racism

"Racism and the Concept of Perfectionism"

by William Soderberg

   Thomas Jefferson wrote that Africans and Europeans could not come under the same government, so different were they in nature, habit, and opinion.(1) He stated: "The amalgamation of the one race [whites] with the other [blacks] produces a degradation to which no lover of his country, no lover of excellence n the human character, can innocently consent."(2)
    Were attitudes that today would be described as racist formed from mere passion and ignorance? Or did they have a rationale? I will first review some reasons offered by some political and professional figures for the practices of slavery, segregation, and eugenics. I will then suggest a possible source of these attitudes with deep roots in the history of European ideas. This source I will call the concept of perfectionism.
    In the pre-Civil-War era, James H. Hammond, then Governor of South Carolina responded to a call for the abolition of slavery put forth by the Free Church of Scotland. He rebuked the church for its failure to recognize that the bible accepted slavery. Hammond went on to argue that the slaves of the American South were no worse off than workers in Scotland. He contended that African blacks were as free in their plantation roles as their nature allowed them to be. Further, according to Hammond, they were happy in their performance of service to the human family.(3)
    Later Hammond, as a U.S. Senator from South Carolina, stated a justification for slavery. "In all social systems," Hammond claimed, "there must be a class to do the manual duties, to perform the drudgery of life--that is, a class requiring but a low order of intellect. Its requisites are vigor, docility, fidelity. Such a class you must have or you would not have that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement. Fortunately for the South, she found a race adapted to that purpose."(4)
    In 1857, Roger B. Taney, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, wrote for the majority in the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision to prevent blacks from suing for their freedom in court. In support of the decision, Taney cited the view of "the civilized portion of the white race" that blacks were property and not citizens. He described blacks as an "unfortunate" and "inferior" race of people who did not merit citizenship in civilized societies. He regarded this view as common public opinion in the "civilized and enlightened portions of the world" at the time of the framing of the U.S. Constitution. He wrote: "The public history in every European nation displays [the view that blacks are property and not citizens] in a manner too plain to be mistaken."(5)
   On the eve of the Civil War, the Louisiana physician and writer William Holcombe presented an argument in support of the pro-slavery party.(6) He observed that the anti-slavery sentiment in the north had reached the point of hysteria, but he contended that history would vindicate the pro-slavery position. Europeans have a mission, he argued, to bring the savages of the world into a state of civilization. He claimed that throughout history the enslavement of barbaric peoples had been a means of bringing the savages into a civilized state.
"African slavery is no retrograde movement," Holcombe wrote, "no discord in the harmony of nature, no violation of elemental justice, no infraction of immutable laws, human or divine--but an integral link in the grand progressive evolution of human society as an indissoluble whole."(7)
    Holcombe claimed that Africa and Africans had been extensively studied, and in every way African societies had been shown to be inferior to those of constitutional democratic societies and Africans had been shown inferior anatomically, socially, morally, ethologically, and historically. A liberation of the slaves, he feared, would result in "the Africanization of the South." He maintained that the whole civilized world was deeply interested in the maintenance of African slavery, since the cotton and sugar produced by slaves
had risen to a position of unparalleled political and industrial importance.
The eugenics movement that reached its zenith during the first decades of the twentieth century was supported by the positions of some scientists and medical writers. Although its most notorious expression occurred under the Nazi regime in Germany, the aims of the movement were pursued in other countries in various forms. A book by Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson, entitled Applied Eugenics,(8) provides an illustration of the tone and aims of this movement in the United States. In a chapter entitled "The Color Line" Popenoe and Johnson advocate a separation of whites and blacks in the practice of bearing children. They offer alleged medical and genetic support for popular beliefs that favor such separation.
    Among the supposed medical and genetic support offered by Popenoe and Johnson is the alleged fact that each race of people has its unique diseases. Peoples have adapted to different environments in the course of evolutionary history: blacks have adapted to African environments, but not to the environment of North America. Further, whites have adapted to industrial economies while Africans by and large have not. For these reasons, Popenoe and Johnson maintain, preserving the color line has survival value.
    Popenoe and Johnson endorse the position of J. M. Mecklin, who argues that the preservation of the dominant social type through the social approval of marriages is a way of preserving "a continuous and progressive civilization."(9) Among the features that Mecklin associates with blacks is a lack of industrial and political cooperation, which he claims results in a low level of social organization. Mecklin claims that blacks display low efficiency in industrial and mechanical arts. Blacks, according to Mecklin, lack race pride as well as social and national self-consciousness. Mecklin also attributes low levels of morality to blacks along with the practices of cannibalism and slavery in their own African cultures. He finds fetishism and sorcery in their intellectual and religious life.
    Popenoe and Johnson claim further that blacks lack something in their germ-plasm that prevents them from competing successfully with the civilizations of the white races. Science, these authors hold, supports the prohibition of intermarriage and reproduction (what was referred to as "miscegenation") between blacks and whites. They claim that the deterioration of the Arabs is due to their miscegenation. Intelligence tests, including those given to persons of mixed race, support the theory that whites are superior to blacks in native intelligence. The conclude: "...it must be admitted not only that the Negro is different from the white, but that he is in the large eugenically inferior to the white."
    During the 1920's, Calvin Coolidge, in an article written while he was Vice-President of the U.S.,(10) stated that immigration to the U.S. should be open to those peoples suited for an industrial society. "Nordics propagate themselves successfully," he wrote. "With other races, the outcome shows deterioration on both sides." He cited the problem of amalgamation in his defense of the view that only some people are suitable for an industrial society.
    In our efforts to discover a rationale for these views, one possible explanation is that Jefferson, Hammond, Taney, Holcombe and Coolidge subscribed to a belief in the survival of the fittest. On this view power is self-justifying. If one group possesses power over another--perhaps in the form of military might--no further justification is needed for the exercise of that power. The very possession of the power justifies its use.
    A review of the history of Euro-American ideas reveals that the survival-of-the-fittest argument is one source of separatist attitudes. I wish to explore another source—namely, the doctrine known as the principle of perfectionism, the view that something more perfect than mere nature exists or can exist.(11) Society, according to the principle of perfectionism, should be organized in a way that will help to attain the vision of a more perfect world. I will try to show that a belief in perfectionism helps to explain the arbitrary treatment of some people by others—an arbitrariness that I call the tyranny of perfectionism.(12)

