Illiberal Multiracialism
27th March 2024
ZMan points out some inconvenient truth.
Human societies assume permanence and that means they require a story for how the society came together. The Romans, for example, had the legend of Romulus and Remus who founded the city of Rome. The Rape of the Sabine Women is another important part of the story of the Roman people. The origin myths of a people are specific to a people; thus, their history is specific to them. In other words, a people’s identity is exclusive to them.
This is why a multiracial egalitarian society is impossible. You have different people with different identities rooted in different origin stories. Any effort to write the origin of one people into the story of the other people will be viewed as theft. Vivek Ramaswamy in that tweet was trying to steal a part of European history on order to insert his people into your story. No doubt he saw the resistance to this as a slight against him and people like him. This is now part of his people’s story.
You see this with the old race divide in America. Black people have an origin story that depends on white people being the villain. White people have an origin story that does not include black people. Inserting blacks into the white story requires whites to accept guilt for things they did not do and shame for ancestors who made it possible for any of us to have this discussion. It simply cannot work, so any effort to make it work aggravates the natural racial friction in America.