Race(ism) & Roman Catholicism

Recently I stumbled on to this long article, titled Race and the Church, which examines racism and racial theory from a Catholic perspective. I don't have time to comment in detail. Obviously there are many issues I would have with the piece, but, I will offer that I tend to be of the opinion that the ideology of European racial supremacy was something special, and that uniqueness was connected to the rise of modern science. Xenophobia and prejudice are a common theme which unites many cultures, but the coupling of European military-political ascendancy in the 19th century with the prestige given toward systematic thinking shaped by empirical data led to something different than the prejudices of the Greeks, Chinese or Arabs toward other peoples.1 As a point in my favor on this issue, traditionalist ideologies in both the east and the west tended to look suspiciously at the new scientific racialism. The Roman Catholic Church's record is well known, but a survey of the literature in the early 20th century in China will show that it was Confucian traditionalists who opposed the importation of "scientific" European ideas in regards to race promoted by "progressives."2 This is not to say that Catholics or Confucians were without prejudice, and in fact, both ideologies did condone an attitude of superiority on the part of those who were part of the "ingroup" vs. the "outgroup," but proper profession of faith (Church) or self-cultivation (Confucianism) could theoretically reform anyone. Obviously this was not so with a eugenical idea of the manifest destiny of the Nordic or Han race.

Related: Interesting historical trivia, James Augustine Healy became bishop of Portland, Maine, in 1875. His mother was a slave of mixed racial ancestry. I've read material that refers to the shock and disorientation of predominantly Irish parishioners upon seeing that their local bishop had visible African ancestry.

Update: John Emerson's comment is about where I am:

I think that racism rose in the West partly from the desire to find a reductionist naturalistic explanation of human society and behavior. During the same period reductive geographical explanations also flourished. (Mountain peoples are vigorous, tropical peoples are lazy and lascivious, etc.-- this kind of thinking is developed in enormous detail by some, for example Montesquieu.) Likewise naive physiological explanations of behavior, for example in Nietzsche during one period, or with the Freudian focus on sexuality.

To me what sticks out is the tremendous NEED to be scientific, which led to wishful forms of science which didn't hold up well under scrutiny. XIXc racism welded descent, language-group, and geography together into this godawful mess called the "nation", which despite its scientific weaknesses became a powerful tool of political ideology and led to a dominant political form (the nation-state).

But no ideal nation (a single breeding population, with a single pure language, and a single primordial ancient homeland) has ever existed. Any careful examination shows migrations, interbreeding, and language borrowing. Some nations are quite a bit more distinguishable than the others (Basques, Inuit, Japanese) but there's nothing really special about these nations and hybrid nations like Americans or the French (Gaul, Frank, Roman) are just as real as the pure ones. The analytical concept was weak, but the ideological concept was strong.

Somewhat coincidentally, during this same period the West began to conquer other nations which were mostly non-white, so that gave a little extra impetus to racial thinking. But when necessary, there was no problem in motivating attacks on the Irish, the Baltic Prussians, or any other vulnerable white people. Likewise, the Chinese expanded relentlessly toward the South without a specifically racist ideology.

Racism didn't cause imperialism, but probably gave a particular form to imperialism during certain periods, above all during the nineteenth century.

1 - I do not think the implicit bigotry of earlier centuries compares in any way to the explicit and systematic nature of 19th century racial thought. Though Martin Cortez, son of the famous conquistador and his native mistress Malinche, had lower status than his fully white and legitimate siblings, he was still part of Spanish society, fought in the armies of European kings, and eventually was legitimized upon his father's death. Such a thing is far less plausible in the 19th century when official ideologies of racial inferiority (as opposed to civilizational inferiority) made the recognition and acceptance of half-caste children taboo.

2 - See The Construction of Racial Identities in China and Japan.

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Politics makes for strange bedfellows, that's for sure. But at some point, this becomes a chicken/egg problem: did scientific progressivism beget racism, or vice-versa?

I tend to think the causal connection operated completely otherwise: Europeans engaged in a massive territorial and colonial expansion, which resulted in lots of bloodshed and loot, and finally economic interests protected by force of arms abroad. Being human, Europeans felt a little guilty about their situation, and invented a newly scientific racism to justify the status quo.

I actually don't think Europeans are more or less racist than anyone else. Europeans, in recent history, have been exceptionally energetic - which has caused more conflicts than the average ethnos experiences. These material conflicts (the military ascendency you mention) led to racism/anti-racism, etc - which was expressed in the "scientific" langauge of the day.

Then again, maybe I'm really not appreciating the almost tangible spirit of "Progress" that was apparent in that era - and big ideas *did* count for more at that time.

I think that racism rose in the West partly from the desire to find a reductionist naturalistic explanation of human society and behavior. During the same period reductive geographical explanations also flourished. (Mountain peoples are vigorous, tropical peoples are lazy and lascivious, etc.-- this kind of thinking is developed in enormous detail by some, for example Montesquieu.) Likewise naive physiological explanations of behavior, for example in Nietzsche during one period, or with the Freudian focus on sexuality.

To me what sticks out is the tremendous NEED to be scientific, which led to wishful forms of science which didn't hold up well under scrutiny. XIXc racism welded descent, language-group, and geography together into this godawful mess called the "nation", which despite its scientific weaknesses became a powerful tool of political ideology and led to a dominant political form (the nation-state).

But no ideal nation (a single breeding population, with a single pure language, and a single primordial ancient homeland) has ever existed. Any careful examination shows migrations, interbreeding, and language borrowing. Some nations are quite a bit more distinguishable than the others (Basques, Inuit, Japanese) but there's nothing really special about these nations and hybrid nations like Americans or the French (Gaul, Frank, Roman) are just as real as the pure ones. The analytical concept was weak, but the ideological concept was strong.

Somewhat coincidentally, during this same period the West began to conquer other nations which were mostly non-white, so that gave a little extra impetus to racial thinking. But when necessary, there was no problem in motivating attacks on the Irish, the Baltic Prussians, or any other vulnerable white people. Likewise, the Chinese expanded relentlessly toward the South without a specifically racist ideology.

Racism didn't cause imperialism, but probably gave a particular form to imperialism during certain periods, above all during the nineteenth century.

I think racism is something we are struggling and will continue to struggle with for a few more decades.

Apart from the "nationalistic" view of racism -which is purely a political, 'invented' thing- there's a more "natural" kind of racism: In the languages of almost every primitive culture, who did not interact with the outside world -or did so really scarcely- the word for "human" is the same for the name of their tribe.

This causes an inevitable "us and them" based on the ignorance of "them" until the "us" is deeply rooted [values, traditions, ethics, language.. that stuff] so any encounter is bound to cause problems one way or another.

When you live in a box, outside the box is scary. And we all lived in boxes -some of us still do- until proper ways of communicating with those outside the box emerged.

By Mengü Gülmen (not verified) on 06 May 2006 #permalink