Nordics and the Issue of Blame By Brian Simpson

The paper by S. Potthoff (et al.), “Cognitive Emotion Regulation and Psychopathology Arcos Cultures: A Comparison between Six European Countries,” Personality and Individual Differences, vol. 98, 2016, found that Northern Europeans are less likely to blame other people for what happened to themselves than Southern Europeans. Further, they present other evidence indicating that Northern Europeans are more egalitarian than Southern Europeans. There is thus a north/south divide on the issues of individualism and egalitarianism. The problem with this in a ruthlessly competitive multicultural society is that Northern European people are at a strategic disadvantage:

https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2016/04/29/northern-europeans-less-prone-to-blaming-the-other/

“The difference in other-blame is particularly interesting in that it is consistent with the idea that Northern Europeans more readily take the point of view of the other when assigning blame. I think this is part of the deep structure of individualism. When Michael Polignano wrote a book titled Taking Our Own Side, he put his finger on a major problem for Western individualists: We tend to take a neutral point of view in moral issues — not biased in our own favor or what’s good for our group. We tend to take the point of view of the emotionally disinterested, rational observer, not swayed by personal interest. So we are less likely to blame others for problems and try our best to see the situation from the other person’s point of view. … Individualism implies an equality of interest—that everyone has interests but no one has a privileged moral position—philosopher John Rawls’ “veil of ignorance.” Arguments on morality therefore must necessarily seek an abstract sense of morality, independent of the interests of any particular individual; group interests have no privileged moral standing at all. As an extreme example, pro-slavery arguments that slavery is good for the nation (common among defenders of slavery in England during the eighteenth century) or for individual Whites but do not attach any moral significance to Blacks as individuals therefore fall on deaf ears.

A morality of disinterest naturally leads to erecting moral ideals that do not reflect the interests of particular people or groups but are intrinsically good. Moral idealism is a powerful tendency in European culture, particularly since the seventeenth century apparent, for example, in the German idealist philosophers and the American transcendentalists. Universalist moral ideals are erected and then steps are taken to achieve the moral vision by changing the world, often accompanied by a great deal of moral fervor. The anti-slavery movement in England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is paradigmatic. This pursuit of moral ideals accounts for some of the dynamism of Western history.

The analogy with the contemporary world is obvious. The entire edifice of Political Correctness is framed as a moral in-group. Every attempt is made to shame and ostracize those who, for example, oppose massive non-White immigration or believe that Europeans, like other peoples, have legitimate interests in defending their territories. Labels such as “racist” function to define moral in-groups.”

 

It seems likely that this is a built-in genetic defect for Northern Europeans that was of evolutionary benefit in the past, outside of multicultural societies, dealing with their kind with the same genetic predispositions, but not of survival value in modernity, surrounded by hostiles. How to deal with this is a vexed problem. Intellectual refutations of pernicious universalistic doctrines will obviously help, appealing to the same rational sense of logic and justice that Nordics have. But, I do see this as a limitation compared to other races, so note that while I defend my sub-race from extinction threats, I am not a racial supremacist, since all ethnic and racial groups have good points and bad points. Basically no-one should feel shame for their race, and loving one’s own kind is the exact opposite of racism, because, as least for Northern Europeans, they can empathise with the other, in fact, it is what they do best, against protecting their own kind, which will probably be their undoing.

 

 

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Thursday, 28 March 2024

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