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What the book was actually about was the worry that the France was losing its national identity, the framework upon which it was built was Christianity. They wa
by muninn_ 10y ago
What the book was actually about was the worry that the France was losing its national identity, the framework upon which it was built was Christianity. They want to preserve that identity. I don't think it's about skin color, but about shared cultural values that they found to be appealing and necessary. As it happens, white people were those people. You could easily reverse those roles with any other skin color.
This is a type of reaction that people have when faced with what they perceive to be a quick cultural change. Things to them were goo as they were, so changes present a threat to that stability. It's human nature.
- cromwellian 10y agoYes, tribalism is human nature, and we have done very many ugly things to one another because of it. Much of modern advancement in civil liberties and human rights have come about because of the recognition that human nature is flawed and we need to act to fight our worse instincts. I don't think we should sweep racism and xenophobia under the rug with the argument that "boys will be boys"
- muninn_ 10y agoWhat is racist about not wanting things to change? This is a totally separate issue from racism. Calling it "boys will be boys" or "girls will be girls" is a gross oversimplification.
- cromwellian 10y agoWhen white people didn't want black people to use their water fountains, it was an existing status quo they didn't want to see changed. You can justify anything by explaining away people'a xenophobia or bigotry by saying they didn't want change. We just went through the same argument with gay marriage with people alleging great harm and the need to discriminate against gay people, causing greater harm to them. I find great irony that people on HN who probably subscribe to ideas of dynamism and creative destruction and disruption as the life blood of innovation are defending cultural conservatism.
- alphabettsy 10y agoNot wanting things to change itself is not racist, the methods to prevent change will of course be racist.
- coldtea 10y ago>Yes, tribalism is human nature, and we have done very many ugly things to one another because of it. We have also done as many ugly things to one another in order to build cross-national entities, like empires and communist-based internationalist mega-states. >I don't think we should sweep racism and xenophobia under the rug with the argument that "boys will be boys" Well, first let's not call the desire to maintain one's national identity "xenophobia", the same way wanting to have your own house and family, and live as you like there, and accept whoever you like, is not "strangerophobia".
- cromwellian 10y agoColonialism and Imperialism isn't about building cross-national melting pot entities, it's about strategic control of resources and geo-political regions. You think previous empires were built because they were more concerned with equality and anti-tribalism?
- coldtea 10y ago>Colonialism and Imperialism isn't about building cross-national melting pot entities, it's about strategic control of resources and geo-political regions. "Melting-pot entities" are concerned with the same things ("strategic control of resources and geo-political regions") too. Cross-national melting is mostly about whether you allow the peoples you control to keep their identities or you want to abolish them too, for less market friction and/or smoother political control. USSR comes to mind on the latter. UK/US/EU on the former.
- ntelson1s 10y agoYeah so let's regress to letting tribes in that don't support modern advancement and call anything otherwise bigotry.