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« The War against Corruption: Obasanjo Oily hands! | Main | Sadomasochism and America's Future, Part II »

September 12, 2005

Sadomasochism and America's Future, Part I

by Ozodi Thomas Osuji (Seatle Washington) --- ABSTRACT: This essay points out the symbiotic relationship between white and black America, with whites playing the dominant role, and expecting blacks to play the subservient role. It claims that the system is based on human fearfulness, with the weak fearing harm by the strong. The relationship of white and black America is sadomasochistic. The essay argues that if this sociopolitical structure is not altered, in favor of equalitarian relationship, that, sooner or later, the oppressed black persons would break free from the fear that makes them tolerate white abuse, and lunch a relentless attack on those that abuse them. At that juncture, America, like past empires based on oppression, would fall.

Part two of the essay provided information on religions, and the role they play in maintaining extant societies. Religion is generally distorted and manipulated by the leaders of society to help them maintain their chosen social structure, but true religion is pursuit of knowledge of who we are.

INTRODUCTION

One has always wondered why great empires decline. Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome, India, Arab Moslem Caliphates, Genghis Khan’s Mongol Empire, Attila the Hun’s Empire, France, Britain, Russia etc. were once great empires that today are shadows of their former selves. What happened to bring those great empires down?

I believe that past empires had Achilles heals that inevitably brought them down. Built into their greatness was the seed for their destruction.

In Greek tragedy, the hero’s character has something in it that propels him to greatness, and, yet must drag him down. The tragic hero is blinded, and unable to see his character flaw, and change it. If he was able to see his weakness, and changed it, he would not rise to greatness, and would not fall, and would not be considered a tragic hero. As the Greeks see it, life is interesting precisely because we are all like the tragic hero living a charmed life with built in traits that must bring about our ruin, and yet we do not see them. Character foibles in us, that other people easily see, we do not see, because, as it were, the gods blind us to them. Apparently, the gods want us to rise to the top, and then fall. It seems human beings are an amusement for the gods? If we did not rise and fall we would be like the gods, and the gods would loose the source of their fun and hilarity?

As an outsider, an African, I see Americans character weaknesses, vividly, but apparently, Americans do not see them. It seems that they are blinded to these apparent weaknesses. As it were, they must have those weaknesses, if they are to rise to the apogee of world civilization, and then collapse. If they did not have their character weaknesses, they would not become the world’s sole and arrogant superpower, and, then, eventually decline. The gods, apparently, destined that America rise to the zenith of power, and collapse, so that they would not miss their scheduled laughter? The gods must have their humor at our expense?

Apparently, Americans cannot change their character weaknesses, for if they were to change them, they would not achieve great things; they would be ordinary, and the ordinary is of no importance to history. The tragic hero is fated to achieve his greatness, and America, a tragic hero, must achieve its greatness. America must have its rendezvous with destiny. In this light, one is not naively trying to change Americans; one merely observes them, as one sees them.

It is very difficult for Americans to imagine their country not very powerful. That is human nature. But we are, however, dealing with reality, and that reality is that great powers come and go. History does not respect our pride and vanity. Indeed, it is our hubris that guarantees that we must do what trips us, and brings our fall. Only yesterday, the Soviet Union was a colossal world power. She had enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world several times over. No body could have imagined that that other superpower could collapse in a matter of days. Despite her ability to destroy the world, today, Russia is in the dumps, and does not matter in world power politics, although she still pretends to matter. C’est la vie, Gorbachov said, and rode into the sunset, taking his defunct communist empire with him.

Past empires died for some reasons. We shall explore two of those reasons here. They died, inter alia, because they were built on fear and sadomasochism.

America, like past empires, is built on fear and sadomasochism, and, if it does not change that situation, it, too, must die. America’s massed nuclear weapons would not be able to save it, as similar weapons did not save Russia.

(If America hopes that her possession of weapons of mass destruction would make other people kowtow her line, well, we got news for her; the possession of those weapons does not cow any body with courage in his soul. In fact, they arouse defiance in the truly courageous human being. The truly courageous person lives with a simple motto: give me social justice, or give me death; life is not worth living, if it is to be lived in an unjust environment.)

The universe does not make excuses for our weaknesses, and behaviors predicated on them. The universe has implicit in it the rule that our behaviors have consequences, good or bad. If we do certain bad things, we must receive certain bad consequences. Empires built on fear and sadomasochism are required by the universe to fall. There is no compromise here. If you think that there is compromise, then where are past empires, today? America must change its ways, or join the have-been empires of the past. In fact, if it does not change its ways, its fall would be sudden, and more spectacular than the collapse of the Soviet Union. It could all happen in a month, as was the case of the other evil empire, the Soviet Empire. Just one attack by Arab terrorists, and the American economy was shook to its foundations, and has not really recovered yet. Imagine what would happen, if there were sustained and relentless attacks on America?

Erich Fromm, in his various writings, particularly Escape from Freedom, Man for Himself, and Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, elaborated on the nature of sadomasochism. He is useful background reading. However, I will focus on my own understanding of what sadomasochism means.

FEAR

To be human is to be fearful. In fact, fear is one of the two emotions that best characterize human beings. The other is love. Fear separates us, and love unifies us.

One cannot be a human being without being fearful. If you were not fearful, or if fearful, and could overcome your fear you would escape from humanity and, as it were, return to the abode of the gods. Human beings are fearful and the gods are fearless.

