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Dear LEGO,

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You wrote :

« "Class" may be a "social construct" but it exists as a valid classification. "Race" may be a "social construct" but it also exists as a valid classification »
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That’s correct LEGO but there are some words that have become offensive to most people. Race is one.

It is offensive because it evokes the horrors of genocide. Genocides committed on the Jews by the Nazis, on the Armenians by the Turks, on the Tutsis by the Hutus, on the Yazidis by the so-called Islamic State, etc. The word “race” has become a symbol of the extermination of certain human beings for no reason other than the fact that they belong to a particular class of people. It is offensive to the survivors of those genocides, their families and friends and to the rest of humanity, because genocides are crimes against humanity.

To ignore this or, worse, treat it with contempt and reject it, would be simply inhuman. It would be the expression of a profound desire to dissociate oneself from humanity - a form of self denial or auto-flagellation.

Anybody capable of comprehension and a minimum of empathy and compassion for his fellow human beings would prefer to use the terms “populations, people(s), ethnic groups, or communities”.

Most of us are capable of that but some of us are not and, in my view, it is not a question of politics, of left and right. It is just a question of sensitivity to the hurt we may cause others. Either we are at peace with ourselves and accept our own humanity and that of others - all others - or we are not and do not.

If we are not and do not, then there is no doubt where the real problem lies. Happily, there is always the possibility, and should I say hope, that those of us who recognise this will somehow manage to fix it.

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Dear Rodney.

You seem to be suggesting that certain existing words in the English language should be completely expunged, because somebody, somewhere, may find them offensive. "Race" is simply a classification of people, and it has been around in European languages for at least as long as Plutarch, because he uses it in one of his books ("The Life of Caesar"). Since you are a person of education, Rodney, I find it surprising that you are advocating 1984 Newspeak, where human concepts can be expunged from the human mind by simply controlling language.

Human beings are tribal and territorial, Rodney. I know that 55 million people died in WW2, and I don't oppose you trying to find some sort of philosophy which will allow everybody to live in peace. But the philosophy which you and your peers have invented is simply socialism by another name. Socialism failed everywhere it was tried. It was the most efficient form of totalitarianism ever invented since Islam. And the reason it failed, was because it treated human being like robots, who could be simply reprogrammed to deny their national, cultural, religious, familial, and class associations, and embrace some fuzzy concept of absolute equality. But blood is thicker than ideology, and no amount of politically correct hammering is going to make square people fit round ideological holes.

Your own statement that "most of us are capable of that" is an expression of your own tribal identity. To you, and people who think like you, there are the stupid people like me, and the enlightened people like yourself. "Them and us." You are affirming your loyalty to your own chosen peer group by conforming to their orthodoxy.

And that is where your egalitarian philosophy falls flat on it's face. Suddenly there are two classes of people. The rooly, rooly smart and morally superior, anti racist Internationalists, to whom Open Borders is the fave cause of our time , and the dumb bogans, rednecks, nationalists, One Nation voters, suburbanites and white people in general, who are responsible for buggering up the world with their old fashioned ideals.

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Dear LEGO,

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You wrote:

« You seem to be suggesting that certain existing words in the English language should be completely expunged, … "Race" … has been around in European languages for at least as long as Plutarch, because he uses it in one of his books ("The Life of Caesar"). Since you are a person of education, Rodney, I find it surprising that you are advocating 1984 Newspeak, where human concepts can be expunged from the human mind by simply controlling language. »
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You flatter me, LEGO, but I’m afraid I am a bit of a dunce. I just waded painstakingly through two different English translations of Plutarch’s Caesar but found no trace of the word “race” in either of them. Would you be so kind as to post the paragraph you refer to so that I can compare it with the two translations I have ?

The OED indicates as the first meaning of the noun “race”:

« A competition between runners, horses, vehicles, etc. to see which is the fastest in covering a set course »

It indicates as a second meaning:

« Each of the major divisions of humankind, having distinct physical characteristics », subject to the following two caveats :

1. « Usage: In recent years, the associations of race with the ideologies and theories that grew out of the work of 19th-century anthropologists and physiologists has led to the use of the word race itself becoming problematic. Although still used in general contexts, it is now often replaced by other words which are less emotionally charged, such as people(s) or community »

2. « Origin: Early 16th century (denoting a group with common features): via French from Italian razza, of unknown ultimate origin »

As you can see, I am not responsible for “expunging” the word race “from the human mind by simply controlling language” as you suggest. The OED merits that honour, not me.

Also, if Plutarch (46-120 AD) employed the word “race” in the second sense of the noun, the OED obviously ignores it too.

