An essay on the inequality of the human races. An experiment on the inequality of human races. Representatives of the racial-anthropological school

Introduction

Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, Count (fr. Joseph Arthur comte de Gobineau; July 14, 1816-1882) - a famous French novelist, sociologist, author of racial theory, later "adopted" by the National Socialists.

1. Biography

Gobineau came from a noble family. In 1835 he came to Paris. He worked as an employee in the French company of gas lighting, then in the post office, at the same time moonlighting as a journalist and literary work. In 1849, A. de Tocqueville, who briefly held the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs, accepts him into the service as head of his office. After the resignation of Tocqueville, Gobino is in the diplomatic service, being first secretary and then head of diplomatic missions in Bern, Hanover, Frankfurt am Main, Tehran, Athens, Rio de Janeiro and Stockholm. However, he did not become an ambassador and was forced to resign ahead of time.

Gobino's activities were not limited to the sphere of diplomacy: he was a talented writer who performed in a variety of genres: short stories, novels, poems, dramas. He wrote works on the history of the East and left a linguistic "Treatise on cuneiform writing". Gobineau's publicistic activity was also active. He was also interested in sculpture. His main work, the four-volume "Experience on the Inequality of Human Races" (1853, 1855), was not successful during the author's lifetime. Contemporaries hardly noticed his work. He died on October 13, 1882 in the psychiatric hospital of Grenoble.

2. Ideas

Joseph-Arthur de Gobineau left a mark on the history of social thought as one of the founders of modern racist ideology. Gobineau was essentially the first in the 19th century to formulate in an expanded form the objective thesis of racial inequality as an explanatory principle. historical development, thus reflecting the subjective spiritual assessment of equality, as an idea that is humiliating for a person. Gobineau identified equality with the triumph of mediocrity, averageness, sameness, dullness. Thus, Gobineau's racism is an integral part of his elitist worldview. All kinds of equality are capable of causing disgust, but racial inequality seems to be the most fundamental, initial and primary, from which, according to Gobineau, all other hierarchies stem.

The central problem that Gobineau poses and seeks to resolve in his main work is the problem of the decline and death of various civilizations. Initially, in Gobineau's conception, the main subject of consideration and the main subject of the historical process is the race, or, which for Gobineau is a synonym, the ethnic group. In his opinion, social institutions do not determine the vital activity of races (ethnic groups), but, on the contrary, are determined by them. Institutions that do not accord with the deepest tendencies of the race do not take root unless there is racial mixing. As a result, Gobineau denies the civilizing role of world religions, for example, Christianity, which, being adopted by the most diverse peoples, cannot in itself shake their deep characteristics and inclinations.

In the interpretation of the origin of human races, Gobineau tends to the polygenetic concept, according to which different races have different origins. However, he expresses his adherence to the polygenetic concept very carefully.

The color of the skin serves for Gobineau as the basis for distinguishing three main races: white, yellow and black. Gobineau considers these races as a three-step hierarchical ladder with the white race at the top and the black one at the bottom. Within the white race, the highest place is occupied, according to Gobineau, by the "Aryans". Races, in his opinion, are distinguished by the constancy and indestructibility of physical and spiritual traits; the white race is superior to the rest in physical strength, beauty, perseverance, etc. But the most important criterion for a place in the racial hierarchy is intelligence.

The real existence of the three "pure" racial types Gobineau refers to the distant past. Thus, "pure" primitive races no longer exist, and in the modern era there are racial types that have been mixed with each other innumerable times. The concept of "race" in Gobineau comes out of narrow anthropological definitions, receiving a symbolic meaning.

Gobineau seeks to discover the inner, "natural laws that govern social world", which have an immutable character. These two laws, according to Gobineau, are the laws of repulsion and attraction between human races. The fatal phenomenon of the mixing of separated races and their innumerable combinations acts as a concretization of these "laws". Mixing is a necessary source of the emergence and development of civilizations (with the obligatory participation of the "white" race), but it is also the cause of their degeneration in the future.

The thesis about the pernicious nature of racial mixing determines Gobineau's anti-colonialist position, since colonial conquests, in his opinion, contribute to mixing and, consequently, the degeneration of European civilization.

In Gobineau's interpretation of the fate of civilizations, fatalism is closely connected with pessimism. He states the degeneration of European civilization and prophesies its imminent end. Gobineau denies the existence of social progress and believes that European civilization is largely moving along the path of regression.

Fatalism and pessimism of Gobineau excluded the practical application of racist postulates, for which he criticized X.C. Chamberlain.

3. Fiction

Joseph de Gobineau also pursued his views in fiction, emphatically depicting the class struggle, while taking the side of the aristocracy. Being an Orientalist by passion, Gobineau conveys "couleur locale" in "Asiatic novels", his "Tifen Abbey", "Renaissance". Gobineau is a student of Stendhal and Merimee.

