>Similarly, when Europeans arrived in Africa, there was no European slave trade
Slave trade existed in Italian city-states, Rus, Hansa, not to mention Ottoman Empire where Europeans were both buyers and sellers, well into 16th century.
Can you cite some sources for Italian slavery and Hansa slavery? I have never heard that Europeans were buying slaves from the Ottomans, but am open to seeing evidence. Rus slave trade was exporting white slaves to Byzantium and the Caliphate, not taking in black slaves. Rus had low demand and high supply of slaves, so there was no need for them to buy them from the Middle East when they had plenty of Slavic serfs already. I've also never heard of a Hanseatic slave trade (which is what I assume you mean by Hansa). Sources are appreciated.
Look up the Black Sea slave trade, Italian merchant republics slave trade (Venice, Genoa), slave trade in Crimean Khanate. Europeans weren't necessarily buying from the Ottomans (though surely they must have occasionally), they were buying IN the Ottoman slave markets, or in its protectorate of Crimea.
I didn't say anything about black slaves or about Rus importing slaves . The slave trade in Rus and Eastern Europe was of Slavs, Finns, Balts, Turkics. Yes, they sold to the Middle East but they also sold to Italians and (less so) Germans. And Rus did not only have serfs, they had slaves as well. In fact, slavery was only formally (mostly) abolished in Russian Empire in the 17th century.
As for sources, sorry, I don't have them. I'm not a scholar and I don't know the specific source of much of what I know.
I think part of our disagreement is coming from the fact that I am focusing on France, England, and Germany after Christianization (700-1100). I acknowledge that Russia was full of slaves, non-Christian Europe was full of slaves, Sicily was full of slaves, Spain was full of slaves. I think it was an error on my part to use the term "European" in this article as opposed to "north-west European."
Some further detail:
1. There's little to no record of slaves laboring in north-western Europe between 1100 and 1492.
2. The Black Sea Slave trade only began in 1204 due to the decline of the Byzantines. Italians bought slaves from Crimean Tartars to sell to the Middle East. This is because 75% of the population under the Tartars were slaves. Europeans were not enslaving anyone. They were buying people who were already enslaved, and re-selling them to the Middle East. Slavery was not a natural, normal, or culturally accepted condition in western Europe, unlike among the Africans and Tartars, who habitually conquered their neighbors and enslaved them.
3. After the Black Death of 1346, the labor shortage did incentivize a brief increase in European slavery, but this was marginal and short lived. By 1371, the Ottomans had completely surrounded Constantinople and barred and replaced the Italians in slave trading. The fall of Constantinople in 1453 prevented all attempts at Italian resumption of the Crimean slave trade.
4. Here's the source I found for the number of slaves: (Roşu, Felicia (2021). Slavery in the Black Sea Region, 900–1900 – Forms of Unfreedom at the Intersection Between Christianity and Islam. Studies in Global Slavery, Volume: 11. pages 32–33)
This claims that, at its height, 2,000 slaves were sent from Crimea to Italy per year.
5. Let's crunch the numbers: in the 11th century, Europe had a population of over 50 million people. Even by overestimating and assuming this 2,000/yr rate occurred for 400 years (1100 to 1500), this would only amount to 1.6% of the population of Europe (1.04% by 1500). It is much more likely that Crimean slave trade for persisted for only 200 years at most (1200 to 1400), meaning that less than 0.5% to 0.8% of European residents were foreign slaves. Furthermore, the average was probably lower than the highest count which I found (2,000), closer to 300, meaning that less than 0.1% of Europeans were foreign slaves. This is totally disproportionate to the Middle East, where slaves were, at a minimum, 20% of the population, and as high as 80% of the population (in cities).
5. The slaves were girls. They weren't doing back breaking labor in the fields like serfs; they were maid servants, cooking and cleaning in castles. They weren't used for war or sex (at least not openly) as in the Middle Eastern harems and slave armies.
6. The Normans abolished Viking slavery in 1102. In 1171, the Council of Armagh freed the slaves of Ireland as well. "For the English people hitherto throughout the whole of their kingdom to the common injury of their people, had become accustomed to selling their sons and relatives in Ireland, to expose their children for sale as slaves, rather than suffer any need or want."
The percentage, gender, and race of slaves matters, because I'm talking about culture and norms. 2% of Saudi Arabians are still enslaved, much higher than at any point in western Christian history.
