for racial preservation is that American Renaissance magazine has argued for its existence for years. Indeed, the idea that races as a whole have interests to which people possess an instinctive loyalty is the foundation of Jared Taylor’s whole philosophy:
AR’s purpose has always been to recall to whites their legitimate and even noble interests as a race, to reinstill in them a consciousness of race without which they cannot survive as a race.
Later in the same article, Taylor says:
Before the age of “tolerance” and “sensitivity,” whites had a clear grasp of their group interests. They kept non-whites out of the country through restrictive immigration laws. They prevented them from voting. They maintained the quality of their schools and neighborhoods by restricting non-white access. Their vision of the United States took for granted its European, Western character, which they never imagined could be transformed by mass immigration and claims of “multi-culturalism.” This conviction of the essential “whiteness” of America was central to American thought from colonial times until only 50 or 60 years ago. Virtually all whites had the instinctive racial consciousness of the kind non-whites express so aggressively today. It is only by rekindling this sense of solidarity, loyalty, and pride that we can hope to see a real American renaissance, and it is from this vision that AR takes its name. [Italics mine]
AR, then, is one long attempt to persuade whites to recover their primordial and instinctive loyalty to their race. But when did anyone need to be persuaded to obey their instincts? Doesn’t the very need for persuasion prove that no such instinct exists?
Taylor uses the behavior of non-whites to make his case for the existence of such an instinct. In 2006, he published a long three-part article called “Black Racial Consciousness” intended to prove beyond any doubt that blacks retained their primordial racial instincts in pristine purity. His examples were blacks’ history of movements for racial solidarity, such as the “Afrocentrism” movement; the existence of thousands and thousands of black advocacy and interest groups, such as the NAACP, the Nation of Islam, and even the National Association of Black Women Entrepreneurs; blacks’ castigation of “Oreos” like Clarence Thomas who oppose racial preferences for blacks; and black alienation and hostility towards white America.
It is an impressive list. However, why does Taylor make Clarence Thomas’s critics, rather than Thomas himself, his prototype of black psychology? After all, if it is possible for Thomas and his like to come around to the universal, race-blind perspective that is typical of whites, maybe black racial consciousness is not as strong as Taylor thinks?
There are, in fact, a lot of blacks like Clarence Thomas. In fact, a Pew Research Center poll found that the black middle class as a whole shares whites’ universalism.
When you hear a black person saying they don’t see race, watch out! “Color blind blacks” are usually also middle-class in terms of their income and outlooks. There is such a widening gulf between the values of middle class and poor blacks that we no longer can think of blacks as a single race. A Pew Research Center survey found black college graduates who say that “the values of middle-class African Americans are more closely aligned with those of middle-class whites than those of lower-income blacks.”
It’s mostly poorer and older blacks who feel the kind of racial loyalty that Taylor discusses. Barack Obama, who downplays race, is the quintessential young, affluent black.
I think in the end that self-interest, rather than an instinct for racial loyalty, explains why people identify with their race and seek its advancement. After all, during the so-called “civil rights” era, black solidarity movements fought for goals that would pay off individually for blacks in the form of wider opportunities for employment and schooling. Besides, the movement forced whites to show greater respect for blacks—who wants to have to sit at the back of the bus? Blacks needed no instinct for racial loyalty to join the movement, as it catered to each individual black’s self-interest.
Similarly, black racial solidarity movements today cater to the self-interest of poor blacks, as their Afrocentric stories about how their society was corrupted by the nefarious white man pays off for them in terms of affirmative action, welfare, and other economic benefits. Race hustlers like Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton have, of course, the greatest personal stake in keeping racial solidarity alive, as they have profited massively from it.
However, for brighter, upwardly mobile blacks, sentiments of racial solidarity are at best useless and at worst a liability. For blacks who can succeed on their own merits, racial solidarity is unnecessary. Moreover, they have to work with white people, and any racial grudge they may carry will cause counterproductive tensions. Therefore, these blacks tend to regard people like Farrakhan and Sharpton as an embarrassment and merrily sell out to the white man as they proceed on their upwardly mobile course.
I am not convinced that an instinct for racial solidarity is necessary to explain any aspect of human behavior. Indeed, the assumption that such an instinct exists probably causes us to misunderstand the reasons why people are interested in racial movements such as the one we are trying to build, and this misunderstanding is likely harmful to our cause. To bring whites to our side, we should not try to recall them to a primordial instinct that is probably a fantasy. Rather, we have to appeal to their self-interest by convincing them that racial solidarity will pay off for them individually. That is why I have argued that our best course is to make whites understand that importing people with fundamentally different values from theirs will degrade our quality of life.