4. Gobineau and National Socialism

Fame and recognition came to Gobineau only after his death and at first not in his homeland, but in Germany. In 1894, the Gobineau Society was founded in Germany, the number of members of which reached 360 in 1914. The founder of this society, Ludwig Schemann, who published a number of Gobineau's works and studies about him, played a particularly active role in the spread of Gobineau in Germany. He is in 1897-1900. first published "An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races" on German. National Socialist theorists valued this work so highly that specially selected fragments from it were published in the 1930s in popular anthologies about races and were even cited in school textbooks. Thus, Gobineau's ideas were useful in the ideology of the Third Reich, although he was not, like X.C. Chamberlain, elevated to the rank of "people's thinker".

5. Bibliography

Abbaye des Typhaines (Typhane Abbey, from the era of the 12th-century Commune Revolt, 1867).

Les Pléiades (Pleiades, 1878);

Nouvelles Asiatiques, 1876.

Histoire d'Ottar Jarl, 1879.

La Renaissance (Savonarole, César Borgia), 1877.

Alexandre (Alexander the Great).

Amadis (posthumous).

Etudes critiques (1844-1848), P., Sim. Kra, 1927.

Kandahar Lovers, translated by I. Mandelstam, ed. "Book corner", P., 1923.

Lovers from Kandahar, Giese, M., 1926.

Great sorcerer, translated by R. Ivnev, Guise, M., 1926.

Kretzer E., A. Graf v. Gobineau, Lpz., 1902.

Journal "Europe" dated 1/X-1923 (article and detailed bibliography).

Schemann C. L., Quellen und Untersuchungen zum Leben Gobineaus, 2 Bde, 1919.

Lange M., Le comte A. de Gobineau, étude biographique et critique, 1924.

Bibliography:

Victor Klemperer. LTI. Language of the Third Reich.

Biography

Gobineau came from a noble family. In 1835 he came to Paris. He worked as an employee in the French company of gas lighting, then in the post office, at the same time moonlighting as a journalist and literary work. In 1849, Alexis de Tocqueville, who briefly held the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs, accepts him into the service as head of his office. After the resignation of Tocqueville, Gobino is in the diplomatic service, being first secretary and then head of diplomatic missions in Bern, Hannover, Frankfurt am Main, Tehran, Athens, Rio de Janeiro and Stockholm. However, he did not become an ambassador and was forced to resign ahead of time.

Ideas

Joseph-Arthur de Gobineau left a mark on the history of social thought as one of the founders of modern racist ideology. Gobineau was essentially the first in the 19th century to formulate in an expanded form the objective thesis of racial inequality as an explanatory principle of historical development, thus reflecting the subjective spiritual assessment of equality as an idea that is humiliating for a person. Gobineau identified equality with the triumph of mediocrity, averageness, sameness, dullness. Thus, Gobineau's racism is an integral part of his elitist worldview. All kinds of equality are capable of causing disgust, but racial inequality seems to be the most fundamental, initial and primary, from which, according to Gobineau, all other hierarchies stem.

The central problem that Gobineau poses and seeks to resolve in his main work is the problem of the decline and death of various civilizations. Initially, in the concept of Gobineau, the race, or, which is a synonym for Gobineau, the ethnic group, acts as the main subject of consideration and the main subject of the historical process. In his opinion, social institutions do not determine the vital activity of races (ethnic groups), but, on the contrary, are determined by them. Institutions that do not accord with the deepest tendencies of the race do not take root unless there is racial mixing. As a result, Gobineau denies the civilizing role of world religions, for example, Christianity, which, being adopted by the most diverse peoples, cannot in itself shake their deep characteristics and inclinations.

In the interpretation of the origin of human races, Gobineau gravitates towards the polygenetic concept, according to which different races have various origins. However, he expresses his adherence to the polygenetic concept very carefully.

Gobineau seeks to discover the inner, "natural laws that govern the social world" that have an unchanging character. These two laws, according to Gobineau, are the laws of repulsion and attraction between human races. The fatal phenomenon of the mixing of separated races and their innumerable combinations acts as a concretization of these "laws". Mixing is a necessary source of the emergence and development of civilizations (with the obligatory participation of the "white" race), but it is also the cause of their degeneration in the future.

Fatalism and pessimism of Gobineau excluded the practical application of racist postulates, for which Houston Chamberlain criticized him.

Fiction

Gobineau and National Socialism

Fame and recognition came to Gobineau only after his death and at first not in his homeland, but in Germany. In Germany, the Gobineau Society was founded, the number of members in the year reached 360. The founder of this society, Ludwig Schemann, who published a number of works by Gobineau and studies about him, played a particularly active role in the spread of Gobineau in Germany. He is in 1897-1900. first published "An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races" in German. National Socialist theorists valued this work so highly that specially selected fragments from it were published in the 1930s in popular anthologies about races and were even cited in school textbooks. Thus, Gobineau's ideas came in handy in the ideology of the Third Reich, although he was not, like X.C. Chamberlain, elevated to the rank of "people's thinker".

