The other day, the HBD blogger Jayman posed a question on Twitter. Can you have democracy and a universal acceptance of Human BioDiversity?
For those unfamiliar with the concept, Human BioDiversity is a catch-all term for the observed biological differences between groups of humans that are most likely tied to genetics. I say most likely because while modern biology assumes more than 90% of what we are is genetic, figuring out what is cultural from what is genetic is not always easy. Some biologists think the number is 99%, so there’s plenty of debate in the field.
The basic assumption of HBD is that like every other living thing on planet earth, humans evolved in response to the particular challenges they faced as a species. These challenges were environmental and cultural. It’s easy to forget that culture is part of our “environment” just like climate and topography. It’s also easy to forget it is still happening.
Humans living in the mountains adapted to mountain life. Their culture adapted as well and may have exaggerated certain traits that are well suited for mountain life. Even though we are just one people, arm in arm on this big blue marble we call earth, those differences remain baked into our genome.
At first blush, this may seem obvious. After all, the humans in sub-Saharan Africa are black, while the humans in Siberia are not black. The humans in the heart of Europe look nothing like the humans in Central America. There are plenty of red heads in Ireland, but you don’t see them naturally occurring in Indonesia.
It’s not just appearance. Something like 97 of the fastest 100 meter dash times are held by West Africans, while the long distance records are held by East Africans. There are no great black downhill skiers. Turn on an NBA game and it is obvious that a sport played best by men that are tall and jump high is dominated by Africans.
These differences are so plainly obvious, we are no longer allowed to talk about them in public, but they are undeniable. HBD simply observes that genetic traits are heritable. Tall parents have tall kids. Since cognitive traits are also genetic, they must be heritable as well. That means they will show up in human groups, just like physical traits.
If you want something more than a short summary, Jayman has this great primer on his site. HBD Chick has a post explaining the basics of the topic.
That’s enough background. The question is, can a society embrace democracy when it also accepts that there are great variations in cognitive traits between population groups? The assumption I’m going to make is that Jayman means “democracy” in the modern sense of the word. That’s representative democracy or indirect democracy. Similarly, his idea of society is the modern, multi-ethnic, multi-racial variety we have in the West.
To answer the question, it’s important to know that humans evolved in small non-diverse groups. The sort of diversity we see today is an extreme outlier in human history. Up until the last century, when different human groups came into contact with one another, they tried like hell to exterminate each other.
That means there is a better than average chance that we are hard wired, in general, to resist diversity, as currently understood. Reproductive advantage goes to those who are most like the group and have traits most favored by the group. The result is we naturally are suspicious of strangers.
Put another way, it means humans are, to some degree, biologically inclined to distrust those outside their group. We know Africans, for example, evolved into small, isolated villages as a survival strategy. Communicable diseases, which Africa has in spades, no pun intended, don’t spread easily across populations that are isolated. Distance and a high level of distrust of outsiders are a natural firebreak to disease.
The other side of this coin is democracy, which is not a universal form of human organization. The Arab world not only lacks it, but actively rejects it. We killed a million Arabs trying to impose democracy on Iraq and it lasted about week after we ended the occupation.
Asia had democracy imposed on it in places, but even in very modern countries like Japan, it is a very Japanese type of democracy, not western democracy. Even in Europe, participatory self-government is a novelty. It’s why they are sliding into a kakistocracy called the EU. The truth is what we think of as western democracy is really Anglo-Saxon democracy.
The point here is western style democracy as we understand it is a very European-ish thing that evolved among peoples with a high degree of social trust within their ethnic groups. Even so, it was only within the last 100 years that universal suffrage became the norm. Countries like Spain and Portugal finally figured it out a few decades ago.
Where does that leave us?
If you accept that the observable differences between population groups are real and those differences are reflected in the organizational strategies, that means democracy will not work for all people. Arabs and Africans, for example, will never get the hang of it or even want to get the hang of it. This would explain why all attempts to impose it on them have failed.
If you take a bunch of Arabs, a bunch of Pakistanis, some Africans and settle them into England, the result is a sizable minority that is hostile to democracy, maybe even working to subvert it. If the rest of the population, even the Welsh, notice this and come to accept the HBD view of humanity, then democracy can’t last. No one would want it.
The blank slate crowd would argue that these differences are purely cultural and temporary. Since technocratic democracy and materialism are the future, these other groups will, in a couple of generations, get on the democracy bandwagon. This is the argument we hear in America with regards to importing the population of Mexico.
