Amidst the ongoing obsession with race and racism, it is unfortunate that one of the most perceptive commentators on racism has hardly been mentioned in the conversation. That is the French-born American citizen Jacques Barzun (1907-2012).
He wrote some 40 books, but does anyone read him anymore?
In 1957 he graced the cover of Time magazine and at the turn of the millennium Dawn to Decadence was a surprising bestseller in the US. Apparently, it was not reviewed in Australia.
A reviewer for Goodreads wrote:
The triumphs and defeats of five hundred years form an inspiring saga that modifies the current impression of one long tale of oppression by white European males. Women and their deeds are prominent… Only after a lifetime of separate studies covering a broad territory could a writer create with such ease the synthesis displayed in this magnificent volume.
In his doctoral thesis on The French Race, he invented the concept of ‘race thinking’ and extended it to cover the demonisation of whole categories of people in potentially deadly conflicts between nations, political parties, religious faiths, and social groups.
Race-thinking inspires collective hostility and it is most powerful and dangerous when it reinforces other prejudices such as the nationalism of the Nazi, the socialism of the communists, and the radicalism of Black Lives Matter.
‘Marxist doctrine at its purest is in form and effect racist thought. The class struggle is but the old race antagonism of French nobles and commoners writ large and made ruthless. Marx’s bourgeois is not a human being with individual traits but a social abstraction, a creature devoid of virtue or free will and without the right to live.’
To resist the trap of collective hostility, we need to realise that groups consist of individuals and that the individuals in the groups display the full range of human differences.
In the workforce, if the qualities required for hiring and promotion are not race-related, there is no need to make race an issue. Barzun warned that if race is made an issue in selection or evaluation of people then ‘race-thinking’ will continue, and this will generate muddled thinking and inappropriate actions with potentially dangerous unintended consequences.
In 1965, his book Race, a Study of Superstition, was reprinted with a new preface to consider how racism was being handled in the wake of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
He urged that giving up race-thinking means equal opportunity but not affirmative action. Based on his research, he insisted that there are no positive or negative traits that are race-related and it follows that ‘sentimental or indignant reversals of the racist proposition are false and dangerous… Race-thinking is bad thinking and that is all’.
‘When injustice is redressed, the hitherto outcast and maligned group do not suddenly possess, as a group, the virtues they were previously denied, and it is no sign of wisdom in the former oppressors to affect a contrite preference for those they once abused.’
He recalled a report from a Fullbright scholar in Paris who witnessed a memorable celebration in the Latin Quarter. A contingent of white writers and artists led by black writers and accompanied by French and American students ceremonially burned the white race in effigy!
He regarded that as an emblem of suicide by both parties because inverting the racial hierarchy leaves race-thinking intact and probably even stronger than before because it is sanctified by the self-righteous sense of correcting a great injustice.
The worldwide BLM movement demonstrated that mentality emphatically when it legitimised vandalism, arson, and looting, as though this would correct injustice. What does it do for a person of colour with a small business in Minneapolis when arsonists burn their livelihood to the ground?
He referred to repeated attempts to have The Merchant of Venice banned and Huckleberry Finn removed from library shelves. He issued a stern warning:
‘This anxious wrangling which goes on about books and plays seems at times trivial, but it is in fact fundamental. If democratic culture yields on this point no prospect lies ahead but that of increased animosity among pressure groups.’
We were warned, but the warning was not enough. He went on to write that the law rarely intervenes effectively on cultural and social issues, and ‘the protection of rights and feelings only comes from decency and self-restraint’.
Regrettably we have apparently passed a tipping point where we can appeal to decency and civility; relentless attempts to devise laws to counter so-called hate speech threaten to radically curtail free speech in countries where it is not protected by a Constitution.
As for equal opportunity, nobody can reasonably object to the elimination of barriers to the advancement of females and other previously disadvantaged groups. However, affirmative action is racist and sexist doctrine. It discriminates against white males and it places a question mark over the merit of successful members of the favoured groups.
Affirmative action institutionalises favouritism which is generally regarded as a bad thing, and it destroys the integrity of organisations that administer affirmative action programs. It erodes the morale of the personnel and it lowers productivity.
Barzun died in 2012 at the age of 104 and the words of wisdom that he wrote many decades earlier still speak to our condition.