Perfectionism Old and New

    I detect two major forms of perfectionism--one in the ancient and medieval worlds and a second in the modern era. The tradition of perfectionism has been a central part of the account of the world offered by many Europeans. The texts of Plato have been employed to support and sustain the first of the two
major forms of perfectionism. In Plato's account,(13 ) social stability occurs when persons with gold in their veins--the rational, impartial and fair-minded--are made the legislators; when those with silver in their veins--the benevolent and courageous--occupy military positions; and when those with brass or iron in
their veins--those who primarily pursue self-interest--occupy the private business sector.
    Civil strife, according to Plato, may be traced to an unnatural social mix of people with different metals. When persons with brass or iron in their veins attempt to rule, graft and corruption threaten the stability of the state. Such a state lacks a conscience. When those with gold in their veins rule over those with
brass and iron, however, a stable society is the result.
    An unnatural mix that threatens social stability can also occur when persons of one group--the gold blooded, for example--marry and have children with those who have brass in their veins. One proper role of the leaders or guardian class in a good society, according to Plato, is to assure that like reproduce with like. Offspring from mixed matins provide a poor brand of leadership that can result in civil chaos.
    The ancient and medieval form of perfectionism was reinforced by a belief in what Arthur Lovejoy describes as the principle of plenitude.(14) The view that the world is chaotic was widely rejected by European philosophers in favor of the notion that a fundamental harmony is present in the world. The belief in a basic harmony was expressed by the claim that the world is fundamentally
rational.
    According to those who accept a belief in rational harmony, society is not a disordered state in which only the physically more powerful survive. At its very foundation the world is orderly and reflects an ordering mind. Humans, unlike non human animals and plants, have the capacity to grasp the underlying
order of things.
   As the belief in the rational order of the universe developed, the variety of living and non-living things came to be viewed as an expression of the greatness and comprehensiveness of the author or source of the world--whatever that source might be. The plenitude of this source was apparent in the abundance and
variety of nature.
    Education in the arts (beauty), science (truth), and moral philosophy (goodness) was regarded by many as the best road to a fuller understanding of the world's rational order. Some were regarded as more suited to learning than others, and when persons capable of learning were carefully selected and provided with an education, the rational order of things was respected. When the educated chose the next generation of leaders, social stability was assured to the greatest extent possible.
    This set of beliefs served to justify the fabric of medieval European society. The great variety of living and non-living things expressed the world's order and perfection. The plenitude of the world and its almost infinite variety of living and non-living things reflected the rational order of the universe.
    The caste system of medieval Christianity was justified in the minds of many Europeans mainly by the principle of perfection and its counterpart, the principle of plenitude. Only persons who displayed qualities of fair-mindedness and impartiality, according to this tradition, should be chosen for education and leadership. Those selected were leaders for life, since the capacity for leadership was "in the blood."(15) A justification was now in place for royalty and absolute monarchy. A review of the history of absolute monarchy and its
oppression of the people may warrant the observation that the guardian class of the middle ages became intoxicated with the power granted by the caste system and its way of life.
    Democratic movements of the 18th and 19th centuries challenged the social structure that placed some classes in permanent positions of leadership and others in positions of permanent subordination. The ordinary person, according to the democratic challenge, could be fair-minded and could select the
leaders.
   Although political and social structures were transformed by the democratic movements, the attitude of perfectionism proved to be too deeply entrenched to disappear. During the past few centuries, perfectionism has been gradually transformed and in its new form has continued to prove devastating for
some peoples.
    Social and economic changes in Europe fueled dreams of greater liberty and equality.(16) A shift from land to money as the unit or measure of wealth accompanied a shift from an agricultural to an industrial way of life. The availability of the printed word following the invention of the printing press some centuries earlier made feasible the hope of universal education, a hope that challenged the belief that only the few should be educated.
    The hopes of liberty and equality expressed in the democratic human rights movements, however, were impeded by the persistence of perfectionist views. The perfectionism of the 18th and 19th centuries had several features that seemed at first to save it from its tyrannical forms of the middle ages. While in
medieval Christianity the notion that the creator or source of the universe was fixed and immutable, the 18th-century enlightenment and 19th-century romantic writers largely abandoned the project of describing that source. An evolutionary thinking came to the fore that viewed the universe as evolving rather than