Bibliography

Abbaye des Typhaines (Typhen Abbey, from the era of the uprising of the communes of the XII century,).
Les Pléiades (Pleiades, );
Nouvelles Asiatiques.
Histoire d'Ottar Jarl, .
La Renaissance (Savonarole, César Borgia), .
Alexandre (Alexander the Great).
Amadis (posthumous).
Etudes critiques (-), P., Sim. Kra, .
Kandahar Lovers, translated by I. Mandelstam, ed. "Book corner", P.,.
Lovers from Kandahar, Giz, M.,.
The Great Sorcerer, translated by R. Ivnev, Guise, M.,.
Kretzer E., A. Graf v. Gobineau, Lpz., .
Magazine "Europe" from 1/X- (article and detailed bibliography).
Schemann C. L., Quellen und Untersuchungen zum Leben Gobineaus, 2 Bde, .
Lange M., Le comte A. de Gobineau, étude biographique et critique, .

Notes

Literature

Pierre-André Taghieff Color and blood. French theories of racism = La couleur et le sang doctrines racistes a la francaise. - M .: Ladomir, 2009. - 240 p. - ISBN 978-5-86218-473-0

Links

Hoffman A. B. Elitism and racism (criticism of the philosophical and historical views of A. de Gobineau) // Races and peoples. Issue 7. - M., 1977. - S.128-142

Categories:

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July 14
Born in 1816
Born in Ville-d'Avray
Deceased October 13
Deceased in 1882
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[…] Place of Birth Ville-d'Avray, France Date of death October 13(1882-10-13 ) […] (66 years old) A place of death Turin, Italy Citizenship (citizenship) Occupation Writer, diplomat, politician Language of works French Awards Files at Wikimedia Commons

Biography [ | ]

Joseph Arthur de Gobineau came from a noble family. In 1830 he began studying at the Biel Gymnasium (Switzerland, Canton of Bern), where he mastered the German language and became interested in Persian. In 1835 he came to Paris. He worked as an employee in the French company of gas lighting, then in the post office, at the same time moonlighting as a journalist and literary work. In 1843 he met Alexis de Tocqueville, with whom he formed a friendship that continued until the latter's death in 1859. In 1849, Tocqueville, who briefly held the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs, accepts him into the service as head of his office. At the same time, he was the founder and editor of the monarchist journal "Provincial Review" and published his poem "Amandine", which for the first time outlined the foundations of his elitist racial theory. After the resignation of Tocqueville, Gobineau is in the diplomatic service, being first secretary and then head of diplomatic missions in Bern, Hanover, Frankfurt am Main, Tehran, Athens, Rio de Janeiro and Stockholm. However, he did not become an ambassador and was forced to resign ahead of time.

Gobineau's activities were not limited to the sphere of diplomacy: he was a talented writer who performed in a variety of genres: short stories, novels, poems, dramas. He wrote works on the history of the East and left a linguistic "Treatise on cuneiform writing". Gobineau's publicistic activity was also active. He was also interested in sculpture. His main work, the four-volume Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines (An essay on the inequality of the human races, 1853, 1855), was not successful during the author's lifetime. Contemporaries hardly noticed his work.

In 1876, he met with the composer R. Wagner (H.S. Chamberlain's father-in-law), who spoke favorably of his ideas and contributed to their dissemination. So, in the early 1880s. Wagner declared that their vision of the past and the future are quite compatible, because scientific work Gobineau gave scientific explanation his own racial ideas. Despite criticism, his works were generally welcomed by F. Nietzsche. Romain Rolland noted Gobineau's "giftedness as a thinker and artist".

His last published work was the tragedy "Amadis", partially published in 1876, and published in full in 1887, dedicated to the eschatological conflict of the "white" and "yellow" races.

Joseph Arthur de Gobineau died on October 13, 1882 in the city of Turin.

Ideas [ | ]

Joseph-Arthur de Gobineau left a mark on the history of social thought as one of the founders of modern racist ideology. Gobineau was essentially the first in the 19th century to formulate in an expanded form the objective thesis of racial inequality as an explanatory principle of historical development, thus reflecting the subjective spiritual assessment of equality as an idea degrading to man. Gobineau identified equality with the triumph of mediocrity, averageness, sameness, dullness. Thus, Gobineau's racism is an integral part of his elitist worldview. All kinds of equality are capable of causing disgust, but racial inequality seems to be the most fundamental, initial and primary, from which, according to Gobineau, all other hierarchies stem.

