Religious groups as ethnic minorities

Interesting view. This is basically the evolutionists’ “green beard effect” isn’t it?

For an thoughtful articulation of a different point of view, see Phillip Pullman’s essay a few weeks ago in the Guardian on the distinction between “who you are” and “what you do”.

I would guess they both have some truth in them.

“it is an ethnic group, on the contrary, because the people in and the people out of it know that it is one; because both the ins and the outs talk, feel, and act as if it were a separate group”

Are the Bourgeoisie an ethnic group?

If national identity is somewhat totemic (you have your flag, I have mine, but we’re equals, inasmuch as we each have our own flag), ethnicity arises almost exclusively in situations of social structural inequality.

I can’t find the precise quote of the remarks on ethnicity of John and Jean Comaroff online, so I quote a passage by McGuire (in “The Archeology of Ethnicity in America”), passage that paraphrases Comaroff:

“In fact, we often see that ethnic consciousness entails not only recognition of difference, but also a hierarchical arrangement of different groups. In the power/domination approach, ethnic self-consciousness is introduced by a dominant group. This group uses ethnic identity to legitimate its own privileges in terms of some superior cultural or biological traits said to be characteristic of the dominant group or some inferior cultural or biological traits said to be characteristic of the subordinate group (Comaroff 1987).”

Okay. Can we generalise that distinction? A group is not an ethnic group, even if “the people in and the people out of it know that it is one; because both the ins and the outs talk, feel, and act as if it were a separate group” if it’s members can be defined by some material characteristic?
Or is the distinction wider than than?

Obviously. Ouch!

You have provided an overbroad definition of ethnic group, which needs limitation, since many other groups would satisfy it. So you provide a generalisable restriction on its applicability, please.

My understanding is that “ethnicity” first gained American currency in the 1940s as a way of distinguishing certain groups from “whites.” Of course, those groups have since become white, including Ashkenazi (sp? not one myself, obviously!) Jews, with the exception of light-skinned Hispanics. I think trying to parse out what does or does not constitute an ethnicity is like . . . ugh, it’s Friday. It’s a fundamentally faulty effort because the basic supposition is a faulty premise.

No, because obviously in a particular society a group might both be an ethnic group and occupy (exclusively) a class position

If the same group can be both ethnic and objectively defined, your conclusion that the bourgeoisie are not an ethnic group because there is an objective definition seems unsound.

soru

Is this the time to point out that set theory is problematic, and the self referential quality of such definitions of groups is precisely where the problems arise?

The reason one likes Hughes’s attempt to invert the usual definition is that markers are not absolute. Consider Serbs and Croats. Conventionally we say Serbs are Orthodox and Croats Catholic, but a Serb who converts to Catholicism doesn’t thereby become a Croat. A Catholic-convert Serb who started writing in Roman script still wouldn’t become a Croat. Everyone would still know he was a Serb.

Ethnic groups, then, are things you’re born into and can’t shed, even if you work to change aspects of yourself which act as ethnic markers. They aren’t just ingroups and outgroups. There’s a permanency to ethnic identification. At least in Nineteenth Century England, a Jew remained identified as a Jew even if he had been baptized. His children were identified as Jews, even if baptized as infants, even if not circumcized.

But I don’t see how one can use Hughes’s insight to counter the assertion behind Sean Morris’s question. In some cases, yes, religion is a marker used to distinguish an ethnic group. But certainly not in all cases. In some cases, objecting to aspects of a religion is a veiled attack on the members of an ethnic group marked by that religion. But certainly not in all cases (Scientology comes to mind). And automatically regarding such objections as attacks on an ethnic minority begs an important question.

Soru, whether or not a otherwise-defined group (such as the b) happens to be co-extensive with an ethnic group is a contingent matter. There’s nothing about the otherwise-defined groups as such that makes them ethnic groups.

I agree with that, but I think it contradicts your statement about the bourgeoisie.

Certainly in the UK, class meets your criteria for being an ethnic group – a millionaire footballer like Best, Gascoigne or Rooney is unquestionably working class, they would consider themselves as such, and so would the bourgeoisie.

In other countries, social class doesn’t work that way, as implied by your use of the word ‘contingent’.

soru

Damn you, despicable anti-dentites.

Of course extreme cases may appear absurd, but, seriously, does it make sense to allow the outsiders to define who you are? If a bunch of people agree that they belong to a separate ethnic group, who are you to tell them they do not?

