Shifting Morality in Race and Education

Subject: Sociology
Pages: 25
Words: 7534
Reading time:
27 min
Study level: PhD

Introduction

Nowadays it is very difficult to find a country, which would be completely homogeneous in its ethical, cultural, religious, and language structure.

Speaking about the racial and inter-ethnic relationship and the positions of the national groups, it would be appropriate to pay attention to the United States of America. This country is represented by a great number of various peoples, races, cultures, traditions, and customs. Here we should mention the experience of state governing of the international relationship, about the legal support, and the delivering of the civil rights among all inhabitants of the USA not depending on their ethnic and confessional belief.

The USA is one of the most heterogeneous states in the ethnic relationship of the national communities. This country managed to establish a relatively permanent and democratic political system in a multiethnic context. First of all, it is a country with a unique structure of the population. There is an autochthonous component – native Americans, Aleutian, Hawaiian, and the basic nuclear unites several different nations – the immigrants from Britain, Western and Northern Europe, “new immigration” – mainly the immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, and a great many of African Americans. Considering all this it is important to remember that the remarkable peculiarity of the American laws is that though they guarantee equal rights to every person, they do not give any special privileges to the representatives of certain nations. Even more, the legal registration of national rights is viewed as a violation of the antidiscriminative norms.

The most important element of the American ethnic model is the administrative-legislative mechanism of regulating in the field of racial-ethnic relationships, which was made in the process of social controversies, during different movements.

So, the 14th amendment to the Constitution was used for defending the rights of communities and the most important thing in this amendment was the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The representatives of the racial groups won their rights as the result of the hard fight against discrimination. The depth of the crisis which was caused by the fight influenced the creation of an effective state mechanism that would be able to support the rights of the representatives of the racial minorities. The main goals of these mechanisms would be not to adjust interracial problems and conflicts.

Considering cultural distinctions in thinking, opinions, and behavior, it is easy to be open to cognitive and emotional reactions to the material, to start to generalize, to create negative stereotypes concerning other people, and even to give justice to these distinctions and people in advance. Such processes and reactions are widely spread in the contemporary world, and for their description are often used notions of “racism”, “stereotype”, “prejudice”, “discrimination”. Unfortunately, these terms are frequently used, without a precise understanding of their meaning that only aggravates the issues they should clarify.

Some of today’s most essential social issues are connected with these processes, as borders between the countries and cultures become more and more clear as a result of the development of means of communication, technology, and business. Nowadays it is impossible to take the newspaper or magazine or to watch the news on TV and not to run against the information concerning the issues of ethnocentrism, racial or national stereotypes, discrimination, etc. These issues spread from the international commercial activity up to the violence and wars caused by racial and ethnic distinctions. The given questions are going to become even more topical in the future when technological progress will unite various cultures of the world more and tighter.

Substantial discussion of these notions is impossible without their preliminary careful definition. Most differences in opinions arise not because of disagreements in the understanding of the value or importance of these terms in our daily life, but because of distinctions in definitions.

The concepts of Race and Ethnicity

It should be stated that racial categories are variable and depend on the meanings inserted by contemporaries. According to some scholars, it is wrong to consider the concept of race politically neutral. It always contains, even if just implicitly, the idea of conflict of interests. Omi and Winant (1994, p. 55) state “race is a concept, which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests, by referring to different types of human bodies”.

Some sociologists state that the notion of race has always been filled with some socio-cultural meaning, demonstrating an attitude towards ‘aliens’, expressed through the emphasizing of their most observable physical differences. In other words, sociologists consider that physical marks reflect not the objective reality, but subjective attitude. According to Robert Park (1964, pp. 237-239, 315), a racial mark has become the symbol of the suspense, in the ground of which has laid the sense of self-vulnerability. He writes that a sociologist is interested not in physical distinctions, differentiating one race from another, but is less evident lineaments of inner apprehensions. And physical distinctions are just the symbols of these inner apprehensions. Park claims that the historical process in the issue is predetermined by ideological factors, not by biological ones. The more important is to realize what people believe in and look for than to know who they are.

In other words, modern sociologists, considering race as an artificial construct and one of means of creation and description of the identity, emphasize that race remains to be rather an important notion, which determines and legalizes social and political actions of people. At the same time, they are sure that race is a product of racism, and not contrariwise. From this point of view groups, which are called racial, turn out to be racialized. It means that the social, political, or economical state of these groups is described with the help of racial categories.

A lot of scholars for decades have oppugned against scientific racism, which has tried to ground the idea of racial inequality. They have proved that human capabilities do not depend on the color of the skin or type of eyes. One of the most outstanding representatives of this stream is Ashley Montague (1952), who from the 1940s has insisted that race is just a scientific phantom. However, a lot of scholars as before have considered race and ethnos as some biological reality, underestimating the paramount role of social factors.