conforming to a fixed, eternal pattern. In this respect, while medieval thinkers had been traditionalist and regressive in their world view, enlightenment and later thinkers were mainly liberal and progressive. Rather than take a fixed notion of human nature as their cue, liberals viewed human nature as open-ended
and evolving.
    Perfectionist attitudes that still lurked behind the progressivist views of the liberal thinkers led to the belief that some people were more advanced than others in the attainment of civilization. According to some authors, equality and liberty belonged to the culture and the psyche of some peoples, but hierarchy and
despotism were the heritage of others. Those people capable of negotiating a social contract and consenting to a government were regarded as more civilized than those who were mired in the tradition of social hierarchies and despotic leadership. Those who exercised their capacity for self-governance were said to
live in a state of civilization, while those who lived in hierarchical societies governed by despots were said to live in a state of nature.(17)
    Perfectionism had provided a justification for stratified political, social, and economic structures during the European middle ages. Perfectionism in its new key provided a justification for a new set of political, social, and economic structures during the 18th and 19th centuries. A central question for the political dimension of perfectionism was who should play the different political, social, and economic roles. Just as during the middle ages some people who were viewed as possessing certain qualities were selected for specific roles, so too in industrial societies certain people were viewed as capable of contributing and others as incapable of contributing to social, economic, and political organization. As democracies arose in various settings, some people were viewed as capable of participating but others were viewed as less capable or even incapable of participating in democratic forms of government and industrial enterprises. Darwin had described survival in nature; social Darwinists applied the Darwinian law of survival to a state of civilization and described a law of the "survival of the economically fittest."(18)
    As in the medieval form of the doctrine of perfectionism, the judgment was made that a rational order was followed when people suited for political, social, and economic leadership were allowed to enter leadership roles and those capable only of following were assigned subordinate roles. Unlike the medieval form, however, the issue now became which peoples were capable of participation and leadership in a commercial or industrial society.
    Immanuel Kant, a major voice of the enlightenment, specified that the social contract, which took people from a state of nature to a state of civilization, was merely an idea of reason.(19) The concept of "nature vs. civilization" caught on among philosophers and the public at large. The subtlety of Kant's claim that the contract was merely an idea of reason--that is, a hypothetical and not an actual historical contract--was lost among his followers. The expression came to be applied to a historical development of humans from a more primitive to a more advanced stage of evolution.
    Kant himself may have contributed to the failure of people to catch his subtle point that the social contract was an idea of reason. Kant cited the opinion of David Hume that Africans were inferior to Europeans and went on to offer his own evidence in support of the claim.(20) Kant also wrote of the law of the villager and the law of the nomad and regarded the villager's law superior to the law of the nomad. The villager's law was publicly consented to and publicly enforced, whereas the nomad's law was despotic, religious, and privately enforced.(21) When these two views of Kant were placed side by side, it was but a short step for his numerous followers to conclude that the law of the African was inferior to that of the European. Kant's description of the African included a reference to the despotism and fetishism of African traditions.
    Thomas Jefferson joined Kant and others as an influential figure of the enlightenment. While he rejected the Platonic version of perfectionism present in the model of medieval Christianity, Jefferson accepted the enlightenment version of perfectionism. He subscribed to the nature-vs.-civilization model and regarded Europeans as capable of democratic self-government but Africans as incapable of this form of government.
    James Hammond and Roger Taney reflected the claim of both the medieval and enlightenment forms of perfectionism that only some people are capable of governing society and that the governing group constitutes a permanent class of leaders. Hammond and Taney regarded European whites as
the governing class. Calvin Coolidge drew upon the enlightenment version of perfectionism to support his claim that only northern Europeans were capable of leadership in an industrial society.
    The brutalities of chattel slavery, segregation, and eugenics reveal a dark underside of societies built on perfectionist views. Atrocities inflicted by some humans on others expose a tyrannical side of these societies. The promotion of a better, more perfect way of life has sometimes given way to a complete intoxication with the desired way of life. So enthralled have some people become with the promotion of a civilized way of life--civilized in some instances by a religious order and in others by a scientific or industrial order of society--that standards of right and justice have been neglected and sometimes obliterated. The arbitrary treatment of some humans by others that follows intoxication with these ways of life may be traced at least in part to what I have described as the tyranny of perfectionism.

