There might not be anything more controversial than to openly declare that you believe there are genetic differences between the races and the sexes. Academia’s current orthodoxy is that race, as well as gender (with the underlying premise that gender is different and distinct from sex), is a social construct. On this view, since both race and gender are social constructs, there are possible timelines in which we would have different racial and gender categories, and we may even have new categories as time passes (such as the non-binary category). Various evidences are offered for this orthodoxy, the more common involving an example in the past or a different culture that defies 21st century Western racial and gender categories and thus, according to the argument, opens up space for the neglected other. These examples may include the existence of a third gender amongst a particular tribe, thus breaking the binary, persons of a certain race showing the virtues denied to them in Western culture, showing that vices X, Y, or Z are not inherent but the result of systematic racism, or even appealing to non-human species that are gender fluid. More rigorous arguments, though not often heard outside the walls of academia, are those employed by Judith Butler and Jacque Derrida, the former focusing on the performative aspect of gender, the later offering a reading of Plato’s Timaeus that opens up an infinity of genders. After giving an account of racial and sexed differences, we shall come back to Butler and Derrida, give an overview of their main arguments, and offer a refutation.
What I want to provide here is not a collection of data, but a framework for understanding data. There exists a number of websites that specialize in human bio-diversity (HBD) and it is not hard to find data on the genetic differences between males and females. Steve Sailor details here how the case for genetic differences between the races, as well as between rich and poor, is becoming stronger each year, and how intellectual opposition to this discovery has been deteriorating in quality since the 1970’s. So not only is the data abundant, but it is becoming increasingly harder to deny. But, I have to say again that this post is not a data dump or a spreadsheet…it is an interpretive framework.
Why is it that the races and sexes are different? In Genesis God says the creation of Man was “very good”, letting us know that Providence delights in the existence of Man. For Man to continue his species and to always have companionship, male and female were created. Presumably, delighting in the existence of Man, it pleased Providence that there exist not only one race but that there be a number of races, each bringing forth its own culture and civilization. There is not a single race or a single sex because Man is a good thing, and it is more desirable to have more of a good thing than to have less of it. A very simple explanation, free of any heresy or heterodoxy, and one any Christian can reasonably be confident in.
Yet, what do we do with the differences in intelligences between the races? What about crime statistics that indicate that some races commit more crime on average, even given the same literacy and poverty levels, as other races? Further, what is to be said about the psychological differences between male and female? These differences do not appear laudable at first glance, but disadvantages. Behind this objection is the premise that in a just world nobody, or at least no group, would be anymore intelligent or predisposed towards virtue, or vice, than others. If not just, it at least feels dirty to say that race A is on average more intelligent than race B, or that race C tends to commit more crime on average than race D. Having been raised in a polite household, I still feel a tinge of dirtiness when these issues come up. In fact, I have considered scrapping this post from the roster, continue on, and hope that you would not have noticed. Reason demands, however, that we push through comfortability in the honest search for truth and to live according to what is and not what we wish was. Since this is an uncomfortable topic, let us rip the bandage off and start with racial differences and then proceed to the less controversial topic of sexed differences.
We are not committed to saying that all racial differences are purely genetic, they may be epi-genetic. Epi-genetics is the field of biology that studies how environment and habit changes the genetic code over a period of time. A man who drinks a bottle of Jameson Whiskey every day will, given enough time, damage not only his liver but the portion of his genetic code that is responsible for his liver. When, or if, this man has a kid, that kid will likely inherent his father’s kidney problems. Why? Because our children inherent our genetic information. Intelligence and criminality, like drinking induced kidney problems, according to the HBD community, is also handed down to one’s children. The son of a abusive father is not guaranteed to become abusive, mind you, he has his own will, but most abusive fathers were once sons of their abusive fathers. Our environments change who we are, for better or worse. Religion is a special kind of environment that adds a dimension of holistic meaning that is not often found in other environments. If you take two peoples who practice two different religions for thousands of years, even if their most recent generations have converted to something else, you will be able to see how the values of their respective religions have become sublimating in their very being. Most of Africa practiced types of animism that involved human sacrifices for thousands of years, and many parts of Africa still continue these animistic practices. Comparing a country like Ethiopia, which converted to Christianity at the very beginning of the first century AD, to a country that has only converted with the past couple hundred years reveals that Ethiopia has a higher average IQ and a significantly lower crime rate. This is also true in European societies, where the Mediterranean countries converted before the Vikings and showed must higher intelligence and significantly lower crime rates (remember that the Vikings would go on blood rampages and commit ritual slaughter and rape). IQ and crime statistics are often only broken down in terms of race, but it would be enlightening to see a breakdown according to historical religion. My hunch is that we would see my thesis borne out, showing that intelligence and criminality are epi-genetic and, as such, highly effected by our religious environment.
Remember, this is a framework for interpreting data and not itself data. Objecting that I do not have, or have not provided, any data for this is to miss the point. All I am trying to do is give an explanation for the data discovered by those more knowledgeable than me. What this framework provides is a way of looking at genetics in a non-deterministic sense (we can always convert or change our environments), centers around Providence, and avoids the foolish and crass racism of internet chat rooms. If anyone of the left is reading this, I know you might not be happy with this analysis, but it is the most humanizing account of the evidence accumulated by the HBD community. For the right to have an intellectual foundation, it cannot give in to the loud and vocal crowd of anons who legitimately hate people for the color of their skin, but it also cannot dismiss the field of biology. A middle way is what I provide: problematic racial differences are to be explained by problematic pagan practices that have sublimated into the genetic code over time.