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Another thing, I think people are more loyal, naturally, to their immediate ethnic group and tribe than their race. Native Americans don’t say “Indian power” they support Cherokees or something of that nature. You don’t see Arabs saying “Med power,” “Arab power,” or anything of that nature. Instead they are intensely loyal to their own tribes at the expense of other Arabs. The same thing could be said about the Chinese and Japanese. They are not saying “Mongoloid/Asiatic power” they are flying their own flag. And even Hitler was not saying “european power,” “white power,” or even “worldwide nordic power.” He appealed directly to German nationalism (greater germany). My point, most white nationalists refuse to admit that ethnicity is more important than race is. As a race realist, I do think this is the situation. The smaller ethnicity and tribe (and a tribe could be multiracial) is supported over the collective biological entity.
What could explain the breakdown of white society is that even white society in America is diverse. Different types of whites from different types of backgrounds. America was a diverse society even before it was nonwhite.
The majority of whites think that the white race has a distinct culture that should be preserved:
“… A stunning proportion of whites—77%—say their race has a distinct culture that should be preserved …” http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1531296,00.html
Is this not evidence of racial loyalty?
However, I agree with you that racial loyalty is probably not an instinct, but an acquired behaviour. Loyalty towards one’s nation or ethnicity, on the other hand, is a tribal behaviour most likely rooted in human biology.
Innate racial feeling can be overcome as nearly all human instincts can.
A man can by an act of will set aside his attraction to his flirtatious 20 year old colleague and cultivate within himself an attraction to his 40 year old wife in order to live up to his moral principles. A fat man with a love of greasy treats can will himself to eat less appetizing food and perform unpleasant physical activity in order to lose weight.
Intense propaganda can even persuade large numbers of people to set aside the most basic instincts of all, such as the will to live, and love of one’s offspring. Note the Iranian volunteers who stormed Iraqi minefields in the Iran-Iraq War. The Japanese kamikaze pilots are famous, but less well-known are the civilians, Japanese families, including women clutching their own babies, who hurled themselves off cliffs rather than fall into the power of the Americans. Consider the entire Palestinian proto-state with children singing songs of their longing to become human bombs, with mothers cheerfully celebrating the pointless deaths of their offspring. North Korea is gripped by similar mass madness.
The fact that our current culture is deeply sick and distorted is not a sign that racial feeling is unnatural. The contemporary status quo is not necessarily normative; it is necessary to look outside the here and now, to develop a sense of historical perspective, to realize what truly is normal. Social reform movements can change the culture and alter the consensus - as the “civil rights” movement has demonstrated.
Realist, But there IS a White race instinct (of course not the same thing as race loyalty), which is expressed in the directest way possible in the USA in the phenomenom of ‘White flight’. On thequestion of race ‘loyalty’, well my take is that events have just moved too far and too fast over the past 40-50 years, from a time when ‘race loyalty’ was expressed in the USA (ie in the deep south or even the ethnic enclaves of Chicago)to present where the entire politicalstructure of te USA is essentially a feudal racial spoils system run to the detriment of Whites. The answer to the enigma goes back to that overwhelming and fraught decade for America te 1960s - the era of ‘cvil rights’ agitation, te 1965 Immigration Act and vietnam. Essentially the lefty agitators won and got everything they wanted, leaving a traumatized and dumbstruck White populace in its wake, speechless at the way they were so deftly and expertly dispossessed and shorn of their legitimacy. i don’t know if you’re old enough to remember te events of ‘68, but therein in thattruma lies your explanation.
To bring whites to our side, we should not try to recall them to a primordial instinct that is probably a fantasy. Rather, we have to appeal to their self-interest by convincing them that racial solidarity will pay off for them individually.
An instinct is a natural propensity to behave in a typically fixed pattern. While the behaviour of insects is almost entirely instinctive, the behaviour of the “higher animals” is complicated by many other vital and contingent factors. The instincts of human beings, at the apex of the animal hierarchy, are very much modified by rational deliberation, social psychology, cultural conditioning, and so on.
The natural propensities that we sometimes refer to as the maternal instinct, or the instinct for self preservation, have an obvious survival value. Perhaps “racial instinct” could be defined as an unconscious drive to ensure survival of the race. However, I’m not sure that a preference for living and breeding with members of one’s own racial group can be characterized as being impervious to change in circumstance and outside the control of reason - i.e. as instinctive. If analysed, I believe that a so-called racial instinct might identified not as an innately determined and unconscious proclivity, but as a rational preference. (This point about rational preference suggests the importance of appealing to self-interest).
