Men, morality and international order
'There is a maxim very current in the world, which few
politicians are willing to avow, but which has been
authorized by the practice of all ages, that there is a
system of morals calculated for princes, much more free than
that which ought to govern private persons.' (David Hume A
Treatise of Human Nature Book 111 section X1)
As Hume wryly noted such a view of public morality is rarely
acknowledged by politicians, but until our present time it
is doubtful whether its general practical application has
been seriously challenged. Particular matters such as the
abolition of the Slave Trade or the Factory Acts might result
from private (individual) moral feeling dictating public
behaviour, but most men have never expected governments to
invariably act in a manner calculated to disadvantage no one.
Above all, the general expectation has been for each nation
to look to its own interests. Now for the first time we have
in the West, particularly in Britain and America, a political
class and an intelligentsia actively promoting, or at the
least publicly accepting, private morality as the sole or
primary determinant of public behaviour at all levels,
including that of international affairs.
At the level of the homogeneous nation, this incontinent
promotion of private morality in public matters is perhaps
no more than a serious inconvenience, for there is
widespread acceptance of moral rules and both a sense and
an actuality of common interest. Indeed, in such
circumstances private morality frequently coincides with
public morality for there is much agreement as to what is
just and reasonable, and where it does not coincide, the
discrepancy can normally be covered with a decent hypocrisy.
But translated to the heterogeneous society or relations
between states where there is widely divergent moral ideas
and no permanent common interest, where disparate groups
amorally vie for advantage, it becomes positively dangerous
for then private morality is not merely often but normally
inappropriate. Other things being equal, the scope for
private morality in public matters might be said to be
proportional to the degree of homogeneity in a society or
that shared between societies.
This irresponsible and inappropriate expansion of the scope
of private morality is compounded by the general portrayal of
Mankind as a single entity which is composed of beings who
are expected to share the same morality and feel the same
responsibility and sympathy for men whose society they do not
know as for those who share their lives and general cultural
experience.
Frequently conjoined with this misunderstanding of moral
appropriateness and range is another twentieth century
phenomenon without historical precedent, influential groups
within the intelligentsia and political classes who evince
an active general dislike or even hatred of their
societies, and make a fetish of denigrating their own and
related cultures. Politically these range from latterday
liberals full of smug, irresponsible, self-indulgent guilt to
the Left revolutionaries who adopt the stance, ostensibly at
least, for "tactical" reasons. Let us call them the
Denigrators. They have existed for several generations at
least:
The Left intelligentsia, indeed, have so long
worshipped foreign gods that they seem to have
become almost incapable of seeing any good in the
characteristic English institutions and traditions.
That the moral values on which most of them pride
themselves are largely the products of the
institutions they are out to destroy, these
socialists cannot, of course, admit. And this
attitude is unfortunately not confined to avowed
socialists. (F.A. Hayek The Road to Serfdom - 1944
chapter X1V)
Such people require an impossibly high standard of
behaviour from their own societies whilst describing them as
morally inferior to others which patently, by Western
criteria, possess lesser moral standards both in theory and
practice. In fact, the case is worse than that. Essentially
the Denigrators require no moral behaviour from those of whom
they approve. Indeed, for the Left revolutionary morality is
simply an instrument of propaganda for it is "bourgeois
morality" and consequently of no account. And the whole
business is given a delicious irony because, whilst
supporting the idea of universal "human Rights" and generally
using the language of moral disapproval to flay the West,
the Denigrators intellectually espouse moral relativism.
In fact, for all their expressed horror of cultural
imperialism, the Denigrators unconsciously or covertly
seek to impose a universal morality, although in so doing
they believe, or say they believe, that they are merely
seeking to change material circumstances, that indigenous
cultures will remain unaltered. They are correct in thinking
that morality adapts to material circumstances but wrong in
assuming that it will take a particular form, or that the
aspects of a culture which appeal to them are independent of
and will survive a change of material circumstances. Their
mistake derives from a failure to recognise that morality is
the pivot around which a culture moves and develops.
The most dangerous upshot of the Denigrators' behaviour - for
it strikes at any society's very existence by attacking its
coherence - is that everywhere we hear from Western
political elites, from conviction, fear or sordid
expediency, that the entirely natural desire of men to live
in homogeneous societies is the ultimate wickedness. Indeed,
so arrogant have the true believers in this doctrine become
that they have gone beyond promoting the idea that racial
discrimination is bad to asserting that multiracial
societies are a positive good in themselves.