Nonetheless, some of these scholars have understood that race is rather a social construct than a biological reality and that the concept of race implicates a relationship of dominance and submission. The development of genetic studies has approved that several different genes determine so-called ‘racial marks’. This fact has originated the basis for the truly scientific approach and has given a possibility to claim that there are no races, only clines (Livingstone, 1962). During the last decades, this approach has been widely accepted by the majority of scholars.

During 1960 – 1980 it has been noticed some decline and loss of interest in studying the concept of race.

In the meantime, we have to confess that unfortunately even in the twenty-first-century mankind failed to get rid of racism. Just the other way round during the last decades of the twentieth century it has got the new, even more, ‘fastidious’ forms. As a result, it has become very difficult for scholars to define the notion of ‘racism’. And what is even worst is that modern racists make use of such uncertainty and declare themselves as intransigent fighters against racism. It should be said that contemporary criminal justice turned out to be just not ready for such metamorphoses of racism. Modern antiracists very often fall short of knowledge about its essence and history, and accordingly, they do not take into consideration significant peculiarities, which can be very helpful in struggling against it. Antiracism time and again is based on the same prejudices like racism, being just its mirror reverberation (Gilroy, 1990; Solomos & Back 1996, p. 115, 118-119; Wieviorka, 1997).

Antiracists, like racists, often consider race as some objective biological category, and sometimes even attribute biological qualities to ethnic groups. At the end of the nineteenth century – the beginning of the twentieth century many scholars followed the idea of psychological differences between particular ethnical groups. Mostly it has respected wild men. Some scholars have considered that the brain of these people has had some other psychological structure, than the brain of representatives from the “civilized world” has had. Based on the concepts of ‘collective identity and ‘primitive mentality” this approach has facilitated the derivation of the notion of ‘national character’. One of the followers of this concept is English psychologist, William MacDugle, who has concluded that there are some intellectual differences between people of various races. On working out the notion of ‘psychological’, or ‘cultural distance’, he has warned that in case this distance is too considerable, the relationship between contacting groups necessarily gets the catastrophic character. In other words, groups, which psychologically differentiate, have no chance to agree with each other. Nowadays such an approach is considered racist (Thompson, 1999).

Denying the biological basis of race by modern geneticists facilitates an interest in its populist definitions. Nowadays have arisen new approaches, supposing an opportunity to define race in terms of culture, and being completely released from its biological basis. In this case, the notion of ‘race’ is reflected the special historically developed forms of cultural adhesion and solidarity. Supporters of this point of view suppose that in the contemporary world race is neither more nor less than the form of expression of ethnicity (Goldberg 1992, p. 551, 553).

Other researchers categorically object, specifying, that racial categories either absorb or ignore ethnicity (Bashi, 1998). Besides some authors insist, the concept of the race includes both social, and cultural components. That is why to reduce it only to one of these aspects, ignoring another, would be wrong. So the concept of race, unlike the concept of ethnicity, always assumes attitudes of domination-submission, direct or indirect discrimination. For this reason, many experts believe that racial experience cardinally differs from ethnicity.

In 1996 ‘Theories of Ethnicity: a Classical reader’ was published. It has collected all studies published during the twentieth century, which has obtained world recognition. Instead of the foreword, it has had an article by Werner Sollors published in 1981 in The American Quarterly magazine. In the article, the author has chosen six central, to his opinion, issues of American ethnicity, around which the studies of modern scholars are concentrated. One of these issues is ‘Race and Ethnicity.

For the USA, occupied by representatives of various races, the question of interrelation between the concepts of ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ is extremely topical. Sollors in detail considers the opinions of various researchers and concludes discrepancy of the content of the concept of ‘ethnicity and the concept of ‘race’ (Sollors, 1996, p. XXIX). He gives several examples of opinions of researchers regarding this issue. So, Nathan Glazer considers ‘ethnicity’ and ‘race’ to be homogeneous concepts, but different in their applicability. The author notices, that terms ‘ethnicity’ and ‘race’ are included in the family of concepts defining social identity, where alongside racial and ethnic notions exist religious (as in Holland) and language (as Belgium) groups, which can be united under the name of ethnic groups, as their representatives have common real or mythical ancestors, share one history and experience (Sollors, 1996, p. XXX).

For Gordon, the meaning of the term ‘ethnic group’ is much wider, than the term ‘racial group’, which also can be subsumed to an ethnic group. He associates physical attributes of the representatives of a group with race, and cultural attributes – with ethnicity. But such authors as Michael Omi, Howard Winant, etc. hold the opposite opinion. They believe, that racial groups are also culturally and socially determined, as if to follow Gordon’s positions, the all-black population should be referred to as one ethnic group as all the population belongs to one race (Sollors, 1996, p. XXXI-XXXIV). Besides races can be ethnically determined (for example, Afro-Americans and Jamaicans in the USA), as well as ethnic groups can be differentiated by race (Spanish speaking Americans). According to the neat statement of Stewart Hall, the categories of “race” and “ethnicity” play hide-in-sick with each other, but they play hide-and-sick also with researchers, who have not to arrive at a common opinion. At the same time, many scholars support the idea that the difference between race and ethnicity does not lay in differences between physical attributes as describing race and culture, inherent to ethnicity.