(I employ the term gods, not because I believe in them, but because I am writing in the tradition of Greek tragedy. The Greeks believed in many gods. See Homer’s Odyssey, and Iliad and Sophocles tragedies.)

We are fearful because it is fear that keeps us alive in human form. Fear maintains our physical lives on earth.

We live in bodies. Our bodies are vulnerable to attack, pain, injury and, ultimately, death. If a person shoots your body with a bullet, he injures, and inflicts pain on it. If the bullet enters certain parts of your body, say the heart, and or brain, the chances are that you would die.

The human body can be inflicted pain on, harmed and destroyed. Therefore, to stay alive, the body devised a means of alerting itself to that which could cause it pain, harm, and death. The human body devised fear as a signal, alerting it to environmental threats to its integrity and existence, and compels it to take measures that protect it. Fear keeps people alive in bodies.

Love makes them peaceful and happy.

For fear to perform its function of enabling us to defend ourselves against environmental attack it must work in an involuntary manner. When threatened, you do not stop, and ask what you should do; fear takes over, and makes you do what you have done to survive.

A person points a gun at you, and threatens to kill you. Without thinking about it, your body releases adrenaline, a neuro-exciter, and it stimulates the workings of most of your biological processes. Your heart pounds very fast; your body releases stored energy, and blood rushes it to all parts of your body, giving them strength to fight or run from whatever is threatening you. Your stomach either reduces or stops digesting food, so as to rush blood to where it is needed, the muscles, for example, to prepare them to fight back, or flee from the danger confronting you. Your lungs breathe faster, and drag in more oxygen into your body, and blood rushes that oxygen to all parts of your body, enabling them to have the energy they need to respond to the perceived attack. Your nervous system works very fast sending messages to the brain and the brain interprets them and gives feedback on how you should respond, and that information is rushed to your muscles. The brain asks stored information in its memory bank whether you have the capability to successfully deal with the present danger or to run from it? If your past experiences believe that you can fight back it asks you to stay and fight, and if not, it compels you to run, hence the involuntary fight-flight response of fear.

The purpose of fear is to enable us take measures to protect our biological life. What currently serves our survival needs could be running from an attacker, or fighting it. If one misjudges what is an appropriate response to perceived danger, and do the wrong thing, one is harmed, and may even be killed, but if one judges correctly, one lives to see another d

Fear has survival value for all animals, human beings included. Those animals with deficient fear response mechanism seldom do what they have to do to defend them, and die. There are children who are born with deficient pain/fear response mechanism, do not feel much pain and fear, and, therefore, do not take adequate measures to protect themselves. They generally die young. If fire burns you, and you do not feel pain, and consequently develop healthy avoidance of fire, you would be badly burned, and die from fire-induced injury.

Given our paradoxical world, that which is useful to us, generally, is also detrimental to us. Fear is a two edged sword. It enables us to survive, but implicit in it is our tendency to tolerate social oppression. Because human beings are fearful, they tend to anticipate what could harm and or kill them, and avoid them. And where they cannot avoid danger, they do what they have to do to survive despite it, and that includes permitting stronger persons to lord it over them.

All human beings can harm or kill other human beings. If I want to, I can harm or kill you, and you can harm or kill me, if you want to. Man is a threat to other men. Because we are a threat to each other, we naturally fear each other. We take actions to protect ourselves from each other. As Thomas Hobbes pointed out in his seminal work, Leviathan, government was instituted largely to protect us from each other’s potential threats. In the state of nature, apparently, human beings were predators and killed each other at will, and or used each other to procure their welfare. Hobbes observed that in nature, human life was “nasty, brutish and short”.

To protect ourselves, we anticipate that our fellow human beings can injure us. Some human beings do, in fact, take advantage of the fact that human beings can harm and or kill one another. They threaten other people, exploit them for their own good, and, indeed, kill them if they do not do as they are told to do.


SADISM

The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (1994) noted in its sections on personality disorders, that antisocial personalities enjoy exploiting, harming and even killing their fellow human beings. These people do not have conscience and enjoy hurting other people. They have no remorse and guilt feeling from exploiting, hurting and or killing people. Indeed, it gives them a sense of power and sadistic joy to use and or harm other people.


MASOCHISM

The average human being wants to live. He so desperately wants to live in body that when threatened by sociopaths would readily do what they are told to do. Terrorists know this fact. They randomly kill a few persons, and make the rest of the people feel that they, too, could be randomly killed. The people, therefore, feel fear. Feeling fearful, they do what the terrorist asks them to do. Thus, terrorists intimidate, and control people by manipulating their tendency to fear.

(How would you respond if a mugger pointed a gun at you, and demanded your money, or he killed you? Ninety nine percent of human beings probably would feel fear, and, to live, give their money to the thug. The run of humanity is bloody cowardly. Perhaps, only one percent would defy fear, and do what is honorable, fight for justice, and, if necessary, die in the process? There are not too many courageous people out there. The average human being is a lily livered coward, and knows it. Because they are cowards begging to exist in bodies, whoever has a sadistic will to power can get them to do what ordinarily they would not like to do. Hitler, a sadist who enjoyed killing people, got them to do, as he wanted them to do. Sadists exercise power over masochists.)

Because the average human being is fearful, and would kowtow to the demands of sadists, sadists manipulate them. Sadistic and criminal politicians exploit human tendency to fear. They arrange social relationships in such a manner that sadistic persons rule the fearful persons around them.