The central problem that Gobineau poses and seeks to resolve in his main work is the problem of the decline and death of various civilizations. Initially, in the concept of Gobineau, the race, or, which is a synonym for Gobineau, the ethnic group, acts as the main subject of consideration and the main subject of the historical process. In his opinion, they do not determine the vital activity of races (ethnic groups), but, on the contrary, races determine social institutions. Institutions that do not accord with the deepest tendencies of the race do not take root unless there is racial mixing. As a result, Gobineau denies the civilizing role of world religions, for example, Christianity, which, being adopted by the most diverse peoples, cannot in itself shake their deep characteristics and inclinations.

In his interpretation of the origin of human races, Gobineau gravitates toward the polygenetic concept, according to which different races have different origins. However, he expresses his adherence to the polygenetic concept very carefully.

Gobineau's fatalism and pessimism ruled out the practical application of racist postulates, for which Houston Chamberlain criticized him.

Slavs [ | ]

According to Gobineau, the Slavs, once a white Aryan people in antiquity, “went to the northeast of our continent and there entered into a destructive neighborhood with the Finns”; “The Slavic language, which has common generic characteristics of the Aryan languages, has undergone a strong Finnish influence. What about external signs, they also approached the Finnish type. Gobineau attributed passivity to the Slavs "as a result of a large proportion of yellow blood", and compared the Slavic and Semitic peoples:

Slavs performed in Eastern Europe the same function of long and silent, but inevitable influence, which the Semites assumed in Asia. Like the latter, they created a stagnant swamp in which, after short-term victories, more and more developed ethnic groups drowned.

Fiction [ | ]

Joseph de Gobineau also pursued his views in fiction, emphatically depicting the class struggle, while taking the side of the aristocracy. Being an Orientalist by passion, Gobineau conveys "couleur locale" in "Asian novels", his "Tifen Abbey", "Renaissance". Gobineau is a student of Stendhal and Mérimée.

Gobineau and National Socialism[ | ]

Fame and recognition came to Gobineau only after his death and at first not in his homeland, but in Germany. In 1894, the Gobineau Society was founded in Germany, the number of members of which reached 360 in 1914. The founder of this society, Ludwig Schemann, who published a number of Gobineau's works and studies about him, played a particularly active role in the spread of Gobinism in Germany. In the years 1897-1900, he first published "An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races" in German, and also wrote a two-volume biography of Gobineau (1913-1916). National Socialist theorists valued this work so highly that specially selected fragments from it were published in the 1930s in popular anthologies about races and were even cited in school textbooks. Thus, Gobineau's ideas were useful in the ideology of the Third Reich and served to shape the Nazi racial policy, although he was not, like X.C. Chamberlain, elevated to the rank of "people's thinker".

The Germanized version of Gobineau's theory was known to some influential politicians and ideologists of Japan and became an integral part of the Japanese imperialist worldview. Gobino's ideas gained currency in Japan, where they were introduced by the German-trained writer Mori Ohai, who noted that studying his theory is very useful in order to know more about the thinking of a Western adversary and criticized Gobino for being excessively ethnocentric and reducing human culture to the influence of heredity. In November 1903, he gave a lecture at Waseda University on Western views on the "yellow threat", in which, in particular, he stated: "Whether we like it or not, we are doomed to confront the white race."

Bibliography [ | ]

Notes [ | ]

BNF ID: Open Data Platform - 2011.
Benezit Dictionary of Artists - 2006. - ISBN 978-0-19-977378-7, 978-0-19-989991-3
Encyclopædia Britannica

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Introduction

Chapter 2. Theorists of racism

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Today, the word "racism" has so many conflicting meanings that it has an aura of myth around it and is therefore difficult to define. The first difficulty stems from the fact that the word "racism" has become a swear word, more of a weapon than a definition, and it is used to sully those who are labeled with it. Calling someone a racist, even if it is a dirty slander, is a convenient tactic - it either paralyzes the opponent or casts suspicion on him and robs him of his confidence. This approach has become commonplace in the conflicts we see every day.

The accusation of racism usually entails a number of similar accusations: extreme right, fascism, anti-Semitism, and so on. Ultimately, the term itself becomes more and more vague, and its meaningful analysis becomes more and more difficult.

Used in a variety of ways, the terms "racism" and "racist" have become ready-made formulas, stereotypes. Anti-racists act by the same methods as racists: they attribute to the whole group the features of its individual members, although they reproach the racists for this. Pierre-André Tagiyev emphasizes: “The fight against racism cannot be effective if its false image is created and anti-racism becomes a mirror image of the racist world. One of the vices of modern anti-racism is that it treats those it accuses of racism in a racist way.”

Public condemnation of racist theories and racist behavior obscures the core of the problem. In France, where racism is a crime and severely punished, there is a tendency to deny its status as an ideology or belief.

Furthermore, the law does not distinguish between racist theory (“inciting racial hatred”) and racist behavior. Under these conditions, racism is not so much a sphere of ideas as a subject of criminal prosecution. Some define racism as a disease, call it "leprosy" (Albert Jacquard) or "madness" (Christian Delacampagne).