That’s fine as long as these definitions are purely conceptual. In social life they’re not. Often they have implications for what kind of education you get, what kind of job you can have, where you can rent an apartment or buy a house, who will marry you–all those parts of your “definition” over which other people have at least some control.

I have a hard time conceiving of Ethiopians, Indonesians and Iranians as members of a single ethnic group – even if we limit ourselves to the group consisting of Ethiopian, Indonesian and Iranian immigrants to America, and their descendants, for instance. Describing them as such just seems too far from our actual practices in using the terms “ethnicity” and “ethnic group”.

I would take it that, given our usual linguistic practices in using “ethnicity”, one cannot convert to a different ethnicity. But one can convert to a different religion. So a religion cannot be an ethnicity.

It is hard to think of clear instances in which religious affiliation would even be regarded as a necessary condition of ethnicity. Much more typical, it seems, are groups such as Lebanese-Americans, which might reasonably be regarded as an ethnic group, even though several different religions are involved.

Perhaps Chris is right that the definition of ethnicity should make reference to some widespread sense of group identity. But that any given individual shares that sense of identity cannot be a necessary condition for being a member of the ethnic group. A given individual could be be a Native American, for example, without personally possessing any sense of being part of that group.

It also strikes me that it is not even necessary that those inside the group regard themselves as constituting a group at all. It is the attitudes of those outside the group that seem decisive. Some large national group may think of some smaller group that lives apart from the rest, but inside their territory as constituting a distinct “people” or ethnic group. But that smaller group might live so remotely from the outside, that they have no sense of themselves as constituting a distinct people, part of a single group.

The definition of ethnicity should surely make reference to common descent from some other ancestral group. And the ancestral group must be defined, at least in part, by a reasonably well-defined geographical region, although some other characteristic – national, racial or cultural – is typically a part as well.

But common descent from some recognizable group – even one with a strong sense of group identity – is not sufficient to constitute ethnicity. The Daughters of the American Revolution are not an ethnic group. Neither are the Hashemites. Clans, tribes and families are also not ethnic groups per se.

Geography strikes me as the most often the decisive factor in identifying the ancestral group, rather than nation or even “race”. As has been pointed out “Hispanic” is considered an ethnicity in the United States, even though Hispanics could hardly be considered descendants of a single national or racial group.

Ok, but I don’t see how it works for any group but Jews, which is why antisemitism is special: it’s a sectarian as well as racist bias.

Now it’s true that religion often correlates with ethnicity, but as a definitional criterion? Nah.

National origin, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation — these things are inherent. Religion, otoh, is chosen. I forget how Auden put it, but there’s a distinction.

“A remark, if I may say so, that disregards the many atheist “muslims” and “catholics””

Yes, but that’s misattribution, and as you imply, often a sleazy one. I didn’t know we were talking about stereotypes.

As a Scot I can testify to the power of ‘catholic’ and ‘protestant’ identities that transcend religion.

In Northern Ireland and in Scotland the sectarian divide functions in a way that looks rather a lot more like an ethnic distinction than some of the comments above would suggest.

My family are (historically) Catholic although I was brought up as an atheist. When an Orange march came down my street or when I heard people making disparaging comments about ‘Fenians’ you can be pretty sure that, despite the fact that I don’t personally believe in God, I was fully aware that it was people like me that were being singled out.

Retardo: I think Chris is right here with respect to what he refers to as “atheist ‘catholics’…”

Yeah, I’ve seen “White (Non-Hispanic)”, but that’s just ignorance. Often they use ‘Hispanic’ along with ‘Asian’ and African’ – that’s geographical. And they also use ‘Caucasian’ and ‘White’ where they really mean ‘European’.

I think if they absolutely must classify people by their origin, geographical classification would be the least offensive.

Coming from a communist eastern european country to US I remember being puzzled when after a few weeks here someone pointed out to me that I was “white”. If you come from a place where everyone is “white” you just don’t think of yourself in those terms.

You’d think in terms of a)communist party membership (yes/no), b) class (intelligentsia, worker, bureaucrat, lump) c) nationality (West, East). Hell I sort of don’t even think of myself as “European” on most days (see c) above). Having been here awhile I’ve gotten used to the whole American ethnicity thing, but even still when filling out my race on something my first impulse is to go for the “Other” rather than the “European” which to me means “Western European”.

“I think if they absolutely must classify people by their origin, geographical classification would be the least offensive.”