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My apologies, it was Plutarch's "Fall of the Republic." I did try to check before I wrote, but probably like yourself, I have far too many books because I hate throwing books out. I will have to get back to you on that one as I am about to go off to work. (but I have the book beside me now.) But I remember the quote all right, because some lefty fool had claimed on TV that "white people had invented racism in the 19th century", and he had even written a book on it. The quote from Plutarch proved that this was not true.

You seem to worry about words being offensive to certain races. As a former trendy lefty like yourself, I became offended that the people who I considered the leaders of my chosen ideology used words to blame my race for everything that ever went wrong on planet Earth. This was one reason that began the process of me examining my chosen leftist ideology using critical thinking. The claim that white people invented racism was a perfect example. White people invented nearly everything, but if you really despise your own race, then it is easy to portray to the befuddled that the scientific classification of everything, including people, can be considered a crime against humanity. It became obvious to me, that the so called "anti racist" leftist brigade simply hated white people.

Everybody uses race to denote certain groups of people. You did it yourself when you wrote this article directed at "my aboriginal compatriots." That is funny from a person who considers "race" to be (to quote from Harry Potter) "the evil who's name must not be mentioned" You compounded your double standard when you further wrote of "aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders." It is plain that those who insist that race does not exist can see it plainly enough when it suits them. And the fact that aborigines and Islanders see themselves as completely different races puts paid to any claims that they might have that race does not matter.

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Dear LEGO,

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You wrote:

« My apologies, it was Plutarch's "Fall of the Republic." I did try to check before I wrote, but … I remember the quote all right, because some lefty fool had claimed on TV that "white people had invented racism in the 19th century", and he had even written a book on it. The quote from Plutarch proved that this was not true »
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Thanks, LEGO, I found three or four mentions of the word “race” in Rex Warner’s English translation of Plutarch’s “Fall of the Roman Republic”, published by Penguin Books. However, I see that the first translation was published in 1958. There was a revised edition in 1972 and a revised and expanded edition in 2005.

Unfortunately, that does not prove that the word “race”, or its equivalent in Ancient Greek (9th century BC to 6th century AD) existed. It simply means that Rex Warner, the English translator in the 1950s, chose to translate into modern-day English, Plutarch’s reference to a particular group of people, by the modern-day word “race”. Plutarch could not possibly have used that word because it did not exist at the time he was writing, in the 1st century AD.

Consequently,it is incorrect to say that the word race “has been around in European languages for at least as long as Plutarch” as you affirmed in your previous post. As indicated by the OED, it only exists since the early 16th century.

Whilst writing, please note that I have no interest whatsoever in party politics, nor in the so-called left-right divide. I consider that to be politicians’ politics. The politics that interests me is what I describe as “the tenets and praxis of contemporary society”. I judge ideas on their merits, irrespective of who expresses them. I have no political allegiances and always try to keep an open mind, whatever the topic under discussion.

I thought I should mention this because you seem to presume otherwise.

No doubt some of your criticisms of me are valid but, naturally, I am not the best judge of that.

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Your premise, that words from one language may not equate to those of another, is a fair point. My favourite example of that was the Coca-Cola company's insistence that their advertising jingle should be used world wide. The jingle was, "Coke adds life." The closest the Germans language could get to that was, "Return from the dead with Coke."

But in the case of Roman recognition of races, I think you are wrong on four points.

1. In my copy of Plutarch, the translation talks of the extent to which the "Celtic" people had occupied so much European land.. Plutarch was obviously referring to a large linguistic and cultural group which can reasonably be equated to a "race". Even the word "ethnicity" can be used interchangeably with "race."

2. I am a bit of a Rome buff, and in one of my other books on Rome, came a similar statement to Plutarch's. In this (from memory), the Roman writer wrote something like "Above the Rhine River, lives a race of men who are madly fond of war." Sounds like a good description of the Germans.

3. On a TV program about Roman architecture, it was revealed that archaeologists had uncovered racist jokes about Roman soldiers chiselled into the foundations of a Roman temple in Libya. (I wish I knew what they were!)

4. Lastly, was the recent discovery of the racist Roman name for the British. A perfectly preserved Roman wax message was unearthed in which a Roman Centurion had written to somebody about the latest Roman military exercises. In this message, the Centurion wrote that the "Britanculli" (wretched little Brits) contingent had buggered everything up, "as usual."

People who advocate certain causes, usually advocate other causes from the same political divide. Those that favour a Republic, usually support the other two "R''s. (anti Racism and aboriginal Recognition.) You seem to conform to at least two of those notorious left wing causes. So, if you are not a chardonnay sucking, social climbing Socialist, you can hardly blame me for getting it wrong if you keep the wrong company.