This argument becomes intensified when we consider the core of western Europe: Germanic, Celtic, and French culture, which formed the nucleus of North American colonization. Slavery was completely foreign to these peoples, and only introduced after 1492. Finding 20 maidservants from Crimea in some dude's castle is not the same thing as plantations filled with hundreds of thousands of male slaves. This was a huge psychological, moral, and religious shift of momentous proportions. There's a big difference between 0.1% and 30%.
If you modify your claim to Christian Northwest Europe then fine. But why restrict it so if you're talking about "when Europeans arrived in Africa."
It was Iberians who arrived in Africa first and there was a slave trade, presumably Italian mediated, in Iberia at that time in the 15th century.
Slavery seems to have been "natural, normal, accepted" all over the Mediterranean basin, though less common in the Christian, European parts of it. You make a narrow claim about Northwestern Europe (England, France, Germany) and then talk about Western Europe. IDK, I consider Iberia to be in Western Europe. To the point, the Europeans who arrived in Africa (Portuguese and some Italians) were familiar with slavery and hardly had to be "seduced" into adopting it by Africans.
Really, the article is about Anglo-America fundamentally. You don't need to stretch things to encompass the whole of Europe or The West.
Minor note, while Italians bought slaves from Tatars and Tatars often took slaves themselves, some of these slaves were actually taken in slave raids by Russia and sold to Tatars. Slavery did not just exist in Russia, Russia actively mounted slaving expeditions. It also granted license to their Turkic vassals to do the same.
You're making a good point that I need to take into consideration. I think it is helpful to seeing the picture more accurately.
There is a clear divide between Northwestern Europe (France, Britain, Germany) and Mediterranean Europe (Iberia, Italy, Byzantium). One of those divides is on the issue of slavery. Slavery was much more normal and socially accepted among Mediterraneans than it was for NW Europeans.
Still, I would argue that there's a huge difference between Africa, Byzantium, Italy, and Spain in terms of slavery. Quantitatively, the Italian slave trade (which then connected to Spain) was a sort of "human centipede:
1. First, Muslims, "Russians" (they were Norse vikings, not Slavic speaking), or Tartars would kidnap and capture slaves.
2. Then, these slaves would be sold off to one of three buyers: Byzantines, Muslims, or Italians.
3. If the Italians bought the slaves, they would sell off a percentage of them to Spaniards.
4. Some very small percentage ended up making their way to NW Europe.
I have already shown how slaves in the Middle East made up, at minimum, 20% of the population. This is well documented in Islamic sources. Slaves in NW Europe were much less than 1% of the population. If I had to estimate, I would guess the following:
1. The Middle East was at least 20% slaves generally, although in some cities slaves may have made up 80% of the population.
3. Slavery in the Byzantine Empire probably never exceeded earlier Roman figures of 25%.
4. Most Italian slave traders were transporting slaves from Crimea to Byzantium. However, maybe 50% of young female slaves would become maidservants destined for Europe. Italy's slave population, even in cities which were directly involved in the slave trade like Vienna or Genoa, never exceeded 5%.
5. We should not neglect to understand the situation in Spain: according to Ronald Segal, in 1000, 70% of Spain was Muslim. This situation was not entirely reversed until 1492. Therefore, for the relevant time period we are discussing, Spain cannot be considered a part of Christian civilization, let alone "western Europe" in any meaningful cultural or religious sense. Any slaves in Spain cannot be used to tell us anything about western European or NW European culture. It's totally irrelevant.
I don't disagree with broad qualitative differentiation between Northwest Europe and Mediterranean/Mideast/Africa regarding slavery. Or with noting difference between Christian Mediterranean and Mideast and Africa. But because you strongly want to promote this I think you distort things at the margins or simply did not investigate it thoroughly enough.
1. In the relevant time period, around time of European arrival in Africa, the slaving expeditions I mentioned were conducted by Slavic Christian Russians and their Turkic Muslim vassals (with express Russian license). Vikings were long gone. Note, I am not talking about the larger "steppe harvest" of Tatars and others taking slaves. These are two distinct phenomenon (though Russian vassals centered at Kazan were also called Tatars).
2. We are talking about the period around European arrival in Africa. Reconquista was long finished (barring Granada and some other small outposts) at this time. Most of Spain and Portugal was firmly in Christian hands for 200 years or more at this time. Spain and Portugal can 100% be considered part of Christian civilization. Excluding Iberia from Christendom in 15th century is simply ahistorical. No serious historian will agree with this.
