After the truly awful shooting in Buffalo last week, “replacement theory” is in the mainstream news more than I’ve ever seen before. The “theory” is an incredibly noxious stew of bad ideas, and I’ve referenced it in a post last last year. But this piece from 2017 from Thomas Chatterton Williams was incredibly informative and fascinating (in that messed up way). I personally feel that dismissing it as flat-out crazy and racist—even though it IS crazy and racist—really does you a disservice if you’re someone who wants to, you know, fight racism. You have to understand the beast to learn how to slay it. And most importantly, you have to understand the beast to discover if you’ve been inadvertently feeding it all along.
Williams' piece has his signature, non-inflammatory tone that I find generous and calming.
What jumped out at me was the term "racialist." radicals on the left and right sound the same on issues of identity: the claim is we are bound to our ethnic/racial groups and the differences are both good and unbridgeable. The defining feature is instead which group is given positive status. The left gives preference to "people of color," the right to white people. Some of the men Williams interviewed insisted what they are concerned about is preservation of culture--don't erase our identity! Where have I heard that song before?
To me, the biggest cultural and political issue the first world faces is the primacy being placed on identity.
There are a couple of things I'd like to see distinguished, both in the conversation about this issue and generally (although FWIW, I think the people in this thread are already doing a damn good job of talking about this topic):
~~Great Replacement Theory~~
1. "Great replacement theory" [as in, "The Jews and the liberal elites are orchestrating a massive conspiracy of illegal immigration in order to eliminate the white American population entirely."]
and
2. "Great replacement theory" [as in, "Many politically engaged people on the left have a negative association with 'white American' as a concept and culture, and they're pleased with the idea of America becoming more multicultural, 'less white', and less closed off to immigrants from non-white / non-Western / developing / Global South / whatever term you prefer countries and cultures. Most also support more lenient immigration policy and a small but vocal minority loudly cheer when data suggests the white population is decreasing or people in the 'dominant group' (cis white rich men, etc.) lose power/status or suffer public defeats/failures."]
~~The Left~~
3. "The Left" [as in, "The median person who identifies as left-of-center, liberal, or a Democrat. Probably has moderate to strong left views on most issues, but is generally not extremely dogmatic, hysterical, and insane about culture war issues, at least not when questioned in good faith and allowed to answer in the privacy of their own mind or a nonadversarial one-on-one conversation. On this issue, holds beliefs that basically approximate what you, @Marie, articulated in your other piece on replacement theory, ie. 'No, I am not actively working to see the white population in America diminished, and that's not even something I really have any desire to see happen. Sure, I'd like to see people who come here legally from other countries succeed and flourish, and I hold multiculturalism as a value, but I also care about the well-being of native-born and white Americans, duh.'"]
and
4. "The Left" [as in, "People who use Twitter, read Ibram Kendi and Robyn D'Angelo, went to elite colleges, or are surrounded and strongly influenced by people who have those attributes. Ie. woke people, the 'Progressive activists' of More In Common's report. Both a small minority (numerically) of people left of center AND a powerful and increasingly influential force (culturally, politically, socially) in most major American institutions (media, academia, art, business). On this issue, express opinions consistent with the belief 'It would be better if there were more POC and fewer white people in America, or at least if many (perhaps most, maybe all?) of the white people gave up their positions of power or had them taken away so that POC (and women, and trans people, and non-dominant groups, etc.) could have them instead.'"]
~~American Culture~~
5. "American culture" [as in, "White people, who are the only real and true Americans, unlike those foreign brown people who can't actually ever be American because they didn't come from England or Europe originally and don't speak our language (English, duh) and don't share our values and eat weird food that isn't normal. Under threat as a concept because it should be, because it's parochial and narrow and foolish and mean."]
and
6. "American culture" [as in, "A set of shared values, ideas, norms, and principles originally incarnated by, yes, a group of white people (mostly men) with primarily Anglo origins, Christian/Judeo-Christian religious or spiritual beliefs, a meritocratic entrepreneurial/capitalist ethos, a deep reverence for the "Western tradition" (as defined by the thread of philosophy tracing back to the classical period--Plato, Socrates, etc.), and deeply individualistic / anti-authoritarian leanings. An evolving body of ideals which includes a deeply felt commitment to justice and liberity (better delivered late than never), an appreciation and respect for the valuable contributions to human intellectual, spiritual, artistic, and moral development by people and ideas from people of ALL kinds of different backgrounds, still loving being the best / working hard to achieve excellence, and, of course, the old "melting pot"-- or even better, "fruit salad": not a homogenous mixture of all cultures into one, indistinguishable soup, but rather the combination of distinct cultures which simultaneously retain their original integrity to varying degrees while also integrating into the whole and forming a beautiful dish, which includes BOTH Mexicans and Guatemalans and Russians and Nigerians and Koreans who immigrated AND "white people" who descended from Europeans AND "black people" who descended from African slaves, all co-existing with each other as Americans. Under threat because people who saw flaws (some real, some imagined) in this culture are themselves fallible human beings prone to throwing the baby out with the bathwater and getting caught up in moralizing outrage, rather than holding the nuances of complex systems and appreciating things in context.]