This ideology of multiculturalism is a conflation of
individualism, natural rights and materialism. It is,
unsurprisingly, intellectually confused. The individual is
presented, by implication if not overtly, on the one hand as
an atomistic being who can be haphazardly moulded to any
cultural shape (moral and cultural relativism), and on the
other as an automaton, whose moral status, through the
possession of "Human Rights", is objectively absolute, and
whose moral behaviour is preordained by the possession of
innate and uniform moral inclinations, which require no more
than advantageous material circumstances to be manifested.
This materialism has the advantage for leftist moral
relativists of allowing them to circumvent, to their own
satisfaction at least, the ticklish problem of practices
which other cultures regard as moral but which these moral
relativists see as immoral, or as they might prefer to put it
after the humbugging manner of anthropologists describing
illiterate societies as pre-literate, pre-moral. Alter the
material conditions and moral behaviour will improve is the
implicit message. That altering the material conditions fails
to produce the desired results does not, of course, worry
the Denigrators who merely cry that not enough has been done.
While the Western political classes and intelligentsia
brandish ever more aggressively the doctrine of beneficent
multiculturalism, in every corner of the earth a
contradictory story is told: incessant conflict between races
and cultures. Ancient hatreds in the Balkans; Africa a
running racial sore; the disparate entities of the old
Soviet Union incontinently elbowing one another for political
space; the Indian subcontinent where racial conflict is so
common it is scarcely to be remarked upon; China, with a
hundred million of despised minority peoples, just waiting to
explode; South and Central America a largely miserable
melange of peoples, poverty and graft, ungovernable
American cities; rising anger on the continent and, if we are
honest, parts of Britain and elements within her population
which are effectively beyond the control of British
authority. And the present reiterates the past. Indeed, so
prevalent is the dislike, hatred and fear generated by the
competitive meeting of peoples that it might justly be
described as the most fundamental of social behaviours.
It might be thought that the Denigrators wish to remove from
all societies the ability, by restricting alien entry, to
protect their cultural coherence. Many, but not all,
Denigrators would ostensibly support this position: some
would openly advocate for non-whites what in all but name is
apartheid - the treatment of Aboriginies in central
Australia for instance. But what the Denigrators intend is
of no great moment, for in practice only the West is
endangered because mass immigration since 1945 has been one
way traffic. Already most Western countries with
historically white populations have been heavily settled by
blacks and Asians. There is no post-war case, nor the
likelihood of any occurring in the foreseeable future, of a
country with an historically non-white population being
similarly settled by whites. The white man's position is
further weakened by the massive differences in breeding
rates. He has more or less stabilised his breeding: other
races are rapidly multiplying. Hence we are left with an
absolute imbalance of population movement and settlement
between white and non-white societies, an imbalance which
becomes positively sinister when the political consequences
are considered.
If the process continues it will, probably within fifty
years, lead to similar black and Asian settlement in the
countries of Eastern Europe. Then no country on Earth will be
absolutely controlled by whites. On the other hand, all the
lands historically settled by blacks and Asians which
presently remain unsettled by whites will be absolutely
controlled by blacks and Asians. At best, whites will be
severely circumscribed in their dealings with those peoples:
at worst, they will completely forfeit control of their own
destiny for it will become impossible to operate any form of
immigration control if immigrant communities become powerful
enough to have a large share in the government of the
historically white nations. The logical outcome of mass
immigration is conquest by other means.
The experience of the West since 1945 has been unique. Never
before have so many people lived for so long without war or
harsh authoritarian government. Add to this the ever
increasing and unparalleled prosperity of the common man, the
immense advance in medical capability and social welfare and
the spurious appearance of stability the cosy dichotomy of
Communism and the West gave to the world, and all the
ingredients for a fool's paradise are at hand. In such
circumstances the Denigrators have been able to largely
ignore the discrepancy between their ideas and reality for
the mass of men will subdue temporarily their fears and
hatreds when their personal lives seem utterly secure. Now
that time is passing.
The reality is that even an untainted liberalism - a
liberalism without the hatred of one's own society, a
liberalism concerned with individual freedom rather than
universal "natural rights", can only be endured in
international affairs in exceptional times, and even then
with difficulty for it goes against the most fundamental
dictum of existence: self-preservation and the pursuit of
individual and group advantage.
