The type of subanthropic
exism in which a human body as a
whole is referred to without having to simultaneously refer to
other human beings or things as well, is absolute total physical
subanthropic exclusivism (X.74). At least two manifestations of
this type of exclusivism deserve our attention here, namely
'etatic' and racial, or other forms of generative, exism.
Etatic is the word we shall use for age-related; it derives
from aetas and indicates age in the sense of the number of
years a human or other sentient being has lived. (When etatism
is employed as short for etatic exclusivism it should not be
mistaken for the differently pronounced homograph traditionally
denoting a doctrine which advocates state intervention in either a
large or too large a number of fields.)
If the object of age-related exism is the factor age
itself, then it is age-centered exclusivism (X.297.0); if it is an
age group, then age-based exclusivism or agism (X.297.1).
An example of abnegational age-centered exism is the attitude of
vehemently condemning racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination
or exclusivism, while participating or tacitly acquiescing in all sorts
of agism. Both age-centered and age-based
exism are unitary, but the former is interfactorial, and the
latter infrafactorial. As already discussed in
section 2.1.3,
the dimensional manifestations which can be distinguished for
a tetratomic subdivision of age-based exism are juvenile
(X.297.19), adult young-age(-centered) (X.297.37),
middle-age(-centered) (X.297.72) and old-age(-centered)
exclusivism (X.297.73). A few components of these nondichotomous
manifestations are:
- discrimination of juveniles, often
called "minors", by adults, for example, with regard to human
rights, their chances, access or acceptance (X.297.19.13);
- discrimination of juveniles and middle- and old-age
people by young adults (X.297.37.8);
- preoccupation with youth, possibly
leading to exclusive behavior, such as excessive artificial
attempts to look or stay young (X.297.37.11);
- fear or distrust of, uneasiness with, or alienation from,
young (adult) people and their thoughts and way of life, particularly by
older adults (X.297.37.15);
- discrimination of children and adults
under a certain age, considered (too) young, and other adults
over a certain age, considered (too) old by adults who are, or
would be, neither (too) young nor (too) old themselves (X.297.72.8);
- sentimental preoccupation with old age, or
exclusive respect for old-age people by young and middle-age
people who aggrandize old age in certain or in all respects
(X.297.73.11); and
- fear or distrust of, uneasiness with, or
alienation from, the elderly and their thoughts and way of life
(X.297.73.15).
The exclusion or discrimination of children and
young and middle-age adults by elderly people (X.297.73.8)
involves the institution of gerontocracy. The relegation of
the elderly to old-age homes or 'total institutions' is a form
of old-age exclusionism (X.297.73.13).
Generative absolute total physical subanthropic exclusivism
(X.149) is the exclusion or exclusivity of a whole human body on
the basis of subanthropic physical characteristics relating to
biological generation. In the broadest sense these characteristics
are racial, in the narrowest sense familial. Thus we shall
distinguish racial exclusivism, generative familial exclusivism
and one variant in between, namely generative ethnical exclusivism.
Generative is added because familial and ethnical
irrelevantism can also be cultural, that is,
nonphysical. Racial exclusivism or racialism (X.597) is exism
re one or more, but not all subspecies of humans distinguished by, among
other things, a particular color, that is, pigmentation of their skin,
and possibly the application of this exism to anthropically
conceived beings. (Some antiracists have claimed for
nonontological reasons that human 'races' would not exist at all,
but this preposterous existential abnegational racialism is due
to their inability to differentiate the truth- and the
relevancy-conditional. Rejecting the distinctions made by racists they
feel forced to contend that it is not true that these distinctions
would exist, because they cannot comprehend what it means
that they would not be relevant, whether truly drawn or not.)
Generative ethnical exclusivism (X.596) is exism re one or more, but
not all, ethnic communities belonging to one of humankind's races, and
possibly the application of this exism to
anthropically conceived beings. Generative familial exclusivism
(X.299) is exism re consanguineous members of a human family or
group of families smaller than an ethnic community, such as a
caste. We shall now first examine some of the componential and
operational manifestations of racialism.
Like etatic exclusivism also racialism can be manifested in
an inter- and in an infrafactorial way. Aggrandizemental
race-centered exclusivism, for instance, is among other things an
exclusive or disproportionate attention for race-discrimination
in comparison with other forms of discrimination. (Thus it has
been pointed out by others before that an overemphasis upon race
as a factor of distinction will be counterproductive when trying
to combat racism.) It also refers to a practise or policy of
making irrelevant, racial distinctions without considering or
treating one race, or group of races as superior or inferior to
the other. This is what (racial) apartheid in the literal
sense is supposed to stand for, and which not only has been, or
still is, advocated by a privileged racial minority, but
elsewhere also by racial minorities which used to be, or still
are, the victims of racism themselves. This type of interfactorial
racialists all hold that people should go to, and
have, their own 'homeland' (or at least their own schools and
clubs) on the basis of the race they belong to. In theory none
of them need advocate or support any form of infrafactorial
racialism as well (as their separate but equal slogan may
suggest), but in practise both manifestations of racialism
usually or always go together.
Infrafactorial racialism is race-based exclusivism or racism
and the aggrandizemental component of this exism is, as a
cognition, the belief that a certain race or group of races
would be superior. If sentimental, it is the preference for one
or more characteristics of that race or group of races per se,
leading to exclusive behavior or preoccupation with those
characteristics. (Some theorists have argued that the wrongness of
racism does not lie in the irrelevance or arbitrariness of the
racial distinction made, but in practises like slavery and other
forms of oppression. These theorists, however, confuse racism as
racism with violations of personhood in particular: slavery and
oppression are wrong even where and when no racial distinction
is made at all.)