Further considerations arise because while racial loyalty may have a reasoned basis, there is plenty of evidence that man cannot be counted on to act according to rational assumptions. If we postulate a “herd instinct”, it need not have benevolent objectives; its operation may tend towards unthinking atavism.
I find less to disagree with in this post than in the earlier one. I agree that the best way to promote racial solidarity is to argue that it is in people’s interest individually. Right now whites prefer to run to the exurbs and pay extra for private school, etc., rather than face the issue of demographic displacement head-on. It seems like just a matter of pointing out the obvious to whites, in terms of what is happening around them, but most don’t want to listen. It is not just racial solidarity that is needed, but a sense of concern about our descendents, since the prospects for our descendents are diminished by ongoing high levels of immigration.
Here is a relevant paper that talks about ethnocentrism: PSYCHOLOGY AND WHITE ETHNOCENTRISM. Kevin MacDonald argues that it is an innate tendency that has been suppressed in whites.
I do think that it is natural for people to have an ethnic identity and to identify with people in the same ethnic group. What is happening in Europe is important to any white solidarity movement because our ancestral homelands are being drastically and irreversibly changed demographically in many cases.
>Alex said: If analysed, I believe that a so-called racial instinct might identified not as an innately determined and unconscious proclivity, but as a rational preference. (This point about rational preference suggests the importance of appealing to self-interest).<
This is my belief as well. I think the affinity for one’s own is a natural proclivity because we align ourselves most with those most like us; first our immediate family, then clan, tribe, and race.
There are real differences between the races. Differences in appearance, manners of speech, behavior, criminality, intelligence, etc, etc. These are things that do not escape people’s perception. They perceive these differences as real, and normally align themselves with those most like themselves. Only massive efforts at indoctrination would make them profess otherwise. They don’t have to be taught that these differences are real. They experience them on a personal level.
If you live in a place where you have little contact with non-whites, it’s easy to think that all races are the same, especially if that is the message that the ruling elites have peddled nearly without opposition in the MSM and academia for the last 50 years. Actually, they peddle the absurd mixed message that everybody is the same, and at the same time we are to celebrate diversity.
I had no experience with blacks when I grew up, and in fact, they were seldom on TV back then. I had no feeling either good or bad about them before I joined the most integrated institution of government (the military). I was astonished at the behavioral, temperamental, and apparent intelligence differences. Of course I am generalizing, and there are big differences behaviorally within groups as well, but there was no getting around the real differences between groups, and my clear preference was for those who behaved and interacted in a manner that I am more comfortable with and can identify with. I can see where one could argue that those differences are cultural, but I submit that it is the biological differences in people that create the culture.
So, if mere experience and exposure to blacks (without indoctrination) instills in me knowledge about differences, and the preference to be among my own group (because as a group, they are more like myself behaviorally, emotionally, intellectually, etc, and I am more comfortable among them), that seems quite a natural thing. I did not arrive at this way of perceiving blacks from anyone teaching me to perceive them as I do (in fact, quite the opposite; for the last 40 years I have been instructed to perceive them as liberals do). I arrived at these view through many years of direct experience and interaction with a huge number of non-whites.
I think the vast majority of whites are still insulated from much personal experience with blacks. Their views are formed by what they see on TV and what they learn in (leftist ideology labs) classrooms. It is a sanitized view, wherein differences are minimized, disproportionate crime levels purposely not reported. Black social pathologies and failure are either blamed on whites, or papered over entirely. Fifty years of indoctrinating whites to believe that they are evil, and the cause of all non-white problems will have the effect of causing in some (where their parents don’t teach them better), near shame in one’s heritage and history. When whites, and only whites, are made pariahs for showing any measure of racial solidarity, it’s not surprising that those whites would be disinclined to make known the very natural preference for those most like themselves.
There is an unfortunate zero sum game going on here. Those who are racially aware are those with personal experience between races, and the only way for those unaware to gain that experience (given our lying MSM) is when The Other moves into their town. So, what the South knew to be true 150 years ago (about the very real racial differences), is yet unknown to those in the far upper Mid-West who as yet have not the personal experience of diversity, and when they do know it, it’s too late. The nature of their communities is already lost (much as the essential nature of vast areas in our country have already been lost to multiculturalism).