3. Relevant timeframe is when "Europeans arrived in Africa." The Europeans in question were Iberian and Italian. If we don't care about them because they aren't Western or Northwestern or didn't impact America enough or whatever, fine. But then you can't say it was Africans who seduced [Northwestern] Europeans. If anything you could frame it as Mediterranean Europeans seducing Northern Europeans since the Iberians readily transitioned to purchasing Africans, literally overlapping with the period of the older Mediterranean slave trade. There was no temporal discontinuity. It was Northern Europeans following in Southern European footsteps in traveling to Africa and engaging in the slave trade.
Hmm, interesting, but I’m not quite sure what your conclusion is.
You seem to be saying that those naively advocating both for equality and white nationalism are fighting a losing game against the tide of history, especially in terms of the technological trends now in play?
Breaking out of the current political equality consensus could result in an explosion into “inequality”, in terms of genetic engineering and enhancement, with the rich being the most willing and able to sustain the new direction as potentially evidenced by the current change in birth rate trends amongst the wealthy, while remaining in or succumbing to a counter reaction by the forces of equality will likely give rise to a different, potentially deformed trans humanism of its own (for example damaged genetics via pollution, immigration, healthcare)?
Either way humanity is changing.
I suppose if I have summarised your position correctly, the question would be can’t both of these things be happening at the same time and are they really opposite trends?
Isn’t it true that the current technocratic elite probably do perceive themselves as the inheritors of the future, most likely willing and able to make use of new technologies like genetic engineering, while seeing the rest of us as “useless eaters”, to be immigrated/polluted/contracepted/vaccined/healthcared out of existence?
How and where can white nationalism fit into this picture, if at all? Do you mean it as a kind of breakaway ideology of the elite, for example a Musk faction breaking away and promoting their own elite genetics and individualist vision of self improvement/enhancement vs whatever kind of consensus transhumanism the current elite as a whole will likely arrive at?
I address white nationalism as the extreme inverse of egalitarianism, critiquing both at the same time. I don’t think you can discuss the egalitarian critique of white identity without also addressing or critiquing white identity in its most extreme form, as white nationalism.
Okay. So what do you think is likely to happen? Social tend to be imposed from above I think, or at least tapped into and exploited from above. White nationalist sentiment might have some kind of release via Trump, but does it have any kind of long term future? We do seem to be the colonised rather than the coloniser at this point in history.
"Social tend to be imposed" social what? Social change?
I think you have to differentiate between whites with agency (generally liberals) and those without (generally conservatives). Liberals are colonizing conservatives -- its whites on both sides, colonizer and colonized.
Sorry, it should read something like “social trends tend to be imposed”. I mean that they come from or are allowed by those with power in society.
White nationalists do not have power in society to say the least..
Yes liberals are colonising conservatives- that’s a good way to put it. They are also colonising unproductive whites and whites who don’t understand the game whether or not they are conservative- ie the white underclass who are currently rioting in England, probably to their own detriment.
Don’t think there’s much to expect from genetic engineering. Most people who have babies will be conceiving the natural way. Genetic engineering is a dream of tech elites who already aren’t producing any self sustaining family standards.
IVF and crispr exist, and rich people reproduce. The rich people having lots of kids tend to do so by having sex, especially with the maid on the side. The kind of person who can afford a gene edited IVF baby is just as likely to decide not to have a baby at all to stop climate change.
Engineering: "the use of science, mathematics, logic, economics, experience or knowledge to find suitable solutions to a particular problem." IVF and embryo selection are not gene editing, they are genetic engineering.
IVF has been around for a while already. The main people who use it are emotionally peculiar women who can’t stand having any man in their life, and couples suffering from fertility problems who cannot conceive normally. I don’t see this as having a large impact on population or elite traits.
> Returning to the Norman conquest and Statutes of Kilkenny, an evolutionary theory of sociology dictates that customs, laws, and morality all arise from evolutionary pressures. That is, morality does not mutate arbitrarily, but like an economic market, it responds to incentives.
I've been playing around with two theories of why castes tend to emerge following this logic:
- it prevents the cycle of mimetic rivalry and violence (you can't envy those who you cannot become). Societies that did not develop castes did not survive. I might have heard this from Girard or a Girardian.