(Most leaders of human societies tend to have elevated sociopathy in their personality profiles. Politicians, judges, soldiers, policemen, prison wardens, bureaucrats, businessmen etc tend to be narcissistic and or antisocial in personality structures. They feel special, and desire admiration from other people; they feel justified in exploiting other people, whom they perceive to be inferior to them; they feel entitled to the best things in life.)

SADOMASOCHISM

In my observation, all extant human societies are arranged in a manner that those who are less afraid to harm, and or kill rule those who are afraid of harm and death. Those who do not mind killing a few persons, every now and then, rule those who are squeamish of blood. All human societies are organized sadomasochistically. (This is obviously an assertion. Refute it, if you can.)

In the Prince, Machievalli advised rulers to deliberately and randomly jail, and or kill a few people, every now and then, so as to instill the fear of harm and death in them, and, thereby, get them to obey them. Machievelli observes that most people obey the laws of the land out of fear, not because those laws have any shred of justice in them. He advised leaders to instill fear and respect for them, in the people, if they want to be obeyed.

My observations of human societies show me that sociopaths rule all human societies, and that all human societies, past and present, are organized on sadomasochistic basis. The sadistic element rules the masochistic elements. This includes contemporary America.

(I am limiting my analysis to America, not because she is different from other societies, but because I chose her as my focus of analysis. Moreover, I believe that America is the last of the great empires based on sadomasochism; after her, we shall enter a new era of human civilization, one based on egalitarianism and love.)

A sadist enjoys harming and killing people. A masochist seems to enjoy being harmed by sadists. As utilitarian philosophers like Jeremy Bentham and John Mill tell us, people prefer pleasure to pain. No healthy human being enjoys pain. The masochist is merely submitting to the abuses of the sadist because he wants to avoid infliction of pain, from the latter, not because he likes pain.

For our present purposes, in all human societies are two classes of people, sadists and masochists, and the sadists’ rule the masochists. This is the way it is in Africa, America, Asia, Australia, Europe, and everywhere else human beings live.

Masochists do not relish the pain from the abuses of their sadistic rulers. They tolerate their pain and abuses until they are able to throw out the yoke of the sadists ruling them. It may take hundreds of years, but the human capacity for pain tolerance is limited, and at some point, the abused and oppressed have had enough, and fight for their freedom from pain. When the masses defy fear of harm and death, and fight their rulers, the rulers being sociopath, hence cowards (only the loving is courageous), run, and another social order comes to an end.

In On liberty, John Stuart Mill observed that liberty is obtained only when a significant number of human beings are willing to stand up, and fight for it. As long as the majority of the people are afraid to fight for their freedom and, if necessary, die, they are not ready for freedom, and would be ruled by tyrants. Thomas Paine said: give me liberty, or give me death. If the individual has not embraced this battle cry of freemen, the sadists who rule his society would oppress him.

It usually takes a few eminently courageous persons to mobilize, organize and lead the masses out of their bondage to sociopaths. Spactaccus, a courageous slave, organized his fellow slaves and resisted the Roman yoke. Indeed, it was when the enslaved Germanic elements in the Roman Empire fought back, under Theodosius that that empire of oppression came crashing down. It should be recalled that Rome was divided into two classes, patricians and plebeians, rulers and slaves. The slaves were supposed to tolerate their rulers, and to accept the abuses of their rulers; they were supposed to see this sadomasochistic social relationship as natural, and accept it. (See Edward Gibbons, The Decline and fall of the Roman Empire.)

Nor was Rome unique in its sociopolitical organization. All past empires were organized on a sadomasochistic basis, and lasted for as long as the masses allowed themselves to be abused, and oppressed by their sadistic rulers.

In our own lifetime, we witnessed sadistic communists oppressing the masses of Russia. But at some point, the masses of Russia resisted their sadistic communist oppressors. The picture of Boris Yeltsin on top of a tank, that came to crush the people’s rebellion, is forever imprinted in the minds of freedom loving persons all over the world. Yeltsin is a hero of mankind and will forever be celebrated as a liberator of human beings from the yoke of oppressors. Another heroic picture is the young Chinese man who stood in front of a tank, during the 1989 Tienemein square rebellion against Chinese communist dictators.

Mesopotamia, Egypt, Rome, France (Frankish Empire, that is,) Britain, Russia etc were all based on a sadomasochistic social model. In England, a brutal criminal gang that called themselves kings, dukes, earls, counts and what not, oppressed the masses with an iron fist. The English, beginning with the magna carter, 1215 AD, gradually gained their freedom from the thugs who ruled them.

(The thugs who dominated European politics called themselves aristocrats, and claimed to rule by the authority of God, the idea of divine right of kings. It took Jean Jacque Rousseau’s Social Contract, and John Locke’s Second Treaty on Government, to point out that only the people’s general will legitimizes all political authority and power over them.)

I will not write the specific history of past empires here (though, as a history enthusiast, I am familiar with most countries’ histories). The relevant point I wish to make is that all past empires were predicated on oppression of the many by the few, and that that oppression was based on human tendency to fear, and the fact that the fearful generally permit the fearless to tell them what to do.

The thesis of this essay is that all past and extant political arrangements are based on sadomasochistic arrangements.

Do you have any problems with my thesis? If you can refute it, I would gladly change it. I do not, however, want an emotional refutation. I deal in the world of facts, not sentiments. I am a political realist, not an idealist with a namby-pamby view of history, and human nature. The only difference between me and such political realists as, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Pareto, Joseph Shumpeter and Henry Kissinger is that I believe and, in fact, know that human nature can be changed. I believe that it is possible to have a non-sadomasochistic government. I believe that it is possible to have a non-fear based government. I believe that it is possible to have governments that sought ways to reduce fear in people, rather than increase and exploit it. I know that the future organization of the world is going to be more humane and not oppressive. In this positive light, America is the last of the sadomasochistic empires of the world. We are entering a glorious era in human history, one where we are truly “our brother’s keeper” (Bible) and “from each according to his abilities, and to each according to his needs” (Karl Marx).