But then a contradiction arises: if racists are mentally ill, then they need to be treated, not judged. In general, the word "race" and its derivatives (racism, racist, etc.) carry a strong emotional charge.

gobino racism aryan

Chapter 1. Rise and history of racism

The word "racism" was first recorded by the Larousse French Dictionary in 1932 and was interpreted as "a system that asserts the superiority of one racial group over others." Its current meaning in political discourse is sometimes expanded, supplementing the racial criterion of superiority with ethnic, religious or otherwise. The book "Racism" by the French philosopher Albert Memmi made a great contribution to the definition of the modern concept of racism.

At the same time, in a context in which many countries have developed stable multiracial and multicultural societies, definitions of racism needed to be broadened. Racism is understood as the belief that race has a decisive influence on the character, morality, talents, abilities and behavioral characteristics of an individual human being.

Ideas about the initial inequality of different races appeared quite a long time ago. Yes, back in XVI-XVII centuries a hypothesis appeared that traced the origin of the Negroes to the biblical Ham, cursed by his father Noah, which was the justification for the conversion of Negroes into slavery.

But the founder of "scientific racism" (and in particular, Nordicism) is considered to be the French historian Joseph de Gobineau, who proposed in his "Experience on the inequality of human races" (1853-1855) the thesis about the influence of the racial composition of the societies in question on the characteristics of their cultures, social systems, economic models, and, ultimately, their civilizational success.

In the Middle Ages, statements about the "blood" differences between the "nobility" and the "rabble" were intended to justify class inequality. In the era of primitive accumulation of capital (16th-18th centuries), when European states captured the colonies for the first time, racism served the goals of inhuman exploitation, and often the justification for the extermination of the Indians of America, Africans, many peoples of South Asia, Australia and Oceania.

In the era of slavery, racism served the interests of slave owners, who argued that the equalization of people in rights would be contrary to nature itself, in which inequality reigns. Under the conditions of the feudal system, racism took the form of a dogma about blue blood among the ruling elite, allegedly created by nature itself for undivided power over the fate of the farmer.

The era of capitalism was marked by a new flowering of racist theories, which were intended to serve as a theoretical basis for the forcible seizure of land from the indigenous peoples of America, Africa, Asia, Australia and Oceania. The immediate goal of racism has always been to morally disarm the victim of oppression, destroy her faith in her own strength, instill in her contempt for herself, instill in her the consciousness of the legitimacy of her lack of rights and thereby paralyze her will to fight against her oppressors.

America in the 18th and 19th centuries there is an active hunt for Indian scalps, and according to such a racial policy, a number of racial theories appear during the period under review, which seemed to play into the hands of the colonial policy of England and others European countries, theories that glorified the white race, and pointed to the facts of their intellectual superiority, on the basis of these theories, the oppression of black slaves in America flourished.

Politicians in many countries resorted to racism when they felt the need to justify the "right" to dominate or conquer. A vivid example of this is Japanese racism. As soon as Japan began its colonial expansion to other countries (for example, China), a theory was created of the superiority of the "Japanese race" over all other races and peoples of the world (General Araki, Tainzaki Junichiro, Akiyama Kenzoo and other "Japanists"). "Original" racist theories were created at one time by some zealous pan-Turks, ideologists of gentry Poland, Finnish reactionaries who dreamed of creating a "great Finland" from Scandinavia to the Urals, something similar is put forward by Jewish chauvinists who sing of the greatness of the "chosen" people of God - Israel and etc.

In the XVIII century, within the framework of the emerging biological science, the theory of polygenesis arose - the origin of mankind from different progenitors. And although this theory was soon refuted (by Darwin, in particular), attempts scientific justification racism were undertaken up to late XIX century.

What arguments were given to justify the need for racist theories?

1. Higher cultural level of the state. The presence of greater socialization and the complexity of the social structure.

2. Technically more advanced items and tools. Tools and weapons, means of transportation.

3. As a consequence of the second point, the ability of civilized peoples to influence nature and the environment was cited as evidence.

In 1923, Dr. J. Dunston, a British psychiatrist and member of the Mental Hygiene Commission in South America, stated: “There is reason to believe that the natives, even from the best tribes, most likely belong to a race that is mentally inferior to ours ...” they don't know what their age is or how much time has passed. And in their dances, which they love so much, there are no graceful movements - an important psychological aspect that should be carefully studied ... ".

“We can prove the necessity of slavery,” said Senator John Calhoun. - Africans are not able to take care of themselves and completely lose their minds when the burden of freedom falls on them. It will be merciful towards them to show care and protect them from insanity.

Chapter 2. Theorists of racism

Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882), theorist of racism in 19th century Europe.