I think I smuggled all my commentary into the descriptions, but I basically believe if we disentangle those we're well on our way. Curious for critiques or reactions!
I find it hard to interpret Williams' piece, because I don't live in France, and don't really know the country.
But I do think that in America, the dominant model is still that of the "melting pot," as dated as that phrase sounds these days. All the immigrants I know, and I know many, have children who are part of the dominant American culture, not the culture of their parents' home countries.
Part of the implicit deal of becoming an American is that your native culture gets diluted as it mixes with American culture. Your cuisine is still different, but it gets somewhat Americanized. As an immigrant, you may harbor old country national enmities, but you learn to suppress them, and to your kids, it's just one more weird thing the parents believe that your kids ignore.
I think "The Big Sick" got this right when Kumail Nanjiani's character says "Why did you bring me here if you wanted me to not have an American life?"
What I have seen in my life is that these days, for the most part, Americans, red or blue, will lead with acceptance and friendship, rather than fall back on the biases they were brought up with. It has not always been thus, but the difference between America in the 1960s and America today is night and day.
There is still too much identitarian poison in the country today. You see it on the far right as people like Tucker Carlson rail about immigrants overrunning the country. You see it on the far left when politicians pretend that white supremacy is still practiced by the vast majority of white Americans, with the goal of oppressing all non-whites in this country.
Having witnessed all these changes over the last 50+ years, it's pretty sad to watch both sides abandoning America's strengths.
Well I was quite surprised by reading the piece: I don't find Camus' ideas to be racist or crazy at all. On the contrary, he seems to me to be making the very simple argument that (1) every indigenous culture is valuable, and (2) a large enough amount of immigration to a region will destroy its indigenous culture.
This argument strikes me as being obviously correct.
It has very clearly already happened in the New World, where we now all speak Old World languages and adhere to Old World cultural norms. Too bad so sad for the indigenous people who we replaced.
Camus says it could happen again. Why is he wrong?
The Chatterton Williams piece is interesting, and I appreciate the recommendation, but I'm also not sure what the appropriate response is. On some level my immediate reaction is, "everything he's describing is _bad_" and I don't know that having more nuance changes that.
I also think about the case of Mexican immigrants in the US where immigration has shifted over time as the relative economic opportunities have changed and, I believe, for the last 10 years the net migration has been people moving from the US to Mexico, rather than the reverse, and also note that the migration in the 80s and 90s helped save a number of US cities: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/10/lgm-podcast-latino-cities
I do take seriously the idea that there's some level of immigration that is "too much." I don't know what that level is, but I don't fully endorse open borders. But for anyone talking about "replacement theory" I doubt we could have a productive conversation about what constituted a healthy level of immigration; we'd be starting from too far apart.
Well over a decade ago, law enforcement told Pelosi to back off her anti-white Identity Politics, since the American Alt Right is very violent and paranoid. The 2011 publication of the Grand Replacement in France was based on Europe's admitting Muslims and said that the purpose was to replace White Europeans with dark skinned Muslims.
That exact story does not play well in the United States. The American version was the product of Nancy Pelosi's Identity Politics' claiming when American minorities were the majority of the voters, then they would replace the Whites. If Pelosi were a college student doing a term paper, she would have been expelled for plagiarism. The idea is lunacy since the crucial minority group does not exist; it's the so called Latinx or Hispanics. There are less than 12% Blacks. Thus, Pelosi's threat to replace Whites was too dumb for even the Alt Right to believe if only Blacks would be doing the replacement. Add in the so-called Latinx, then the numbers add up.
Latinx is a faux group. Mexicans are not Cubanos are not Puerto Ricans are not Central Americans and a huge portion of all the components of Latinx are socially conservative. When dealing with uneducated paranoids, facts and logic are not highly prized. Just threatened them -- just make existential threats and they go berserk. That's what Pelosi wanted. She wanted more Alt Rt violence in order to bolster to Identity Politics.
Payton Gendron, The Buffalo shooter, believed this insane theory. Why shouldn't he believe it when the third most powerful person in the nation, The Speaker of the House, was spearheading it? Since hate and fear make money, the Alt Right power mongers also made a fortune promoting the danger of Replacement and the threat of its sister, Critical Race Theory.