A fundamental change in political mentality is essential if
the nations of the West are to survive as recognisable
cultural and political entities. And for that a new public
morality must be created, or more correctly, an old one
resurrected with some new appurtenances. Most importantly,
to be enduring any new public morality must be compatible
with human nature and social organisation and flexible
enough to deal with widely varying circumstances. To achieve
that the West must cast aside the ideas, in practice as well
as theory, that there is either a universal morality or
necessary natural uniformity in Man. This is really not such
a big intellectual step because it is no more than an
extension of the difference between actual public and private
morality in the Western tradition.
Anyone who exercises authority, whether formal or informal,
quickly discovers why private morality in the Western
tradition is too constraining when dealing with men in the
mass, namely that all men, opinions and desires cannot be
equitably accommodated. In any circumstance where competing
interests cannot be treated equally, those wielding authority
are necessarily driven to make choices using principles of
utility, ideological reference or capricious personal
desire, none of which will stand examination as moral
determinants within the Western private tradition because
the central props of that morality - that all individuals
are of equal worth and to be treated as ends in themselves -
fall. Thus all societies share a certain public moral
similarity, namely that all persons are not practically
considered to be of the same worth. The only distinction
between societies is the extent to which individuals are
disadvantaged. The principle operates with greater force in
international affairs.
That men are so prone to conflict should surprise no one.
Peace not war is the unnatural state, for life generally is
subject to external and internal constraints which are
potential causes of conflict. The former are such things as
other species and the physical stability of an environment.
The latter derive from the physical structure and social
organisation of a species and cover matters such as breeding
rates, length of gestation and infancy, longevity, instinct,
sensual need, emotion, intellect and whether an animal is
social or territorial. The particular internal qualities of
Man to mark are his unique degree of self-consciousness and
the fact that he is a social animal. These are necessarily
contradictory attributes because self-consciousness means ego
and ego means individualism. Hence, Man is constantly
confronted by an intrinsic incompatibility between his own
needs and desires and those of the various groups to which he
belongs.
The instinct for self-preservation will drive any organism to
compete with members of its own species or any other species
which is attempting to fill the same ecological niche. In a
social animal such as Man the decisive struggle takes place
at the level of the group not the individual.
Man's self-consciousness causes a diversity of behaviour
vastly greater than that of any other organism. This occurs
because Man is able to anticipate and plan with a skill no
other creature can approach. From these abilities comes
immense success in developing survival strategies, which in
turn enables Man to adapt to a variety of environments
exceeding that of any other higher animal. Moreover, he has
a form of environment which is almost certainly different in
quality from that of other animals, namely the intellectual.
It is also potentially infinitely varied. This intellectual
environment is perhaps the greatest source of behavioural
variety.
Crucially, Man is aware of cultural norms. This awareness,
together with the other attributes of self-consciousness,
gives Man a potentially greater propensity for aggression
than any other creature. He will defend or attack not
merely in response to immediate threat, but because of
anticipated fears and advantages and a dislike of cultural
differences. However, this propensity is balanced in some
degree by self-conscious fear, the calculation of benefit
from avoiding conflict and the development of emotions such
as pity.
Because men are differentiated profoundly by behaviour, the
widely accepted definition of a species - a population of
actually or potentially interbreeding organisms sharing a
common gene pool - is unsatisfactory. (It should be noted
that the definition is man-made and thus subjective in some
degree). When behavioural differences are perceived as
belonging to a particular group by that group, as
differentiating members of the group from other men, they
perform the same role as organic differences for they divide
Man into cultural species.
But although behaviour is the primary distinguishing mark of
Man, physical differences are important because they form
part of cultural norms. To say baldly that a man's colour
does not matter is as absurd as claiming that the physical
attractiveness of a man or woman does not affect the response
of others. Indeed, skin colour is vastly more important than
physical attractiveness where a culture's value system
includes the requirement, spoken or unspoken, for a certain
physical type, for then those of a different racial form are
effectively precluded from full integration because one of
the criteria for belonging has not been met. That is not to
say, of course, that many of the habits of mind and body of
such an alien culture may not be adopted by someone of a
different race. What is withheld is the instinctive
acceptance of the alien and his descendents as members of the
society.
Further, it is possible, perhaps even probable, that the
reluctance to accept certain physical types is genetically
determined, at least in part. Animals generally recognise
their own species and particular social group by physical
signs such as appearance and smell. It would be unlikely if
nothing of this automatic response occurred in Man.
Racialism exists, I suggest, for four basic reasons: desire
for territorial expansion, fear of conquest, greed and
aesthetic judgement. Other things being equal, men make the
same class of judgement about other people as they do of
such things as paintings, plays and novels. They feel
comfortable with human beings who fit the mental and physical
aesthetic frame; a distaste for those who do not. Only when
men have the right aesthetic feeling can they accept other
human beings in the mass.