Vage de Lapouge (1854-1936), a major French racist, tried to prove that the upper classes of society have a smaller cephalic index than people from the lower classes, who have a rounder, brachycephalic skull.

Le Bon, French sociologist. He wrote a book called "The Psychology of Peoples and Masses" in which he believed that equality is contrary to nature, and the inequality of races is an objective way of existence.

Houston Stewart Chamberlain, an Englishman who emigrated to Germany after marrying the daughter of the German composer Wagner and developed the racist ideas of the teachings of Gobineau and Lyapuge, also substantiates the superiority of the German race over other peoples, but he has already given these ideas a significant development, since he presented racial theory in more outspoken and aggressive.

Malthus (1766-1834), English economist, one of the founders of social Darwinism, eugenic racism, author of the "Treatise on the Law of Population" (1798), which develops a view of the need to destroy state aid the poor and that the hunger and poverty of the masses allegedly depend not on the social system, but on the excessively rapid reproduction of the poor. This "theory", which justifies the death of millions of people of the oppressed classes and peoples, received a well-deserved assessment from the classics of Marxism, who characterized it as a manifestation of the deepest baseness of thought.

Iosif Yegorovich Deniker (1852 - 1918), Russian racial theorist. References to his major work of 1900, The Human Races, can easily be found in many Soviet academic writings on anthropology. One of the leading racial theorists of Weimar Germany, and then the Third Reich, Hans F.K. Günther, in his fundamental work The Nordic Worldview, openly admitted that the name of the basic part of the German racial doctrine was “first introduced by the Russian racial theorist Deniker.”

Carl Roese, racist, released in 1905-06. European Racology book. His conclusion: "The Nordic racial component of the German people is the main bearer of its spiritual strength."

Francis Galton, (1822 - 1911), English psychologist and anthropologist. Analyzing the factors of heredity, he came to the conclusion that it is necessary to create eugenics. The limited psychological views were manifested in his ideas about the predestination of human intellectual achievements by his genetic resources, and political reactionaryness - in an attempt to present the masses as biologically inferior.

Alfred Ploetz, published in 1895 the book "Fundamentals of Racial Hygiene", reworking the ideas of the "father of eugenics" Francis Galton (1822-1911). Ploetz founded in 1904 the "Archive for Racial and Social Biology" and in 1905 the German and International Society for Racial Hygiene. He wrote then: “We must feel like knights of life, a beautiful and powerful life, from which all earthly happiness arises and the victorious aspiration of which only gives us hope for the future, for the golden age that people attributed to the past.”

Chapter 3. The racist theory of Joseph Arthur de Gobineau

Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, Count (French Joseph Arthur comte de Gobineau; July 14, 1816 - 1882) - a famous French novelist, sociologist, author of racial theory, later "adopted" by the National Socialists.

Joseph-Arthur de Gobineau left a mark on the history of social thought as one of the founders of modern racist ideology. Gobineau was essentially the first in the 19th century to formulate in an expanded form the objective thesis of racial inequality as an explanatory principle of historical development, thus reflecting the subjective spiritual assessment of equality as an idea that is humiliating for a person. Gobineau identified equality with the triumph of mediocrity, averageness, sameness, dullness. Thus, Gobineau's racism is an integral part of his elitist worldview. All kinds of equality are capable of causing disgust, but racial inequality seems to be the most fundamental, initial and primary, from which, according to Gobineau, all other hierarchies stem.

The central problem that Gobineau poses and seeks to resolve in his main work, An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races, is the problem of the decline and death of various civilizations. Gobineau begins his work with a critical examination of existing points of view on the problem of the collapse of civilizations. And he comes to the conclusion that neither economic, nor political, nor moral reasons are sufficient to explain this phenomenon. In his opinion, "no external cause is deadly" as long as society does not strike "internal degeneration". The internal degeneration of a people (and the civilization it created) occurs when its ethnic composition changes. In turn, the change in the ethnic composition occurs as a result of "racial mixing". Thus, "racial mixing" leading to "racial degeneration" is the root cause of the death of all civilizations. “No nation would ever die if it consisted of the same national elements,” and “if the Persians and Romans had kept their blood intact, they would have lived and reigned for a long time.”

So, "racial mixing" destroys civilizations. What creates them? Creation takes skill. The abilities of races, like the abilities of people, are unequal. Just as in a separate people not all people are capable of creative, culture-creating activity, so in humanity not all races are capable of it. Gobineau proceeds from the thesis of the natural inequality of races. At the same time, he emphasizes that they all belong to the human race: "in my eyes, the human races are unequal, and at the same time I do not think that at least one of them is close to animals." He considers the “highest”, the most capable of cultural creativity, the “white” race. Less capable - "yellow" and the least capable - "black". It was only through the activity of the white race that civilization became possible. Without exception, all civilizations were created by the peoples of the white race, or with their participation. Among the white race, the most capable of civilizing activity are the "Aryan peoples", and among the Aryans - the "Germanic race".

