On Ethnic Nationalism

Will this be my final word on Ethnic Nationalism? No, not if my fellow counter-Jihadis continue to dig themselves in further and further.

A friend wrote to me and told me that I use the phrase "Ethnic Nationalist" as a perjorative; that the phrase simply means racist.

I do not say that all people who are in the thrall of Ethnic Nationalism are racists. I think many people are confused by the word "ethnic." I think the word is used to mean both culture and race. I think that makes the word lame and useless.

If you want to talk about race, talk about race. If you want to talk about culture, talk about culture.

Some of the people who are currently siding with Ethnic Nationalists are people who are confused by the word "ethnicity" and thus believe they are siding with those who want to preserve their culture.

Hey look, we here in the West have the best culture in the world. Europeans created this culture. Of that there is no doubt. Chinese people did not create Western culture, nor did Africans, nor did South Americans. Europeans created this culture. And, as I said, it is the best in the world.

That being said, our culture is, and can be represented by a set of ideas, and these ideas, like all knowledge, can be passed along from generation to generation, from people to people.

The West, especially America, has a history of assimilating people. No other culture on the face of the Earth has such success at assimilating people. People come to the West because they like what it has to offer. They like what it has to offer, because it is better than what is offered in their countries of origin. And, they become Westerners because they want to become Westerners.

People do not move en masse to China, or Africa, or other sections of the world, because other areas of the world do not have much to offer.

Ethnic Nationalists want to believe that our culture can only be lived by the people who created the culture, that the Western idea can only be lived and expressed by those who are European. This idea flies in the face of reality. There are Indians, and Chinese, and Viet Namese, and Africans, and South Americans, and many other peoples, who live in the West as fully assimilated Westerners.

Assimilation happens when people are acculturated. It is a cultural issue, not a race issue.

Anyone who insists that it is a race issue is a racist.

And, anyone who tries to justify such racism by pointing to Japan, or any other country in the world where they enforce any kind of racially-based citizenship is arguing against their racism by appealing to racism.

I am not with Japan, or any other nation of people who walls themselves in racially because their culture is not strong enough to withstand people of other races.

I am a cultural capitalist. If their culture can't survive in the free market of ideas, then their culture deserves to die.