Yeah but even how you divy up the world geographically can be manipulated – is Mexico North America (i.e. “good”) or Latin America (i.e. “less good”)? Unless you just mean “country of origin” and even then you’ll have Basques pissed off at being called Spaniards and so on.

Ethnicity (and race to some extent) is problematic because it doesn’t really exist, yet in this world it matters a hell of a lot. It’s like something out of a Borges story.

Presumably Sean Morris has no pricipled objection, then, to the f*cking taigs being kept in their place.

(NB I trust Matt McGrattan will detect the irony there. I could not care less whether Morris does.)

A fascinating discussion. The concept of ethnicity is very similar to the concept(s) of species in biology. Species are defined in different ways because there isn’t a single definition that will be hold true for all situations.

The religion as ethnicity concept may not be very useful unless it is combined with cultural, historical or evolutionary background. Religions are too mobile.

Perhaps for codified considerations, particular ethnic groups should meet several definitions of ethnicity, including the ecological category from Chris’ post, above, plus evolutionary, or adaptational categories from the comments.

” But one can convert to a different religion. So a religion cannot be an ethnicity.”

A remark, if I may say so, that disregards the many atheist “muslims” and “catholics” .

Not really. If there can truly be such a thing as an atheist Catholic or atheist Muslim, then that would show that are certain religious groups or communities such that it is possible to disavow the constitutive doctrines of that group without thereby ceasing to be a member of the group. But it does not show that one could become a member of an ethnic group by conversion.

Surely religious communities themselves have it within their power to settle conditions by which someone is or is not a member of a community. But that, it seems to me, is a clear difference difference between an ethnic group and and a religious group.

In the encyclical, Mystici Corporis Christi, Pope Pius XII defined membership in the Church. A member of the Church is a person who (a) has been baptized with water, (b) has the true faith,(c) is subject to the true Pope and (d) has not been excommunicated. So by the Church’s own definition, one who has lost the true faith and become an atheist has thereby ceased to satisfy one of the necessary conditions for Church membership, and ceased to be a Catholic.

I was also under the impression that all the schools of Islamic law were in agreement that one who ceases to believe in Allah has thereby left the community of believers and is no longer a Muslim. (They disagree on who, if anyone, has the ability to know that another person has left the community, and to declare that they have left.)

I have to say, the idea that someone could sincerely say “I no longer believe in Islamic doctrine. I am an atheist and not a member of that community”, and then go on to a live a life free from Muslim practice, but still be a Muslim, just seems like bizarre usage to me. The same goes for former Catholics.

But after reading the comments of Chris and John, it occurs to me that we may have some substantial cultural differences in labelling practices here. In the UK and Australia, it may be customary to use the term “Catholic” and “Muslim” to refer not only to religious communities, but also to someone born to Catholics or Muslims, someone whose “people” are Muslims or Catholics, and therefore something more like an ethnic group.

My guess is that the vast majority of Americans, on the other hand, would respond to the statement “he’s a Muslim, but an atheist one” with puzzlement and wonder what the speaker could possibly be talking about.

It seems like ethnicity is an identity created in opposition to another over time in a social-economic space (like a country or city).

Social group + history + intentional contrast of core identity = ethnicity.

Why are Serbs and Croats different ethnicities and French Catholics and Huguenots are not? Because the Serbs and Croats intentionally contrast with one another based on identity, and French Catholics and Huguenots differ on the basis of beliefs.

There’s something about ethnicity that means a core identity that an individual cannot transcend, like class, or change, like religion, at least within his or her own society.

And the rules of the game are different in different social spaces, depending on the cultural context. So some people can move and change ethnic identities. Hakka and Han are different in China, but both are Chinese in the U.S.

You, know this could be a subject for many, many professors to ponder. Oh wait, it already is.

Isn’t [conspecificity] just being able to have fertile offsprings?

Not quite, but that’s not far off the most generally accepted concept of ‘species’ for most groups of organisms, the ‘biological’ species concept: organisms belong to the same species if, under natural circumstances, they can produce fertile offspring. That phrasing is a bit awkward, of course, because it might suggest that (for example) two male cats fail the test for conspecificity. So the way to express the concept if you want to come over all lab-coated is to say that a species is a reproductively isolated community.