AMERICA’ SADOMASOCHISTIC POLITY

America’s government and society are based on fear and sadomasochism. This is a fact, and not a conjecture. America must change this form of socio-political organization, or experience the fate of other societies organized along this primitive pattern of social organization. America has no choice, but to change; if she does not change she would be passed over by history.

The American people and government that I observe is one where government and ruling is based on the assumption that the people are a fearful bunch. The rulers assume, perhaps unconsciously, but mostly consciously, that the people are so afraid of harm and death, that if you threatened to arrest, harm or kill them that they would do as you asked them to do. By and large, this assumption is correct, for human beings are, in the main, cowards.

America’s government would last as long as the masses are fearful and easily intimidated. But should a significant number of Americans refuse to be intimidated, that is, become less fearful, and do not mind dying, America’s rulers would loose their grip on the masses. America controls its citizens, black and white, with fear and intimidation. As it were, America’s rulers are really terrorists. This is also how it is all over the world, so Americans are not unique, in this regard.

The point, however, is that when the people overcome their fear, and refuse to be intimidated, their rulers would no longer have control over them. At that point, the only appropriate government, one that fearless people would accept, is a Christ like government, a government that works for the well-being of all people, and sells its policies through persuasion, not intimidation.

One is not wishing America ill. In fact, I am one of those curious Africans that believe that America has offered the world a lot and wish her well. When Arab-Moslem terrorists attacked America on September 11, 04, I wished to join the American military and go fight them. What America represents, though unfulfilled, is still the best hope for mankind. Democracy and economic well being for all are worthy goals that all men of goodwill ought to aspire to.

Nevertheless, I am a student of history and human nature, and know that history does not countenance our weaknesses. If you refuse to change your weakness, and continue doing what would bring you down, you must be brought down. That is all there is to it.

The universe may not seem just to you, but it is just. The universe gives us chance to change and improve ourselves, and if we refuse to do so, it simply moves on, with or without us. It would be unfair for the universe to sanction sadomasochism forever. If it did, it would be an unfair universe. An unfair universe ought to be destroyed, now, not tomorrow.

The universe exists forever precisely because it is logical and gives us opportunities to make mistakes, and learn from our mistakes, and change. It gives empires opportunities to learn that oppression and abuse of human beings is not right, and if they keep doing so, it gets them to fall, and raises new empires from their ashes.

The Universe, through its most developed human beings like Buddha and Jesus Christ, insist that justice requires human beings to “do unto others how they want to be done to”.

What do you want other persons to do to you? If you are sane, you want to be loved by all people. Only the insane wants other people to inflict pain on him. Therefore, love other people. As Alfred Adler said, do only what serves social interests, not just your private interests. America must learn to serve all peoples interests, or die. It has no choice in the matter. The universe does not make excuses for America’s stupidity.

Now, let me show you why I know that America is based on fear and sadomasochism.

Let us see how America treats African Americans. Please feel free to let me know that my cataloguing of white America’s evil towards black people is wrong.

In 1492, Spaniards, under the Italian, Christopher Columbus, came to the Americas. The British, under the Italian, John Cabot, made forays to New Foundland in 1497, and Sir Walter Raleigh visited the Carolinas in the 1580s, but for all practical purposes, the British experiment in North America began in 1607, when they settled at James Town, Virginia. Twelve years latter, in 1619 the first African slaves were brought to Jamestown. Thus, in 1619 began the history of sadomasochistic relationship between whites and blacks in British North America.

Britain in 1619 was not more developed than some African empires were (Ghana, Mali, Songhai, etc.). Nevertheless, for some reasons, the British assumed that they were superior to the slaves they brought to the Americas. In the Americas, in general, not just in British America, white persons assumed that they were superior to black persons. They came up with all sorts of rationalizations, pseudo theology, and later pseudo science, to justify this silly view.

Based on their self-serving belief that they were superior to black people, white folks proceeded to arrange a social structure where blacks are abused by whites. They constructed a sadomasochistic society, where whites acted out the role of sadists, and Africans acted out the role of masochists.

Africans acted the masochistic role, not because they enjoyed pain and abuse but because like all human beings, they were prone to fear of pain, and when a determined group of sadists employed force on them, they went along with them.

Africans were enslaved, abused and oppressed in every way imaginable by white Americans.

Laws were made mandating that white folks abuse black folks, at will, and for black folks to accept this situation as the natural order of things. If black folks did not acquiesce to abuse, they were physically abused, and often killed. Given their natural fearfulness…as pointed out, the run of the mill human being, black or white, is prone to fear…black folks permitted white folks to abuse them.

White America and black America formed a sadomasochistic relationship. Whites became sadists and apparently seemed to enjoy abusing black folks. Black folks, fearing harm and death, allowed white folks to abuse them, hence acted, as masochists do, seem to enjoy abuse. Whites and blacks formed a symbiotic relationship, with whites assumed superior, and blacks assumed inferior.