The favoured left/liberal interpretation of racial antipathy,
that it is something which arises solely or primarily from
the material conditions of the indigenous poor, is
demonstrably untrue. Racialism exists and has existed in all
manner of societies and material circumstances. To take but
one example. Poverty may have been an immediate cause of
Hitler's electoral success, but it does not explain his
popularity throughout the Thirties when German material
circumstances changed greatly for the better. There is also
the inconvenient fact that economies are dynamic and,
consequently, societies are constantly being buffeted by
recessions which lead to the very conditions - unemployment,
lack of hope etc. - which the left claims are primarily
responsible for racism. Hence, even if the left/liberal
interpretation was correct it would be practically
irrelevant.
From all the experience of the past and present, it is
unreasonable to argue that men can be freed of racial
prejudice either by material circumstances or instruction.
You can temporarily repress it, make hypocrites of men, but
never remove it. Sooner or later the stopper preventing
active expression comes off, it may take ten years or five
hundred, but it comes off. At best, mixed societies exist in
a state of uncertain neutrality, a voluntary ghettoisation,
which is inherently unstable. Nowhere in the whole of
history have men ever willingly tolerated large numbers of
strangers in their midst for long. Racial prejudice is
seemingly as much an ineradicable part of human nature as
the tendency to seek one's own interest. Indeed, it probably
represents the individual's primal self interest.
It is true that all intercourse between cultures results in
cultural adaptation. Where there is extensive settlement by
one population in another's land, cultural mixing may cause
genuinely new unified cultures to evolve. But we know that
it is a long and generally bloody business for, as the past
two hundred years has shown, the instantaneous creation of
nation states from heterogeneous peoples by legalistic
means is impossible. States supposedly so created are
practically empires. Only centuries of cultural mixing or
the active subordination of minority groups creates a true
nation. Moreover, we have plentiful evidence that minorities
are, more often than not, immensely tenacious and their
sense of being a separate people will survive virtually
indefinitely, even under the most adverse circumstances. The
normal effect of mass geographical ethnic mixing is to create
hostile ghettos not true nations, let alone mutually
respectful groups within a single multicultural society.
It is also true that there are similarities between the
moral systems of different cultures - prohibitions against
physically harming others, adultery and theft being probably
the most common - but even where there is overlapping of
moral subject, the scope and application of a particular
moral rule varies greatly. Hence, in one population we may
have a moral rule which forbids the private individual to
kill anyone within the confines of the territory occupied by
that population: in another the absolute prohibition against
killing anyone as a private individual may fall because the
vendetta is recognised as morally acceptable.
Most tellingly, Man patently has never practically accepted
that morality is universally applicable. Indeed, most
societies have, even in theory, extended moral rules in
their entirety only to those within the bounded cultural
group. In practice, the principle of exclusivity is much
greater, operating at the level of class, kinship and
friendship. How easily men may be driven to discount the
humanity of foreigners can be seen in warfare, which might
best be described as an act of collective psychopathy. Man is
simply not fitted by nature to be impartial. Hence there is a
natural tendency to exclude which, carried to its utter
conclusion, leads to genocide (a state of mind which can be
admirably observed in the book of Joshua).
How far particular morality is learned behaviour can be seen
in the amorality of children. Indeed their behaviour may be
a facsimile of the origins of moral behaviour, for it has
startling similarities with that of primitive peoples; the
sudden switching from amiability to violence, the uncritical
cruelty, the need to conform, the creation of pariahs. It is
not that children naturally obey no social rules, on the
contrary they are extremely rule bound, merely that their
rules bear little resemblance to Western moral codes.
That particular moral behaviour can be learned does not mean
it may be imposed at will. It can only be learned within a
society, for moral rules which the majority do not obey are
of no utility. There is also the immensely complicated
business of developing a conscience which is the work of an
entire childhood. Further, no moral rules which go against
the individual's fundamental self-interest are likely to be
obeyed with any regularity.
The mistake witting or unwitting universal moralists make is
to assume that a natural moral sense equals an objective
morality. In fact, morality is simply a response to the
exigencies of living as a self-conscious social animal.
Consequently, there is no necessary contradiction between the
statement that morality is relative and that particular
moralities are natural. There is no absolute moral behaviour
because each society evolves its own rules, and we should no
more be surprised that this is the case than that chimpanzees
in separate areas develop different behaviours for Man
shares his basic existential circumstances with all other
organisms.