As eudoxis points out, though, there are other species concepts out there. And there are some organisms for which the biological concept doesn’t work well. In theory one could apply it to asexuals, but by the same token one could also describe the entire ‘species’ as a cohort of clones from the same individual. And it breaks down altoegther if you try to apply it to the most numerous organisms on earth, the bacteria. Mostly these reproduce by splitting in two asexually, But they can also exchange genetic material — i.e., have sex — with other bacteria, not necessarily of their own ‘kind’. So the biological species concept, if applied strictly, would require you to conclude that a Salmonella and a Staphylococcus are conspecifics. (Well; I don’t know whether those two particular sorts of bacteria exchange genes with each other, but I trust you see what I mean.

Ernst Mayr’s What Evolution Is has a succinct and layman-friendly explanation of the various species concept (he himself is considered the primary formulator of the biological concept).

As far as I know, dogs, wolves and coyotes are considered distinct species but are able to breed with each other. Race and ethnicity aren’t the only culturally based distinctions, it seems.

Bacterial sex is more like news or email than wine, women and song; biologists calling it “sex” reminds me of experimental physicists looking for quarks who said they were after “naked beauty” or “bare bottom”.

Most of us (most Americans, at least) belong to more than one ethnic group. My Irish surname and family background gives me a vague familiarity with Catholicism; the Swedish side gives me blue-eyed siblings and a taste for pickled fish. My sun-baked skin and flat vowels betray my Californian residency.

I was perplexed on my last excursion that Germans generally couldn’t tell I was American, but of course I couldn’t distinguish Berliners from Viennese by their accents either, which is not to deny their distinct ethnicities.

The difference between an ethnic group and individuals with a common characteristic is that the former seek autonomy for their society while the latter seek equal rights as individuals.

The Zapatistas in Mexico represent ethnic groups (Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Chol and Tojolabal) that demand constitutional changes that would grant their communities a future a such and jurisdiction over their territory and its resources. In the US, Blacks sought the Equal Rights Amendment and Affirmative Action.

Imagine two families living in an apartment building in New York. Both families are English-monolingual, Protestant, and have only been exposed to American schooling and media. One family is Black and the other White.

Now, imagine an immigrant family from Chad, bilingual Arab and French, and Muslim. They are Black.

Hmmm, I wonder which of the “ethnic” groups of the two New Yorker families they will be ascribed to… based on “cultural” similarities, of course.

dogs, wolves and coyotes are considered distinct species but are able to breed with each other.

There’s fuzziness at the edges of most things. Sometimes organisms (plants, basically) can speciate literally overnight. (There’s also a somewhat controversial notion that this can happen among some insects — not quite overnight, but in ‘real’ rather than geological time.) More normally, though, speciation is a long slow gradual thing. It’s not really controversial that dogs spring from wolves; perhaps one could say that the dog/wolf speciation event is very close to, but not yet entirely at, its defintive end.

That said, there is (as I noted above) more to the biological species concept than the ability to produce even fertile offspring. Lions and tigers can produce ligers readily enough. They won’t do it the wild, though; largely, but not only, because they live in different places. (I have no idea whether ligers are fertile. The point is that two organisms are nonconspecifics if they are isolated more than merly geographically. There are quite a few different barriers to reproduction, both those that keep the organisms from mating to begin with, and those that see to it that mating, if it occur, cannot be fruitful; or that if there are any offspring, they cannot live; or that, if the offspring are viable, they cannot themselves reproduce.)

Bacterial sex is more like news or email than wine, women and song; biologists calling it “sex” reminds me of experimental physicists looking for quarks who said they were after “naked beauty” or “bare bottom”.

I appreciate your point, which is very natural and intuitive; but it’s still incorrect. Sex and copulation (let alone romance) aren’t the same thing.

I couldn’t distinguish Berliners from Viennese by their accents either, which is not to deny their distinct ethnicities.

Actually their ethnicities aren’t nearly as distinct as their accents! It’s mindboggling to thing of the Berlin and Vienna dialects being considered indistinguishable. I mean in no way to mock or criticise you by saying that — the innocent eye sees nothing, as they say, and counterintuitive as this might be, it appears the innocent ear hears just as little. But (if you weren’t already aware of this) in this regard Berlin:Vienna more or less :: Glasgow:Missouri.

I’m curious, BTW: were your German acquaintances able at least to peg you as a native anglophone? Not a few Germans can’t tell which side of the Atlantic one’s from, and most are hopeless at distinguishing (say) an Irishman from an Englishman. But my hunch is that, if your German were good enough that a native German-speaker would hear only a vague, non-language-specific ‘foreignness’ to it, you’d have heard the difference between Berliners and Viennese from a mile away in a strong wind!