Fundamental to participatory democracy is the assumption that voters will vote their individual interests. The businessman will vote for pro-business candidates, even if his kin think otherwise. The working man will vote for the pro-labor candidate for the same reasons. Once a large number of people start voting on tribal grounds, everyone else has to follow suit.
To quote Lee Kuan Yew, “In multiracial societies, you don’t vote in accordance with your economic interests and social interests, you vote in accordance with race and religion.” Once that becomes apparent to the dominant group, they have no choice but to limit popular government and take measures to limit the numbers of the other groups.
The bottom line here is that HBD is not necessarily hostile to democracy, but it is hostile to immigration, open borders and the whole universalist religion, of which democracy is a small part. The answer to Jayman’s query is that acceptance of HBD can preserve western liberalism, but only at the expense if egalitarianism, multiculturalism and anti-racism. It’s HBD or diversity, but not both.
Interesting but misses the point. What matters isn’t why Muslims, Arabs, Africans function badly in Western society but the very fact that they do, and their functioning badly is harmful to the rest of the population. This HBD thing, instead of illuminating that importing a massive number of people from Afghanistan, Africa, Syria (etc) is unhinged, tries to explain that biologically, one would expect it to not work out well. It doesn’t advance the argument.
I’m also of the strict opinion that Islam (and its all too natural offshoot – radical Islam) is an awful ideology, which was only capable of being spread by the sword. I don’t view them as being nutcases because of their dna but because of their terrible ideology. People from Hindu India fare well in Britain, for example, in comparison with their Muslim counterparts. There’s no comparison between their crime rates, their rate of employment, or for that matter, the degree to which the latter turn to Jihad. There’s no similar ‘holy war’ and terrorist group that Hindu Indians wage in Britain.
I’m sure dna accounts for a great deal but society in Britain in the dark ages behaved very differently from the way it does now. This is entirely due to evolving culture, not dna.
There’s a trans man who explained how his grandmother taught him to want to be a girl. So I’m skeptical about it being a genetic thing. Moreover, since it can be ‘taught’, schools might move to teach children to ‘explore their gender identity’, encouraging boys to wear dresses, asking the class to applaud them when they say “I’m a girl”.
For that matter, people coming to America from China and Japan, will fit in well, unlike people from Africa, whereas ‘HBD’ would seem to suggest that they wouldn’t. It’s best to use common sense and experience. The Western world has a great deal of experience showing that people from certain regions don’t play well with others in Europe. Even that will have exceptions. Check out Wafa Sultan (syrian atheist who moved to America) and she fits into the West perfectly.
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“Where does that leave us?”
In the soup, I’d wager.
Z, after reading many of your essays the question often resolves to this. I know you are not an organizer or advocate; you are an observer and analyst of what is going on outside the window. There are other bloggers out there (Severian, I’m looking at you, Buddy) who similarly lay out the facts in an unvarnished manner (The Brotherhood of We’re Screwed), and there is no prescriptive directive for the immediate future save calling a spade a spade, and not tolerating bullshit from any quarter.
Reading your posts makes Western Civ seem more precious (from fear of losing same) and increases my enjoyment of arts and music. So there’s that.
Just so- we must change because they cannot.
That’s why I appreciate the Z introducing us to HBD Chick.
She makes a valid argument that our openness and civic morality have been selected for, and are now inheritable in much of our population.
Others have not- to expect it of them is blindness, because it’s not in their nature.
A counter example would be Muslim aggression.
They have selected for aggression, reinforced by heavy inbreeding, for at least 70 generations (for over 300 if one reads the Old Testament as an archeological and political history- the Habiru refugees, preserving in campfire songs what they could of the stargazing stonebuilder civilization destroyed by asteroid strikes in 2200 BC, followed by witnessing of the coastal tsunami of Thera that wiped out the descendent island mariners, crafted an alephbet and began writing of their new master the Great Lord Ham-Ur-King, his edicts given by his Voice, a traveling magistrate, and their rebel governor, the Ab-Ra-Ham, “Chosen By Ham”; the New is the story of the last legitimate heir to the Davidic throne, the true king, rejected by the ruling class because he was a bastard- the very Good King Jesus, whose message needs no magic to be valid.)
Our DNA, our stories, (even our electromagnetic souls), are all forms of memory storage.
One can see 20,000 years of history in every face.
To expect the invaders to be above their nature- to trust us as we trust others- is to deny their true nature, and our own. They have not truth, because it is not in them.