Authors of the monograph ‘Ethnicity and Race: Making Identities in a Changing World’ Hartman and Cornell have devoted their work to the problem of correspondence of the subject matter of the concept of ‘ethnicity and the concept of ‘race’ in modern conditions. They have conducted a deep analysis of all opinions stated by all predecessors, having noticed the occurrence of new streams. Authors have concluded that now these concepts underlie the life of society. Using these concepts it is possible to explain such phenomena as genocide, discrimination, prejudice, the opposition of various forces, the requirements put forward by various forces. At the same time, these categories are invented, however, as well as all the others. The only important is the meaning, which people put in them, and the way they use them in their actions. In the twenty-first century the special value gets not the theorization of these notions, but the real effect of matters of ethnicity and race, as representatives of ethnic and racial groups understand them.

Racism

Nowadays it is rather difficult to define the notion of racism. This concept has an extraordinary ability to mimicry, changing itself following the circumstances. Besides attitudes to race in the different countries are different, moreover different people of the same country may take it differently. Therefore the definition of racism has become a rather complicated issue for researchers.

Some researchers associate racism with real behavior, both social, and political, which comes from the racial doctrine. The social behavior is expressed in reaction to “another” on the part of employers, journalists, men on the street, etc., and political is marked by the legislation and other discrimination actions of authorities (Vasta 1993, p.93). For example, according to the definition of American sociologist Winant, we can call racist the actions, which create and reproduce the social structure based on the absolutization of racial categories, and cultivate racial inequality, or consider racial identity and marks to be natural and primordial (Winant 1998, p. 760-761). French researcher Balibar pays attention to the “social structure of discrimination “, without which racism would lose its ground. Moreover, he states that in the contemporary world such structure is pretty often set by the policy of the state (Balibar, 1991). Wodak and Reisigl (1999, p. 178-179) suggest regarding racism as:

  1. Everyday racism, represented in the behavior of common people;
  2. Racism as a political program;
  3. Racism in legal norms (in particular, definition of citizenship by birth);

Racism as a state policy (apartheid, etc.)

Stereotypes

Jack Nachbar and Kevin Lause (1992), authors of the work ‘Popular Culture: An Introductory Text’, state that stereotypes are the constituent of mass culture. They can be formed based on age (young people listen to rock-and-roll), gender (all men want the only thing from women), race (Japanese look the same), religion (Islam is a religion of terrorists), profession (all lawyers are cheats) and nationality (all Jews are greedy). There are also geographic stereotypes (for example, living in small towns is much safer than in megalopolises), goods stereotypes (for example, all German cars are of high quality), and so on. Stereotypes may be neutral, but on transferring from some concrete person to some group of people (social, ethical, religious, racial, etc.) they often get the negative meaning. Stereotypes lay on the ground of racism.

The term ‘stereotype’ was for the first time used in the book ‘Public Opinion’ written by the classic of American journalism, Walter Lippmann (1922). Using this term he was trying to describe the method, using which community tries to categorize people. As a rule, public opinion just put stamps basing upon some characteristics. Lippmann marked out four aspects inherent in all stereotypes.

First of all, stereotypes are always much simpler than reality. They manage to paste the most multiple characteristics in two to three sentences.

Secondly, people get stereotypes (from friends, relatives, co-workers, mass media, etc.) rather than formulate them grounding on their own experience.

As an example, we may take the image of a perfect woman. She must be blond, tall, skinny, with blue eyes, and long legs. But it is not a secret that a lot of men on becoming older and getting their own experience realize that they like women with dark hair or plump women.

The third aspect is that all stereotypes are more or less false. They usually arrogate some specific characteristics to a concrete person, just because of his/her belonging to a certain group.

The fourth aspect is that stereotypes are extremely tenacious in life. The point is that in case people realize that some stereotype is at odds with true reality, they are ready to insist that the exception proves the rule, rather than to refuse from this stereotype. For example, meeting a tall Chinese just assure the victim of stereotype in the fact that all the other Chinese are petite. Stereotypes are happening to mutate or to transfer from one group of people to another.

Saera R. Khan, a professor at the University of San Francisco, has published an article in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, in which she claims that it is rather dangerous to have trust in stereotypes. The reason is that a stereotype has cognitive and motivational functions. From the cognitive point of view, any stereotype is a double-edged weapon because it presents information in simple and easy form. However such information is hugely far from true reality and can disorientate a person. From the point of view of motivation, stereotypes are even more dangerous. A person, who makes their own decisions, built upon mass public opinion, rather than upon facts, skates on thin ice.