So, to the question “Do We Have an Instinct for Racial Loyalty?”, I don’t know if it can be characterized as an instinct, but I do believe it is natural (is that a difference without a distinction?) I like the way Alex put it above, it is a “rational preference” based on personal experience. Which brings up the question, if the vast majority within any group arrive at the same rational preference for their own group (and in whites, I’d add, only once they have the personal experience to override the counterintuitive indoctrination they’ve been subjected to) is there some level of the instinctual about it? I don’t know. At the very least, it seems natural, and was indeed regarded publicly as natural until 45 years ago.
Paradoxically, racial solidarity is still regarded as natural in all non-white groups. I believe it IS natural in whites as well.
In case this is necessary (and I hardly imagine it is here), of course I’m generalizing about racial characteristics.
I don’t think white flight explains white loyalty. It just explains distrust of blacks. Most whites, if they get to know an individual black person, will treat them differently than they would treat the blacks who they run away from.
People are more loyal to both their immediate ethnic group and religious community than their race. As a rule, Irish think of themselves as Irish Catholics, Jews think of themselves as Jews, Poles think of themselves as Polish Catholics, Germans think of themselves as German Lutherans. Saudi Arabians think of themselves as members of an Islamic tribe.
Yes, it’s true that people think of themselves first as their ethnic group before race, but it is also true that they will think of their race before the race of another when significant numbers of people from different races share a territory, and to the extent that large numbers of Muslims and Africans are immigrating to Europe, putting an end to their previously homogeneous societies, I think they increasingly regard themselves as not only an ethnic group, but as whites. The racial awakening seems to happen in direct proportion to the numbers of Others moving in. The Others are constantly racially aware, because they are in the minority.
The melting pot was a beautiful idea, but it worked only when people were of the same race. Any country must have a dominant culture or it will cease to be a country. This nonsense of valuing all cultures equally in America will surely end in Balkanization.
Racial loyalty is geographically and historically contingent. In other words, you can posit that white supremacy is not relevant to Europe because Europe remained mired in intra-racial conflict for the better part of a thousand years. However, that has precious little to do with the experience of the white man in America. I suppose you could allege that ”Whiteness” is an arbitrary signifier that was imposed by the ruling elites in order to confiscate wealth and oppress aboriginal savages and Negro slaves (as Marxist historians do), but even if we accept such an account of these things, it does not alter the fact that events like the Creek War occurred, and hence, it does not alter the fact that race is a real political quantity in the New World.
The white man is fundamentally concerned with status and this prompts him to parrot Lysenkoist canards about race in order to appear righteous, educated, sufficiently progressive, etc. However, it is also clear that an indispensible feature of status and respectability is being white. I do not see many whites marrying their daughters off to freed slaves (anecdotal internet news stories notwithstanding), I don’t see many White families relocating to Black communities, and I don’t see many dutiful, Liberal voters turning out to vote for slave descendants. What the evidence indicates is that Whites marry Whites, avoid non-Whites (and Blacks especially), and demonstrate their fealty to the prevailing zeitgeist by publicly endorsing mullato immigrants for high office who have no connection at all to American racial divides.
All in all, it seems that White America’s commitment to an egalitarian racial order begins and ends with social poses and rhetoric, acted out and uttered at cocktail mixers in all-White neighborhoods.
One of the biggest enemies of the white race I believe is the government of the USA. The gov’t gives special privileges to every other race that works against the white race. This allows them to breed without worry. Generations are raised off of the ‘white dollar’ and in turn they breed and another generation comes along. Allowing unrestricted and financed breeding increases numbers and power for other races. This is a recipe for disaster against the white race. ‘White guilt’ from the schooling system brainwashes and tricks people into accepting that ‘everyone is equal’ and this allows a lot of what is going on to keep going on. It really bothers me to see so many white people tricked by all of this and that they accept it. It bothers me even more that there is really no strong organization that represents white people and their interests and that will advance white interests as its first priority.
Thomas 777 says : All in all, it seems that White America’s commitment to an egalitarian racial order begins and ends with social poses and rhetoric, acted out and uttered at cocktail mixers in all-White neighborhoods.
The claim that a commitment to racial equality is merely a “social pose and rhetoric” is contradicted by the reality of the Affirmative Action agenda in jobs, education, etc. Blacks and other minorities are actually being given a head start - usually to the detriment of better qualified whites. It’s not just a theory talked about at all-White cocktail parties.
Yes, I do believe we have a natural instinct for racial loyalty, which I can explain in part by the below comments.
