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Entry: Race, Nationalism, and Patriotism, Part I: Race Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/race_nationalism_and_patriotism_part_i_race#15497 Post contents: Mr. Richert, Thank you for the sensible post. I often feel that the racialists and race deniers are two sides of the same coin. The fault of many racialists is their obsession with things like IQ and their hostility towards Christianity. In this respect, I think they've done Anglo-European Americans a disservice. The problem with many race deniers is their failure to recognize that Westerners are a unique people and, sine eis, the West would cease to exist. Any sensible description of Western man will be multilayered, including religion, tradition, custom, habit, and race. I think that the enlargement of categories (e.g. from Polish, Anglo, etc.) to "white" has to do with the shrinking of the world. Any non-white will identify a Brit or Russian as "white," which also reinforces this category. (I was once in Mexico with a Russian friend, and the natives made no distinction between us, calling us both 'gringos', although I'm of Anglo-Western European stock, and she of Russian.) Regardless of the novelty of the broader categories, they are not going away. Sid, Arthur Gobineau did not invent 'race', as the mere etymology of the German Rasse will attest, but popularized a modern version of it. Furthermore, the English understanding of the Latin 'gens' as 'race' predates Gobineau. The Oxford Latin Dictionary gives 'race' as the primary meaning of 'gens'. There is an older notion of 'race' that predates Gobineau. I think it's important to make this distinction Sent at: 2008 12 02