Fred E. Jandt (2003), the author of the book ‘An Introduction to Intercultural Communication: Identities in a Global Community, notes, that generally stereotypes are used with evil intent. They often are the weapon of racism, propaganda, and xenophobia. For instance, there was anti-Semitic propaganda based on stereotypes in Germany in 1920-1930. As a result, German people treated the holocaust of 6 million Jews rather indifferently or even approvingly. For a long period in the US in mass-media prevailed negative stereotypes concerning black people (there are also a variety of examples in literature, cinema, etc.), that is why the struggle of African-Americans for their civil rights has been mostly followed by the struggle against habitual stereotypes.

Prejudice

In the scientific literature, there are some ways of classification of prejudice. Traditionally classification is made based on objects, concerning which prejudice is shown: racial, ethnic, gender, age. It is necessary to note, that the majority of researches on prejudice is focused on definite areas:

race, religion, sexual orientation, and categories of groups are limited. However, such an approach, to the opinion of Crandall, Eshleman, OBrien (2002, p. 359—378), is rather limited as it provides studying of only one kind of prejudice, instead of studying it as a general psychological phenomenon. In any society, social groups are taking a lower position in society. Concerning members of such stigmatized groups exist negative attitudes, stereotypes, judgments, and discrimination in scales of all society. Studying mechanisms of prejudice and discrimination formation will allow developing the strategy, which will be able to work towards providing psychological health of a society. One of the most topical issues in the concept of prejudice is racism. Clark et. al (1999, p. 805—816) define racism and ethnic prejudice as judgments, attitudes, institutional divisions, and actions, which purpose is connected with the humiliation of individuals or groups by phenotypic characteristics or an ethnic accessory.

Discrimination

Discrimination can be defined as any form of submission or a negative attitude to certain persons or groups, based on characteristics, which are not comprehensible and suitable grounds in the conditions they take place in. Discrimination means any distinction, exception or preference, which denies or belittles equal realization of human rights. It should be mentioned that all international regulations concerning the protection of human rights are based on the principle of denying discrimination.

In the international conventions of human rights it is provided that the country, which ratifies a convention is obliged to respect and provide all people, being in its territory and within the limits of its jurisdiction, human rights without any distinctions, such as race, color of skin, sex, language, religion, political or other views, national or social origin, property, birth or another status.

Deprivation of separate persons, groups, or whole communities of equal social, political, or economic rights, and prosecution owing to ethnic origin, nationality, outlook, or other social factors refer to as discrimination. In international relations, the concept of discrimination also covers the attitude to a state (or group of the states) as defective in comparison with other states. The Statute of the United Nations Organization excludes racial, political, religious, and other kinds of discrimination in international relations (items 55, 62, and 73). Moreover, in 1948 the General declaration of human rights has forbidden all forms of racial and other discrimination.

Discrimination can be represented as some action made against other people based on their belonging to a certain group. For example, it may be the refusal to give to members of other group opportunities, which could be given to members of their group.

Discrimination has two basic forms: discrimination de jure (or legal), fixed in-laws, and de facto (or informal), set in social customs. Discrimination de facto takes place in situations when the dominating group takes priority of the minority. In contradiction to de jure discrimination, which can be destroyed by the change of laws, it is not so easy to eradicate de facto discrimination.

Discrimination of ethnic groups is the basic source of political conflicts and secession of the state.

The theory of involution and race and morality

Speaking about shifting morality in the race we should remember the involution of morality in the world. The formula of morality involution is made based on “good – bad”. So, “good and bad good-badnormative-evaluative categories of the moral conciseness in the common form, and in addition these concepts denote the moral good well-being, on the one hand, and on the other, the moral-negative in the actions and motives of people, and the events of social reality.

The bordering between good and bad should be approached from an evolutional point of view: everything that causes culturogenesis is good and everything that prevents it is bad. But who knows if it is good that we strive for truth, justice, love, and other cultural values. In complex these values make morality. The immorality is full of opposite things, such as lying, hatred, and others.

There is great fighting between morality and immorality inside of us. It is a common opinion that all good things make us Human and all bad ones help us to be back to animals. That is the process of animalization. There is a great number of philosophers who call; us to be Humans – Socrates, Bruno, Kant, etc.). Some of them support the evolutional theory and others support the revolutionary one.

Involution is represented in different forms in morality. The most prominent form is animalism. Here we should be back to Social Darwinism (this is the trend which is based on the comparison of the principles of social development with the principles of biological development, in addition here, it would be appropriate to talk about the principles of natural selection as the factor for surviving.

The first predecessor of Social Darwinism was Thomas Robert Malthus. He saw people as the children of nature and then as the children of Mankind. He had a special way to animalism – economy.

