"Human By Nature," by Alpha Unit

Another fine post by guest author Alpha Unit. Alpha Unit is a Black woman. It is an old notion that Black people can never truly be Westernized. Western civilization itself, some suggest, is a by-product of Caucasoid genes. If this is true, then how can Blacks ever get along in White societies? Are they to create a perpetual “Negro problem” for those who uprooted them? Part of the mythology surrounding Black people is the notion that Whites have taken us out of Africa but Africa can never be taken out of us. We are therefore not to be trusted and will revert to savagery under the right conditions. This fear of the Black Savage, with his bestial impulses simmering right beneath the surface, has served racists conveniently, allowing them to engage in everything from restricting where Blacks could live to outright murder of Blacks on the flimsiest allegation that the purity of some White damsel is under attack. What such people either don’t know or won’t accept is that there is no such thing as “White” nature or “Black” nature. As one anthropologist stated a long time ago, “Human nature remains fundamentally primitive.” Racial characteristics provide only a veneer for what human beings really are. The anthropologist cited above was quoted by another, the pioneering and eminently accessible Bronislaw Malinowski. Malinowski was an academic with the gift of being able to take a potentially dry subject like anthropology and making it engaging to ordinary people. Malinowski is famous not only for his field work in Papua New Guinea but for being a founder of the “functional school” of anthropology, which arose from his desire to put anthropology on a more scientific footing. His view was that every aspect of a culture served some genuine purpose, having the function of addressing some fundamental need within the group. Primitive peoples (or “savages,” to use the term of his day) were every bit as rational as “civilized’ Western man, no matter how much certain of their behaviors mystified or repulsed  outsiders. In a talk titled “Science and Reason” that he gave to the BBC which was later published in as part of a book in 1930, Malinowski states :

Now here the most important thing to realise is that primitive man makes full use of his knowledge whenever he can. You must discard the notion that the savage is a child or a fool, a mystic or a nincompoop. I have seen the savage hunter at work: he knows his animals and their habits; he is familiar with the properties of his weapons, the strength of his spear and the flight of his boomerang.

I have trusted myself to savage sailors on their frail craft over dangerous seas and under trying conditions. They understand wind and weather, stability and tides, in a truly reliable, that is, in a scientific way. It is only because he is able to observe correctly and to think clearly, that, with his simple tools and limited cooperation, that primitive man can master nature as well and as effectively as he can.

Malinowski pointed out the error in the idea that the “savage” has a mind that is essentially different from that of civilized people. I am convinced, as Malinowski is, that human nature is the same everywhere, regardless of DNA. Malinowski acknowledged that this idea was hard for many Westerners to grasp. And due to what they “know” to be true, many people today cannot see that Blacks have the same basic nature that they do. When not the result of simple ignorance, the belief that Black people are by their very nature “different” from Whites (or anyone else) is a self-soothing conceit, a teething ring for those with the compulsion to assert their own superiority. Such people love pointing out the sins of Blacks, disregarding the fact that the same sins are found in every group on earth. To them, any behavior exhibited disproportionately by a group belongs to that group. Whites have engaged in violence both individually and collectively (like all other groups) throughout history and on nearly every continent–including violence of the magnitude made possible by advanced technologies. Yet no one says that Whites are violent “by nature.” Asians–again, like everyone else–have inflicted violence on their fellow human beings. But who in their right mind would show footage of the Rape of Nanking and assert that it illustrates the “true nature of the Japanese?” Blacks are no different from other human beings. When they know they have a stake in the societies in which they live, they tend that investment as much as anybody else. They do everything they can to maintain and develop it. Black people absolutely can and do respect and adopt “Western” values. Unfortunately, there are still too many of us for whom there is nothing to lose by rejecting them.

References

Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1962. Sex, Culture, and Myth. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.
Please follow and like us:
error3
fb-share-icon20
20
fb-share-icon20

9 thoughts on “"Human By Nature," by Alpha Unit”

  1. The essay has a strong Leftist slant. Whites are pathologized throughout. It would probably receive a decent mark from a university professor since it falls within the Party Line of Leftist academia.

  2. Robert, why the hell do you insist on pretending to be a black woman and writing this ridiculous shit? It’s so obvious it’s you, it’s not even funny. You’ve got some weird issues, man.