If morality is a relativistic organic growth, is it no more
than a set of behavioural rules which are observed by
sufficient numbers within a society to constitute a norm and
which if transgressed activates either customary or formal
legal disapproval? Looked at dispassionately, I think the
answer must be yes. Morality is like treason, the victors
make the definition.
Once morality is seen for what it is, a natural tendency
rather than an innate set of strict behavioural rules, that
moralities are organic growths which possess both a
psychological and a sociological dimension, the central
problem of moral relativism - that where there is no
absolute moral standard, there is no apparent reason to obey
any moral commandment - dissolves. All men will not follow
the same moral laws, but all men will exhibit a tendency to
observe some form of behavioural code because anarchy is not
a feasible permanent behavioural state for Man or, indeed,
any social animal. Conditions close to anarchy may exist
temporarily, but they will never last for very long because
the damage to the group would be so great as to endanger its
survival.
Although moral rules are particular to a society, the
utility of morality is universal. Judged by its intended
consequences, the evolutionary function of morals is to
reduce Man's propensity to harm those within his accepted
group. As such, it performs a task widespread in the natural
world - threat displays are perhaps the most common. But
this does not mean that natural selection will necessarily
result in a morality which equalises the material
conditions, status or moral treatment all men. Even less does
it mean that all societies will evolve towards an
individualistic morality as some of the more optimistic
liberal political commentators seem to imagine. Japan is a
prime example of an efficient state which in many ways is
extremely authoritarian. All any morality needs to be is
sufficiently efficient within its circumstances, or to put it
another way, not so utterly disastrous that it leads to the
extinction of the group.
Whether men can even in principle evolve a universal
morality is a moot point. If basic personality is genetically
determined (I hypothesise), then natural selection will
operate to select those personalities most suited to the
moral behaviour of a society 1. This will continuously enhance
the utility of traits. For example, if a society is
authoritarian, then those who carry the gene or genes which
favour submissiveness will be at an advantage.
Alternatively, in a society which allows a large degree of
personal freedom those with a genetic inheritance favouring
independence of mind should prosper. Such genetic selection
could partially explain differences in moral behaviour for
the dominant traits in any society would be constantly
reinforced. It would also preclude the easy assumption of
different moral standards by a society if these were imposed
by another society or even voluntarily imported by a
people's ruling caste.
But even if the innate, sociological and circumstantial
difficulties of imposing on or inducing all societies to
assume a single moral code could be overcome, would it be
moral, by Western criteria, to undertake the act? There is a
strong temptation to say yes rather in the fashion of
'Socialism would be the most humane system if only it could
be made to work.' But the implications are intensely
authoritarian for it is a great and sinister arrogance to say
that men will all live in one broadly similar fashion, and
that is what such a morality would mean for morals are the
primary determinant of behaviour. You cannot replace moral
norms without fundamentally altering a culture. Edward
Gibbon's argument against a world state, that it gives no
place to which a dissenter may escape, is a powerful moral
argument against a universal morality. Indeed, the idea of a
universal morality probably implies a world state, for
morality in large part is ultimately enforced by law and law
can only equitably be dispensed by a uniform authority.
Further, we know that societies are dynamic entities. Hence,
even if the universal moral state was achieved, it would
inevitably break down if a supranational authority did not
have the ultimate power to maintain order. The difficulties
such a universal authority would occasion can be seen in
microcosm in the EC.
But if Man the biological species is unlikely to become
synonymous with Man the cultural species, this does not mean
that inter-communal conflict will not reduce. Strictly,
because morality is an organic growth particular to a
society, moral rules can only logically be judged by their
effects within their particular society. However, in the
actual world where societies and their attendant moralities
meet, an extension of particular (internal) moral rules is
necessary if societies which dispute territory are not to
attempt genocide as a matter of course.
As morality serves a necessary function - that of reducing
conflict within a society - it can be extended to relations
between societies without necessarily doing violence to Man's
basic desires because he is self-conscious and can perceive
advantages to be gained from practising restraint. But it is
not a necessary development, nor even where it takes place,
can agreements between peoples ever be considered permanent
because such relations are dynamic. It is also debatable
whether co-operating with other peoples is necessarily the
best evolutionary strategy for a particular people. Certainly
in the case of other organisms the answer is no, for if the
primary evolutionary imperative is to reproduce (in Man's
case both physically and culturally) then successful acts of
genocide, whether physical or cultural, are advantageous.