Trying to explain the poor situation of workers and the problem of unemployment Maltus put Mankind on the same level as animals, which can not control the size of their population. He considered people and animals to be equal in their striving for breeding while having limited food. So, the sense of this law is in the following – the number of people is growing in geometric progression while the number of food is growing in arithmetical progression. Malthus considered that there is an absolute abundance of people. That is why he considered wars and starvation to be good for people.

As it is obvious today, there is a rational grain. Only in the XVIII century, the Earth’s population did not exceed 1 billion, and by 1820 reached only one billion, in 1999 it passes through the 6 billion. If the population of our planet will increase at such rates, then the example of China, which adopted a law that one family should not have more than one child, will be followed by other countries, where the population is growing very quickly.

But why is T. Maltus considered as the predecessor of Social Darwinism, he transfers Darwin’s laws of natural selection and the struggle for existence with the world of plants and animals to human society? That is because he started to find similarities between people and other living organisms. In so doing, he ignored sociocultural human nature. If the happiness of mankind was only in the optimal number of people who inhabited the Earth, then, obviously, at the time when there were less than a million, they would have to live in a golden age, and meanwhile, they lived in greater savagery than now when we have more than 6 billion.

If Marquis de Sad approached animalism from the art, then Thomas Maltus – on the part of science. Maltus has contributed to the emergence of cultural and racial anthropological directions of the XIX century. Its representatives have become prominent – Gabino A. J., O. Ammon, H. S. Chamberlain, L. Woltman, etc.

Joseph Arthur Gabino (1816-1882) was a French diplomat and come from a noble aristocratic family. In 1853 he published a book “The experience of inequality of human races”, where he tried to explain the difference in the level of cultural development among different peoples from a racial standpoint.

He started with the priority of biophysical factors in human evolution over the cultural. The gap between animals and human beings is explained by the evolutionary point of view by the cultural essence. The evolutionary theory, on the contrary, closed this gap by the similarity between people and animals.

The white race was considered by J. F. Gabino to be in the maximum isolation from animals, and black people were considered to be in the minimum isolation. The middle between them was taken by the yellow race. According to his conclusion about why representatives of these races are at the different levels of their cultural development: as black closest to the animals, their culture is at a lower level of its development. On the contrary, white (especially Indo, among which Germans are leading) have reached the highest stage in the development of culture. The Chinese are in the middle position.

The follower of J. A. Gabino in Germany became H. S. Chamberlain. H.S. Chamberlain (1855-1927), the politician, philosopher of English origin, was the best-known follower of Gobino in Germany.

Chamberlain, without defining race, actively makes use of this notion. Differences between races, in his view, are biological and intellectual. A higher position in the racial hierarchy, according to Chamberlain, is taken by the “Aryan” race, or “Nordic” Type: “high blonds”. Chamberlain described the European culture as a result of the combined effect of five factors:

  1. the arts, literature, and philosophy of Ancient Greece;
  2. law, the state and civil society of Rome
  3. Christian revelation, renewed by the process of Reformation
  4. organizing the creative spirit of the Germans,
  5. alien and destructive influences of Judaism and Jews.

The first task of the German people he considered in releasing of “enslaves of other people’s perceptions “, namely” Semitic ideas about the world “and” Moses cosmogony; offered to return to ancestral “Aryan views”, a basic principle which he considered “harmonious merging with nature”.

The revolutionary results for a new look at morality come from the racial theory. Morality itself also becomes racial: representatives of different races are attributed to their perceptions of truth and lies, about the beautiful and ugly, of good and evil, etc. Euro-centered racial ethics blesses the Indo contempt for the lowest rates, since only its scale of values and believes are considered to be true. With this disdain British and French colonizers enslaved peoples of Africa and Asia. With this disdain in the twentieth century, Adolph Hitler would issue orders for the destruction of people belonging to inferior races.

Racism breeds two morals: one – for themselves and another – for outsiders. What is considered reprehensible concerning them (fraud, robbery, violence, etc.), about others’ looks quite legitimate? The basis of the “legality” animalism is: if the lower race is close to animals, whether they can apply high moral categories – beauty, love, justice, etc.? What do they understand in this? In justification of such a position already in the twentieth century Lucien Le-seen Brule (1857-1939) issued the book “Mental functions in the lower societies” (1910), “Prehistoric thinking” (1922), “primitive soul” (1927), and “Primitive Mythology” (1935), where he psychologically justified racism: in the huge ethnographic material, it is proved a fundamental difference in the two types of thinking – a civilized and a primitive man.

The laws of logic, in his view, operate only in the minds of the latter, while primitive peoples are inherent in a particular type of thinking, which is unique in its pure logic, subordination to law, and collective ownership. The mystery of primitive thinking, for L. Brule, is to establish linkages between objects which are unrealistic, prelogics – freedom from the dictates of logical laws, in particular, the law of contradiction, subordination to the law of ownership – that primitive thinking unwarranted transfers of some properties on the other, and finally, collectively – in his domination of holders of collective over individual submissions.