Now let us turn to differences in the sexes, something far less controversial. It is acknowledged by all that there are genetic, physical, neurological and psychological differences between male and female. What is contested are what social implications, if any, lay within these differences. If our psychology is derived in part from our genetic sex, then would this not suggest that part of who we are is derived from our genetic sex? Would this not mean that whatever gender I identify as, my very way of thinking is, to some extend, tied to my genetic sex?
Maintaining a hard distinction between sex and gender, claiming that gender is the social expression of sex, is hard to do if it is true that our psychology, and thus the way we interact with others, is in someway derived from our sex. For this reason, Judith Butler argues that sex “is an ideal construct which is forcibly materialized through time. It is not a simple fact or static condition of a body, but a process whereby regulatory norms materialize "sex" and achieve this materialization through a forcible reiteration of those norms.”1 Attending to the genetic dimensions of sex is, for Butler, almost always tinged with suspicion because “to ‘concede’ the undeniability of ‘sex’ or its ‘materiality’ is always to concede some version of ‘sex’, some formation of ‘materiality’.”2 There is never a recognition of sex that is not accompanied, however tacitly, by a set of social norms and regulatory practices. Over time, through prescribed social norms and regulatory practices the body becomes seen, not as it is, but in the light of the dominant social context. A student of Michael Foucault, Butler learned that all such social norms and regulatory practices have been established by a governing elite for the purposes of ensuring their own dominance, and thus a “recognition” of “sex” or “materiality” is always already a recognition of a given power structure.
Jacque Derrida does not make the same move, but insists, through a reading of Plato and his own understanding of language, that there is always innumerable genders that are indefinitely new. In Plato’s Timaeus there is found “a third nature or type” called Khora.3 “Khora is the immense and indeterminate spatial receptacle in which the sensible likeness of the eternal paradigms are ‘engendered’, in which they are ‘inscribed’ by the Demiurge, thereby providing a ‘home’ for all things”.4 Preceding both natures and types, “Khora is always ‘prior’ to any mark or imprint, any form or determination.”5 It is from the Platonic Khora that Derrida arrives at a third gender, one that precedes both the masculine and feminine, and, through the interplay and difference between the three, gives birth to innumerable “khora-ographies.”
To refute either Butler or Derrida here would be premature, and would be better suited for a dissertation. What can be done is to enter into their arguments with full acceptance and continue until we reach their logical end.
So then, let us accept that sex is indeed an ideal construct. After all, can we withhold any and all normative judgments, or resist imposing a teleology, once we are confronted with the body? No, and this is not only for sex but for all things. Our eyes are also ideal constructs. What? Or do you deny that we cannot speak of eyes without tacitly holding a set of social norms and expectations for sight and seeing? Was blind Tiresias not subject to these norms and expectations on account of the mere “materiality” of his eyes. Blindness is a genetic fact! Yet, Tiresias was able to see better than those who fell within the prescribed and accepted social boundaries. Let us not hamper logic, no, let us declare that all aspects of the body are ideal constructs. This is what we must say, and must affirm if we are not to submit to a social regime we had no part in making and which might turn out to be highly problematic. When this regime started is hard to say, for although the social norms and regulative practices attached to sex have undeniably changed over time and place (both husband and wife used to work at home prior to the industrial revolution, for example) there are nevertheless the identifiable categories “masculinity” and femininity “that” have existed in Christendom, the Caliphates, and pagan antiquity. Such a regime would have to be a shadow regime, one that existed and held power in competing and even violently opposed societies. If not, then this regime would need to be a subconscious will to dominate, most likely by white cis males, drawing on social roles so dark and mysterious that they must have inhabited the collective unconsciousness since before recorded history. In maintaining the ideal construction of sex, we are forced to accept that all parts of the body are ideal constructions…there is no “body, there is no “biology”, there are only ideal constructions. Further, these ideal constructions either must have sprung from a universal and shadow conspiracy, or they must come from the collective unconsciousness of men who have acted in such one accord, a unity that has up until now never been seen, that in all places and at all times there are the clearly identifiable categories “masculine” and “feminine.” No man has broke from the party line, none has dared to be a whistleblower and exposed the materialization of the eyes or of sex.
Let us too accept Khora. Plato shall be our teacher, the Athenian shall be our guide. Wait, not entirely. Plato’s doctrine of “Forms” cannot be accepted, for Derrida has clearly showed that there are no essences and no natures. Neither shall we accept the critique of democracy found in The Republic or the praise of aristocracy. Indeed, let us only accept the doctrine of Khora and throw away what cannot benefit us politically. Embrace the great teacher with one hand and slap him across the face with the other. Use his authority to argue a political point, and then later undermine his authority because he may inhibit our next political point. Do not tell us that we are merely accepting what is true in Plato and rejecting what is false! This is an insult to our cunning. No, we are taking the most obscure portion of a creation myth to initiate a Khora-ography of genders, we are not positively assessing his arguments. It is this ripping out, this insult to Plato, that we shall erect our edifice.
So then, both an account for racial and sexed differences have been provided, as well as an explanation of problematic racial differences and a reductio ad absurdum of both Butler and Derrida’s principle arguments.
Butler, Judith. Bodies that Matter: On The Discursive Limits of “Sex”. Routledge Publishing. New York, New York. 1993. 1-2
Butler, Judith. Bodies that Matter: On The Discursive Limits of “Sex”. Routledge Publishing. New York, New York. 1993. 10
Caputo, John. Deconstruction in a Nutshell. Fordham University Press. New York, New York. 1997. 84.
Caputo, John. Deconstruction in a Nutshell. Fordham University Press. New York, New York. 1997. 84.
Ibid, 95
Whoa, this is a whole other layer of esotercism! I loved this article!