We will never know what the American Alt Right would have done with the French Replacement Theory without Nancy Pelosi and the anti-white wokers. The reality which we need to face is that Pelosi and the Wokers are the reason this lunatic theory took hold in America's Alt Right.
Williams' piece has his signature, non-inflammatory tone that I find generous and calming.
What jumped out at me was the term "racialist." radicals on the left and right sound the same on issues of identity: the claim is we are bound to our ethnic/racial groups and the differences are both good and unbridgeable. The defining feature is instead which group is given positive status. The left gives preference to "people of color," the right to white people. Some of the men Williams interviewed insisted what they are concerned about is preservation of culture--don't erase our identity! Where have I heard that song before?
To me, the biggest cultural and political issue the first world faces is the primacy being placed on identity.
I really appreciate this thread!
There are a couple of things I'd like to see distinguished, both in the conversation about this issue and generally (although FWIW, I think the people in this thread are already doing a damn good job of talking about this topic):
~~Great Replacement Theory~~
1. "Great replacement theory" [as in, "The Jews and the liberal elites are orchestrating a massive conspiracy of illegal immigration in order to eliminate the white American population entirely."]
and
2. "Great replacement theory" [as in, "Many politically engaged people on the left have a negative association with 'white American' as a concept and culture, and they're pleased with the idea of America becoming more multicultural, 'less white', and less closed off to immigrants from non-white / non-Western / developing / Global South / whatever term you prefer countries and cultures. Most also support more lenient immigration policy and a small but vocal minority loudly cheer when data suggests the white population is decreasing or people in the 'dominant group' (cis white rich men, etc.) lose power/status or suffer public defeats/failures."]
~~The Left~~
3. "The Left" [as in, "The median person who identifies as left-of-center, liberal, or a Democrat. Probably has moderate to strong left views on most issues, but is generally not extremely dogmatic, hysterical, and insane about culture war issues, at least not when questioned in good faith and allowed to answer in the privacy of their own mind or a nonadversarial one-on-one conversation. On this issue, holds beliefs that basically approximate what you, @Marie, articulated in your other piece on replacement theory, ie. 'No, I am not actively working to see the white population in America diminished, and that's not even something I really have any desire to see happen. Sure, I'd like to see people who come here legally from other countries succeed and flourish, and I hold multiculturalism as a value, but I also care about the well-being of native-born and white Americans, duh.'"]
and
4. "The Left" [as in, "People who use Twitter, read Ibram Kendi and Robyn D'Angelo, went to elite colleges, or are surrounded and strongly influenced by people who have those attributes. Ie. woke people, the 'Progressive activists' of More In Common's report. Both a small minority (numerically) of people left of center AND a powerful and increasingly influential force (culturally, politically, socially) in most major American institutions (media, academia, art, business). On this issue, express opinions consistent with the belief 'It would be better if there were more POC and fewer white people in America, or at least if many (perhaps most, maybe all?) of the white people gave up their positions of power or had them taken away so that POC (and women, and trans people, and non-dominant groups, etc.) could have them instead.'"]
~~American Culture~~
5. "American culture" [as in, "White people, who are the only real and true Americans, unlike those foreign brown people who can't actually ever be American because they didn't come from England or Europe originally and don't speak our language (English, duh) and don't share our values and eat weird food that isn't normal. Under threat as a concept because it should be, because it's parochial and narrow and foolish and mean."]
and
6. "American culture" [as in, "A set of shared values, ideas, norms, and principles originally incarnated by, yes, a group of white people (mostly men) with primarily Anglo origins, Christian/Judeo-Christian religious or spiritual beliefs, a meritocratic entrepreneurial/capitalist ethos, a deep reverence for the "Western tradition" (as defined by the thread of philosophy tracing back to the classical period--Plato, Socrates, etc.), and deeply individualistic / anti-authoritarian leanings. An evolving body of ideals which includes a deeply felt commitment to justice and liberity (better delivered late than never), an appreciation and respect for the valuable contributions to human intellectual, spiritual, artistic, and moral development by people and ideas from people of ALL kinds of different backgrounds, still loving being the best / working hard to achieve excellence, and, of course, the old "melting pot"-- or even better, "fruit salad": not a homogenous mixture of all cultures into one, indistinguishable soup, but rather the combination of distinct cultures which simultaneously retain their original integrity to varying degrees while also integrating into the whole and forming a beautiful dish, which includes BOTH Mexicans and Guatemalans and Russians and Nigerians and Koreans who immigrated AND "white people" who descended from Europeans AND "black people" who descended from African slaves, all co-existing with each other as Americans. Under threat because people who saw flaws (some real, some imagined) in this culture are themselves fallible human beings prone to throwing the baby out with the bathwater and getting caught up in moralizing outrage, rather than holding the nuances of complex systems and appreciating things in context.]