As shown in further criticism by L. Brule, all these signs of primitive thinking may be inherent in thinking and civilized man.

Another representative of evolutionary theory is considered Georges Lapusios (1854-1936) in France and Otto Ammon (1842-1916) in Germany. Their psychologism was even biological: they attributed the mental and cultural characteristics of people belonging to different races by the length of their heads: they saw in the long-headed race genuine Indo (Aryans), and short-headed – race other people. The long-headedness, from their perspective, helped the Aryans to create high culture. Concerning Indo short-headed, they were the result of mixing with other peoples of Aryans. But their short-headedness and Aryan environment do not pass in vain for them: as a rule, precisely because of short-headed, on a thin observation of Lapusios and O. J. Ammon, are poor.

Social Darwinian impinges on the struggle of the races with each other for their existence under the sun and their adaptation to natural conditions. Disregarding the cultural essence of a person with extraordinary ease they carry the laws in force in the animal kingdom to human society. At the edge of the century, XIX-XX Social Darwinism found its classic Ludwig Woltman.

In 1898 he published his first book with a long name – “The system of moral conscience in regard to relations of critregardingphilosophy of Darwinism and socialism.” In this book, he expresses the ideas about the value of ideas by C. Darwin to explain patterns in the force of society. But already, and here he points out that on the top of the social hierarchy, tended to be the strongest, most clever, the most cunning people. But in general, in his first book he still held the conciliatory stance to the traditional ethics. That is why in this book, he even tried to find the origins of high morals from the Old Wise. Moreover, he still believed in this time that Testament morality can be compatible with the social Darwinian.

The following year, L. Woltman immediately publishes two books – “The historical materialism. (Narrative and criticism of Marxist philosophy)” and “Darwin and the theory of socialism (Experience of Natural History of Society).” In these books, he made a new step towards “classic” Social Darwinism, but the idea of Marxism connection with Darwinism is still present in them. The idea of class struggle, however, already in these books takes the form of racial struggle. If Karl Marx and Engels saw the main engine of social progress in the fight classes, L. Woltman saw him in the fight races. He wrote in the second of these books: “The struggle races have an organic basis of all cultural history in the social world”.

Catechism of “classical” Social Darwinism was the main L. Woltman’w book – “The political anthropology. The study of the impact of evolutionary theory for teaching about the political development of peoples”, which appeared early in the twentieth century. Here is the beginning of this book: “The biological history of human races is a natural and basic history of nations. Instead, it so far, almost exclusively, the development of political institutions and ideas have done the most one-sided manner of historical research, forgetting real people, live race, families and individuals, as organic c, realtors, and bearers of political and spiritual history “. Immediately after the starting point of the theory, he told her about the biological basis: “The human race, however, is a subject to the same common biological variability and inheritance laws, adapting and recruiting, and the mixing of intra-breeding, improvement and degeneration, as all othe,r organisms’ animal and flora.”

So, what are the main ideas “of anthropology” by L. Woltman?

  1. “The Net race originally have been everywhere”, and only the migration process has created “bastards that in a system of organs tend to predominant way to race… Extreme racial crossover breed of physiological reasons disharmonious and unstable characters”.
  2. “The Virtue and benefits are found more often in those races, which maintained a clean, and that local race has mostly shortcomings and sins of their parents, their bad heritage, but not good side”.
  3. “On the basis s of purely morphological and physiological reasons why we must conclude that conclude people with white skin (north-European race) will be the most perfect repr, tentative of the human race and higher organic product development… The most Bright race at the same time – and the most gifted and noble “.
  4. “The strict caste of Hindus and marriage system dictated well-founded historical experience and proven idea that any state, where higher cleanliness race collapses, dies. A strong sense of the superiority of the Aryan race and a firmly based understanding of the strict laws of inheritance and natural deterioration of someone else’s race by less impurity of valuable features are passing through all legislative practice of Hindus. In no other legislative document, we find people not as precise and strictly carried out the racial hygiene and racial policy in domestic law, as in “The Law of Manu”…
  5. “Postponement of the highest civilization at the lowest is possible only through the race mixing blood, the merger race-mixing place with elements of a gifted race. The power of ideas is divided on organic limited natural talent”.

As we can see, the only source of cultural progress among the people, according to Woltman, is the racial purity of the people. His ideas were inherited in the twentieth century by German theorists of Racism (Eugen Fischer (1874-1967), Fritz Lenz (1887-1976), Hans F. K. Gunter (1891-1968), Alfred Plettz (1860 -1940), Sheman Ludwig (1852-1938), etc.).

But we should not worry about the oblivion experience of racist morals. It has revived in our time ideologues of modern globalization. The countries “golden billion” seem to be the “race”, which is in the struggle for survival ahead of other countries because of their superiority over them.