- there are societies whose culture actively works against the emergence of caste: hunter-gatherers. Ethnographies are consistent in observing a kind of tall poppy syndrome, where excellence (eg, being better hunters) is shamed. The societies that allowed strongmen (and warrior castes) to emerge allowed for more organized and larger societies (a high center allows a wider base) and they conquered the hunter-gatherer tribes. This is what happened in what is now the Philippines. The Austronesian seafarers, which had chieftains (the term "Big Man" came from ethnographies of these societies) displaced hunter-gatherer tribes, some of which are still in the mountains. Brian Klaas traces the evolution of the hunter-gatherer egalitarian ethos to the human shoulder, which led to ranged weapons and the return of the king to agriculture. I outline that explanation here: https://www.explorations.ph/i/142709406/how-sociopaths-are-made
I would argue that castes precedes all other societal distinctions. Slavery precedes agriculture. You can't speak of a distinction between "large cities" and hunter gatherers without agriculture, settlements, and slavery. I don't think that societies "allowed" strongmen to emerge, but I think that tribes conquered and enslaved other tribes by psychological or physical warfare. I don't think castes originate endogenously, but exogenously, through conflict. I would make similar arguments about social contract theory, state emergence, and science itself. It is never "allowed," always imposed.
I would contend, via James Frazier, that all tribes begin as egalitarian. The first exception to this is shamanism. Shamanism at the very least uses kinesthetic or psychological techniques (breathwork, meditation, baptism) to alter consciousness; Terence McKenna believes that drug use was pivotal (hallucinogens, alcohol, psychedelics). The shaman gains power through magic, and then is scapegoated (disease, war, famine) and killed. Eventually, the shaman forms a school of discipleship, and creates a priest class to ritualize / dogmatize the shamanic system. While it is conventional to imagine that the shaman emerges from within a tribe, given the archetype of the "strange man from the wilderness / mountain / desert," it is likely that some egalitarian tribes practiced shamanism en masse, and then "missionaries" were sent out. I would also consider the possibility that early shamanism provided a military advantage. When we observe (there's footage from the 1960s) primitive tribal warfare, and warfare between our ape cousins, it is hesitant, reluctant, "throw a rock and run" tactics. This makes sense on an individual level. Rushing headlong into battle increases the individual's likelihood of death. However, if you can overcome that individual fear, the group as a whole will perform much better. Shamanism could have emerged as a technique for inoculating warriors against the fear of battle, leading to disproportionate military victories, and the conquest of one tribe by this marauding shamanic-warrior class. The berserkers of the Norse and the Soma of the Vedas is evidence of this.
I am speaking of class and caste. An egalitarian tribal communist society doesn't have a specific "warrior class," as distinct and separate from the rest of society. In tribal societies, every fighting age male is a warrior, which can be even higher than 60% or more of the adult male population (considering that life expectancy was around 40, most adult men weren't too old to fight; those unable to fight would have been diseased or disabled).
With the development of agriculture, class and caste emerge, resulting in the vast majority of people being reduced to workers or shudra. It is only then that we can speak of a defined and separate warrior class, which makes up a much smaller percentage of the adult male population (often 10%).
In Sparta, perhaps 15% of the population belonged to the Spartan warrior class. During WWII, 16 out of 132 million Americans "served," 12% of the population, which would be, at most, 48% of fighting-age males. However, many of these were "support staff" and only 1 million men ever saw combat: https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/wwii-post-traumatic-stress
This means that it is much more accurate to say that only 3% of fighting age men in America during WWII ever saw combat.
To be clear: apes don't have "strongmen." Every ape is a "strongman." There is no distinction between "strongmen" apes, and "worker" apes, and "priest" apes. It would be like saying, "aren't lions part of the warrior class?" Well, lions don't have any classes at all, so there is no need to identify divisions between them at all. "But aren't there stronger and weaker lions? Wouldn't the stronger lions be the warriors?" Sure, just like there are richer and poorer merchants, smarter and dumber priests. Being bad at your class doesn't put you into a different class. This is a qualitative analysis, not a quantitative one.
>Similarly, when Europeans arrived in Africa, there was no European slave trade
Slave trade existed in Italian city-states, Rus, Hansa, not to mention Ottoman Empire where Europeans were both buyers and sellers, well into 16th century.
Can you cite some sources for Italian slavery and Hansa slavery? I have never heard that Europeans were buying slaves from the Ottomans, but am open to seeing evidence. Rus slave trade was exporting white slaves to Byzantium and the Caliphate, not taking in black slaves. Rus had low demand and high supply of slaves, so there was no need for them to buy them from the Middle East when they had plenty of Slavic serfs already. I've also never heard of a Hanseatic slave trade (which is what I assume you mean by Hansa). Sources are appreciated.
