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To: Dr Armand Marie
Leroi
(biologist at
Imperial College London) Re: If diversity matters, so does race Date: Monday, 14 February 05 |
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Dear Armand (Mr Marie
Leroi)
,
I very much liked
your article in today's New
York Times (A
Family Tree in Every Gene).
I've long been very irritated
by the insistence of the
politically correct that race
does not exist, let alone
matter, when it obviously does
- on both counts. As you
suggest, it is an
understandable and well-meant overreaction
to the insane and criminal use
of the concept by the Nazis.
Race is
certainly an important part of
my identity, as I'm sure it is
for most people, if they dared
admit it. If I were black it
wouldn't be a problem, of
course, but as a European, in
some people's eyes, that makes
me a "racist".
I look forward
to the day when I can openly
admit to, perhaps even
celebrate, my racial identity,
without being accused to
wanting to dominate or
exterminate all other (inferior)
races.
On the
contrary, I love diversity:
for my own aesthetic sense,
for its own sake, and because
it gives stability to any
biological system. Like you, I would
lament the loss of any unique
group of humans (or of
any other animal or plant
species).
However, human
diversity (racial, linguistic,
cultural) only arose in the
first place because human
populations became isolated.
I'm afraid that
multiracial and multicultural
society, despite being
celebrated as the acme of
diversity, will in the
long-term in fact, lead to a
decrease in diversity, as
races and cultures become ever
more homogeneously mixed. This
is one reason why I am so much
against economically-driven
mass migration (man serving
the economy, rather than the
other way around, as it should
be).
If we want to
retain racial and cultural
diversity, we will have to not
just allow, but encourage a
healthy degree and type of
"discrimination"
(the cultivation of racial,
ethnic and cultural
identities), as
well as discouraging too much
migration and mixing. Although
for some that would be
synonymous with
"racism".
Race aside, my
primary concern is for Homo
sapiens (in all our
racial, linguistic and
cultural diversity) to achieve
sustainability on our
finite and vulnerable planet, Spaceship
Earth (with all its
biodiversity).
The core problem, I
believe, is our behavioural
programming, which evolved to
secure the survival and
advantage of individuals and
family groups in the natural
environment, but is now
focused almost entirely on the
artificial "socio-economic
environment " (which
in the "civilised"
world, largely boils down to
making money in the local,
national or global economy),
thus explaining why, at
terrible peril to ourselves,
we persist in giving priority
to the economy (the household
of man) rather than to ecology
(the household of our planet).
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