(In the Dred Scott ruling, 1857, the Chief Justice of the American Supreme Court, Roger Taney, made it clear that he assumed white superiority over blacks, when he said that: “black persons have no rights that a white man should respect”. Some Nigerian criminals have turned Mr. Taney’s self serving rationalization on its head, and say that white America has no laws that black men should obey, hence justify their criminal activities on that ground. I know Nigerians who do not consider white Americans as human beings. They ask: how can a slave dealer, a discriminator, be a human being? He is either evil or an animal, and, as such, ought to be used, and discarded. Whites may not know that there are Africans who would like to use them as slaves, and will do so in the future, White America amuses itself with its notion of racial superiority when, in fact, those Africans who have lived with them tend to consider them inferior persons. Of course, all criminals are wrong, and ought to be arrested, and punished. But the point is that we can employ rationalizations to suit whatever we want rationalized. )

America has gone through some cosmetic restructuring; it has ameliorated the gross aspects of slavery. Nevertheless, racial discrimination, de facto and not necessarily de jure, is still the order of things in America. Many white folks simply assume that it is their god given right to discriminate against black folks. Like their forefathers, they have rationalizations for their abuse of black folks.

White America acted like terrorists and, for all practical purposes, is like a terrorist towards black Americans. Like the terrorist, they understood that human beings are prone to fear, and that if you randomly killed a few of them, and threatened to kill them all, that you would arouse fear in them, and in the process intimidate them into doing whatever you want them to do. White America randomly arrested, punished and killed black Americans, and intimidated the rest of them into obeying their unjust laws. They controlled black persons by terror, by manipulating fear. The Ku Klaus Klan, indeed, the entire American justice system, deliberately intimidated black Americans, and controlled them by instilling fear of harm and imprisonment and death in them. If black folks stepped out of line, they were apprehended, tried in white kangaroo courts, and sent to jails. Today, one out of every four young black male under age twenty-four is either in prison and or is supervised by parole and probation folks. America has the largest percentage of her population, mostly black persons, in jails compared to other countries in the world. (Once you have been in prison, your right to participate in politics, to vote, is taken way. Thus, some black conspiracy theorists argue that white America deliberately sends blacks to prisons, as a ruse for disenfranchising them, preventing them from participating in politics. Such persons see black prisoners as political prisoners, hence, a priori, pardon them, and would restore their citizen rights to vote and take part in politics.)

When you see black Americans you see fear written all over their faces. They are an intimidated and terrorized people. White persons terrorized them. White sadists and terrorists have, in essence, destroyed the life of black persons, and rendered them eternal slaves. (Until those of them who were not subjected to slavery show them what it means to be a free spirit, to be men, to be assertive and self confident human beings who look you in the face and ask you to do your worst, and are willing to die fighting for freedom, rather than live as fear controlled slaves. To live in fear, as black Americans do, is to live in hell, to be living dead. These people need to be resurrected from the grave that white sadists have relegated them to.)

Those who make sure that their fellow human beings live in fear cannot be called civilized persons. They are savages. White America is composed of sadistic, sociopath, and criminal personalities. These people used gun and intimidation to enslave Africans, and to expropriate Indian lands. They then turned around and told the rest of the world that the reason black persons and other minorities do not do well in America is because they are unintelligent. That is to say that they told lies and did so boldly.

The reason black persons are not making it in America is because a bunch of amoral psychopaths intimidated them. Those living in perpetual fear do not perform at their best.

White Americans are liars. If truth is said, they are contemptible specimen of humanity.

We are being moralistic, and should not be, but merely address ourselves to facts. In factual terms, those who abuse others are primitive human beings.

Truly civilized human beings do not rule by fear, but strive to reduce the fear that binds people; they do what they can to reduce fear in all people, knowing that those who live fearlessly tend to be more productive.

(No human being can live without fear; to have absolutely no fear is to die to individuality. It is fear that maintains the individual’s body, and keeps his ego self concept in place; if one completely lets go of all fear, one dies to the body, and ego, and returns to undifferentiated state, what religious persons call heaven and god. We are not interested in retuning to heaven yet. We must first make our separated, individuated world a loving place, before we leave it, and return to wherever we came from.)


RATIONALIZATIONS USED TO JUSTIFY RACISM

Now, let us examine some of the rationalizations on which discrimination is based. The father of these rationalizations is the belief that black people are less intelligent than white folks.

To provide evidence for the assumption that black folks are inferior to white folks, some white psychologists, pseudo scientists, really, cite the differential scores by the races on their intelligence tests. They claim that on their intelligence tests, that, on the average, black folks score fifteen points less than whites. (85:100). The main IQ testing instruments employed in North America are the Weshler Intelligence Scales for Children and Adults, and the Stanford Binnet Tests.

(Some black folks score at the highest level, 132 and above, on these tests, but this fact is not made known to the public. What the public is told is that black folks, on the average, score low on these tests, and most whites, even those with lower than average scores on the tests, the mentally retarded types, IQ under 70, assume that they score higher than all black persons. The IQ propaganda is aimed at planting the impression in the minds of white folks that all black persons are not intelligent; hence dispose them to discriminate against black folks. By the way, in syllogism, if you can show that one black person has superior IQ, you cannot make a categorical statement that all black persons are unintelligent. One does not, however, expect brain dead racist psychologists to be logical persons.)

It should be noted that Oriental persons, on the average, score fifteen points more than White persons. (115:100).