Dam, can’t edit-
Good King Jesus wasn’t rejected because he was a bastard, as the Jews, though they have no queens, count lineage through the mothers- better put, he was a legitimate royal bastard, but the ruling class was getting rich under those Roman usurpers, the Herods.
Mary was no commoner, but a nice of Joseph of Arimathea, and the eldest daughter of the 3rd richest family in the world, personal friends of Emperor Tiberius. Since the Jews do not have queens, her first male child would be the true and authentic King. The Romans were not kidding when they put “Here is the King of the Jews” on his cross.
The Book is centuries of valid political observation, obscured by those driven to use it to answer other questions.
Please forgive me if it seems I’m bringing religion into a political debate.
All religion began as politics, but our stories are crushed by time.
Good grief- All religion began as politics- a man with an agenda convincing a crowd- but they are dust, now, and only the words remain. All of our stories are crushed by time. The detail is lost, but the gist remains.
Yes, yes I know that the flight by the Hyksos governor Moses to the Israeli delta, enroute to his clan-by-marraige, the tribe of Yahweh’s volcano, where a following Egyptian army was flattened by the returning tidal wave (imagine turning around and seeing a wall of water 20 stories tall headed for you), came after Hammurabi and Abraham.
Lord Ham, who gave the People a new life as mercenaries while he rebuilt from a 400 year dark age after the Fall of the Ehdeen, the Garden-land, was part of those old songs, as were the rejection of the old fertility religions of the Bull, the Snake, the Earth Mother.
Solomon revised the Pentatuch as an official, government authorized Law and History of the stories of Lord Ham, Governor Moses, and King David. A national history.
He was tired of the fighting between northern and southern versions.
(Just tightening up the timeliine in an offhand comment, one forty years in the making. Sorry)
And heck yes it’s Sacred- it’s not only a political history, it’s the only one we have.
The clues about unimaginable natural disasters that shaped our unique history, the observations on fracturing and evolving cultures- they led German and Irish Catholics to uncover all the histories of the world. Everyone else lost their history. The Chinese burned theirs, the Egyptians erased theirs, and the Muslims burned everyone else’s.
Profound. Unique. No magic necessary.
As a political archeology, tis easy to understand- deeply relevant, because people haven’t changed (that much).
Especially not the Dirt People.
They never invented so much as an alephbet.
We’ve changed; because of that alphabet.
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Everyone forgets what Aristotle said on the subject. He remarked that you don’t have to be a good chef to know that the soup tastes bad. He was not exactly a democrat, but wanted people to participate in public affairs to defend against what the government could do to them, not because they were inherently good people. There is an argument for limiting the franchise to taxpayers, but even then the government extracts sales tax from everyone and can throw everyone in jail. Despite having a constitution more in line with Aristotle’s recommendations, educated Americans keep thing of politics in Platonism terms.
“……. Their culture adapted too (to,two,too) and may have exaggerated certain traits……”
Zman; let me help you out. The correct grammatical form is either “2” or “2.0” depending upon the degree of precision you wish convey .
Just thought I would provide some friendly advice on proper grammar !!!
Why immigration for advanced Western countries? It is pretty straight forward. Level or slightly raise the curve of fetus production. Business needs laborers at an affordable price.
The problem is numbers. An individual or very small numbers of immigrants from the 7th century are obviously easier to handle, if not assimilate immediately. Hordes are a very difficult management problem.
Either management needs to be upgraded or a higher grade of immigrant should be attracted to the shores of the pinnacles of Western civilization. I admit the management upgrade is a stretch.
On a more personal level which also serves as an axiom for Western Societies: Know who your friends are.
Best regards to everyone.
I think business wants consumers more so than labor
Steve,with respect. Labor also consumes, but consumers don’t always labor.
I’ve come the conclusion that immigration is now a religion or a part of their overall theology of anti-racism, multiculturalism and egalitarianism. As science, real science not science!, chips away at the underlying foundation stones of Rousseau-ist theology, the believers are becoming more fanatical. In another age, pols would pose with priests in front of a cathedral. Today, they pose with migrants taking selfies. Guilt used to inspire sacrifice for the people, but the people of the West are doing OK. They just don’t measure up on the wretched scale with the riff-raff over the horizon.