However, because Man possesses self-consciousness with its
concomitant of anticipated fear it is probable that most men
in secure circumstances will, if given a choice, resist acts
of war out of prudence if nothing else. The potential for
violent conflict may be further reduced by the action of
habit whereby men unaccustomed to physical violence develop
an aesthetic distaste for violence which is exhibited as pity
or physical squeamishness. But because most men live in
turbulent societies where power is concentrated in one or a
few hands and which possess no tradition of valuing the
individual regardless of his social status, it is improbable
that inter-societal peace will greatly increase in the near
future.
As morality is necessarily reciprocal, if a stable
relationship between societies is to exist responsibility for
other peoples must be proportional to the extent to
which a commonly observed set of moral rules and common
interests exists. At the most basic level - where one society
does not recognise people outside the society as fully human
- there is no responsibility at all. Within the Western moral
tradition that responsibility has been generally, at its
weakest, that one people should not gratuitously harm
another - although this begs the massive question of what is
gratuitous: at its strongest, that members of one society,
when within the borders of another society, are accorded the
same protection of the law as members of that other society.
In our time the Denigrators have tried to create, not without
success, two new international moral obligations, which
practically fall only on the West, namely that the
comparatively rich and politically stable countries should
(1) provide material aid, in cash or kind, to the
comparatively poor of the world and (2) accept immigrants,
on a scale never before seen, from the poorer, politically
unsettled parts of the world.
These putative obligations go against all Man's individual
instincts and societal interests. Those receiving aid are
the donors' potential competitors. Aid helps to increase the
recipients' populations, which in turn increases the
pressure on the donors to receive more immigrants. There may
be good prudential reasons for aid - although where the aid
is permanent I see none which outweigh the disadvantages -
but it is difficult to discern any moral obligation for the
principle of reciprocity is absent. Certainly, there is far
less reason for a rich people to give to a poor people than
there is for a rich man to give to a poor fellow countryman,
for the sharing of values and interests is much reduced or
even practically nonexistent.
But what of colonial exploitation the Denigrators cry? What
of the arms trade? Do these not place a unique obligation on
the West? Even within the Western tradition this is morally
insupportable for, even if true, it places the sins of the
fathers onto the sons and treats all members of a society as
being responsible for that which is done by any member of the
society. Moreover, all societies, even at the level of the
tribe, share one thing, a dubious moral claim to existence.
Ultimately, the only title people have to any land is the
ability to settle, control and defend it, either separately
or by alliance. There is not a people on earth which can lay
claim to a morally clean past in relation to other peoples.
If the West must make reparations for colonialism why not
Turkey or China? The Denigrators supposedly moral call is in
fact no more than a political stratagem. One people's moral
responsibility towards another stops at that which is
commonly beneficial.
The other main argument used by the Denigrators - that the
West must placate the poorer peoples of the world because
they will one day turn on the West either by force or denial
of raw materials - is, of course, not moral but prudential.
It is a mistaken argument, being a form of appeasement,
which is never more than a temporarily effective expedient -
'once you have paid the Danegeld you never get rid of the
Dane'. Further, looked at in purely practical terms, the
idea that the West needs to appease the poorer parts of the
world is nonsense.
If the poorer peoples are successful in raising their
material standard of living to anything approaching that of
the West, it will only be by industrialising. If that
occurs, they will deny the West raw materials either by
retaining them for their own industries or causing prices to
rise steeply. If they remain poor and underindustrialised,
they will have every incentive to continue supplying the West
at reasonable prices. Similarly, by remaining poor they will
pose less military threat. Hence it is not in the West's
practical interests to see the poorer peoples become richer.
In effect, the Denigrators are asking for a voluntary,
unexacted tribute to be paid to the poorer peoples of the
world which will bear most heavily directly and in its
consequences, on the poor of the West.
If international obligations are necessarily limited by Man's
tendency to favour his own culture, the most fruitful path
for men to consciously take would seem to be the promotion
of nationalism based on the maintenance of territorial
integrity rather than the aggressive acquisition of other
lands and peoples. This is not utterly improbable because
there is a tendency towards representative government and,
as Kant pointed out, shared power tends to reduce the
propensity for war.
Ugly as exclusive group behaviour can be, it is as an
inherent part of being human, of being a self conscious
social animal. And it is only ugly and destructive when it is
aggressive and expansionist. Robbed of those qualities, it is
a hard won and valuable state for within its territory
conflict is reduced. That is not to say national identity
need consist of clone like behavioural similitude. What it
does require is a sense of belonging, an instinctive
recognition of those included within the parameters of a
group. Thus the upper class Englishman is indubitably
recognised as English by the meanest member of the English
working class, even though that person may have a genuine
hatred of the upper classes.