It is hard to think of clear instances in which religious affiliation would even be regarded as a necessary condition of ethnicity.

I believe (though I would not swear to it) that in Malaysia all Malays are assumed/required to be Muslims. Therefore they – but not Chinese, Indians, or other non-Malays – may be required by (secular) law to observe certain precepts of Islamic law, e.g., fasting in Ramadan.

“Imagine two families living in an apartment building in New York. Both families are English-monolingual, Protestant, and have only been exposed to American schooling and media. One family is Black and the other White.
Now, imagine an immigrant family from Chad, bilingual Arab and French, and Muslim. They are Black.
Hmmm, I wonder which of the “ethnic” groups of the two New Yorker families they will be ascribed to… based on “cultural” similarities, of course”

True, but it works both ways. I am Irish, and was working in the US with other Europeans ( as it so happens). All “white” – which is, of course a term never used to describe Irish people in Ireland, at least historically. Two Germans from the East and West, A Frenchman, a Scottishman ( Gaelic speaker, too) and an Irish man, me. There was also an american in the team, the boss. Now some of these guys had become fairly Americanised,

We had to go to a diversity course as a group where the Shocked! at the lack of diversity in the group: we needed more ethnics, which was code for black (or maybe Hispanics) but was almost certainly to mean Americans – certainly in the case of Blacks. I pointed out that our cultures were more different from each other, and from White Americans than Black Americans were from Whites: Black American culture is – to the rest of the world – distinctly American.

She was having none of it. It wasn’t in her sociology book. etc,
A good example of American liberal cultural imperialism.

She was white, by the way.

The proletariat is, of course, a class. “Ethnicity” became a euphemism for class during the Cold War because class analysis was viewed as Marxist and, therefore, taboo.

I was referring to the US where “ethnic” is pretty much interchangeable with “poor”.

Unless someone contradicts me, I am quite certain this thread about ethnicity would be meaningless in any language other than English. In Spanish, for example, the term “ethnic group” is reserved for indigenous communities with established territories, names, political systems, etc. and would never be used to describe the conglomerate of 600,000 Americans living in Mexico, for example.

I disagree, Pedro. At least in Mexico, and ethnic group is an indigenous community regardless of wealth. Granted, most indigenous communities are poor, however, the Yaqui are quite prosperous given the fertile valley they live in and are definitely an ethnic group because of their language and autonomous political system. On the other hand, Mexican Blacks are regarded as individuals, not as members of a community since, in all honesty, there is no organized Black community.

The Zapatistas want ethnic groups to be granted community rights in the constitution and want each “pueblo” (people) to be mentioned by name. If this ever comes to happen, there will be no room for individual ethnic self-identification a la USA.

My point is that according to definitions used in social anthropology and sociology in Latin America, an ethnic group is a society – a people – not disconnected individuals who share a characteristic. When individuals share a race they are called so; when they share social status, they are called a class; when they share foreign birth, they are foreigners.

My understanding is that the term “ethnicity” as used in English is a euphemism for lower class and darker race and quite confusing. It is also Thatcherite in its “there is no society” blindness.

This seems to be a fairly simple question, really. Islam is a set of beliefs. It has that in common with Christianity, Judaism, Nazism, Communism, and so on.

Of these Judaism is unusual because it overlaps quite a lot with ethnicity. But that’s only unusual, not unique. Belief in apartheid overlapped a lot with being ethnically Afrikaaner. Belief in Nazism overlapped significantly with being German.

Similarly, belief in the Judaic religion is a different thing from Jewish ethnicity. I don’t think any of “my best friends”, to coin a phrase, are Judaic.

The claim that Islam is an ethnicity is plainly silly. What ethnicity? Indonesian? Indian or Pakistani? Arab? Iranian? Iraqi? Malaysian? European? Lebanese? And do I know, if I meet a Lebanese person, that he is Muslim? No, I don’t. Actually, if he’s in Australia the odds are that he’s a Christian. (And not involved in gang warfare at Cronulla and elsewhere.) But do I even know that if I meet an Arab, he is a Muslim? No, I don’t. Nor do you. Any more than you know that if he’s an Arab he must wear sandals and live in a tent.

I’m an atheist of partly Berber descent. If someone wanted to label me as “Muslim” because of that ancestry I’d consider them intellectually lazy, mildly racist, and a bit stupid. Sorry, but there it is.