According to Gobineau, civilization begins when an "Aryan group" comes into one or another native environment and introduces the beginnings of society and culture. Then there is a gradual process of "racial mixing", which eventually leads civilization to death. This process, according to Gobineau, is irreversible and fatal: "any community of people and the intellectual culture associated with it is doomed to death." The same fate awaits humanity as a whole. According to Gobineau, humanity is developing in the direction of ever greater racial homogeneity, which, in the end, will lead it to degeneration and death. Thus, ethnogenesis lies at the basis of cultural and sociogenesis. The emergence and decline of civilization as a separate socio-cultural community is entirely determined by latent ethnic processes. They are the key to understanding human history. Such is the historiosophical conception of Count Gobineau.

Initially, in Gobineau's conception, the main subject of consideration and the main subject of the historical process is the race, or, which for Gobineau is a synonym, the ethnic group. In his opinion, social institutions do not determine the vital activity of races (ethnic groups), but, on the contrary, are determined by them. Institutions that do not accord with the deepest tendencies of the race do not take root unless there is racial mixing. As a result, Gobineau denies the civilizing role of world religions, for example, Christianity, which, being adopted by the most diverse peoples, cannot in itself shake their deep characteristics and inclinations.

Gobineau seeks to discover the inner, "natural laws that govern the social world" that have an unchanging character. These two laws, according to Gobineau, are the laws of repulsion and attraction between human races. The fatal phenomenon of the mixing of separated races and their innumerable combinations acts as a concretization of these "laws". Mixing is a necessary source of the emergence and development of civilizations (with the obligatory participation of the "white" race), but it, in the future, is the cause of their degeneration.

Slavyan Gobino considers the most uncivilized branch of the Aryan tribes, who have lost the "ancient instincts of the white race" due to "destructive mixing" with the Finno-Ugric tribes. The character of the Slavs "is dominated by the desire for peace and quiet, the needs are small and limited by the material sphere." Being the most degenerate of all the white groups in Europe, they did not play a prominent role either in antiquity or in later times: "their masses were constantly under the rule of successful adventurers." "Humility and long-suffering, consent to a secondary role in the new states created as a result of conquests, diligence - these are the qualities thanks to which the Slavs retained the right to their land, yielding supremacy." Gobino does not deny that the Slavs have courage, but it is adjacent to short-sightedness and non-belligerence, which deprives them of the main quality of the Aryans - energy. The Slavic mass is “a stagnant swamp in which, after short-term victories, more and more developed ethnic groups drowned. Motionless like death, implacable like death, this swamp swallowed up in its deep darkness the most ardent and noble principles, undergoing almost no changes, and after rare bursts of activity again returning to its former state of hibernation.

As if not noticing a contradiction with the thesis of Slavic passivity, Gobineau notes that this "prolific, patient and industrious" human group "spread over a vast territory in a historically short time." However, the Slavs themselves were completely incapable of state building, and only the truly Aryan blood of the Normans was able to create a state in Slavic peoples. And in the future, everything that is politically significant in Russia "came from outside."

As for the "Slavic threat", Gobineau vehemently denies it. Despite the vastness of the territory of Russia, "the inertia inherent in the locals has remained, and it is in vain to believe that the Vendian race is a threat to the West." In the West, the Slavs can only occupy a subordinate position and are unlikely to play a prominent role in future history, just as they did not play it in the past. Such is the assessment by the French thinker of the historical role and historical prospects of the Slavic peoples.

So, not a single people and not a single race on Earth bears within itself the germs of future development. Nor the utilitarian Americans and Europeans, who can only destroy what cannot be profited from; nor the apathetic, inert Slavs; nor the representatives of the yellow and black races - coarse and undeveloped. Gobineau does not see in anyone that creative and creative spirit that was inherent in the ancient Aryan peoples.

Thus, Gobineau's position is far from straightforward. On the one hand, the mixing of "races" is the source of the emergence and development of civilizations (with the indispensable participation of the "white race"). On the other hand, the reason for their subsequent degeneration and death. The same process destroys the civilizations that create them. By asserting the biological and cultural superiority of the white race, Gobineau believes that this superiority no longer exists: it is a thing of the past. While praising the Aryans and the European civilization they created, Gobineau, at the same time, was an opponent of Eurocentrism. In his opinion, European civilization is no higher than the rest and, like all others, is doomed to perish. As one of the researchers noted, "Gobineau combined racial elitism with cultural relativism." Such is the racial dialectic of Gobineau.

Fatalism and pessimism of Gobineau excluded the practical application of racist postulates, for which he criticized X.C. Chamberlain.