Morality and politics

Speaking about the shifting morality in the race we should not forget about the field of politics because it is an interactive sphere of life of every race.

Morality is a form of social consciousness and its implementation in practice approves the type of social behavior. Unlike the law, compliance with which is maintained and controlled by public authorities, morality is based on public opinion and the impact on belief, tradition, and habit. Morality is reflected in the deeds of human beings towards society, power structures, teams, family, etc. The values of morality change over time and vary among different peoples and populations. The main problems in morality are questions about what is “good custom, conduct activities” that “decently, decency, dignity “, etc. To the dominant morality, except social values and assessments also belong those which are regarded as a religion of “good behavior”. Morality is a component of an individual worldview, it largely determines the identity of the picture for socio-political peace.

Since the policy is one of the most important spheres of human activity, it is undesirable to separate it from morality and ethics. Moral values and norms about the political world, to its institutions, relations, political outlook, and behavior of members of a community, together constitute the political ethics, are used in an evaluation of policy in general and political activities of individuals, in particular. Morality holds extreme forms of human behavior, contributes to resolving contradictions between the individual and the entire community. In ancient primary human collectives largely govern the interaction of people through customs, traditions, taboos, and growth based on all this morality, as well as social control institutions such as families and communities. With the emergence of complex communities and the weakening of traditional forms of social control the role of political institutions increased and became the main power to exercise regulatory functions in the development of society and morality – in the upbringing of society. Morality can characterize one way or another political force, but the stands and outside it only comes with him in any relationship. Morality policy limits, uncontrolled freedom of political action, so the policies often sought to free themselves from it. It rules morality and virtue and is the basis of true politics.

Morality, as well as politics, represents the institutional, regulatory checklists spheres of society, but their existence and functioning vary.

Unlike other areas of institutional control, morality has no real form, does not materialize in the administration, government institutions, devoid management centers, and communications facilities in language and speech, but first and foremost – to reflect, in properties and other signs of social phenomena. However, it covers all phenomena OF policies. “When it is clear what the true morality is – Confucius spoke – then everything else will be clear.”

The common thing between politics and morality is that politics, as well as morality among the earliest, controls public life, to social choice, thereby taking them rolling and variable; regulators are human behavior.

Morality can characterize the way of political force, but the stands and outside it only comes with him in any relationship. Morality policy limits, uncontrolled freedom of political action, so the policies often sought to free themselves from it. It rules morality and virtue and is the basis of true politics.

The difference between politics and morality:

  1. Politics is an activity aimed at resolving social conflicts within a group, affecting all societies, and requires the application of power. Morality also characterizes the daily relationship between individual human beings, which are the particular case of conflicts, usually less than the political acuteness.
  2. The source of policy is the economic and other vital interests and needs of people. The immediate same source advocates universal morality, as well as other collective values, which do not augur adherence to the individual personal benefit.
  3. Many moral imperatives are the ideals of character, which should confirm their actions, but which in real life hardly anyone has been able to achieve. Morality evaluates subjective, inner experience of deeds. Politics is feasible, directed at achieving certain goals, results. Politicians are not usually guided by love or hatred; they have interests, rather than feelings.
  4. Morality is always individual, its subject – an individual to make their moral choices. Politics is usually the same group, the collective nature.
  5. The most important feature of the policy is its reliance on force, the use of coercive sanctions for failure to satisfy the requirements. Morality is, in principle, condemns violence and relies primarily on “sanctions” conscience.

There are three main options for interaction between morality and politics:

  1. A complete subjection morality and religion policy (for example, in the Middle Ages);
  2. a serious gap between politics and morality (both in terms of moral dictatorship only that serves the dictator);
  3. preserving the authenticity of interaction or reasonable policy and morality (in a democratic, legal society).

There are the following approaches to the relationship of policy and morality: moral, value-neutral, and compromise.

  • Moral approach assumes that the policy should be not only of moral purpose (the common good, justice) but not under any circumstances violate the moral principles (truthfulness, benevolence to the people, honesty) using the only morally acceptable means.
  • Value-neutral approach is based on policy, ignoring moral values. This approach makes it immoral.
  • The compromise approach prevails among the majority of scientists and moral politicians. It comes from the recognition of the need to incorporate ethics in politics, given the specificity of the latter. That is why “good policy” is different from “good morals”.

In today’s world, the central lines of institutionalization of moral claims to the policy are the respect for human rights, social policy orientation, adoption of democratic principles of life, strengthening the legal foundations of society. Genuine art policy – an art to do so that everyone benefits be virtuous.

Politics can be moral and immoral, but it can not be moralless, because it always expresses the specific interests of the people has, estimated results, using appropriate methods and means, carried out with different levels of professionalism. Because of the significance of its performance and its implications, politics has always been, is, and will be a particularly important area of morality and especially dangerous social immorality.