Look up the Black Sea slave trade, Italian merchant republics slave trade (Venice, Genoa), slave trade in Crimean Khanate. Europeans weren't necessarily buying from the Ottomans (though surely they must have occasionally), they were buying IN the Ottoman slave markets, or in its protectorate of Crimea.
I didn't say anything about black slaves or about Rus importing slaves . The slave trade in Rus and Eastern Europe was of Slavs, Finns, Balts, Turkics. Yes, they sold to the Middle East but they also sold to Italians and (less so) Germans. And Rus did not only have serfs, they had slaves as well. In fact, slavery was only formally (mostly) abolished in Russian Empire in the 17th century.
As for sources, sorry, I don't have them. I'm not a scholar and I don't know the specific source of much of what I know.
I think part of our disagreement is coming from the fact that I am focusing on France, England, and Germany after Christianization (700-1100). I acknowledge that Russia was full of slaves, non-Christian Europe was full of slaves, Sicily was full of slaves, Spain was full of slaves. I think it was an error on my part to use the term "European" in this article as opposed to "north-west European."
Some further detail:
1. There's little to no record of slaves laboring in north-western Europe between 1100 and 1492.
2. The Black Sea Slave trade only began in 1204 due to the decline of the Byzantines. Italians bought slaves from Crimean Tartars to sell to the Middle East. This is because 75% of the population under the Tartars were slaves. Europeans were not enslaving anyone. They were buying people who were already enslaved, and re-selling them to the Middle East. Slavery was not a natural, normal, or culturally accepted condition in western Europe, unlike among the Africans and Tartars, who habitually conquered their neighbors and enslaved them.
3. After the Black Death of 1346, the labor shortage did incentivize a brief increase in European slavery, but this was marginal and short lived. By 1371, the Ottomans had completely surrounded Constantinople and barred and replaced the Italians in slave trading. The fall of Constantinople in 1453 prevented all attempts at Italian resumption of the Crimean slave trade.
4. Here's the source I found for the number of slaves: (Roşu, Felicia (2021). Slavery in the Black Sea Region, 900–1900 – Forms of Unfreedom at the Intersection Between Christianity and Islam. Studies in Global Slavery, Volume: 11. pages 32–33)
This claims that, at its height, 2,000 slaves were sent from Crimea to Italy per year.
5. Let's crunch the numbers: in the 11th century, Europe had a population of over 50 million people. Even by overestimating and assuming this 2,000/yr rate occurred for 400 years (1100 to 1500), this would only amount to 1.6% of the population of Europe (1.04% by 1500). It is much more likely that Crimean slave trade for persisted for only 200 years at most (1200 to 1400), meaning that less than 0.5% to 0.8% of European residents were foreign slaves. Furthermore, the average was probably lower than the highest count which I found (2,000), closer to 300, meaning that less than 0.1% of Europeans were foreign slaves. This is totally disproportionate to the Middle East, where slaves were, at a minimum, 20% of the population, and as high as 80% of the population (in cities).
5. The slaves were girls. They weren't doing back breaking labor in the fields like serfs; they were maid servants, cooking and cleaning in castles. They weren't used for war or sex (at least not openly) as in the Middle Eastern harems and slave armies.
6. The Normans abolished Viking slavery in 1102. In 1171, the Council of Armagh freed the slaves of Ireland as well. "For the English people hitherto throughout the whole of their kingdom to the common injury of their people, had become accustomed to selling their sons and relatives in Ireland, to expose their children for sale as slaves, rather than suffer any need or want."
The percentage, gender, and race of slaves matters, because I'm talking about culture and norms. 2% of Saudi Arabians are still enslaved, much higher than at any point in western Christian history.
This argument becomes intensified when we consider the core of western Europe: Germanic, Celtic, and French culture, which formed the nucleus of North American colonization. Slavery was completely foreign to these peoples, and only introduced after 1492. Finding 20 maidservants from Crimea in some dude's castle is not the same thing as plantations filled with hundreds of thousands of male slaves. This was a huge psychological, moral, and religious shift of momentous proportions. There's a big difference between 0.1% and 30%.
If you modify your claim to Christian Northwest Europe then fine. But why restrict it so if you're talking about "when Europeans arrived in Africa."
It was Iberians who arrived in Africa first and there was a slave trade, presumably Italian mediated, in Iberia at that time in the 15th century.
