Nick Griffin: part of the western philosophical tradition?
In this month’s Prospect podcast (downloadable, and available on the right of this page) Nigel Warburton considers the links between racism, philosophy and the history of prejudice that underlies much of the western philosophical tradition. As he points out, the belief that racism is usually the result of stupidity is itself a form of prejudice. Some the world’s great thinkers have themselves been guilty of surprising bigotry.
Acknowledging that prejudice can co-exist with intelligence is important in other ways. It could be argued that the BNP’s recent electoral success is partly the result of complacency on the part of mainstream political parties: far-right groups were assumed to be too politically incompetent to ever pose a genuine political threat. The British government’s failure to take Islamist radicalism seriously in the 1990s stemmed from a similar complacency: militant groups were simply not seen as a genuine threat.
Perhaps the only way to confront prejudice effectively is to acknowledge that it sometimes goes hand in hand with intelligence, cunning and even philosophy.
As ever, let us know your thoughts below-
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The first few moments of this talk were enough to convince me that I had better things to do than listen to the rest of it – is that “prejudice” or is it really a rational decision based upon experience, and a knowledge of the workings of the mind of a member of the liberal elite under the yoke of political correctness? Elites will never reject the idea that “racism is usually the result of stupidity”. They cannot afford to. They are hard-wired (brainwashed) against seeing that evolution has created permanent average differences between people in population groups which have evolved separatly and in isolation. It is “stupidity” to reject the evidence: see
Race Evolution and Behaviour by J Philippe Rushton
http://www.charlesdarwinresearch.org/Race_Evolution_Behavior.pdf
I think this discussion would have done better with something by way of a definition of ‘racism’ and ‘prejudice’. When Hume speaks of the ‘inferiority’ of people of African descent, what kind of inferiority is he referring to? Intellectual inferiority, cultural inferiority, moral inferiority? These possibilities do not necessarily overlap in the scale of prejudice. To take a parallel: in Peter Singer’s article “All Animals are Equal” it is nowhere argued that all animals are intellectually or culturally on par, but it is suggested that all sentient species are morally equal in terms of the weight that should be attached to their interests.
One of the things that Singer specifically warns against is any attempt to lock together intellectual and moral equality; for, as he rightly points out, anyone who bases their claim of the equality of races or genders on claims about equal intellectual capacity seems committed to denying that individuals with an IQ of 90 are the moral equals of those with an IQ of 110, and that seems rather unseemly. My point is roughly this. If Hume, Kant, and Mill believed that different races represented different levels of intellectual or cultural development, that needn’t have precluded them from attaching equal moral worth to all human beings: in Kant’s case, the second formulation of the Categorical Imperative would seem to commit him to just this, and if I recall correctly Hume was strongly opposed to New World slavery, and Kant uniquely critical of colonialism. Accordingly, their prejudice might have been of a different order: a willingness to believe in pseudoscience, for example, or in the bogus reports of anthropologists. It is important to remember that Kant hardly ever left Konigsberg, and so it is difficult to see that he could have based his opinion on the ‘racial character’ of various peoples except on reports given to him by others; I don’t know how much contact Hume or Mill might have had with different races.
Perhaps their willingness to believe such reports is itself an expression of a concealed belief in the moral inferiority of different races: most people who peddle this kind of stuff today are certainly attempting to buttress the latter claim. But it is important to remember that the kind of equality which we prize is moral equality, and that intellectual or cultural inferiority, whatever that might mean, is no bar to equal moral standing. What these authors lacked might simply have been a healthy suspicion of the pseudoscience that dominated their society; but that need not imply that they judged different races to be morally inferior, which is the true sin. My knowledge of Kant, Hume, and Mill on race is not sufficient to rule out that they committed precisely that sin, but it would have been nice to see the distinction made. Pedantic distinctions, after all, are the bread and butter of philosophy.
The difficulty is that that is Hume’s argument: from the premiss that blacks are intellectually inferior to the conclusion that they are not of equal moral worth. He’s happy to say, in National Character, that black folk will sell their children for booze: that he doesn’t think those inclined to that course of action the moral equals of those who aren’t should be clear. If it isn’t, the reaction of his contemporaries his contemporaries, such as James Beattie, is your proof that they knew precisely what Hume was on about when he said that blacks were naturally inferior.
The clincher for Hume’s bigotry is his resistance to contrary evidence. In the original version of the infamous footnote, he begins by claiming that there had neither been a civilized non-white nation, nor ‘even any individual eminent in action or speculation.’ This is nonsense, and he should have known it. The later version narrows the claim of natural inferiority to black folk, and repeats the claim about their lack of achievement. The problem is that he already knew, knew of, or should have known, several black people who were distinguished in just the ways that Hume denied they could. (And, in Gannibal, one who was distinguished in both thought and action). Given that he doesn’t appear to have responded to the counterarguments put to him by Beattie — or by James Ramsay, who had had direct and extensive experience with black folk in the Carribbean — it’s safe to say Hume was unwillinng to face up to contrary evidence.
