Post by galvez on Feb 3, 2005 1:40:37 GMT -5
Psychotropic Visions of Madison Grant
A Review of The Passing of the Great Race, Arno Press, 1970, 296 pp.
Madison Grant, above, provides a kaleidoscopic view of European history.
When I began reading Passing of the Great Race I thought I would enter the mind of a warped being out to denigrate other races and steal their history. I saw that my suspicions, based on my recollections of those who have cited him, were true to an extent, but I came to see beauty in the work that can be appreciated by all with a dispassionate mind and a capacity for objectivity. The book is, quite frankly, one of the best books ever written, and I wholeheartedly recommend it as a reading for those interested in anthropology, history and eugenics.
Grant focuses on the three primary European races: the Mediterraneans, Alpines, and Nordics. According to Grant the Nordic race is the “master race”: the most superior out of the three races, given its capacity for leadership and organization. He believes that the Mediterranean race is the most artistically superior out of the three, and that the Alpines are destined to be “a race of peasants, and agricultural and never a maritime race (227).”
Out of the three subraces the Alpines receive the harshest treatment. Grant goes so far as to say:
“In southwest Norway and Denmark, there is a substantial number of short, dark round heads of Alpine affinities. These dark Norwegians are regarded as somewhat inferior socially by their Nordic countrymen. Perhaps as a result of this disability, a disproportionately large number of Norwegian immigrants to America are of this type. Apparently America is doomed to receive in these later days the least desirable classes and types from each European nation now exporting men (211).” [1]
His put-downs of the Alpines are overdone and tiresome, given that the Alpine nations (ie. those in Central Europe) have been among the most productive in recent centuries, while those in the extreme north have been “anemic,” as even Grant admits. Presumably Grant believes, since race is more important than environment and is destiny, that the reason the Central European nations have outperformed those of the extreme north is due to the Nordic elements therein: those hidden Teutonic elements that can conveniently be found among the upper strata of a nation when the historic facts do not fit with preconceived ideas. Unfortunately for Grant, there is no empirical support for his claims that everywhere in Europe (and in parts outside of it) where great and noble things are done there is necessarily a coterie of white-skinned long-heads leading the charge.
His assumption that only Nordics among the European subraces show the traits of extreme belligerence and adventure leads him to conclude that the Spanish conquistadores were of “Nordic type.” He also claims, from Renaissance Italy, “Dante, Raphael, Titian, Michael Angelo [sic], Leonardo da Vinci were all of Nordic type…(214).” His liberal interpretation of what constitutes a Nordic is partly why. He writes: “Eye color is of very great importance in race determination because all blue, grey or green eyes in the world today came originally from the same source, namely, the Nordic race of northern Europe (24).” As Carleton Coon points out in Races of Europe, the Mediterranean and Alpine subraces have tendencies to blondism independent of admixture with other races. According to Grant, I am a Nordicized Mediterranean, and had I been a world-famous conqueror or explorer a few centuries ago, given my olive green eyes, I too would be a Nordic.
Grant’s classifications are not as clear-cut and refined as those by Coon in his Races of Europe, so by labeling Northwest Germany and other parts of Northern Europe as “Nordic,” he is essentially placing the Borrebys in the Nordic category, presumably because of their relative depigmentation. (I should add that the Borrebys appear to me to be an entirely different subspecies from the Nordics, and are nowhere near as aesthetically pleasing to the eye as the Mediterraneans, Nordics, and East Baltics, who each appear more highly specialized).
Grant appears to do a disservice to the Nordic people, contrary to his intentions, by portraying them as mindless brutes [2] who are always at war with each other and other races, given their greater tendency to volunteer for military service (hence their greater courage and virility as compared to the other races). Thus the Nordic elements are continuously getting depleted while the brunet elements reproduce and gradually take their place. He believes that Word War I, going on while he is writing the book, will further damage the Nordic man’s position compared to the other subraces, just as the Thirty Years’ War permanently made Germany more brunet. It doesn’t seem to occur to him that if the Nordics are so mindless that they must inevitably whittle away their populations in fratricidal wars, that perhaps they are not truly the “master race.” [3]
The best part of the book is early on, and is what makes this book fascinating as a read and establishes Madison Grant as one of the great racial visionaries of all time: his articulation of how the democratic process and the “maudlin sentimentalism” of the best elements lead to the decline of nations. As the war in Iraq clearly demonstrates, the collective opinion, which at first favored the war, is often not the best and most informed opinion. All throughout Europe and in its colonial offshoots, mass immigration poses a threat to the long-term survival of European peoples. The masses, despite their voting power, have not tackled on this problem, because in the short term mass immigration props up the economy by providing a nation with cheap labor and a greater pool of workers to contribute tax revenues to the welfare state.
The democratic process has also encouraged the less intelligent and fit to breed by providing them with a safety net which would not exist in a state of nature. In the U.S., for example, those having the most children are typically the least educated and intelligent. Those who earn college degrees and especially those who earn advanced degrees tend to wait till they are much older to have kids, and many do not have kids at all. This is a trend shown in all advanced nations, not merely those in Europe. As the standard of living rises due to technological development, it is perhaps inevitable that the most intelligent will have the least amount of children because they tend to be more achievement and career oriented.
On the other hand, the democratic process has provided more stability for nations in modern times and relative peace and prosperity as compared to the early and middle part of the 20th century, when totalitarian regimes decimated Europe’s population. On the whole, democratic nations tend to be more peaceful and wealthy due to greater transparency in the legal system and respect for property rights, but with the side-effect of easily manipulated electorates who frequently make poor decisions, even very destructive ones.
[1] This does not bode well for the Alpines who embrace Nordicist ideology, especially in the U.S.
[2] Madison Grant claims the Nordics are the most chivalric and noble toward captured enemy combatants, and treat women better than the other races, but his constant refrain about Nordics slaughtering each other at their own expense and for the benefit of others nonetheless makes them appear as “mindless brutes.”<br>
[3] According to game theory the “winner” (master) does not always pick a fight or engage in battle.