But it must be acknowledged that stable nationhood with a
readily defensible territory is rare. Notwithstanding the UN
with its 200 odd "nations", the most common state of Man is
still that of traditional societies where the first loyalty
is to the family or a patron, then to the tribe, then to the
clan. Indeed, the concept of nationhood, particularly as a
political entity, is probably incomprehensible to most living
men. Those peoples which have attained stable nationhood
should be prized greatly, for they are oasis of stability
which could so easily be swallowed up by the tempestuous
desert of disparate peoples which swirls about and,
increasingly, within their environs. The poorer peoples of
the world can only act as the barbarians at the gates of
Rome; they may destroy but not inherit.
At present there is a vogue in some influential quarters for
intervention in local affairs by international forces led
ostensibly by the UN, but in reality by the United States.
This did not originate with the Denigrators but rather from
the general moral confusion of the political classes. Such
action is both dangerous for the intervening powers and
misconceived in purpose. All the historical evidence is that
such intervention tends to exacerbate matters for to be
effective the intervening powers have to behave oppressively
towards local majorities. The net result is not to preserve
the lives and liberties of minorities but to create new
animosities and intensify hatred of the minorities, who are
blamed for the foreign intervention. The process of nation
building, like moral development, can only come from within.
It is organic. Peoples, like water, must be allowed to find
their own level.
Moreover, even if it was practically possible to resolve
racial and cultural conflict by force it would simply not be
possible to take action in more than a fraction of cases, for
modern war is impossibly expensive. No Western electorate
would tolerate the cost in lives or material for very long.
The UN is inimical to honest talking and effective action
and, by providing a moral and legal fig leaf for the United
States, it is a dangerous cloak for quasi-imperial action
which is certain to involve much physical and material
suffering. The West would be well advised to withdraw and
form another body, membership of which would only be granted
to those countries which exist both as a well established
and defensible geographical entity and a stable political
state. This organization should protect the security of the
constituent members and encourage the peaceful movement of
peoples and redrawing of boundaries in non-members'
territory. New members could be admitted when appropriate.
Those who resist the forced movement of peoples should
reflect on one thing: they are, by implication, willing to
see peoples affected by ethnic divisions suffer
indefinitely. Nor can the defence of utility be invoked for
a racial running sore which festers for centuries certainly
result in more bloodshed than a quick movement of peoples.
And that does not take into account the emotional stress
which constant antagonism generates. Ethnic cleansing,
terrible as the process is for those immediately affected,
offers at least the chance of some permanently settled
future. How much better might the situation in Yugoslavia be
if the West, instead of resolutely refusing to consider
movement of populations, had accepted that it represented the
best chance of peace. They might then have persuaded the
various peoples to achieve the deed, in part at least, by
agreement rather than force. As it is, for all the
international huffing and puffing, the Serbs have practically
achieved their aim.
Western nations should maintain their military capacity at a
high level, guard their borders closely and not intervene in
any conflict unless their fundamental interests are
threatened. And this is not purely to their own advantage,
for anything which threatens the stability and security of
the advanced world threatens that of all men. To take but one
example, imagine what would happen to the primitive world's
economies if the advanced world's markets were greatly
reduced in size or deliberately closed to the primitive
world's imports.
But if Western nations are to survive as recognisable
cultural entities and avoid, within their territories,
pogroms of both old and newly formed minorities or even
outright racial wars, their political classes must honestly
address the question of mass immigration and its
consequences. This matter is particularly pressing both
because of the scale of immigration and the fact that
contemporary migrants to the West are generally much further
removed from the culture of the countries in which they
settle than has previously been the case - there is a great
deal of difference between receiving into England Bengalis
and Huguenots for example - and resist assimilation more
vigorously.
Above all, the West must recognise that the idea which is the
bedrock of their morality, the primacy of the individual,
is not valued by most societies and that its social
corollary - a practical concern for individual liberty - is
an even rarer cultural artifact. Indeed, it is scarcely an
exaggeration to say that only in English society, and those
societies deriving from it, is the notion of individual
liberty built into the social fabric. The English have been
free not primarily because of legal rights, but because it is
their evolved social nature. They accept liberty because it
seems natural to them. Hayek, coming to England as a
foreigner between the Wars noted the special quality of
English life (he, of course, used liberalism in its
uncorrupted individualistic sense):
...it is one of the most disheartening spectacles
of our time to see to what extent some of the most
precious things which England has given to the
world are now held in contempt in England herself.