British schools are not doing enough to tackle racism and promote race relations. Many teachers are unaware of racist attitudes amongst pupils. Schools have a responsibility not only to deal with racist incidents but also to prepare pupils for life in a multicultural and multiracial society.
Children from minority groups, especially the Muslims, are exposed to the pressure of racism, multiculturalism and bullying. They suffer academically, culturally and linguistically: a high proportion of children of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin are leaving British schools with low grades or no qualification.
In the 1980s, the Muslim community in Britain started to set up Muslim schools. The first was the London School of Islamics which I established and which operating from 1981-86. Now there are 133 schools educating approximately 5% Muslim pupils. Very few schools are state funded.
The needs and demands of Muslim children can be met only through Muslim schools, but education is an expensive business and the Muslim community does not have the resources to set up schools for each and every child, and only eight Muslim schools have achieved grant maintained status.
This leaves a majority of children from Muslim families with no choice but to attend state schools. There are hundreds of state schools where Muslim pupils are in majority. In my opinion, all such schools may be designated as Muslim community schools with bilingual Muslim teachers as role models.
Prince Charles, while visiting the first grant maintained Muslim school in north London, said that the pupils would be the future ambassadors of Islam. But what about thousands of others, who attend state schools deemed to be “sink schools”?
The time has come for the Muslim community – in the form of Islamic charities and trusts – to manage and run those state schools where Muslim pupils are in the majority. The Department for Education would be responsible for funding, inspection and maintenance.
The management would be in the hands of educated professional Muslims. The teaching of Arabic, Islamic studies, Urdu and other community languages by qualified Muslim teachers would help the pupils to develop an Islamic identity, which is crucial for mental, emotional and personality development.
In the east London borough of Newham, there are at least 10 state schools where Muslim pupils are in the majority.
The television newscaster Sir Trevor McDonald is a champion of introducing foreign modern languages even at primary level in schools in Britain. The Muslim community would like to see Arabic, Urdu and other community languages introduced at nursery, primary and secondary schools along with European languages so that Muslim pupils have these options.
In education, there should be a choice and at present it is denied to the Muslim community. In the late 80s and early 90s, when I floated the idea of Muslim community schools, I was declared a “school hijacker” by an editorial in the Newham Recorder newspaper in east London.
This clearly shows that the British media does not believe in choice and diversity in the field of education and has no respect for those who are different.
Muslim schools, in spite of meager resources, have excelled to a further extent this year, with two schools achieving 100% A-C grades for five or more GCSEs. They beat well resourced state and independent schools in Birmingham and Hackney.
Muslim schools are doing better because a majority of the teachers are Muslim. The pupils are not exposed to the pressures of racism, multiculturalism and bullying.
Iftikhar Ahmad
http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk
Race has become an industry for the white collar worker and the middle class.In manufacturing, there was often conflicts betwen the blue collar employee working on the production line,constructionsite,shipyard,
coalmine and the white collar employee in the comfort of the office. Many of the remaining blue collar workers perceive the Equality, HSE and Environmental industries as just reruns of cushy employment for the white collar workers. Britain can survive without these equality types; it cannot survive without the people who build and maintain this country.
Muslims, like anyone else in this country need scientific and technical training so that we can compete in the global economy. When one looks at the education of children, unfortunately those who are often poorly educated have parents of equally low attainment. The success of the Jewsh refugee children in the 1930s was largely due to the education of their parents( Karl Popper, Isiah Berlin etc, etc), . In fact the Jewish refugees of the 1930 tended to be more successful tahn the Jewish refugees of the 1870s -1914 because, generally they came from far better educated families.
Where Muslim children are in the majority and the school is turned into a Muslim school, then Islam will be imposed on non-muslim children.
@Iftikhar:
Will you ever stop peddling your story anywhere you see a chance to do so?
The last thing we need in the UK is another set of religious schools, we have more than enough already. Rather than introduce more divisive schools we should begin desegregating the others.
Quote: “The needs and demands of Muslim children can be met only through Muslim schools”. I would suggest the needs of all children will best be met by
Continued from above, my system went nuts!
free schools in which they are encouraged to think for themselves, not schools where they are indoctrinated with the beliefs of their parents. Why is it that most people who end up religious folow the beliefs of their parents? Isn’t that the clearest evidence for indoctrination? Such indoctrination is vile, regardless of the particular version.
It is morally wrong to support religious schools. Encourage kids to think. They can then choose to follow any religion or none.