I don’t think HBD will ever be universally accepted until designer babies makes us a bit like Gattaca. I think the key to democracy is smart people and the society recognizing and having empathy for the minority for every law they create. Minority meaning those the law disenfranchises in this case. I think intelligent people of all races can get along, but then there’s the problem we have now of many people that exist that don’t create a good civilization and/or don’t contribute to a well functioning democracy. I don’t think democracy is compatible to all people on our planet now.
I expect in 200-500 years when we tinker with our own genome, everyone will be a contributing member, but then such group differences won’t exist as do now.
The values of history are manifold, but one of the important ones is to know where we come from and how we arrived at where we are.
I often say that Christmas, for example, is a classic example of a religious position imposed on another culture: in northern Europe we had (and would still have, if it wasn’t for central heating and double-glazing) wretchedly cold winters which required people to hunker down as a form of hibernation. Other than making sure the sheep and cows — and further north, the elk — were safe enough for the duration there was nothing much to do other than wait it out.
The big thing in this period was ‘sun return’ in which one’s tribe/community celebrated the fact that the sun was going to be climbing in the sky and growth and light would eventually be back. It was time then to drink all the booze and feast as the meat wouldn’t keep long and one may as well say ‘cheers’ to something to look forward to. At Easter, the celebrations were that renewal (the hare, of all creatures, now shown as a rabbit) was alive and well and ready to reproduce. Time for humans to care for the young and new, too. But with Christianity ‘sun return’ became the celebration of the birth of Jesus and with it Easter became a chance to talk about resurrection — and hence rebirth — as an ideal. I am not against these festivals, but the origin of such events in my part of the world was overtaken by new fangled ideas: for a long time you either went along with the new rules and rulers or you were put outside in various ways, perhaps even slaughtered.
What this tells us is we on this portion of the planet did things for a reason. Our ways and looks were established — and available to be passed on among those who would appreciate and understand it all — and it mattered to us that we did what we did. But then the west got ‘clever’ and began importing people who not only had no reason to celebrate what we did but actively sought to stop it. Strangers were introduced forcibly into our midst and among them even stranger people who had the huge capacity to be enemies. Our culture and origins then counted for nothing: the people who waved the invaders in went home to their centrally-heated homes feeling good inside and believed they had changed the world. But all they had done was change their little bit of it, and often for the worst.
On top of that the education system was slanted in favour of the invaders: the newcomers had a history and culture of their own which, while it might be at odds with what the natives were, had to be not only respected but also, where possible, lionised. Thus we have the BBC here who will say ‘the prophet Mo’ (sorry, I cannot bear to speak that name) but will not say ‘Jesus Christ our Lord and saviour’ because hey, that’s plain stupid isn’t it? Fancy worshipping someone who lived 2000 years ago when you can bow before someone born 1400 years ago.
This is a long post, so forgive me, but what Z has talked about here cuts deep within me. I do not pretend the Brits as many like to call them got it right, and many of the things that happened in these islands are dark indeed and that’s before we get to what we exported elsewhere. But, we understood what was required to not only survive but also thrive. Now we have taken that from ourselves, allying ourselves to people whose agenda is nothing to do with what we are and in some cases, utterly opposed to what we have built.
I am, for my sins, fascinated by Glastonbury and the legends of the Isle of Avalon. The ruined church on Glastonbury Tor is like a beacon and if legend is to be believed, the springs at the foot of the Tor once supplied traders such as Joseph of Arimathea and his young nephew with fresh water. But once our newcomers have fully invaded us, the legend falls away and even the Tor church tower will either fall naturally, uncared for, or the invaders will destroy it as they destroy everything they can. Perhaps in the end it doesn’t matter because it all ends one way or another. But when I see that we must ‘appreciate’ the culture of people who only want to spit at us and what we have built, it saddens me greatly.
I just finished reading the last of Bernard Cornwell’s books about the Viking invasions of the 800’s. The Northmen were not invited, of course, but they eventually assimilated- after what, 75 years or so? And it was not a pleasant time to be alive in England. The Norse were, though, ethnically and culturally similar to the Saxons, so assimilation was at least possible. Perhaps in the next 100 years the barbarians that we in the west have INVITED will assimilate- but I doubt it.
Cornwell is an excellent writer and his depiction of life in those dark ages is a pleasure to read, even if life wasn’t pleasurable back then. But will the new invaders integrate? I too doubt it; their belief system is a long, long way from ours and they are determined not to give an inch on their views. We have to change, not them, and institutions like the BBC are desperate for the muslims to succeed.