    1. Hmmm, you mean she writes just like I do? Yikes. Maybe this Alpha Unit thing isn’t going over so well? How about her comments? Do they sound just like me also?

  3. By their fruits shall ye know them.
    It appears that you are a socialist, or, perhaps more to your taste a Guardian reading liberal type. I’m sure you are a good ambassador for your race, and that you as an individual are no more or less ‘adjusted’ to life in the world outside of Africa. One Swallow, however, Spring doth not make. I’m sure you’re very clever, and chatty, and a must talk to at parties.
    However your race are on the whole to blame for their own circumstances, and fail to recognize this only because through ignorance they have accepted the cultural Marxist ideology that:
    All white people are racist, therefore all Africans are victims of the white man. Thus the white man should hate himself, empty his pockets and wallet, and accept whatever base behaviour is displayed by Africans, however wicked, brutal and cruel, and just keep shovelling money into a deeper and deeper black hole to assuage his guilt. .
    Really – this trash in defence of your ideologically laden piece:
    “Malinowski pointed out the error in the idea that the “savage” has a mind that is essentially different from that of civilized people. I am convinced, as Malinowski is, that human nature is the same everywhere, regardless of DNA.
    Malinowski acknowledged that this idea was hard for many Westerners to grasp. And due to what they “know” to be true, many people today cannot see that Blacks have the same basic nature that they do.”
    Worthy of a bwahahahahahahahahaha!
    When I worked with those in a state of derangement at the old County Asylum in Suffolk, I noticed the most deranged always believed themselves the most sane. My error was that my perception of the deranged was not real outside of my mind – thus they were not really deranged just differently ‘normal’.
    bwahahahahahaha.
    Tripe.
    You cannot take the trash peddled by the inheritors of the Frankfurt School -the trash created by Boaz and expanded by Margaret Mead – merely created to further cultural Marxism. Dear oh dear.
    In the great scheme of things, had the liberal chatterati not bucked the trend, most of ‘Black Africa’ would have simply ceased to exist, having been stripped out by more civilised, technologically advanced races – Arab, European, Asian – due to the presently obvious inability to adapt to a changing world, to create the most basic stable structures : taxation, law & order, means of exchange (above the level of bater) , post peasant agriculture, wherein a surplus is created.
    Because, Alpha Unit, when these things are done – tah-dah!! – Europe, China, North America, India, Brazil – all happen. And, remember, Brazil, China and India (and Indonesia, Maylasia, Peru, Costa Rica) have all been colonies of Western European powers within 200 years – many far more recently.
    India – ruled by Britain fior over 100 years, just watched the British leave and – got on with running the very structures Britain left behind. They have nuclear power, an enormous military, and have a highly developed industrial base. All since 1947.
    I’m sorry, but that’s the truth. Everyone else here on planet Earth has managed this. Africa, whose interior was only mapped 100 years ago (and properly only fifty) is a basket case, and in comparison to the modern (1850 – 1950) colonial era, Africans left to their own devices, seem incapable of living lives little better than those lived in the rest of the world in the Stone Age.
    I wish it were different. Really I do.

    1. Where are you getting this? Where did I state that all whites are racist and should continually open their wallets to Africa?

  4. One thing I find continually here is that no matter what I say, people hear what they expect to hear.
    I’m black, so I must hold certain views and adhere to certain beliefs about race. I must think white people are the embodiment of evil, right? And surely I hold Africa blameless for its ills.
    I’m not interested in cultural or any other type of Marxism, actually. I don’t read the Guardian, although I’ve looked at it a time or two. I’m rather shy and I tend to be withdrawn at parties, so it wouldn’t be any fun talking to me at one.
    I am an admirer of Malinowski, who seems to be one of the most reasonable thinkers I’ve read–and one of the least ideological. And I have read some of his criticism of both Boas and Mead.
    Believing that human nature is the same everywhere makes you a socialist? Why doesn’t it make you simply observant?

    1. People ultimately will be biased no matter what race, creed and class. No one can or would be truly be objective.
      What should we make out of the aforementioned fact(opinion)?

      1. I think you’re right that some amount of bias is inevitable. But there’s a lot of common ground different groups can find with each other. People have to be motivated to find that common ground, perhaps.
        I don’t think some outside authority can force people to find it, though. People can arrive at it in other ways, probably when they realize they have shared interests.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

error

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word :)