In modern conditions, the role of moral criteria and coordinate policies increases, because many increases “cost” of many political decisions, the importance of the impact of public opinion on politics and politicians. We can say that morality without a useless policy and politics without morality is ignominious and tainted.

The impact on the policies of morality can and should take place on several fronts. This is – setting moral goals, the choice of the adequate real situation to them and the methods and means, the account of the activities of moral principles, ensuring the effectiveness of policies. The implementation of all these requirements depends on the methods and means used in the process of achieving them. Politics – is not only personal power, but the implementation of the leader of the political objectives – for example, the triumph of democracy, prevent national conflicts, economic growth, welfare and prosperity of the country’s population, the true greatness of the state. A democratic politician is struggling for power, not to enjoy it, but to deal with its socially important tasks. Therefore, the true success of the policy – is, first of all, the success of its activities, appreciation of society and history.

Conclusion

Display of racism, prejudices, stereotypes, and discrimination has become apparent on a wide spectrum of the social and psychological phenomena, in the first instance in intergroup and interpersonal conflicts, stigmatization, and aggressions against certain groups.

The question of self-identification of a person with some ethnic group takes a special place in international relations, as this choice becomes for a person ground for making decisions, comprehension of values, and acceptability of the certain style of behavior, readiness to support the selected public or political movement.

One of the first steps of improvement of our understanding of intergroup relations may become more accurate in studying and understanding cultural and historical processes, and especially their influences on basic psychological processes. However, the perfection of our understanding of culture, history, and their influences is only one step. It is necessary to analyze critically own culture and behavior to find out the reasons why stereotypes continue to exist. It is necessary to accept the existence of significant individual variability inside of groups and cultures, and also vices of own cultural ethnocentrism and negative stereotypes. On accepting group and individual distinctions instead of ignoring them, we get an opportunity to communicate with people on the general platform, instead of judging in advance their actions, behavior, and reasons using the stereotypes based on ignorance and intolerance.

There is no doubt, that studying our cultural environment, upbringing and heritage, and also their influence on our behavior has a huge value and benefit for all society. The recognition of the contribution of the culture of different ethnic groups in actions, behavior, and its reasons, helps us to understand, to respect, and to estimate these distinctions when we observe them in real life.

References

Balibar, E 1991, ‘Es gibt keinen Staat in Europa: Racism and Politics in Europe Today’ New Left Review. No. 186.

Bashi, V 1998, ‘Racial Categories Matter because Racial Hierarchies Matter: A Commentary’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 21. №5.

Clark, R, Anderson, NB, Clark, VR, & Williams, DR 1999, ‘Racism as a stressor for African Americans: A biopsychosocial model’, American psychologist, Vol. 54, p. 805—816.

Cornell, S & Hartmann, D 1998, Ethnicity and Race: Making Identities in a Changing World, Thousand Oaks, CA/London, Pine Forge Press.

Crandall, Eshleman & OBrien 2002, ‘Social Norms and the Expression and Suppression of Prejudice: The Struggle for Internalization’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 82, p. 359—378.

Gilroy, P 1990, ‘The End of Anti-racism’, Race and Local Politics, Basingstoke.

Goldberg, DT 1992, ‘The Semantics of Race’, Ethnic and Racial Studies. Vol. 15. No. 4. p. 551, 553.

Jandt, FE 2003, An Introduction to Intercultural Communication: Identities in a Global Community, London: Sage Publications, Inc.

Khan, SR 2002, ‘Stereotyping from the perspective of perceivers and targets’, Center for Cross-Cultural Research, Unit 15, Chapter 3.2002.

Lippmann, W 1922, Public Opinion, New York: Macmillan.

Livingstone, FB 1962, ‘On the Non-Existence of Human Races’, Current Anthropology. Vol. 3.

Montague, A 1952, Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race, N.Y.

Nachbar, J & Lause, K 1992, Popular Culture: an Introductory Text. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press.

Omi, M & Winant, H 1994, Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. New York.

Park, RE 1964, Race and Culture, L.

Sollors, W 1996, ‘Foreword: Theories of American Ethnicity’, Theories of Ethnicity: a Classical reader. N.Y.

Solomos, J & Back, L 1996, Racism and Society, L.

Vasta, E 1993, ‘Rights and Racism in a New Country of Immigration: The Italian Case’, Racism and Migration in Western Europe, Oxford.

Wieviorka, M 1997, ‘Is It Difficult To Be an Anti-racist?, Debating Cultural Hybridity: Multi-cultural Identities and the Politics of Anti-racism. L.

Winant, H, 1998, ‘Racism Today: Continuity and Change in the Post-Civil Rights Era’, Ethnic and Racial Studies. Vol. 21. No. 4. p. 760-761.

Wodak, R & Reisigl, M 1999, ‘Discourse and Racism: European Perspectives’, Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 28. p. 178-179.