GE Morton wrote: ↑December 8th, 2017, 12:59 pm
[Preference isn't racism.]
Yes, it is. Those preferences are accompanied and underpinned by what are called "social cognitions,", i.e., a set of expectations, emotions, and reactions elicited by other members of one's community.
Which is to say:
learned concepts. Entire belief systems can be taught by a society to its young without a single reference to race. Like Catholics and Protestants; Israelites and Moabites. Social cognition can exist, and indeed, have existed, when the only other tribes one was likely to encounter were both phenotypically and genetypically similar to one's own.
When those differ with the race or color of the person encountered you have "racism."
When they differ in conjunction with skin pigmentation, you have ethnicity and the recognition of a physical distinction - neither of those is an 'ism'. Only when they are labelled by an authority as inferior, bad or dangerous in some way; designated by that authority as a class of persons to be shunned or attacked, does the attitude of the group become
racist.
And they do differ, for virtually all members of multi-racial, multi-cultural societies.
Is culture, then, contained in the chromosomes that determine skin colour?
Virtually all? Does that mean
some members of every society are immune to this inevitable, universal hostility? Hm.
That could even be as many as 17% actually marrying,
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/20 ... -virginia/ and many thousands of white soldiers fighting anf dying for the liberation of African slaves?
A lion's reactions to a lion from another pride, or to a hyena, will be much different from his reactions to a member of his own pride.
How does a lion know that the other lion is of a different
race of lions? Bet you can't even tell just by looking at them, expert though you are on the concepts of race and gravity. Supposing that other lion had taken over that other pride after being cast out for losing a bid for the alpha position. Does the first lion recognize his own son or nephew and refrain from attacking? For that matter, how come a male lion doesn't mind taking over some other - horrors! unrelated - lion's pride and start mounting those other - horrors! alien - females just as if there were no difference?
Hyenas are not another race of lions; they're a whole other species.
As for other species, animals tend to categorize quite simply: prey (kill one if you're hungry; otherwise, let them alone) rival (chase away when possible; fight if necessary) potential threat (flee when possible, fight if unavoidable) serious threat (fight and kill when possible; flee if necessary) symbiote/ally (seek/encourage/cultivate.) incidental (ignore). None of it has anything to do with slightly varying strains within a single species.
intermarriage was not commonplace; it was rare, and generally frowned upon (often to the extent of banishment or stoning).
Like I said: the patriarchs are jealous. But the DNA keeps mixing in spite of their worst efforts. And they didn't mind when it was marriage with women they had taken in a raid, or bought for goats, or exchanged as the pledge of a non-aggression treaty. Only when it was an unauthorized love-match.
There is no "agency;" the transition was gradual and spontaneous. Nor is there any need for anyone to "point out" the advantages of larger communities, as they are obvious, and the typical mechanism for bringing two or more communities together was conquest.
Sounds like a contradiction: gradual, spontaneaous, unageneted conquest.
Don't you think maybe the ambitious chieftain who embarked upon a military adventure would motivate his troops by denigrating [sic], slandering, demonizing, their target people? And there is still no
racism involved: this can be done by Macedonians against Greeks, just as readily as Greeks against Persians, or the Inca empire subsuming its near neighbours, just as enthusiastically as the Spanish one later consumed them. It's about the booty and the power, not the roots.
Prejudices are not spotty --- they're universal --- but they manifest differently, depending upon each person's micro-cultural environment and personal experiences. Blood ties, while important, are not vital; what matters (for differences in social cognitions) is the extent of perceived affinities between individuals.
More learned, rather than instinctive, attitudes.
And they manifest differently depending on the institutions from which they were learned.