Slavery seems to have been "natural, normal, accepted" all over the Mediterranean basin, though less common in the Christian, European parts of it. You make a narrow claim about Northwestern Europe (England, France, Germany) and then talk about Western Europe. IDK, I consider Iberia to be in Western Europe. To the point, the Europeans who arrived in Africa (Portuguese and some Italians) were familiar with slavery and hardly had to be "seduced" into adopting it by Africans.
Really, the article is about Anglo-America fundamentally. You don't need to stretch things to encompass the whole of Europe or The West.
Minor note, while Italians bought slaves from Tatars and Tatars often took slaves themselves, some of these slaves were actually taken in slave raids by Russia and sold to Tatars. Slavery did not just exist in Russia, Russia actively mounted slaving expeditions. It also granted license to their Turkic vassals to do the same.
You're making a good point that I need to take into consideration. I think it is helpful to seeing the picture more accurately.
There is a clear divide between Northwestern Europe (France, Britain, Germany) and Mediterranean Europe (Iberia, Italy, Byzantium). One of those divides is on the issue of slavery. Slavery was much more normal and socially accepted among Mediterraneans than it was for NW Europeans.
Still, I would argue that there's a huge difference between Africa, Byzantium, Italy, and Spain in terms of slavery. Quantitatively, the Italian slave trade (which then connected to Spain) was a sort of "human centipede:
1. First, Muslims, "Russians" (they were Norse vikings, not Slavic speaking), or Tartars would kidnap and capture slaves.
2. Then, these slaves would be sold off to one of three buyers: Byzantines, Muslims, or Italians.
3. If the Italians bought the slaves, they would sell off a percentage of them to Spaniards.
4. Some very small percentage ended up making their way to NW Europe.
I have already shown how slaves in the Middle East made up, at minimum, 20% of the population. This is well documented in Islamic sources. Slaves in NW Europe were much less than 1% of the population. If I had to estimate, I would guess the following:
1. The Middle East was at least 20% slaves generally, although in some cities slaves may have made up 80% of the population.
2. Vikings operating in Russia may have enslaved 10% of the population. (https://www.history.com/news/viking-slavery-raids-evidence)
3. Slavery in the Byzantine Empire probably never exceeded earlier Roman figures of 25%.
4. Most Italian slave traders were transporting slaves from Crimea to Byzantium. However, maybe 50% of young female slaves would become maidservants destined for Europe. Italy's slave population, even in cities which were directly involved in the slave trade like Vienna or Genoa, never exceeded 5%.
5. We should not neglect to understand the situation in Spain: according to Ronald Segal, in 1000, 70% of Spain was Muslim. This situation was not entirely reversed until 1492. Therefore, for the relevant time period we are discussing, Spain cannot be considered a part of Christian civilization, let alone "western Europe" in any meaningful cultural or religious sense. Any slaves in Spain cannot be used to tell us anything about western European or NW European culture. It's totally irrelevant.
I don't disagree with broad qualitative differentiation between Northwest Europe and Mediterranean/Mideast/Africa regarding slavery. Or with noting difference between Christian Mediterranean and Mideast and Africa. But because you strongly want to promote this I think you distort things at the margins or simply did not investigate it thoroughly enough.
1. In the relevant time period, around time of European arrival in Africa, the slaving expeditions I mentioned were conducted by Slavic Christian Russians and their Turkic Muslim vassals (with express Russian license). Vikings were long gone. Note, I am not talking about the larger "steppe harvest" of Tatars and others taking slaves. These are two distinct phenomenon (though Russian vassals centered at Kazan were also called Tatars).
2. We are talking about the period around European arrival in Africa. Reconquista was long finished (barring Granada and some other small outposts) at this time. Most of Spain and Portugal was firmly in Christian hands for 200 years or more at this time. Spain and Portugal can 100% be considered part of Christian civilization. Excluding Iberia from Christendom in 15th century is simply ahistorical. No serious historian will agree with this.
3. Relevant timeframe is when "Europeans arrived in Africa." The Europeans in question were Iberian and Italian. If we don't care about them because they aren't Western or Northwestern or didn't impact America enough or whatever, fine. But then you can't say it was Africans who seduced [Northwestern] Europeans. If anything you could frame it as Mediterranean Europeans seducing Northern Europeans since the Iberians readily transitioned to purchasing Africans, literally overlapping with the period of the older Mediterranean slave trade. There was no temporal discontinuity. It was Northern Europeans following in Southern European footsteps in traveling to Africa and engaging in the slave trade.
Hmm, interesting, but I’m not quite sure what your conclusion is.
You seem to be saying that those naively advocating both for equality and white nationalism are fighting a losing game against the tide of history, especially in terms of the technological trends now in play?