(How do you explain this differences…the average Asian score is more like the above average white score…the above average score is 115-130. Are Orientals genetically superior to white persons, or is the difference explained with such variables as the fact that Orientals tend to be disciplined, and study very hard, and possess a culture that is rational, and encourages thinking? Hinduism and Buddhism are decidedly rational philosophies that encourage the development of thinking faculty in their adherents. It is interesting to watch white psychologists use the factors they reject in explaining why blacks score lower than whites, culture, to explain the differences between Asian and White persons.)

White racists also claim that black persons, on the average, do not do well at white schools, as reflected in their poor graduation rates from high schools and colleges.

It is true that, generally, black persons do not do well at American schools; they do poorly at such tests as SAT. The writers of the “Bell Curve” have made this point. (Also see the writings of Arthur Jensen, the great educational psychologist who is so intelligent that if you showed him the map of the world, he would not point out where Africa is. This is correct, and not made up. The ignorance of the average American is such that few of them are technically educated. It should also be noted that most of the distinguished scientists at America’s universities are foreigners. America imported its brilliant people, Europeans, and increasingly Asians were responsible for most of the Nobel prizes Americans won. America tends to produce less intelligent persons, although these empty headed morons masquerade as psychologists testing other persons’ intelligence. One ought to be intelligent before one tests others intelligence. I will give it to you straight: I seldom run into a white American who seems intelligent. I am yet to see an American that I would place ahead of any Ibo person. Given the choice, the average Ibo person would like another African to be his children’s teachers, not white Americans. To him, white Americans are not intelligent enough.)

Let us begin our refutation of racist propaganda by asking basic questions: who constructed the tests, on whose bases black persons are deemed unintelligent? White folks did?

Let us then ask: can tests constructed by black folks be used to test white folk’s intelligence? If not, why not?

Could it be because testing requires unequal power relationships? Adults test children, teachers test students. Colonizers test the colonized. The tester assumes his superior relationship with the tested.

Now, where is it written in nature that white folks are superior to black folks, and ought to be testing them? Shall we say that the fact that white folks test black folks is symbolic of the current unequal relationship between them?

The powerful decides what constitutes intelligence and tests the weak and when the weak becomes powerful, he defines what constitutes intelligence, and tests other weak folks.

What constitutes intelligence anyway? Is ability to do well in technical matters the only indicator of intelligence? It is obvious that white Americans are very good at technical matters. Does intelligence include the skills necessary to adapt to the steaming forests of the tropics? Should we say that the fact that the average African child knows more about the medicinal properties of leaves in his world, than the average American chemist and pharmacist does a sign of intelligence?

Intelligence is that which enables a people to adapt to the exigencies of their world. Africans adapted to their world. They survived, meaning that they must have done something intelligent to do so. Obviously Africans have to learn new adaptation skills, what is necessary to cope with the scientific and technological world they now live in. Unfortunately, it takes centuries to change traditional cultures into scientific cultures.

Of course every society needs to test its people. The real question is who tests whom? That question is answered by power and politics. It is only when black persons test themselves or are tested by their friends, would it be said that they are genuinely tested.

If ones enemy tests one, what do you expect? That he should tell one that one is good enough? One can imagine a world where people are each other’s friends, and persons from other races can then test others. But as things currently stand, and whites are hostile towards blacks, for whites to test blacks, is an outrage that only a mad man could fail to see.

Adam Smith, in his seminal work, Wealth of Nations, pointed out that human beings are motivated by self-interests, and that this makes for efficient economic activities. Now, if people are self-interested and their self-interests guide their behaviors, since when have white folks relinquished their self-interests, and work for black persons interests? If white folks work for white interests, why would it not be in their self-interests to claim that black persons are not intelligent? If they could get black people to accept the foolish thesis that they are unintelligent, they would transform them into perfect slaves. They would make black folks to feel so inferior that they would willingly permit white folks to lord it over them, to oppress and abuse them.

(Is it possible to persuade another human being to accept his inferiority? Racists do try to do so, but do they succeed? They do not succeed although the powerless, out of fear of punishment, harm and death, may seem to go along with the inferiority drivel. If one can accept ones inferiority to others, one has made a judgment that one can also be superior to other persons. It is not left to human beings to decide their worth. Their creator made that decision for them. All people are equal, the same and one. This is a fact, not conjecture. Indeed, genetic studies show that all people originated in Africa, and are 99.9% the same. It is left to science challenged pseudo-psychologists to manipulate their made up data, and to tell us that people are different. People are not different. In fact the term race is a misnomer; I employ it to humor childish American psychologists. In my world, only physical scientists, physicists, chemists, biologists, and mathematicians are credible persons, not some air headed so-called psychologist ideology as science.)

Rational economics suggest that it is in the self-interests of white folks to tell black persons that they are inferior, hence to dominate them. Therefore, no white psychologist could ever pretend to make an objective statement on the subject of intelligence, unless he has changed human nature, from self-interested to loving. The last time I looked, I did not see one loving white psychologist, I saw self-interested psychopathic psychologists. (The psychological profile of psychologists is narcissistic cum antisocial personality. The psychopathic psychologist is now the savior of mankind, savior, indeed.)

In the political world, the powerful makes the laws that the weak obey, and in America this means that whites make the laws that black persons obey. This is political realism. Still, we could ask: why should black persons obey laws that they did not participate in making? It is fear of harm and death that makes black persons obey white American laws.

In a democratic society, all persons participate in making the laws that govern the polity hence see them as their laws, and obey them.

Obviously, every society must have laws, for without laws, there could not be civilized society. Lawbreakers must be arrested and punished; that is the requirement of social order. Black Americans who disobey American laws ought to be apprehended and punished. If they want to change those laws, they ought to participate in the polity, and change the laws but as long as they live in society, they must obey laws.