NOTES

1. From Jefferson's Autobiography. Cited in Fawn M. Brodie, Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History, New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1974, p. 441.

2. Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Coles, August 25, 1814. Written at Monticello.

3. James H. Hammond, "Reply to a Memorial from the Free Church of Scotland on Slavery," To the Rev. Thomas Brown, D.D., Moderator of the Free Church of Glasgow, and to the Presbytery thereof, 1844.

4. Cited in PBS Series, "Africans in America," Part 4, first aired October 1998.

5. Roger B. Taney, Opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford. Reprinted in The Annals of America, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., William Benton, Publisher, 1968, Vol. 8, pp. 441-442.

6. William Henry Holcombe, M.D., The Alternative: A Separate Nation or the Africanization of the South, New Orleans: Delta mammoth job office, 1860. Cover title: In Secession of the Southern States: 1860-1861.

7. Holcombe, p. 7.

8. Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson, Applied Eugenics, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1926.

9. Popenoe and Johnson, from Mecklin quotation, p. 281.

10. Calvin Coolidge, "Whose Country Is This?" Good Housekeeping, Vol. 72 (Feb. 1921), pp. 13-14, 106-109.

11. This definition reflects the discussion of the scale of being in Arthur Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961.

12. A parallel argument is presented in Lucius T. Outlaw, Jr., On Race and Philosophy, New York: Routledge, 1996, pp. 192-196. Outlaw explores the roots of perfectionism in the doctrine of the chain of being and the principle of plenitude. I add the state-of-nature vs. the state-of-civilization distinction to Outlaw’s analysis. Charles Mills in The Racial Contract, Cornell University Press, 1997, provides an account of the exclusion of various non-European peoples from the social contract. Many were viewed by Europeans as living in a state of nature.

13. Plato, Republic, Translated by F. M. Cornford, London: Oxford University Press, 1941; first American printing, 1945, 545d4-547c5, pp. 268-270.

14. Lovejoy, 52.

15. In one major form of the doctrine of the divine right of kings, the divine right to rule was conferred when the clergy approved the appointment of the king. For a discussion, see John Figgis, The Divine Right of Kings, New York: Harper and Row, 1965.

16. The socialist and human rights movements of the 19th and 20th centuries reflect these utopian visions.

17. John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, second treatise, Book II, Chap. 2, par. 13.

18. Richard Hofstadter, Social Darwinism in American Thought, Boston: Beacon Press, 1992, pp. 44-45.

19. Immanuel Kant, "Theory and Practice Concerning the Common Saying: This May Be True in Theory But Does Not Apply in Practice," in The Philosophy of Kant: Immanuel Kant's Moral and Political Writings, edited by Carl J. Friedrich, New York: Random House, The Modern Library, 1949, p. 422.

20. Kant's remarks on Africans are found in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, Translated by John T. Goldthwaite, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960,
pp. 110-111.

21. Immanuel Kant, Conjectural Beginning of Human History, Translated by Emil L.Fackenheim, in Lewis White Beck, ed., Kant: On History, Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill, 1957,
pp. 63-64.