I have 100% of my own genes (duh). I care about my life (in general) more than others. I care about my sibling (50% of my genes) than my cousin (even less), and care more for my ethnic group than my race, and by extension, I care more about my race, than other races. I think that there’s a general trend towards advancing my genes. It’s common for parents to care more about their children(s)’ lives than their own, and again, this makes sense, as that is a way to pass one’s genes onwards.
Additionally, I also think that from an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense for some to offer themselves altruistically, at times, which has happened throughout history.
The well documented phenomenon of “kin selection” seems to point towards the fact that we are by nature racially loyal, at least to a certain degree. Here’s a good article on the topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_selection
Kin selection has been proved to be a factor in evolution only among closely related individuals, not among whole ethnic groups.
According to Wikipedia:
“Haldane’s remark alluded to the fact that if an individual loses its life to save two siblings, four nephews, or eight cousins, it is a ‘fair deal’ in evolutionary terms, as siblings are on average 50% identical by descent, nephews 25%, and cousins 12.5%”
In terms of shared genes we have: immediate family>extended family>ethnic group>race>homo sapien sapiens
So, basically, it’s very plausible that the further you get away from the family (those who share many of your genes), the less you care about others. Steve Sailer has popularized the belief that race is largely an “extended family,” and I believe he is correct.
Now if one were ambitious enough, one could further calculate what would be an altruistic ‘fair deal’ (in evolutionary terms) by calculating the percent of shared genes that second cousins, third cousins, and so on share.
However, altruism extended to ethnic groups runs into the cheater problem—see Dawkins’s The Selfish Gene for details. If anyone had an adaptation that caused him to be altruistic to his ethnic group, he would be at a disadvantage to group members who were selfish. The selfish would receive benefits from the altruist without having to reciprocate it. This is why kin selection-based altruism can probably evolve only among very closely related people.
It is true that group selection in itself does not promote altruism because of the cheater problem. Kin selection, however, by reducing the number of cheaters within a group, and by spreading the genes that cause people to act altruistically towards close relatives, allows group selection to operate.
By the way, there has been a revival of interest in group selection as oppposed to kin selection:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EdwardOsborneWilson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DavidSloanWilson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_Sober
Kin selection, however, by reducing the number of cheaters within a group, and by spreading the genes that cause people to act altruistically towards close relatives, allows group selection to operate.
Could you please explain this further?
I’d have to have really strong evidence that kin-selected altruism existed outside of groups of close relatives to be convinced.
I read up some one “The Selfish Gene,” and I think it reinforces my stance as it relates to evolutionary game theory. The likelihood of engaging in ‘cheating’ behavior simply increases once you move away from the family, but it is worth emphasizing that it does happen within the immediate family too; it just happens more and more amongst people who further and further distantly related as the genetic payoff to become a cheater increases in tandem—the converse of altruism.
So, we see likelihood of being a cheater is as such: immediate family<extended family<ethnic group<race<homo sapien sapiens
“Genetic similarity theory” is largely thought to be an extension to kin selection. These two articles to be of interest: http://www.charlesdarwinresearch.org/Nations and Nationalism 05.pdf
and
http://www.amren.com/ar/1999/06/
While I don’t deny same-race preference in mate selection for many individuals, it’s basically a case of unfamiliarity with diverse racial groups. We tend to stay clear off what we don’t know much about. That’s all!
However, based on my own 26 years of experience in life, if a member of Race A spends a considerable amount of time (say 5 years or more) with members of Race B, his racial instincts become very weak and he might start feeling more comfortable around those of Race B than even his own Race A. This can be verified by observing any major East Asian tourist spot frequented by White Westerners e.g. Bangkok, Bali etc. Many White expats in these cities exclusively date/marry petite Asian girls and White female expats often remain single because no White man wants to date them in these countries. Also, there are many Russian/East European prostitutes in Bangkok, Hong Kong and Seoul. Guess what from what I saw their customers aren’t White but Arabs, Indians, Pakistanis, Africans etc.
As long as people continue to remain in homogenous surroundings contacted by members of only their race, their comfort levels will always dictate same-race preference. And it’s not a bad thing at all, should be respected for what it is. But, as soon as you step out alone in this colossal racial melting pot called Earth, your comfort levels adjust accordingly with your new surroundings. This can also affects your mate selection process.
Hybridization is a phenomenon seen not just in human beings but also plants and animals. It’s only a function of “close contact”.
I do not think people have this instinct, but I do think some people have general collectivist instincts. Other are more individualistic. Being “racist” doesn’t necessarily mean being loyal to your race, it just means recognizing racial differences. Blind loyalty is bad in either direction, either for or against your race.