Mark Koyama — Did The Enlightenment Plow Over Rising To Racism?

Weekend reading.

Slate principal political correspondent Jamelle Bouie fix off a heated online combat amongst a serial of tweets[1] claiming “the concept of race was birthed past times the Enlightenment,”[2] which together with therefore sparked a full-length article fleshing out his position.[3] His key claim is that colonialism, slavery, imperialism, together with racism inwards full general were non “incidental developments or the mere remnants of before prejudice.”

Race equally nosotros sympathize it—a biological taxonomy that turns physical departure into relations of domination—is a production of the Enlightenment. Racism equally nosotros sympathize it now, equally a socio-political social club based on the permanent hierarchy of particular groups, developed equally an campaign to resolve the commutation contradiction betwixt professing freedom together with upholding slavery. Those who claim the Enlightenment’s pall right away should care amongst that legacy together with what it way for our agreement of the modern world. (Bouie 2018)

Bouie draws on the industrial plant of several distinguished scholars on this topic, including George Fredrickson, Ivan Hannaford, Emmanuel Eze, Robert Bernasconi, together with Charles Mills.

Nevertheless, these arguments together with the back upwards Bouie received from numerous scholars on Twitter was surprising to me. In my inquiry on religious intolerance I’d encountered detailed discussions of racism emerging inwards 15th century Spain. And I was aware of literatures on ethnocentrism inwards Song dynasty China, on racialist categorizations inwards the midpoint ages together with inwards the classical antiquity.

But given the boldness of Bouie’s claim together with the back upwards he received, his challenge to “grapple with” the troubling aspects of the Enlightenment seems worth taking up. If reflection on the long history of racial prejudice, on the various legacies of the Enlightenment, together with the troubled human relationship betwixt the humanities together with the sciences today interests you, read on.[4]

The questions to last addressed

What does it hateful to tell that racism is a “product of the Enlightenment,” or that it was “birthed by,” or had its foundations “laid past times key thinkers similar Locke together with Kant”? It’s clear that Bouie doesn’t exactly hateful coining the intelligence “racism”. For example, antisemitism is a belatedly 19th century word. No 1 before the belatedly 19th century identified equally an antisemite, but claiming that antisemitism didn’t be before together with therefore is absurd, together with clearly non what Bouie is getting at.[5]

The claim made past times historians of childhood that modern western notions of childhood became prevalent inwards the 18th together with 19th centuries is, to the best of my knowledge, a credible one. In what follows, I volition assume that Bouie meant modern racism was a “product” of the Enlightenment inwards much the same way that historians meant modern childhood is a “product” of the 18th together with 19th centuries. Though at that spot is clear continuity amongst past times phenomena, at that spot are equally good plenty distinct characteristics to beak of something singular.

My critique of Bouie volition come about equally follows: first, I volition institute the universal nature of prejudice against outgroup together with advance a speculative hypothesis on the dynamics of how this manifested inwards complex agrarian societies inwards general, exploring examples inwards antiquity, early on Islamic history, together with Medieval Iberian antisemitism. These sections volition essay to lay crucial context rather than straight contradict Bouie, who acknowledges examples such equally these.[6]

Once this is established, I volition come about to the key points which undermine the specific culpability of the Enlightenment: the universalism of its main thinkers, together with the environmental together with institutional theories of racial together with ethnic differentiation which made upwards the mass of their writings on the thing (with of import exceptions such equally David Hume together with peculiarly Immanuel Kant). And finally, the critique of the Enlightenment passes over the exercise of the Counter-Enlightenment, which was particularistic together with straight involved inwards the evolution of a biologically-based “scientific” racism.…

Liberal Currents
Did the Enlightenment Give Rise to Racism?
Mark Koyama | Associate Professor of Economics at George Mason University together with the W. Glenn Campbell together with Rita Ricardo-Campbell Fellow at the Hoover Institution for the 2017-2018 academic year

ht Tyler Cowen  at Marginal Revolution

See also

Bracing Views
The Races of Man
W.J. Astore