Fame and recognition came to Gobineau only after his death and at first not in his homeland, but in Germany. In 1894, the Gobineau Society was founded in Germany, the number of members of which reached 360 in 1914. The founder of this society, Ludwig Schemann, who published a number of Gobineau's works and studies about him, played a particularly active role in the spread of Gobineau in Germany. He in 1897-1900. first published "An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races" in German. National Socialist theorists valued this work so highly that specially selected fragments from it were published in the 1930s in popular anthologies about races and were even cited in school textbooks. Thus, Gobineau's ideas were useful in the ideology of the Third Reich, although he was not, like X.C. Chamberlain, elevated to the rank of "people's thinker".

Conclusion

Racism in the form of hostility towards alien individuals and societies and attributing negative qualities to them has existed for a long time. But only in the middle of the 19th century, the defenders of feudal privileges and the rule of the aristocracy in their struggle against democracy (extension of suffrage, ideas of socialism, feminism, etc.) turned from ancient times easily aroused hostility towards other peoples into an explanation of world history, into a general theory of historical process.

The theoretical foundations of modern racism were laid by J. A. Gobineau in "An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races." He contrasted the egalitarian idea of democracy with the inequality of people. The essence of Gobineau's position consisted in the anti-democratic thesis put forward by him, according to which there are races of different values. Any decline in culture is caused by "degeneration", the cause of which is the mixing of "full" races with "inferior ones". Therefore, culture can be preserved by societies that keep the "purity" of their blood in many generations (for example, the nobility). Gobineau was the first to make an attempt (obviously responding to the revolutionary events in France at that time) to depict the entire world history as a story of the struggle of the "noble" races with the "inferior". He was the first to interpret the entire history of mankind as the history of the struggle of races and therefore can be regarded as the founder of modern racism.

"Experience on the inequality of human races" was written in the middle of the century before last. Over the past century and a half, anthropology, ethnology, etymology and other sciences, the problems of which were touched upon by Arthur de Gobineau, have made thousands of discoveries based on modern technical achievements. In particular for past time was born and became a full-fledged science of genetics. Now it is possible to analyze at the molecular level (by DNA molecules) what is common and what are the differences among the indigenous population of various localities and countries. Now it is reliably known - by genetic set - that the Russian is genetically the most characteristic European, and Gobineau's assumption about the predominance of the Finnish element in Russia, the "yellow race" is actually incorrect. And this is just one example of how behind the times the book "An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races" is. However, it remains extremely valuable to the modern reader. Today, in the XXI century, it turned out to be, perhaps, more relevant than at the time of its writing. Why? Well, firstly, then, in the middle of the 19th century, for the majority of its readers, the problem of development, mixing and degeneration of races sounded for the first time. This process is unusually extended in time, which is why it was especially difficult for the general reader to perceive. Secondly, today we are forced to master racial knowledge almost from scratch. For more than seventy years, the class theory dominated the USSR, which did not even allow for the assumption of some kind of innate, naturally given qualities of peoples and individuals. Only social conditions, production relations, belonging to one or another class allegedly determined the mentality of each person, regardless of ethnic origin. Later, any attempt to talk about races was branded as a manifestation of fascism. In Europe, after the military defeat of Germany, the racial theme also fell out of favor. The German, who wanted to make a career, had nothing to think about any racial differences between him and the new owner of all German media. Therefore, today in Europe (with some exceptions) and in Russia, racial theory has not yet received proper development. There are highly politicized and therefore distorted versions of the representation of the racial picture of the world. This question has long been strongly ideologized and politicized. Racial clashes, sometimes even battles, shake the cities of the world. Then in the USA, after the murder of a black man by white policemen, pogroms begin. Then in Palestine, one part of the Semitic race, with unprecedented frenzy, seeks to exterminate the second part of the same race. And the mass Russian reader, by inertia, retains ideas about the races of the times of the dominance of Marxism. That is why Gobineau's book An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races should be made available to thousands of Russians.

Used Books

1. S.A. Tokarev, Biological trends in ethnography. Racism"

2. International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Adopted by General Assembly resolution 2106 (XX), December 21, 1965

3. Alekseev S.S. State and law. Tutorial. M.: Ed. "Prospect", 2007

4. Vengerov A.B. Theory of Government and Rights. M.: OMEGA-L, 2007. 608 p.

International regulations UNESCO.- M.: Logos, 1993. S. 223 - 230.

Code of normative acts of UNESCO.- M.: International relationships, 1991. S. 223 - 230.

6. Kon I. "Psychology of prejudice" The article was published in the journal "New World", M, 1966, No. 9

7. Pierre-Andre Taghieff Color and blood. French theories of racism = La couleur et le sang doctrines racistes a la francaise. - M.: Ladomir, 2009. - 240 p.

8. Joseph Arthur de Gobineau "An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races"

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An essay on the inequality of the human races. An experiment on the inequality of human races. Representatives of the racial-anthropological school

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Gobineau and National Socialism

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