I think I smuggled all my commentary into the descriptions, but I basically believe if we disentangle those we're well on our way. Curious for critiques or reactions!
I find it hard to interpret Williams' piece, because I don't live in France, and don't really know the country.
But I do think that in America, the dominant model is still that of the "melting pot," as dated as that phrase sounds these days. All the immigrants I know, and I know many, have children who are part of the dominant American culture, not the culture of their parents' home countries.
Part of the implicit deal of becoming an American is that your native culture gets diluted as it mixes with American culture. Your cuisine is still different, but it gets somewhat Americanized. As an immigrant, you may harbor old country national enmities, but you learn to suppress them, and to your kids, it's just one more weird thing the parents believe that your kids ignore.
I think "The Big Sick" got this right when Kumail Nanjiani's character says "Why did you bring me here if you wanted me to not have an American life?"
What I have seen in my life is that these days, for the most part, Americans, red or blue, will lead with acceptance and friendship, rather than fall back on the biases they were brought up with. It has not always been thus, but the difference between America in the 1960s and America today is night and day.
There is still too much identitarian poison in the country today. You see it on the far right as people like Tucker Carlson rail about immigrants overrunning the country. You see it on the far left when politicians pretend that white supremacy is still practiced by the vast majority of white Americans, with the goal of oppressing all non-whites in this country.
Having witnessed all these changes over the last 50+ years, it's pretty sad to watch both sides abandoning America's strengths.
Well I was quite surprised by reading the piece: I don't find Camus' ideas to be racist or crazy at all. On the contrary, he seems to me to be making the very simple argument that (1) every indigenous culture is valuable, and (2) a large enough amount of immigration to a region will destroy its indigenous culture.
This argument strikes me as being obviously correct.
It has very clearly already happened in the New World, where we now all speak Old World languages and adhere to Old World cultural norms. Too bad so sad for the indigenous people who we replaced.
Camus says it could happen again. Why is he wrong?
The Chatterton Williams piece is interesting, and I appreciate the recommendation, but I'm also not sure what the appropriate response is. On some level my immediate reaction is, "everything he's describing is _bad_" and I don't know that having more nuance changes that.
So, to some extent, free associating, I would recommend Bryan Caplan's _Open Borders_ as an argument for immigration that's not tied to a left political perspective. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250316967/openborders
I also think about the case of Mexican immigrants in the US where immigration has shifted over time as the relative economic opportunities have changed and, I believe, for the last 10 years the net migration has been people moving from the US to Mexico, rather than the reverse, and also note that the migration in the 80s and 90s helped save a number of US cities: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/10/lgm-podcast-latino-cities
I do take seriously the idea that there's some level of immigration that is "too much." I don't know what that level is, but I don't fully endorse open borders. But for anyone talking about "replacement theory" I doubt we could have a productive conversation about what constituted a healthy level of immigration; we'd be starting from too far apart.
Well over a decade ago, law enforcement told Pelosi to back off her anti-white Identity Politics, since the American Alt Right is very violent and paranoid. The 2011 publication of the Grand Replacement in France was based on Europe's admitting Muslims and said that the purpose was to replace White Europeans with dark skinned Muslims.
That exact story does not play well in the United States. The American version was the product of Nancy Pelosi's Identity Politics' claiming when American minorities were the majority of the voters, then they would replace the Whites. If Pelosi were a college student doing a term paper, she would have been expelled for plagiarism. The idea is lunacy since the crucial minority group does not exist; it's the so called Latinx or Hispanics. There are less than 12% Blacks. Thus, Pelosi's threat to replace Whites was too dumb for even the Alt Right to believe if only Blacks would be doing the replacement. Add in the so-called Latinx, then the numbers add up.
Latinx is a faux group. Mexicans are not Cubanos are not Puerto Ricans are not Central Americans and a huge portion of all the components of Latinx are socially conservative. When dealing with uneducated paranoids, facts and logic are not highly prized. Just threatened them -- just make existential threats and they go berserk. That's what Pelosi wanted. She wanted more Alt Rt violence in order to bolster to Identity Politics.
Payton Gendron, The Buffalo shooter, believed this insane theory. Why shouldn't he believe it when the third most powerful person in the nation, The Speaker of the House, was spearheading it? Since hate and fear make money, the Alt Right power mongers also made a fortune promoting the danger of Replacement and the threat of its sister, Critical Race Theory.
We will never know what the American Alt Right would have done with the French Replacement Theory without Nancy Pelosi and the anti-white wokers. The reality which we need to face is that Pelosi and the Wokers are the reason this lunatic theory took hold in America's Alt Right.