But what about Hitler and Stalin? That’s the rejoinder one usually gets when you praise white Western civilization. My answer: Every people produce genocidal tyrants, only the West has pioneered advanced civilization (much of it adopted by East Asia in the past 60 years).
From the New York Times:
What, Congressman Steve King Asks, Have Nonwhites Done for Civilization?
By DANIEL VICTOR JULY 18, 2016Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, questioned the historical contributions of nonwhite “subgroups” during an appearance on MSNBC on Monday, igniting swift backlash online.
Mr. King spoke during a panel discussion, led by the MSNBC host Chris Hayes, about the racial makeup of the Republican Party on the first day of the party’s convention.
“If you’re really optimistic, you can say this was the last time that old white people would command the Republican Party’s attention, its platform, its public face,” Charles P. Pierce, a writer at large at Esquire magazine, said during the panel discussion.
In response, Mr. King said: “This whole ‘old white people’ business does get a little tired, Charlie. I’d ask you to go back through history and figure out where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people that you are talking about? Where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?”
“Than white people?” Mr. Hayes asked.
Mr. King responded: “Than Western civilization itself that’s rooted in Western Europe, Eastern Europe and the United States of America, and every place where the footprint of Christianity settled the world. That’s all of Western civilization.”
Frantic yelling ensued, with the panelists speaking over one another. “What about Africa? What about Asia?” April Ryan, a reporter on the panel, said.
This is one of those Emperor’s New Clothes moments. As anthropologists Robin Fox and Lionel Tiger pointed out, a mob that was bullied into believing they’d lose their jobs if they admitted the truth isn’t going to listen dispassionately to somebody tell the truth. Instead, they’d get very, very angry at the one who dares to say the obvious.
Here, of course, we see three professional talkers who can only sputter with mindless rage at Rep. King.
Of course, Rep. King’s statement has been scientifically tested in Charles Murray’s Human Accomplishment. In my 2003 review, I wrote:
Dead white European males dominate his inventories, despite Murray reserving eight of his 21 categories (including Arabic literature, Indian philosophy, and Chinese visual art) for non-Western arts. Murray, who was a Peace Corp volunteer in Thailand and has half-Asian children, began this project wanting to devote even more attention to Asian accomplishments but found he couldn’t justify his predisposition.
In the sciences, 97 percent of the significant figures and events turned out to be Western. Is this merely Eurocentric bias? Of the 36 science reference books he drew upon, 28 were published after 1980, by which time historians were desperately searching for non-Westerners to praise. Only in this decade has the most advanced non-Western country, Japan, begun to win science Nobels regularly.
The irony is that modern progress over the last 600 years has been overwhelmingly the achievement of the hate object of modern progressives: dead white European males. Most other great civilizations were stuck in conservative stasis even before the European gunboats showed. Only Japan was making a modest degree of progress.
COMMENTS AT STEVE SAILER:
* Whenever I hear someone say some bold statement like this, I always get very very worried. Worried that they will apologize. Which almost always follows the bold statement, unfortunately.
I usually find it difficult to talk to a voicemail or answering machine, I need to prepare what I’ll say in advance, otherwise it sounds pretty incoherent.
* King can be a badass sometimes… I remember reading Robert Novak a dozen years back on the Iowa re-gerrymander, who described it as a “Frankenstein” district inadvertently created by shoring up the state’s Democrats. The downside of the invincible right-wing boroughs is you get pols who are a bit outré for taking out into primetime like Todd Akin or Michele Bachmann. It’s a double standard since congresscritters from Oakland CA or Seattle can act bonkers all week without “exemplifying” Democrats– oh well, in a polyglot party does speaking in tongues even matter?
* They were also going nuts about how King keeps a miniature Confederate Flag on his desk. King really knows how to trigger SJW’s/leftists/Obama’s coalition of the fringes. Is it too late to make him Trump’s VP?
* I love the obvious lameness of the “counterexamples” thrown out to refute King.
As dumb as his attackers are, they can’t be so dumb as not to be embarrassed that that’s the best they can do.
* That took a lot of guts to say. I know he’s on msnbc in this instance to provoke liberal outrage but damn, he dropped a nuke on ‘em. The black female panelist was clearly the most upset by it. Her behavior shows, once again, that blacks really believe the crap cynical liberals tell them about themselves.
* I found that clip pretty hilarious. King is not all that articulate, but Charles Pierce is so odious and hopelessly self-loathing he was dumbstruck.
* I wondered how long it would take the media to blame the latest black cop killer’s actions on badwhites: “The former Marine who killed three Baton Rouge, Louisiana, police officers identified with a growing movement that originated among white supremacists…
* You bring up a good point about him not being articulate. There appear to be no pols with alt right leanings that are good speakers except for Trump. That’s a problem. If I said what King said to some of my conservative relatives and friends they would think it’s racist too. The reason is we just don’t have good speakers who can get these ideas across, or in this case just get facts across.