The English hardly know to what degree they differ
from most other people in that they all,
irrespective of party, hold, to a greater or less
extent, the ideas which in their most pronounced
form are known as liberalism...[Road To Serfdom
1944 chapter X1V]
Racial and cultural mixing undoubtedly corrupts the
liberties and subverts the social stability of those peoples
happy to have attained, through many a long century, both a
large degree of personal freedom and a true sense of nation.
Freedom of speech is abrogated, the promotion of indigenous
culture lessened, employers are forced to dissemble, the
interlopers obtain a privileged position before the law, both
through statute and the indigenous authority's unwillingness
to act and, most damagingly, parts of the land come
effectively under immigrant control.
The example of the United States is particularly instructive.
Perhaps more than any other country it has the form of a
libertarian society but increasingly not the content.
Primarily it has the form because it grew from the English
experience in the one hundred and seventy odd years before
the War of Independence. It is losing the content because
racial and cultural heterogeneity has gone beyond the point
at which any single group can impose a general set of values
on the society. And this despite being the richest, and in
many respects, the most socially mobile society on earth.
No society need gratuitously assert its moral or cultural
superiority, but it must actively defend that which it values
against the attacks of hostile individuals or peoples. In
the case of the West this means the refutation of the
mindless cultural self-abuse practised by the Denigrators and
the crude, but sinister, falsifications of history currently
peddled by the Denigrators and their non-white pupils and the
implementation of effective immigration measures and
assimilation programmes.
At the least the pernicious doctrine of multiculturalism must
be overthrown and all future immigration limited to those
with scarce skills who are willing and able to wholeheartedly
adopt the culture into which they move. The right of
political asylum should be abrogated immediately, for we have
reached the stage where the question is not how to identify
genuine political refugees but whether the institution is
appropriate in contemporary circumstances. (In any case, the
distinction between political and economic refugees is
hypocritical when the choice is, put at its starkest, between
dying by the torturer's hand and starvation).
Will such measures protect the cultural integrity of western
states or prevent violent racial clashes within their
borders? Probably not, for history is against them and their
is the unpalatable fact that many of those already settled
in the West cannot or will not assimilate. There is also the
practical immigration control problem represented by large
minority communities. Where these exist it becomes extremely
difficult to prevent further illegal immigration - in an age
of mass tourism virtually impossible.
The most probable eventual outcome of the heterogeneity of
populations in America and Europe is the massacre or
expulsion of the minorities. In the case of North America,
because of the numbers and the long term settlement of
minorities, this will probably result in an eventual
partition of the continent, de facto if not de jure. Europe
is in a different position. Most immigrants are of the first
or second generation. In their case a mass repatriation is
not inconceivable, for their countries of origin or paternity
would find it difficult to refuse settlement, not least
because of the fear of what relatives in the country of
origin would do if their relatives were refused entry.
Taking into account Man's nature and social circumstances,
what is a sane basis for membership of any society? It is, I
suggest, the imbibing of a culture. Where a man is born is
irrelevant. What distinguishes him is his instinctive
allegiance to a culture and the assumption in childhood of
the Manners and values of that culture. The successful
ingestion of manners and values produces the social colouring
necessary for any coherent society and allows a man's peers
to accept him without question as one of themselves. That
unquestioning acceptance is the only objective test of
belonging. The most unhappy and unnatural beings are the Mr
Melmottes 1 of the world who '...speak half a dozen languages
but none like a native.' These are men without country or
psychological place.
The problem was crystalised by Wellington. To those who
simple mindedly insisted on calling him an Irishman, Old
Nosey replied "if a Man is born in a stable it does not make
him an horse". To this I would add that if a man is born in
an house but later chooses to live in a stable he does not
become a horse.
If the West is subverted from within by mass immigration or
overthrown by external action it will not be immoral any more
than European colonisation was immoral. It will simply be
the age old interplay between peoples or, to put it another
way, cultural species. The point for the West to grasp like
grim death is that neither possibility is inevitable.
The general spirit of some words of the younger Pitt (made
during the Napoleonic wars) are apposite for all peoples at
all times:
We must recollect ... what is we have at stake,
what it is we have to contend for. It is for our
property, it is for our liberty, it is for our
independence, nay, for our existence as a nation;
it is for our character, it is for our very name as
Englishmen, it is for everything dear and valuable
to Man on this side of the grave.
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