Active abnegational racialism is the exclusion of members of
another race or of other races (than considered superior) from
equal treatment and from equality in general. A most vicious
example of this abnegating exclusivism is the policy of racial
'apartheid' as actually implemented and according to which even
rights of personhood are violated because of people's skin-color
(and because of their opposition to that policy itself). If
sentimental, abnegational race-based exism is uneasiness, possibly
fear, alienation or ignorance with respect to members or
characteristics of a race or group of races believed or felt to
be inferior. As a cognition, supreme aggrandizemental race-based
exism is the belief that the supreme being and/or its earthly
incarnation(s) or last prophet can/do exclusively belong to,
or has an exclusive or special relationship with, one particular
race: the so-called 'chosen race'. It is also the custom of
depicting the supreme being and/or its divine avatar(s) or
prophet(s) as having the skin-color or other characteristic of
one particular race. A closely related form of principal
racialism is demonical abnegational race-based exism. This
involves the custom of depicting the devil or demons, and
possibly its/their demonical incarnation(s), as having the color
or other characteristic of one particular race or group of
races.
Ethnical exclusivism is ethnocentrism when aggrandizemental
(X.596.02). The manifestations of generative ethnocentrism and
abnegational ethnical exclusivism in general follow a pattern
analogous to that of aggrandizemental and abnegational racialism.
A difference may be that it has never been attempted (or
been possible) to exterminate a whole race, while it has been
attempted to exterminate whole ethnic communities of millions of
people. Such genocides or attempts at genocide are acts of
ethnical exclusionism which almost defy every description of
their gruesomeness. Yet, when people are killed by the same
enemy in, for example, the same concentration camp either for
their belonging to a particular ethnic or national group or for
their belonging to a certain ideological or nonideological
minority, one shall not add to this gruesomeness by exclusively
mentioning, or showing compassion for, the members of one group
and by thus completely ignoring all others who had to go thru
the same ordeal, sometimes better, sometimes worse. It is very
sad, indeed, when even the descriptions of mass murders suffer
from ethnical exclusivism, whether infra- or interfactorial,
whether abnegational or aggrandizemental. It is even sadder when
political and military opponents of the mass murderers later turn
out to display some of the very same discriminatory and
authoritarian attitudes themselves. (To argue that 'only' 49%,
or some smaller percentage, of the people killed belonged to
other groups, is an unsavory majoritarian kind of reasoning
which nourishes the exclusionist neglect of, and feelings of
hatred towards, minorities in the first place.)
An external sentimental abnegational component of infrafactorial
ethnical exclusivism is xenophobia. This operation is, like
physical forms of exclusion, affirmative, that is, nonintermediary.
It is often combined with
lingual abnegational ethnical exclusivism, an intermediary operation
which involves the use of pejoratives to denote the
members of a certain people or ethnic group. Another intermediary
operation of ethnical exclusivism is supreme ethnocentrism.
This is the belief that the supreme being and/or its earthly
incarnation(s) or last prophet can, or does, exclusively belong
to, or has an exclusive or special relationship with, one
particular people: the 'chosen people'. It is also the doctrine
that all members of one particular ethnic group would be guilty
of the murder of the supreme being's sole incarnation, a
doctrine for which certain sacred books are a fertile soil, and
which has been religiously employed to 'justify' all sorts of
abominations.
The history of humankind proves that affirmative, exemplary
and intermediary forms of ethnocentrism always tend to go
together with abnegational ethnical exism, if not in the same
person with respect to different ethnic groups, then in different
persons with respect to the same ethnic group. Thus, it is
probable that those who consider themselves members of a chosen
or superior people, or who adhere to an ideology claiming or
implying that they do belong to such a people, shall once be
chosen as the victims of the abnegational component of the same
exclusivism. The demise of abnegational ethnical exclusivism and
racialism can only be brought about when not anyone of whatever
people or race does suggest anymore that
'er people or race
would be superior. So long as some people believe in their
ethnic superiority or in a 'more equal' relationship with the
supreme being, its incarnation(s) or its 'last' prophet on the
basis of their ethnicity, there will be no ethnical inclusivity.
A recrudescence of the most monstrous kinds of ethnocentrism and
other forms of generative subanthropic exclusivism (to say
nothing of religionism and nationalism) must then always be
feared for.
What applies to racial and ethnical exclusivism applies in
principle equally to familial exclusivism and therefore we can
be relatively short about this integral manifestation. For
discrimination on the basis of caste (which will return under
class-based exclusivism) there is no special name in this
language, but there is one for 'nepotism', a form of familial
exism. Nepotism is discrimination against nonrelatives, or
favoritism shown to a relative on the basis of family relationship.
If physical and generative (that is, if the relationship
is a consanguineous one), nepotism is self-aggrandizing generative
familial exclusivism (X.299.08). The familial exclusivist need
not favor 'er own family tho,
'e may also favor, and assign
an exclusive status to, another family, especially one particular
family in 'er community or country. Such external aggrandizing generative
familial exclusivism (X.299.09) is an indispensable ingredient of
monarchism
if adhered to by people who are
not members of the 'chosen family' themselves. Whether internal
or external, aggrandizemental familial exclusivism differs only
from aggrandizemental racialism and ethnocentrism in being the
narrowest aggrandizemental type of generative subanthropic exclusivism.
So long as this narrowest type continues to exist, no
subject can expect the broader types to disappear.
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