When black persons become truly free in America, they would participate in the making of America’s laws, and all things being equal will influence those laws to serve their interests, hence obey them, as their own laws. In the meantime, black Americans are obeying laws that are, by and large, not their own laws, and that is an unnatural situation that must be corrected.

The wonder is that most of them obey these unnatural laws, at all. The natural thing to do is for the oppressed individual to disobey laws that he did not participate in making and do not represent his interests. One marvels at the low level of sociopathy in black America, for all things considered, they ought to be breaking more of the alien laws they live under. Black Americans are a lawful people, contrary to the white psychopathic psychologists trying to make them out as sociopaths.


FEAR AND POOR PERFORMANCE ON TESTS

Why do black Americans do poorly at ridiculously easy American schools, and so-called IQ tests? To answer that question, let us examine the role of fear in learning, and testing situations.

How did you feel when you were afraid? Would you say that you would do as well at examinations when you are afraid, as you would do, when you are secure? What does your experience tell you?

Here is the empirical, observable and verifiable fact on how human beings perform under fear. If one were afraid, one would do less well at schools and examinations. An anxious child does not perform at his potential level.

Fear overwhelms the brain, and makes the cortical part of it, the rational part of it, to either stop or work in a reduced manner, and accentuates the rapid working of the involuntary part of the brain. During fear response, the hypothalamus takes over, and does what one needs to do to for one to survive. In fear, the animal part of man takes over and the intellectual part is reduced. In fear, one is functioning more as an animal than as a human being.

Fear and anxiety reduces the individual’s learning by at least fifteen percent, and reduces his performance on examinations by the same percent, if not more.

Do you agree with this assertion or not? All you have to do is examine your own performance, when secure and when insecure, to know that the assertion is rooted in empirical facts. Every parent and teacher worthy of those terms, know that children and students do poorly when they are in a state of heightened fear, hence they try to reassure them, make them feel secure before they are expected to learn, and or take examinations.

Now, what is the state of the black American in America? He is permanently attacked by his environment, and made to live in a state of perpetual fear. White racists, at any point, could attack him; he knows it, and his white oppressors know it.

White policemen randomly stop black motorists, and if no one is looking, physically abuse them, and write false reports about their abuse, and blame their victims. (Of course, this is not the America that America presents to the world to see. America presents itself as heaven on earth but black folks experience it as hell itself. Black folks live in tension and die from cardiovascular diseases induced in them by the Satan that is in charge of their hell.)

Black Americans live in heightened state of fear and anxiety. Their brains are constantly overwhelmed by those neurochemicals/neurotransmitters (adrenalin, noripiniphrine etc) associated with fear response. They are in a perpetual state of fight-flight response. Their oppressive white brothers perpetually make them insecure. They are abused and abused persons live in fear.

Teachers will tell you that pupils abused by their significant others, seldom do well at school, even if their measurable IQ is superior.

Living in fear, the brains of black Americans are functioning at survival modes. Therefore they do not do well in intellectual functions. They do not do well in American schools, not because these schools are difficult, but because of their state of mind.

Black Americans generally live in the lower strata of American society. Whereas, a few of them could be said to have made it into the middle class, the overwhelming majority of them are poor. In his book, the Negro Middle Class, Franklin Frazer doubts that there is a genuine black middle class; what passes for black middle class are caught in efforts to seem important, dressing in gaudy clothes, driving expensive cars and consuming other conspicuous goods that make them seem socially important, while not really devoting their energy and time being productive, as the true middle class does. The Negro was so convinced by his white masters that he is nothing, that he devotes most of his energy trying to show to any one willing to look that he is somebody, and has less time to working hard, as middle class professionals are supposed to do.

Generally, poor persons do not do well at intellectual activities. Let us recall what Abraham Maslow said on this subject. Maslow posited what he called hierarchy of needs. They are physiological, safety, social belonging, esteem and self-actualization. He believes that those needs are primary, and that the lower ones must be met before higher ones are pursued. The individual must satisfy his need for physical survival (food, clothes, shelter etc.) before he seeks security, and then social belongingness and so on. It is when lower order needs are met, that the individual is able to free his energy to pursue self-realization. According to Maslow, self-actualizing persons, that is, persons doing what they truly enjoy doing, and what is congruent with their nature, tend to be the most productive persons in any society.

Those with their basic needs met have the luxury to ask: who am I, and what should I be doing with my life? As Maslow sees it, it is those who are seeking to realize their real selves that tend to be successful at intellectual activities and at school.

Empirical evidence everywhere shows that children from middle class homes, whose basic needs are met, tend to do better at school than children from the lower classes, who often come to school hungry, and in tattered clothes. Black Americans and most African persons have not met their basic needs and are seldom trying to actualize their true selves; they are caught in struggles to merely survive at the physical level, to exist as mere animals do.

The point is that to the extent that black Americans do not do well at American schools and examinations, and so-called IQ tests, it is because they live in a state of fear and poverty, and not because the schools and examinations are particularly demanding.

In Africa itself, people live in fear. Imagine what Africa was like during one thousand years (900-1900 AD) of slavery: five hundred years of Arab slave trade and five hundred years of European slave trade. A person, particularly a child, leaves his home to go play with other children and he is apprehended, and kidnapped by lurking slave traders, and sold, never to see his family again. People must have lived in intense fear. This level of fear induces paranoid suspiciousness, and must have made Africa a hellish place to live. Can any one perform intellectual functions in this heightened state of fear, anxiety, paranoia and depression?