Breaking out of the current political equality consensus could result in an explosion into “inequality”, in terms of genetic engineering and enhancement, with the rich being the most willing and able to sustain the new direction as potentially evidenced by the current change in birth rate trends amongst the wealthy, while remaining in or succumbing to a counter reaction by the forces of equality will likely give rise to a different, potentially deformed trans humanism of its own (for example damaged genetics via pollution, immigration, healthcare)?
Either way humanity is changing.
I suppose if I have summarised your position correctly, the question would be can’t both of these things be happening at the same time and are they really opposite trends?
Isn’t it true that the current technocratic elite probably do perceive themselves as the inheritors of the future, most likely willing and able to make use of new technologies like genetic engineering, while seeing the rest of us as “useless eaters”, to be immigrated/polluted/contracepted/vaccined/healthcared out of existence?
How and where can white nationalism fit into this picture, if at all? Do you mean it as a kind of breakaway ideology of the elite, for example a Musk faction breaking away and promoting their own elite genetics and individualist vision of self improvement/enhancement vs whatever kind of consensus transhumanism the current elite as a whole will likely arrive at?
I address white nationalism as the extreme inverse of egalitarianism, critiquing both at the same time. I don’t think you can discuss the egalitarian critique of white identity without also addressing or critiquing white identity in its most extreme form, as white nationalism.
Okay. So what do you think is likely to happen? Social tend to be imposed from above I think, or at least tapped into and exploited from above. White nationalist sentiment might have some kind of release via Trump, but does it have any kind of long term future? We do seem to be the colonised rather than the coloniser at this point in history.
"Social tend to be imposed" social what? Social change?
I think you have to differentiate between whites with agency (generally liberals) and those without (generally conservatives). Liberals are colonizing conservatives -- its whites on both sides, colonizer and colonized.
What do you mean by agency in this case- power and the ability to act meaningfully to achieve goals?
Yes that's a good definition
Okay thanks, that helps me understand better where you are coming from.
Great stuff recently by the way, really thought provoking.
Sorry, it should read something like “social trends tend to be imposed”. I mean that they come from or are allowed by those with power in society.
White nationalists do not have power in society to say the least..
Yes liberals are colonising conservatives- that’s a good way to put it. They are also colonising unproductive whites and whites who don’t understand the game whether or not they are conservative- ie the white underclass who are currently rioting in England, probably to their own detriment.
Right, the term "conservative" is really inexact, "not-liberal" is more accurate at this point to describe "anarcho-nationalists" rioting in England.
Don’t think there’s much to expect from genetic engineering. Most people who have babies will be conceiving the natural way. Genetic engineering is a dream of tech elites who already aren’t producing any self sustaining family standards.
You don't believe IVF or embryo selection exists? Also, do you have any evidence to support the idea that rich people don't reproduce? Here's mine:
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-03-12/the-rich-are-starting-to-have-more-babies-than-the-poor-again
https://ifstudies.org/blog/more-babies-for-the-rich-the-relationship-between-status-and-children-is-changing
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2013/05/10/record-share-of-new-mothers-are-college-educated/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/241519/birth-rate-by-educational-attainment-of-mother-in-the-united-states/
IVF and crispr exist, and rich people reproduce. The rich people having lots of kids tend to do so by having sex, especially with the maid on the side. The kind of person who can afford a gene edited IVF baby is just as likely to decide not to have a baby at all to stop climate change.
Engineering: "the use of science, mathematics, logic, economics, experience or knowledge to find suitable solutions to a particular problem." IVF and embryo selection are not gene editing, they are genetic engineering.
IVF has been around for a while already. The main people who use it are emotionally peculiar women who can’t stand having any man in their life, and couples suffering from fertility problems who cannot conceive normally. I don’t see this as having a large impact on population or elite traits.
How high do you think "natural" infertility will get? It's already 15%.
I couldn’t guess. But it’s an illness that the poors are mainly dealing with, not the elite.
> Returning to the Norman conquest and Statutes of Kilkenny, an evolutionary theory of sociology dictates that customs, laws, and morality all arise from evolutionary pressures. That is, morality does not mutate arbitrarily, but like an economic market, it responds to incentives.
I've been playing around with two theories of why castes tend to emerge following this logic:
- it prevents the cycle of mimetic rivalry and violence (you can't envy those who you cannot become). Societies that did not develop castes did not survive. I might have heard this from Girard or a Girardian.
