I'd just like to offer my congratulations to Banjo P and LEGO for a couple of very interesting posts. I'd especially like to congratulate LEGO. The change from your usual posting style is refreshing.

On the topic, I wonder whether the discussion about "race" is a bit of a red herring? In the terms we use it today in Australia and other Western countries it's incredibly politically and socially charged, as are many other once-innocuous terms. It seems unlikely that ancient Romans, even those as erudite as Plutarch, would have had anything like a similar set of connotations associated with it, just as the translators of Plutarch a generation or two ago would not have thought in the same terms we do.

I'm very sure they must have had names for groups of people who shared certain characteristics or came from a particular region, such as Celts, or the "Germanic tribes" and so on. I doubt they had much use for "racism" in the sense we think of it today: Rome was the thing, not the individual groups within its borders, no matter how extended those became.

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Dear LEGO,

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You wrote:

« But in the case of Roman recognition of races, I think you are wrong on four points. »
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I didn’t say anything on the four points you mention. But I don’t have any problem with them. If that’s how it was, then that’s fine with me.

The discussion I was having with you was only about the modern use of the word “race”. I quoted various authoritative sources which indicated that the word had lost its significance due to recent scientific development.

In particular, Prof. Lewontin of the Harvard University pointed out in 2006 that “over the last thirty-five years a major change has taken place in our biological understanding of the concept of human “race,” largely as a consequence of an immense increase in our knowledge of human genetics. As a biological rather than a social construct, “race” has ceased to be seen as a fundamental reality characterizing the human species.

And the OED adds: “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”

It is just the modern usage of the word “race” that we need to adapt to our new scientific knowledge. Nothing else. We do not need to rewrite history or even reinterpret it.

In Ancient Greece, a “barbarian” was originally anybody who did not speak Greek. It was not a pejorative term. Its meaning later evolved to mean “foreign, strange, ignorant”. Then the Romans adopted it and extended it to include “rude, wild, savagely cruel person”. Today it designates a rugby union team composed of players from different clubs and nations.

When I was a child, we were taught at school to refer to foreign migrants as “New Australians”. Then, one day I was invited by a mate of mine to afternoon tea with one of his aunts who had just returned from an overseas trip. When he politely asked her how she liked it, she replied: “Oh, it was delightful but it was full of New Australians”.

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Dear Craig,

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Thank you for your kind words.

This is what the historian, Dante A. Puzzo, has to say on the subject of “Racism and the Western Tradition” in his book of that title, published in 1964 :

« Racism rests on two basic assumptions: that a correlation exists between physical characteristics and moral qualities; that mankind is divisible into superior and inferior stocks.

Racism, thus defined, is a modern conception, for prior to the XV1th century there was virtually nothing in the life and thought of the West that can be described as racist. To prevent misunderstanding a clear distinction must be made between racism and ethnocentrism. The term ethnocentrism – of comparatively recent coinage – is derived from the Greek. While “ethnos” meaning race or nation and “ethos” meaning character or tradition are related words, ethnocentrism serves to describe the identification of oneself with one’s own people as against the rest of mankind, indiscriminately.

The ancient Hebrews, in referring to all who were not Hebrews as Gentiles, were indulging in ethnocentrism, not in racism. For there was nothing in their attitude to suggest that they believed that a relationship existed between physical characteristics and moral qualities.

So it was with the Hellenes who denominated all non-Hellenes – whether the wild Scythians or the Egyptians whom they acknowledged as their mentors in the arts if civilization – Barbarians, the term denoting that which was strange or foreign. »

The consequences of racism became dramatically evident with the horrific genocides of the 20th century. As a result, the word "race" took on a very different connotation.

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Dear Rodney.

Orwell's book "1984" warned of the control of language to control human thought. Leftists have attempted to deny self evident reality by first claiming that class did not exist, which has fallen flat on it's face by virtue of the fact that the Lefties are the biggest class conscious snobs around. Today, they are even trying to deny sexual differences in order to keep promoting their ridiculous Egalitarian philosophy. Now they are trying to even expunge the word "race" from human consciousness, which is pretty funny because the charge of "racism!" is their favourite explanation for everything.

Human conflict has occurred throughout history and groups of people regard each other as either potential enemies or allies. The racist joke is a cultural universal and it always have been.

The word "racism" itself has evolved. It is the catch all explanation by leftists to explain any inter group human hostility. But your explanation that racism rests on two basic assumptions: that a correlation exists between physical characteristics and moral qualities; that mankind is divisible into superior and inferior stocks", is a good one. You claim that this is not true, while I claim it is essentially true. Our difference of opinion is caused by a kumbaya philosophy opposed by a stubborn reality.

The latest leftist tactic, is to claim that science is on their side. My information, is that this is complete bunkum. After the completion of the historic Human Genome Project, the HGP scientists attempted to initiate another project called "Genetic Factors in Crime." Not surprisingly, the alarmed US NAACP lobbied the US congress to deny funding for this project, and to any US scientist who dared to examine the obvious connection to genetics and crime. When the head of the HGP, Nobel Laureate Francis Crick, (co-discoverer of the double helix) let slip that Africans were not intelligent, the NAACP tried to have him burned at the stake. It is now the norm for International conferences on genetics to be held in camera, because of the furor that would erupt if the very inconvenient truth were known.

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Dear LEGO,

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You wrote :

« … your explanation that racism rests on two basic assumptions: that a correlation exists between physical characteristics and moral qualities; that mankind is divisible into superior and inferior stocks", is a good one. You claim that this is not true, while I claim it is essentially true. Our difference of opinion is caused by a kumbaya philosophy opposed by a stubborn reality »
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That’s an excellent résumé of our points of view, LEGO. And, if I may, allow me to add that each is free to attribute the “stubborn reality” to his own point of view and the “kumbaya philosophy” to that of the other … and vice-versa.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo9AH4vG2wA

From both our points of view, I think it is well worth reflecting on what Barack Obama has to say on the question :

« If we could just see ourselves in one another, the walls of Jericho would come tumbling down »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9ArfGYbkic

All the best, LEGO

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All human males much prefer beautiful females to ugly ones. Since all human males connect physical beauty with the beauty of a females personality, then all human males must be guilty of "Beautyism." After you have "cured" racism, that could be another Quixotic cause for the Left to embrace.

"Ugly and size 20 women of the world unite!"