Over at NAUTILUS it reads:
Mortals and Others: Bertrand Russell's American Essays, 1931-1935, Volume 2
Recent events in Germany have brought to the fore the hatred of Christians for jews which existed everywhere in the Middle Ages but which in England and America has lost most of its virulence. Both the English and the Americans have been surprised and shocked to find that in a nation which considers itself in the forefront of civilisation so brutal and pointless an emotion can have such strength.
But, in fact, wherever diverse races mix, the feeling of race hatred is apt to grow up. Negroes and Mongolians suffer from it in America. The English have no occasion for it at home since the population is racially homogeneous, but they develop it at once when they go to South Africa. All primitive races feel it and are apt to kill strangers merely because they are strangers.
How far is this feeling instinctive, and how far does it have other sources? There is a story by Joseph Conrad called 'An Outcast of the Islands', where a white man falls desperately in love with a native girl, but after he has lived with her for a while he comes to hate her on account of her strangeness.
This sort of situation suggests the existence of an instinctive element, but there is no doubt that many other factors contribute to the politically important forms of race antagonism. Wherever it becomes powerful, economic motives invariably play an important part. In the case of the hatred of Jews, this is obvious and admitted. The Chinese and Japanese were hated in California because they were willing to accept a lower standard of life. In the case of the Negroes, it can hardly be said that there is race hatred in the proper sense of the word: so long as they are content to accept a properly subordinate position, they are well liked, and it is only when they make an attempt to assert equal rights that white men become hostile to them. The desire for domination is a different thing from race hatred, though it easily passes over into it as soon as domination becomes precarious.
Mortals and Others
I think myself that what is instinctive in race hatred is fear: fear of anything strange, fear of anything threatening our established way of living. When there is no occasion for fear, race hatred does not arise. If the world were stable and everyone's economic position were secure. I do not for a moment believe that the different races of the world would hate each other.
During the last two hundred years it has been customary to speak of the benefits derived from competition and economic insecurity as sources of industry and effort. But competition and economic insecurity have other effects which have been less noticed although they are becoming more important. These effects are connected with fear and the consequent hatred. This is particularly grave in the matter of race hatred since the world is becoming more and more of an economic unity and therefore the occasions for race hatred are increasing.
Race hatred is one of the most cruel and least civilised emotions to which men in the mass are liable, and it is of the utmost importance for human progress that every possible method of diminishing it should be adopted. The most potent of such methods undoubtedly would be economic security. It should be realised, even at this moment when we are all suffering from economic insecurity, that there is no technical difficulty in establishing security for all. The difficulties that stand in the way are, on the one hand, a belief in competition as a good thing and, on the other, the determination of the more fortunate races and classes not to allow equality to others even though there should be no loss to themselves.
I fear that in this particular matter of the conflict between races, a number of bitter lessons will be needed before men learn that kindliness and tolerance are not only virtues but indispensable means to our own happiness.
24 May I933
On this past International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I reread a bit of Bertrand Russell. In 1933, dismayed at the Nazification of Germany, the philosopher wrote “The Triumph of Stupidity,” attributing the rise of Adolf Hitler to the organized fervor of stupid and brutal people—two qualities, he noted, that “usually go together.” He went on to make one of his most famous observations, that the “fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”Here I want to point to another subject he touched. In 1933 Bertrand Russell wrote the following piece and it explains the reason why people (today) are xenophobic. Why they objectify their hatred with such mundane things like the head scarf, way of dressing, a burka they may encounter perhaps one or two times in year, or the arranged marriage. As if Westerners do not arrange their partnerships based on economic, educational considerations, and/or (political) beliefs. Please take notice of the Oxford comma, thank you. Or all dress in fucking boring jeans. Neoliberalism with the intrinsic competition and economic insecurity asks for a scape goat. Here is Betrand Russell in 1933:
Mortals and Others: Bertrand Russell's American Essays, 1931-1935, Volume 2
On Race Hatred
Recent events in Germany have brought to the fore the hatred of Christians for jews which existed everywhere in the Middle Ages but which in England and America has lost most of its virulence. Both the English and the Americans have been surprised and shocked to find that in a nation which considers itself in the forefront of civilisation so brutal and pointless an emotion can have such strength.
But, in fact, wherever diverse races mix, the feeling of race hatred is apt to grow up. Negroes and Mongolians suffer from it in America. The English have no occasion for it at home since the population is racially homogeneous, but they develop it at once when they go to South Africa. All primitive races feel it and are apt to kill strangers merely because they are strangers.
How far is this feeling instinctive, and how far does it have other sources? There is a story by Joseph Conrad called 'An Outcast of the Islands', where a white man falls desperately in love with a native girl, but after he has lived with her for a while he comes to hate her on account of her strangeness.
This sort of situation suggests the existence of an instinctive element, but there is no doubt that many other factors contribute to the politically important forms of race antagonism. Wherever it becomes powerful, economic motives invariably play an important part. In the case of the hatred of Jews, this is obvious and admitted. The Chinese and Japanese were hated in California because they were willing to accept a lower standard of life. In the case of the Negroes, it can hardly be said that there is race hatred in the proper sense of the word: so long as they are content to accept a properly subordinate position, they are well liked, and it is only when they make an attempt to assert equal rights that white men become hostile to them. The desire for domination is a different thing from race hatred, though it easily passes over into it as soon as domination becomes precarious.
Mortals and Others
I think myself that what is instinctive in race hatred is fear: fear of anything strange, fear of anything threatening our established way of living. When there is no occasion for fear, race hatred does not arise. If the world were stable and everyone's economic position were secure. I do not for a moment believe that the different races of the world would hate each other.
During the last two hundred years it has been customary to speak of the benefits derived from competition and economic insecurity as sources of industry and effort. But competition and economic insecurity have other effects which have been less noticed although they are becoming more important. These effects are connected with fear and the consequent hatred. This is particularly grave in the matter of race hatred since the world is becoming more and more of an economic unity and therefore the occasions for race hatred are increasing.
Race hatred is one of the most cruel and least civilised emotions to which men in the mass are liable, and it is of the utmost importance for human progress that every possible method of diminishing it should be adopted. The most potent of such methods undoubtedly would be economic security. It should be realised, even at this moment when we are all suffering from economic insecurity, that there is no technical difficulty in establishing security for all. The difficulties that stand in the way are, on the one hand, a belief in competition as a good thing and, on the other, the determination of the more fortunate races and classes not to allow equality to others even though there should be no loss to themselves.
I fear that in this particular matter of the conflict between races, a number of bitter lessons will be needed before men learn that kindliness and tolerance are not only virtues but indispensable means to our own happiness.
24 May I933