Of course, the invaders have a problem: their young will eventually prefer the west (or what is left of it) and thus reject the views of their grandparents, etc. In so doing the ‘old country’ they adore at distance won’t be relevant. But, having said that, the principle in that mindset is to beat the youth into submission, so there will be a lot of unhappy youngsters for a long time not wanting what they have to believe in. How that shakes out is uncertain, but most of Britain will be gone by then so perhaps it isn’t relevant.
Right now I’d take a Viking invasion over what we are getting, but like all major life-changing issues it is never in the manifesto of our government. All major issues are never discussed or voted on: the elite simply do what they want and leave us ordinary people to pick up the pieces.
“Of course, the invaders have a problem: their young will eventually prefer the west (or what is left of it) and thus reject the views of their grandparents, etc. ”
Yeah, except you’re dead wrong. Islam is about as close as you can get to a pure ideology of conquest. Islam conquers foreign cultures, and assimilates THEM– not vice-versa. Fourteen hundred years of history is quite clear about this.
I’m reading the Gwyn Jones history of the Vikings. Not great and I was thinking I can find better. Bernard Cornwell is one that completely slipped my attention.
It’s historical fiction- but I’ve always enjoyed him whether it’s the Sharpe series, Copperhead (a New Englander in the Confederate Army!) or even the American Revolution. The Viking books are being turned into a mini-series- the first season has already been made and aired. The people in this “The Last Kingdom” series are the kids and grandchildren of the people in the History channel’s series Vikings.
Also- I think it was Mark Steyn who pointed out that we always assume that the combination of cultures will combine the best of both worlds- but what if it’s the opposite, which is what seems to be happening in Britain and the rest of Europe. I still can’t figure out what’s in it for the press and academia- seems to be they’ll be the first up in the stoning pit once the Caliphate arrives!
I know, but I have the timeline down and most of the important people and events. A little color from the fiction side would be an enjoyable addition, as long as it tries to present the period correctly. I’ve always found that fiction about a period is a good sidecar to the history books. There’s really not a lot of fiction or colorful retellings of the Viking Age that don’t feature guys in antler helmets.
Cornwell takes, as good historical fiction should, the notable lives and events of the Saxon/Vikings time and weaves into it all a character — in this case Uhtred of Bebbanburg — who got to be in a position to be valuable or even important to the great and good. In The Last Kingdom Uhtred assists, even if rather mistrusted, the emerging king, Alfred the Great. Such a technique makes a good plot device for observing events without ever being known in actual history for how they helped — or hindered.
Oh, and the TV series I thought was excellent.
I never learned so much British history as in reading Cornwell, and have not seen evidence to doubt doubt it since. He lives in Cape Cod now, btw.
I often consider how tremendous the impact of Elizabethan England is on world history, and that it’s population was a scant three million, most of them illiterate. One of the French writers notet that the temper each generation was formed and ruled by a few thousand individuals. The wrong people entirely have taken over that role about a century ago. Democratic equality is the disease and universal suffrage is
it’s instrument of revolution.
Uker.. well written comment. Thanks.
Thanks RobM. One does what one can, and I am just grateful for Zman to present this platform so well.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Hbdchick
Hbdchick is a “human biodiversity” blogger who attempts to give “scientific” racism credibility by presenting herself as an innocent bookworm fascinated with human variation.
Like many other bigots who try to rebrand racialist and racist ideologies online through “human biodiversity” or “race realism” blogs and forums, Hbdchick describes herself as a geek who became an “HBDer” after reading books on “Eskimos and Indians, that sort of thing –…………….
Hbdchick also links to other “HBD” sites including an assortment of neo-Nazis, racists, and internet kooks (e.g. “Racial Reality” the founder of Anthroscape, Bonesandbehaviours set up by a Holocaust denier, Chris Brand, Steve Sailer and Forumbiodiversity). Many of her posts draw directly from the work of controversial and mathematically incompetent authors like J.P. Rushton, Richard Lynn, Satoshi Kanazawa, Henry Harpending, and Gregory Cochran. Interviews with her have appeared on the Neo-Nazi site Counter-Currents.
Like HBD bloggers in general she is known for deleting all dissenting opinion however polite and sophisticated.
Never spent much time at “rationalwiki”. That site seems to be heavily political and biased. I would tell the site that a pseudoscience is science that doesn’t follow the scientific process and accepts beliefs as true based on faith which would go against what they are preaching. But it looks like people of faith control the site, so oh well 🙂
correction: *pseudoscience is an ideology that doesn’t follow the scientific process”
The only replicable research in the humanities are the cognitive studies that properly fall under the heading of HBD. The irony of blank slate lunatics calling real science “pseudoscience” underlines the fact the irrationalwiki guy is deranged.
