The general approach to the problem of racism, or the more general problem of supremacism, has been to characterize its effects on its victims, who may be enumerated as those who the supremacists denigrate, and the costs to society in general; more rarely to suggest that the perpetrators suffer damage from their own views; occasionally, to argue the philosophy as unjust and the victims undeserving of their treatment. I have realized recently that there is another approach, a less post-hoc, more a priori approach, which really attacks a central emotional tenet. No doubt this has been discovered before, but it is not mentioned to any great extent, and it strikes me that those groups, still existing, that adhere to these repellent, damaging philosophies, might be best decomposed by exposing their members to these thoughts.
Consider the philosophy: Group A is superior to group B because of C. Characterize C – what is C? It is some immutable and inherent, or nearly so, characteristic of A, always in contrast to B. Its best known example is skin color. Thus the American Civil War, when the odious practice of slavery was rationalized by the Fire Eaters and the Secessionist declarations1. Sometimes it is country of origin, or ethnicity, or religion. Only the last is not immutable, but, as we shall see, religion may be treated as a special case.
So the reader may shrug and wonder as to the importance of yet another abstraction, and so I will give it to you:
What, in all these cases, has the racist performed, has the racist achieved, to belong to the group? Have they labored in the trenches, have they earned a PhD, did they lead a side to victory in a great battle?
None.
No, that’s right. None of these things are necessary to be a supremacist.
For the supremacist, this is the essence: they are. No missing word here. A supremacist exists, and that is enough. No labor, no achievement – and no threat to their theoretical position, even if they endure worldly fears.
To render it in the vulgar, a supremacist is a lazy bastard who depends, for his position, on his skin color, or his ethnicity, or his religion, or some other unearned, inherited characteristic, all merely random states of being with no connection to effort, to achievement – to earned worth. A supremacist claims a short-cut to worth through a characteristic over which he has no control, and thus betrays his true colors to those who know to look: a hollow man, unbeholden to honor, impossible to trust, unlikely to ever achieve much.
This is the supremacist. One might consider him superior despite oneself, if not for the fact that such a thing might, if renderable, appear in a Salvador Dali painting solely for its ribald effect.
As to the matter of religion, it is a near equivalent of the other examples in that most of humanity rarely changes its spots in this regard; and given that the basic foundation of religion, that of faith, is an explicit belief in something for which there is no objective proof, it is difficult to credit one religion over another, except, possibly, on results, and those are so much argued over on grounds of a dubious sort that the entire structure soon collapses as if it were a skyscraper made of Silly Putty … if I may state an absurdity. Let there be no doubt: those for whom faith is a central tenet often lead the way against supremacism; but there is nothing within faith that battles intrinsically against this pernicious philosophy of supremacism, only that which lies in the hearts of men apart from faith. Faith, that great leader into Heaven, that great leader into Hell, is a tool, and nothing more; it is rationality that reveals the supremacist for what he is.
1My thanks to LaFeminista @ The Daily Kos for this useful list of secession declarations and how most of them uphold slavery.
