The Racial Basis of Civilization: A Critique of the Nordic Doctrine
Alfred A. Knopf
1926
411 pages
Frank H. Hankins, Professor of Sociology
Smith College on the Mary Huggins Gamble Foundation
- PART I–A CRITICAL HISTORY OF THEORIES OF BLOND RACE SUPREMACY
- I INTRODUCTION
- II ARYANISM
- III GOBINISM
- IV TEUTONISM
- V ANTHROPO-SOCIOLOGY OR SOCIAL SELECTIONISM
- VI CELTICISM AND GALLICISM
- VII ANGLO-SAXONISM AND NORDICISM IN AMERICA
- PART I–CONCEPT AND SOCIAL ROLE OF RACE
- I INTRODUCTION
- II CONCEPT OF RACE
- III ARE THERE PURE RACES?
- IV ARE RACE AND NATION IDENTIFIABLE?
- V POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RACE
- VI ARE RACES EQUAL?
- VII THE PROBLEM OF RACE MIXTURE
- VIII ARE RACIAL CHARACTERISTICS UNCHANGING?
- IX CHANGES IN THE HEREDITARY CONSTITUTION OF A POPULATION
- X RACE AND CULTURAL OPPORTUNITY
- XI CONCLUSION
- INDEX
Preface
The pernicious propaganda relating to the Nordic doctrine before, during, and since the war is the excuse for this book. From the closing years of the last century to the outbreak of the Great War there was in Germany a rising tide of adulation of the blond dolichocephal as the embodiment of all that was great in creative genius, organizing ability and power of leadership. Before that war actually broke many a glittering wave of that same tide had splashed resolutely and ominously on the shores of England and America. With the actual outbreak of hostilities the doctrines that the Anglo-Saxons were the purest of the Nordics and that the salvation of the world depended on the maintenance of Nordic domination were widely and loudly proclaimed. The virus of that propaganda is as yet by no means spent, though it appears to be weakening.
The reader of this volume will be convinced that the doctrines of certain American scholars and publicists, which have been hailed by a large part of the American public as more or less fresh discoveries of American scholarship, are very old. Some of them were promulgated several centuries ago and all of them systematically set forth two generations ago. We do not attempt an exhaustive historical study of them. We have subjected a few of their outstanding formulations to internal analysis and self-criticism. When these authors cannot be convicted of gross inconsistency and made to destroy themselves, they are made to destroy each other. We do not, however, anywhere deny that the Nordic race appears to have excellent endowments; we would admit that in this respect it is one of the world’s premier races. We do deny its universal superiority, as also its claim to a monopoly of certain human excellences. We also deny that to this stock can be attributed a special historical role except in a most vague way. Our thesis is that all important historical groups have been heterogeneous in racial composition; and that all areas of high culture have been areas of extensive population movement and race mixture. In such mixtures the Nordic element has been, according to much evidence, a very valuable ingredient.
Having exposed the fallacies, exaggerations and inconsistencies of the Nordicists, we proceed in Part II to a systematic examination of certain fundamental problems related to the significance of race as a factor in the development of civilization. We contend that racial differences are not those of kind; that all races have all human qualities ; but that they have these qualities in different degrees of development. One race may excel in physical energy, another in creative imagination. This conception does away with the notion of a general or universal superiority on the part of any one race. Moreover, in view of the wide range of variation among the members of the same race, inferiority or superiority cannot be attributed to an individual on account of his race. A short member of a tall race may be distinctly shorter than a tall member of a short race. So with intelligence, organizing ability, or artistic sense. Social barriers on account of race have, therefore, no basis in biological fact.
A similar conclusion is reached in the study of race crossing: there is no biological mandate against it, even in the case of widely different races. The sociological grounds for opposition to race mixture are doubtless important but their importance derives almost entirely from the fact that race prejudice is a social force and not a theory. Offspring receive their hereditary endowments from their immediate ancestors ; if the parents are of high quality, so also will be the offspring, regardless of race. This fact is not altered by the crossing of races. On the other hand, every form of inferiority and deformity flourishes among the lowest strains of the Nordic stock, however pure. We think it can be shown also that race crossing is a factor in the production of talented men, and hazard the guess that most of the superior men of European history have been of mixed racial ancestry.
In relating these findings to immigration policy we think it has been shown that the new immigrants, though in the mass less desirable from the standpoint of general intellectual abilities than the native population, nevertheless have brought into the American population endowments of aesthetic appreciation, artistic creation, and sanguine temperament that will contribute much to the enrichment of American life and culture in the years to come. Since the crossing of sound strains of different races is biologically sound, we contend that well-endowed Italians, Hebrews, Turks, Chinese and Negroes are better materials out of which to forge a nation than average or below average Nordics. From this point of view a sound immigration policy, if it could be governed by biological considerations only, would admit, without limitations of numbers, all those of whatever race who can prove themselves free from hereditary taint and pass intelligence tests which show them to be above the average of the present population in native intellectual capacity. Here again the objections are based on sociological considerations, of which the fact of racial antipathy is most important. Were it not for these traditional popular prejudices, America could do no better than to make itself a world asylum for persons of superior quality regardless of race or color.
While we are denying the extravagant claims of the Nordicists, we also deny the equally perverse and doctrinaire contentions of the race egalitarians. There is no respect, apparently, in which races are equal ; but their differences must be thought of in terms of relative frequencies, and not as absolute differences in kind. They are like the differences between classes in the same population. It thus appears that the eugenic contentions are fundamentally sound, as against both the racialists on one extreme and the thorough environmentalists on the other. From the standpoint of the biology of population quality, superior rank within a race is of more importance than race. From the standpoint of the creation and maintenance of culture, high-grade stock is more important than cultural opportunity, though the latter is doubtless also important. The progress of a people is so greatly dependent on the abilities of its few ablest men that the primary question which a theory of the racial basis of civilization must answer is, what are those conditions which produce the greatest supply of genius? We have tried to show that this is primarily a problem of eugenics rather than of race. It is also a problem of race crossing rather than of maintenance of race purity.
In the preparation of the manuscript I received assistance for which I am grateful from my colleague, Professor Joseph Wiehr, who assisted in the digest of certain recent German materials relating to the subject. To another colleague, Professor Howard M. Parshley, I am deeply indebted for a careful reading of the manuscript of Part II, which has greatly benefited by his numerous suggestions and criticisms. I wish also to thank Professor Robert C. Chaddock of Columbia University for permission to reproduce the graphs found on p. 265. Words are inadequate to express my gratitude to my wife and to Miss Mildred Hartsough for reading the proofs, and to the latter for compiling the Index.
F. H. Hankins
Smith College
March, 1926
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