OMG, Would HBD Chick be a Campbell?
http://www.unz.com/isteve/mad-men-trolls-hbd-chick/
My recollection is rationalwiki is pretty much just one guy with very serious mental problems. Everyone is either a Nazi or racist.
HBD Chick is a nice woman with an interest in history and biology. She’s buddies with Jayman, a black guy from the West Indies.
HBD chick is exactly as she describes herself, only better.
There is no racist so obsessed with race as is the anti-racist. That purity (and paucity) of thought has not been seen since the Nuremberg rallies.
Oh, well, in zeropa, the Anti-fa are battling the so-called “Fascists”, PEGIDA, who have a lot of swastikas in the crowd…and all the Anti-fa sport the red star or the hammer and sickle…
What both have in common is that they blame everything on JOO…and they also support Hamas and Fatah and Hezbollah…
They get kicked out of their apartments to accommodate the muslims, but it is somewhat them joo’s fault…
In France’s Front National extreme right, Marine Lepen is shacking up with a Jew and Marion Maréchal-Lepen’s real daddy was a Mossad agent…but they kicked out of the party everybody that blame the current troubles on Muslims, including their father and grandfather party founder Jean-Marie Lepen….JMLP was also famous as an unrepentant nazi…Family fights in Europe are getting as complicated as muslim infighting
For two hundred years Joos have been at the leading edge of creation and destruction. Success in custom and politics draws on learned experience, which the creative and egotistical mind has little use for. The politic of Joo is a menace, from Bolshevik to neocon, but there are known to be many dozens of exceptions, and for this we are grateful.
Nailed it.
“It has been said by liberal intellectuals that the conservative believes all social questions, at heart, to be questions of private morality. Properly understood, this statement is quite true. A society in which men and women are governed by belief in an enduring moral order, by a strong sense of right and wrong, by personal convictions about justice and honor, will be a good society—whatever political machinery it may utilize; while a society in which men and women are morally adrift, ignorant of norms, and intent chiefly upon gratification of appetites, will be a bad society—no matter how many people vote and no matter how liberal its formal constitution may be.”
http://www.kirkcenter.org/index.php/detail/ten-conservative-principles/
I’m calling this a name I just made up this very second: “The Olaudah Equiano Dilemma.” For those of you who went to college pre-PC (or more recently, when college devolved into “tweet your way to a BA”), for a while there Intro Humanities classes always assigned The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. Equiano was supposedly born in West Africa and enslaved at a young age. He learned all kinds of European skills from his masters, such that he was able to write his own autobiography, and become an eloquent antislavery spokesman. His book was published in 1789, and on the cover he’s shown as an Enlightenment gentleman — powdered queue, waistcoat, the works.
This was, of course, the high tide of Enlightenment utopianism, and Equiano was argument #1 that humans are blank slates. That’s wrong, BUT: Equiano really was, from everything we can tell, an Enlightenment gentleman. He went all-in on European high culture (as did the leaders of the slave revolt on Saint-Domingue). Should he be excluded from political life on HBD grounds?
Equiano didn’t categorically reject his native culture. He wrote quite movingly about it. BUT: he acknowledged that European culture was materially and scientifically superior, and while in Europe he behaved as a European.
I can’t think of any reason to exclude an Equiano from the electorate that doesn’t have very obvious, very ugly consequences. And yet, how do you tell that a given case is an Equiano? If “not having a handle on European high culture” is now a disqualifier for political participation, we can go ahead and disenfranchise 95% of the population. Either exclusion criterion — HBD or culture — would “preserve” western liberalism like the US army preserved Vietnamese villages.
Equiano is an outlier; an exception. You don’t make the rules to accommodate the exceptions, unless your goal is system failure. And why, exactly, do there have to be “very ugly consequences”?; Assuming Equiano is that smart, he would understand that fitting in is job #1 when living in a foreign culture. If he wants to vote so badly, his other alternative would be to return to West Africa– where he could use his newfound enlightened European consciousness to educate his native countrymen on the benefits of democracy. Sounds hard? Oh, well. Life isn’t fair, and no one gives a shit about your troubles.
All politics are identity politics
This is precisely what Progressives have brainwashed Conservatives NOT to understand. “Identity politics for me, but not for thee.”