Walter Rodney, in his book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, emphasized the economic aspect of what European slavery did to Africa. However, he merely made a on the subject. Europe and Arabia underdeveloped Africa by inducing fear in the population, hence stifled the people’s creativity. These criminal sociopaths retarded Africa’s development, by at least one thousand years.

Masochists (in contemporary psychiatric nomenclature, dependent personalities) do not do as well as the sadists they are involved in a symbiotic relationship with. Any teacher can tell you that the shy, dependent, avoidant child seldom does as well at school as the secure and out going child, even if the introverted child is more intelligent than the extroverted child. Despite their seeming bravados, black Americans are really anxious persons hence do not do well at ridiculously easy American schools. (This writer found his American college, the University of California, less challenging than his African secondary school.)

DISCUSSION

American society, like all societies, is organized along sadomasochistic lines. Those it oppresses and abuses resent America. Black folks resent their white abusers. In the present, the abusers are very powerful and can pretty much get away with their abuses. Nevertheless, the abusers are resented. Sooner or latter, the abused will stand up and fight their abusers. This may happen at any moment, now, or in the next thousand years.

We should recall what happened when Los Angeles policemen beat Rodney King senseless, and a racist white jury acquitted them. The oppressed black folks went on riot. Of course the forces of law and order, quickly restored order. The point is that there is suppressed rage in the hearts of the abused, and sooner or latter it would burst out. Sometimes, when this happens, no amount of brute force can repress it. It is at such junctures that sadomasochistic empires come crumbling down. A house built on a foundation of fear, and force, not love, is a shaky house, a house of cards really, and when a determined force pushes it, may fall.

The powerful often are tempted to believe that the weak cannot overthrow them. The almighty Roman Empire, and its supposed invincible army, could not imagine a situation where the primitive barbarians, Germans, whom they enslaved and used as cheap labor, overthrow them. But the barbarians and their rag tagged army, did overthrow the Roman Empire. By the same token, the sole superpower cannot imagine other persons challenging it. But challenge it, others must.

As a matter of fact, America may be in an advanced state of decay, but does not know it. Some observers of its moral degeneration conclude that America is moribund; that it is a house of cards, and when pushed, would easily collapse? This possibility seems impossible to Americans, but those who study history, know that the seeming impossible is always possible.

At present, the rulers of America believe that they are doing what they have to do to prevent those they abuse from fighting back. They quickly arrest, try and jail black persons, who commit minor crimes, such as possessing drugs. Their psychologists cavalierly diagnose those blacks convicted of minor crimes antisocial personalities. But the fact is that the legacy of slavery and racism forces some black persons to engage in criminal activities.

I do not approve antisocial behaviors, but the fact is that those who are discriminated against, and are unable to secure employment, are tempted to resort to stealing, to procure their physical survival. Poverty plays a large role in criminal activity, as attested to by the criminals in the white population. Lower class whites tend to engage in as much criminal activities as lower class blacks. It should also be noted that when Italians came to America, and were discriminated against (they were called wogs because of their darker color), some of them resorted to criminal activities, via the Mafia.

(Talking about culture and IQ scores, Southern and Eastern Europeans tended to do poorly on American IQ tests that Congress banned their coming to America in 1924. It was believed that they were inferior stock and would lower the quality of traditional white Americans who came from Germanic stock…the English, French, Scandinavian etc are Germanic…Eventually, these non-Germanic whites acquired the Northern European culture of America, and, today, do as well as Northern Europeans in so-called IQ tests.)

America’s justice is such that blacks are more easily clamped into jails than white persons who committed similar crimes. There are racist judges out there who, upon seeing a black face in their courtroom, throw the books at him. America’s jails are filled with young African Americans. Some believe that this is not an accident but calculated effort to control black persons, to marginalize them for those jailed looses political rights and could no longer participate in the political process, where, as Harold Lasswell tells us, who gets what and when, is determined.

America is spending much of its scarce resources housing black Americans in jails, rather than providing them with education. Jails are built in just about every town in America rather than schools. It costs a few thousand dollars to educate a child but over fifty thousand dollars a year to house an inmate in jail.

Jails are one of the greatest growth industries in America. In fact, America now has the dubious honor of having more of its citizens in jail, than any other country in the world.

In a rational society, all young people ought to have at least a university level education in the physical and technical sciences, paid by society. A rational society provides all of its citizens with universal health insurance, but in America upwards of 45 million persons, many of them are black Americans, do not have health insurance coverage. Instead of spending money to train and heal its citizens, America spends it keeping them at jails.

It is not inconceivable for the country to go bankrupt doing what America currently is doing. America is penny wise and pound-foolish.

Now, what happens to those who have gone to jails? At jails they are abused, and sometimes raped by sadistic jail security guards. (Homosexual and pedophilic perverts are currently working hard to impose their life styles on Western society and getting people to accept their behavior as normal. A similar situation existed before the fall of Greece, and Rome, and other sadomasochistic empires. Political correctness dictates that no one say that these bizarre sexual practices are wrong. Well, Africans consider them wrong. African villages told folks with these particular forms of defying reality (God) to leave their villages, and never return.)

Ozodi Thomas Osuji, PhD

Africa Institute, Seattle

600-1 Avenue, Suite 325

Seattle, Washington 98104

www.africainstituteseattle.org

Ozodi@africainstituteseattle.org

(206) 464-9004


dint

Posted by Administrator at September 12, 2005 10:11 PM

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