It is so conspicuously bleedin’ obvious that ethnicity and religion are different things, things so simply and easily distinguished, that I can’t help feeling that someone who claims to have trouble distinguishing them is being disingenuous.

Now what might the motive be for trying to fudge a perfectly clear and obvious difference? Could it be that confusing ethnicity and religion might be a tactic intended to make it harder to criticise Islam, by labelling those critics as racist?

Well, nice try.

Laon

The immorality and grotesque inhumanity of eugenic theory generally doesn’t rebut the very mammalian possibility that human beings are as “breedable” as their canine friends.

Well, I don’t think anyone would deny that superficial characteristics like skin pigmentation are ‘breedable’; the question is whether personality and aptitude are. I know a lot of dog lovers do complain about ‘breedism’.

chris said:
“I’m sorry you find that hard to grasp.”

I guess that must be an argument from superior intellectual ability, or something. It doesn’t appear to be an argument of any other kind, does it?

Ummm… I think that if someone said that there are, empirically, situations where anti-Zionism functions almost identically to antisemitism (which is probably the case), and that therefore anti-Zionism is the same thing as antisemitism and the two can – at least sometimes – usefully be conflated … I suspect that chris would demur. He would be right to demur.

You are engaging in rhetorical fudging, chris. I do not think that you would consider yours a respectable form of argument in any other context. It is not a respectable argument here either.

Laon

abb1,
If Mr Howard used the terms “mid Eastern” and “Muslim” interchangeably, then Mr Howard is wrong. When did “Mr Howard is wrong” become a difficult or surprising idea? This is an odd argument, isn’t it?

chris,
I challenged your claim that “religion” is “an ethnic minority”. So your first instinct was to deny having made that claim. “What a good thing, then, that nobody made that claim,” you wrote.

Good instinct, I think: I wouldn’t want to defend that claim either. But perhaps that’s why I find the claim so hard to grasp. Its retractable nature.

But I think that the real reason I find the claim that religion = ethnic status so hard to grasp is that the claim is flatly and obviously untrue. It is clear that sometimes ethnicity and religion overlap, just as it is clear that they are not the same thing.

I gave the example of the often-used rhetorical conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism to illustrate that point. You seem to object to my speculation that you would agree that the antisem,itism and anti-Zionism are different concepts, even though there are times they overlap in parts of populations.

I withdraw my speculation that you would see the falsity of the anti-Zionism = antisemitism argument, though my speculation was meant charitably. Instead I’ll say that you might demur from such an argument, or you might, bizarrely, fall for it: it that better?

But with the speculation withdrawn, the argument remains: things that may overlap in some populations, or parts of populations, at some times, are not therefore the same thing. It is fuzzy to pretend that they are.

Cheers!

Laon

Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are different concepts (though Zionism is not a religion, it’s a form of nationalism) and Howard is wrong, but the point is that bigots don’t usually focus on nuances. To many (probably most) of them Muslim=Arab=MidEastern-looking. That’s an empirical fact and that’s the essence of this, I think.

Chris,
I can see that I am not worth arguing with, being a stupid creature, etc.

(Though that’s not an argument, or rhetorical device I’d resort to, myself. But it’s up to you.)

You said that the Serbian or Protestant executioner, in killing someone based on a false equivalence between ethnicity and religion, is not necessarily “making a mistake”.

If, by the words “is not necessarily making a mistake” you mean that “they will not be censured by insane murderous bigots”, then I agree with you. But that is not what the words “is not necessarily making a mistake” mean.

Your example would only be only useful if we were agreed that we should take our definitions in this regard from the prejudices of insane murderous bigots.

But the point surely is that we should be a little clearer in our use of words than that. Serbian executioners are not really a good guide to “truth” in his area.

I realise that you may be advancing cogent arguments that are not actually contained in the words you are using.

My feeling is, however, that I have understood the partial equivalence you asserted between religion and ethnicity, and argued with examples and reasoning that this even partial equivalence is false.

However, it may be possible for you to express it in so qualified and limited a way that it has little real meaning, in which case, as with the Anglican’s god, I don’t need to argue with it.