* It’s very hard. Actual political views/speech content aside, you need someone who’s quick-witted (i.e. who can recognize and seize opportunities); who’s articulate (i.e. who speaks in complete sentences, with a bit of subtlety and cunning); and who can keep his cool and/or use anger tactically and effectively in the face of sputtering outrage and ad hominem attacks coming at him from all sides, especially from the ‘neutral’ moderator who holds the metaphorical mic and can cut him off. And then he’s got to have the perseverence/endurance to come back and do this again and again and again without slipping up.
Mark Steyn has all the rhetorical skills I’ve set out above, but there are few like him around.
* It is perhaps unfortunate that the computer industry developed during an era when terms and nomenclature became acronyms or bland academic jargon instead of being given the name of the discoverer or developer. This is in contrast to an earlier era where old white men like Volta, Watt and Ohm were honored by having their names used to describe the fundamentals of the fields they pioneered.
Had the previous method been used it would be impossible for the anti white male legions to reference computers technology and software without having to mention the names of the old white men who created the field.
* Normally, leftists are able to muster some sort of frenzied counterargument, even if it’s just viciously denouncing their foes. In this case, they’re practically speechless. Truly amazing.
* That’s why Hayes immediately cut off the conversation. On any other controversial topic or supposed gaffe by a conservative, MSNBC’s mouths would water . But there can’t be a conversation (oh, the irony) b/c it’s there is absolutely no contest as to who wins the argument.
* Pat Buchanan was fantastic on MSNBC and his earlier TV gigs when he talked about immigration and race but the conversations almost never went in that direction. Even so he was still too dangerous and got booted off. “No platform” indeed.
* Peter DeVry: Rep. Steve King shouldn’t be allowed to use any inventions created by people who are not white. No elevators, no microphones, no pacemakers.
* Elisha Otis, a White man, invented the elevator.
Wilson Greatbatch, a White man, invented the pacemaker.
In 1962, after nearly a century of invention and improvement by White men, Gerhard Sessler, a White man, and his sidekick James West, a quadroon, developed a new type of microphone at Bell Labs.
Pretty slender reed, Mr DeVry.
* The most in demand microphones are still the Neumann/Telefunken U-47, U-87, and similar variants thereof, and the 1930s and 1940s RCA ribbon mics such as the 44 and 77.
All designed by white guys.
* Steve Sailer: Steyn’s hugely gifted, but he lives in New Hampshire so he can’t do big time TV all that regularly. You pretty much have to live in New York or Washington (or Atlanta if you are on CNN) or L.A. (if you are more entertainment than news).
A long time ago I was counting up how many times I’d been on TV and I came up with around ten. I estimated back then then I’d need to be on TV at least 100 times to make any progress toward being recognizable, and I now think that was an underestimate.
And TV appearances generally don’t pay.
* More seriously, the Steve King clip reveals the utter inability of most panelists in these TV discussions in our country to think on their feet or reply with a zinger, however flimsy.
I’ve been watching quite a bit of the British Parliament’s question hour lately thanks to Brexit events, and I must say that the art of debate, wit and repartee has withered significantly in a generation on this side of the Atlantic.
We were never a match for the Brits in my living memory, and in any case it was never fully our style, but we used to be better, a lot better.
In terms of verbal skills, most intellectuals and public figures these days are dull plodders, with neither wit nor whimsy at their command. I blame management speak and focus group processed political press release language for this, at least in the political arena.
And in these talk shows, a babble of semi-coherent outraged noises are the usual answer to something like Steve King’s statement. That figures. Outrage is what is taught in our fine, fine liberal arts universities these days, not the arts of rhetoric.
* Imagine human life on Earth ends tomorrow. A Martian historian lands and takes preliminary notes on a study of Earthling life. I know I’m setting up a very crude, surely biased straw man here, but how could a Martian historian not notice that peoples in the following continental groupings share common characteristics and are distinguishable from peoples of other continents.
Group #1 – Australia, North America, South America, Europe, Antarctica
Group #2 – Asia
Group #3 – Africa
My point, of course, is that Western civilization (or Western Christendom), is something of an 800 lb. gorilla. No one in his right mind can ignore it and its good influences. Even the ability of TV personalities to trash “dead White European males” without risking death or banishment is something of a Western innovation in how people ought to live together. Even Black Americans who openly despise Whites seem to not want to hop a jet for a new life in Africa.
By Western civilization, I do include the peoples who’ve become part of that civilization by various assimilative processes. I. e., American Indians, Africans, Western Asians (think Imperial Rome).
Put more crudely: how do you not give the White guys (mostly) credit where it’s due?
* Representative Steve King could’ve said something very simple but effective, for example, “You take away trains, planes, automobiles, refrigerators, radio, television, movies, computers, telephones, microscopes, telescopes, rockets, antibiotics, washing machines, etc – all invented by white men – and what have you got? Not much.”
* Do you remember the viral video of Rand Paul running away from the collegiate (illegal) immigration activists at in Okijoba, IA in 2015?
The guy who stuck around to clean up Rand’s mess was Steve MF’ing King.