- there are societies whose culture actively works against the emergence of caste: hunter-gatherers. Ethnographies are consistent in observing a kind of tall poppy syndrome, where excellence (eg, being better hunters) is shamed. The societies that allowed strongmen (and warrior castes) to emerge allowed for more organized and larger societies (a high center allows a wider base) and they conquered the hunter-gatherer tribes. This is what happened in what is now the Philippines. The Austronesian seafarers, which had chieftains (the term "Big Man" came from ethnographies of these societies) displaced hunter-gatherer tribes, some of which are still in the mountains. Brian Klaas traces the evolution of the hunter-gatherer egalitarian ethos to the human shoulder, which led to ranged weapons and the return of the king to agriculture. I outline that explanation here: https://www.explorations.ph/i/142709406/how-sociopaths-are-made
I would argue that castes precedes all other societal distinctions. Slavery precedes agriculture. You can't speak of a distinction between "large cities" and hunter gatherers without agriculture, settlements, and slavery. I don't think that societies "allowed" strongmen to emerge, but I think that tribes conquered and enslaved other tribes by psychological or physical warfare. I don't think castes originate endogenously, but exogenously, through conflict. I would make similar arguments about social contract theory, state emergence, and science itself. It is never "allowed," always imposed.
What force imposed or allowed strongmen to emerge in some societies and prevented their emergence in egalitarian tribes?
I would contend, via James Frazier, that all tribes begin as egalitarian. The first exception to this is shamanism. Shamanism at the very least uses kinesthetic or psychological techniques (breathwork, meditation, baptism) to alter consciousness; Terence McKenna believes that drug use was pivotal (hallucinogens, alcohol, psychedelics). The shaman gains power through magic, and then is scapegoated (disease, war, famine) and killed. Eventually, the shaman forms a school of discipleship, and creates a priest class to ritualize / dogmatize the shamanic system. While it is conventional to imagine that the shaman emerges from within a tribe, given the archetype of the "strange man from the wilderness / mountain / desert," it is likely that some egalitarian tribes practiced shamanism en masse, and then "missionaries" were sent out. I would also consider the possibility that early shamanism provided a military advantage. When we observe (there's footage from the 1960s) primitive tribal warfare, and warfare between our ape cousins, it is hesitant, reluctant, "throw a rock and run" tactics. This makes sense on an individual level. Rushing headlong into battle increases the individual's likelihood of death. However, if you can overcome that individual fear, the group as a whole will perform much better. Shamanism could have emerged as a technique for inoculating warriors against the fear of battle, leading to disproportionate military victories, and the conquest of one tribe by this marauding shamanic-warrior class. The berserkers of the Norse and the Soma of the Vedas is evidence of this.
wait, are you saying that you think shamans emerged generally before strongmen? apes and other animals already have strongmen don't they?
I am speaking of class and caste. An egalitarian tribal communist society doesn't have a specific "warrior class," as distinct and separate from the rest of society. In tribal societies, every fighting age male is a warrior, which can be even higher than 60% or more of the adult male population (considering that life expectancy was around 40, most adult men weren't too old to fight; those unable to fight would have been diseased or disabled).
With the development of agriculture, class and caste emerge, resulting in the vast majority of people being reduced to workers or shudra. It is only then that we can speak of a defined and separate warrior class, which makes up a much smaller percentage of the adult male population (often 10%).
In Sparta, perhaps 15% of the population belonged to the Spartan warrior class. During WWII, 16 out of 132 million Americans "served," 12% of the population, which would be, at most, 48% of fighting-age males. However, many of these were "support staff" and only 1 million men ever saw combat: https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/wwii-post-traumatic-stress
This means that it is much more accurate to say that only 3% of fighting age men in America during WWII ever saw combat.
To be clear: apes don't have "strongmen." Every ape is a "strongman." There is no distinction between "strongmen" apes, and "worker" apes, and "priest" apes. It would be like saying, "aren't lions part of the warrior class?" Well, lions don't have any classes at all, so there is no need to identify divisions between them at all. "But aren't there stronger and weaker lions? Wouldn't the stronger lions be the warriors?" Sure, just like there are richer and poorer merchants, smarter and dumber priests. Being bad at your class doesn't put you into a different class. This is a qualitative analysis, not a quantitative one.
Thanks. This is a good distinction.
how does gender fit into this? Gender roles seem more like caste in the way you describe it.
Any global supply chain collapse is at least a century off
Depends on how we differentiate decline from collapse. 30%? 90%?