March of the Titans - debate

[Brynhild]

So how do you know how much research Kemp did? How does that compare with other historians you find acceptable?



Most history is not written based on primary sources. Some of the best does uncover new material but unearthing new findings is more a symptom of a good historian than a prerequisite to be one. But going by this standard, you must be a huge fan of David Irving.



Verbatim? Verbatim in relation to what? Sounds good to me, anyways. Should he just not write verbatim and make stuff up?

Most historians simply interpret. The best ones are the best interpreters. Charles D. Smith is one of the best historians you'll find on the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. To my knowledge, he didn't discover anything. He took people, places, events, and general ideas from documents and manuscripts and made a comprehensive outline and interpreted everything. And that's a fairly typical life for a historian.

You know what's becoming tiring from you? That you think it's your god-given right that I must explain everything that I say due to your own lack of comprehension, just because you want to pick an argument for your self-gratification. I have lost count of how many times I've pointed this out to you and yet you still don't seem to be able to get it. You don't know how to raise an argument without condescending and ad hominems. You're a really sad case. Kudos to you for causing another train wreck of a thread.

[Debaser11]

You know what's becoming tiring from you? That you think it's your god-given right that I must explain everything that I say due to your own lack of comprehension, just because you want to pick an argument for your self-gratification. I have lost count of how many times I've pointed this out to you and yet you still don't seem to be able to get it. You don't know how to raise an argument without condescending and ad hominems. You're a really sad case. Kudos to you for causing another train wreck of a thread.

Where did I resort to an ad hominem? It's not my fault your point of view is easy to dismantle. It says a lot when you choose to get angry at me rather than defend your viewpoints which you had no qualms about asserting in the first place until I had the apparent audacity to poke holes in them. Shit or get off the pot.

[Curtis24]

And how do you explain that the Spanish empire came after all that supposed and hideous miscegenation took place?

Kemp tries to argue that the Spaniards *didn't* miscegenate with the Moors, or at least didn't to a large extent, but did miscegenate at high levels with black slaves and gypsies. So it was all the gypsies and quadroons who supposedly brought down the Spanish Empire...

Which illustrates the flaws in his larger theme - that the rise and fall of civilizations is solely caused by racial changes. Certainly racial changes can cause rises and falls, but they're not the only cause, and not the case in Europe - where genetic research has shown most of the genetic shape of Europe was stabilized in the Neolothic., Most of the rises and falls of European civilizations were caused by technological changes, not racial ones.

A society's shape and worth is created by a combo of geography and technology(and race); thus, new technology can either empower or disempower a society. This is the case in, for example, Spain, where the advent of navigation and ships that could sail long-distances, combined with Spain's Atlantic coastline, made Spain an empire. The same thing applies to England, which, in the span of two centuries went from being an economy based mostly on wool-making, to the first industrialized country and the most powerful empire in the world. All because of the technological advances that made possible long-distance sea travel.

[Osweo]

Kemp tries to argue that the Spaniards *didn't* miscegenate with the Moors, or at least didn't to a large extent, but did miscegenate at high levels with black slaves and gypsies. So it was all the gypsies and quadroons who supposedly brought down the Spanish Empire...

Laughable. I just flipped thru that chapter again, and at one point he dismisses the Moorish input, but later on hints at 'something' from it entering the genepool. This black/Gypsy thing though... The man is an imbecile.

Certainly racial changes can cause rises and falls, but they're not the only cause,

Sure...

Most of the rises and falls of European civilizations were caused by technological changes, not racial ones.

A society's shape and worth is created by a combo of geography and technology(and race)...

Nah, that's almost as simplistic as Kemp! You omit social change. I don't mean the Marxist style means of production idea, but that of the general social trajectory of a society, leading to crises and stagnation. Your technical model fails to account for the end of the Western Empire, but this more politico-economic one does a better job. Malaise hits in - we can feel something of it in our time, perhaps. Things move along with a momentum of their own, and sometimes they go down ways of no return. There's an extra less-defineable element at work here too, of the 'idea' of a given civilisation. I'm getting close to Spencer here, who you should read if you haven't already, to get a good idea of this. It's a bit more... mystical, almost, but worth a look. A new Big Idea, 'prime symbol' in his words, pops up, a civilisation builds itself on its inspiration, works out more and more ways of expressing it.... and eventually exhausts it.

Kemp fails abysmally to pick up on this sort of deeper motor behind events.

[Osweo]

I'm getting close to Spencer here,

WHAT is wrong with me?!? SpenGLer!!! Thanks, Rippo!

[Debaser11]

Nah, that's almost as simplistic as Kemp! You omit social change. I don't mean the Marxist style means of production idea, but that of the general social trajectory of a society, leading to crises and stagnation. Your technical model fails to account for the end of the Western Empire, but this more politico-economic one does a better job. Malaise hits in - we can feel something of it in our time, perhaps. Things move along with a momentum of their own, and sometimes they go down ways of no return. There's an extra less-defineable element at work here too, of the 'idea' of a given civilisation. I'm getting close to Spencer here, who you should read if you haven't already, to get a good idea of this. It's a bit more... mystical, almost, but worth a look. A new Big Idea, 'prime symbol' in his words, pops up, a civilisation builds itself on its inspiration, works out more and more ways of expressing it.... and eventually exhausts it.

Kemp fails abysmally to pick up on this sort of deeper motor behind events.

Though I don't throw out valid points that eugenicists make (as I don't reject science provided that science doesn't pervert itself into dogma and ideology), you are getting at the real of root the matter that I do think renders much of the so-called racialist prescriptions for reform (though not questions about race itself) as being not only less relevant, but less interesting.

However, I do think racialist types (this is just my experience) are generally more aware of the deeper questions outside of just race itself that affect the world we live in more than they are often credited as being. I think they just choose to treat the two (race issues/social issues) as separate points of emphasis moreso than the cultural/social/spiritual crowd. The danger of Kemp's work (even it were 100% true though I'm not arguing that ANY of it is) is that people would tend to apply the wrong measures to fix the problems we see around us. That being said, an author who has a valid point in one area cannot be blamed for the incompetence or misappropriation of his ideas by other people.

Whereas someone who focuses on social norms would be more likely to think that race can't be preserved without first reforming the whole totality of the culture they live under, I think the racialist people tend to think we can't get back to the healthy social norms without first addressing the deleterious alien influence. (I tend to gather these people assume that a return to healthy social norms would then just fall into place. Ex: Take the Negro out of the West->you lose the jungle music->you lose the decadence->you lose the out of wedlock births->you restore the family. BAM! PRESTO! Problem solved. It's almost as deluded as left wing egalitarianism.) The problem with the latter crowd, the racialists, many of whom are typical of the still respectable American Renaissance bunch, is that they seem to be putting the cart before the horse. It's an ass backward reading of social trends. It's confusing symptoms for causes.

However, I suspect people like Kemp (perhaps mistakenly) are not as distant from the non-racialist side in thought as it's sometimes made out to be. There is some considerable overlap.