Laon

Why should ‘Lebanese stink’ attract court appearances and fines and ‘Muslims stink’ shouldn’t? – I don’t understand.

abb1-
Thanks yes the link on the unfair stigmatizing of American Staffordshires Terriers in the US. It’s more than likely a function of the bias against their owners at least as much as that against the dogs themselves. Though some of the prejudice stems from the forced application of traits that are inherent in the breed – their dogged loyalty and single-minded focus, their stout hearts and intrepid nature, their fearlessness generally. I’ve known and loved and been loved by more than one pit bull.
To the point more directly, skin pigmentation is only “superficial” in the sense that it’s exterior and visible. It’s a very real thing, not superficial in the dismissive sense at all – it’s been as essential in some times and places as liver enzymes or disease-specific antibodies. It’s lost much of its utility as we’ve entered more completely the artificial environments of our technologies.
What brings it around to centrality here is the obvious but consistently repressed fact that everything – race, ethnicity, religiosity, any other cohesive aggregating system or function or institution – is in process, all the time.
Out of some mixes comes something like the regionally-specific mongrels from which breeds eventually derive, out of others breeds themselves, when we’re speaking of dogs.
In humans this process, or set of processes, is far more diverse and diffuse, and at least at present, taboo. At least in part because recognition of selection and the rewarding of breeding privileges would compromise their effectiveness as tools for the shaping of the human form.
Conformity and conformation.
Fixing the essence of terms like ethnicity or religious minority precisely is always going to be impossible because they’re in flux and fuzzy at the edges at all times. Yet they’re keenly fastened on and hotly debated, and much of the social violence we abhor comes directly out of their boundary conflicts.
These issues take on primary importance because they shape us – out of what they are comes what we are.
The struggle isn’t for social justice and equality so much as it is for the defining characteristics of the race.

Fair enough, Rollo. Of course I understand that pigmentation has its utility, all I’m saying is that it’s not a character trait. I had a Staffordshire terrier once too. You know, you say ‘brave heart’ – and I say ‘high threshold for pain’; yes, plenty of physiological variations between breeds, of course, and between ethnic groups too: Pygmies are under 5 feet, the Dutch look like they all over 6. Still, conscience is formed by the environment, or at least that’s what they taught me in school.

I was born into a religion, and long before I’d reached the age of full comprehension the kid who lived behind my babysitter’s told me through the fence he couldn’t play anymore because I worshipped a three-headed false god.
That prejudice was no different, nor any less confusing, than if he’d laughed at me because my skin was darker than his.
The fact that later in life I could consciously choose to step away from that religion doesn’t change much.
The fuzzy edges of culture and inheritance blur the argument. There are traits involved just as with race. The assumption is the traits involved in adult choices of political affiliation or religious denomination are subjective and purely environmental – cultural biases.
I’m suggesting that while compassion may possibly not be a universal human attribute, it also may not have its only origin in the cultural education toward identification with and concern for others.
abb1 says conscience is formed by the environment, but again – it’s the environment working on a genetic construct, right?
The received wisdom is there’s nothing linear about specific traits like compassion or coldheartedness, courage or cowardice or mathematical or athletic abilities; my point is that that unsubstantiated idea operates in favor of a selection process that will run far more smoothly if no one thinks it’s happening.
Nothing is as invisible as something you’re sure doesn’t exist.
I’d stress that because there’s a huge difference between local and contemporary discomforts brought about by baseless prejudice, and the long term shaping effect of institutionally-driven reproductive selection on the human species.
It may help us to recognize that traits can be bred in and/or out of any species, and that that process never ceases no matter how artificial the environment becomes. Not cultural – genetic selection.
Social Darwinism being the publicly declared overt and intentional version.
In fact an artificial environment that maintains virtually constant and near complete human influence on the selection processes within it will shape the species as much as any other Darwinian constellation of forces.
Docility’s been bred into our cattle, selected for as desirable and its antithesis discouraged.
Texas longhorns were, and their remnants still are, notoriously bad-tempered, wily, smart, obstreperous – qualities that make them ideally suited for rough country where they need to survive for long periods on their own. Bad dairy qualities though.
Courage has been bred into some of our dogs, loyalty and friendliness into others. Some dogs hunt by sight, others by smell. Some breeds of sheep dog have astonishing powers of intuition and reaction, and their wonderful ability to be trained to subtle commands is inherent – a characteristic of the breed.
Budgies, horses – domestic poultry have been selected and bred out for their large breast muscles to a degree that makes them incapable of survival in the wild, or in some cases outside the factory cage.
It’s a dangerous conceit to think that human traits are immune to evolution.