THE AESTHETICS OF RACE VERSUS THE BEAUTY OF HUMANITY

American Outlook, publication of the Hudson Institute ^ | Spring 2002 | Arthur Pontynen

[cornelis]

I have two fathers

Summon Schelling? With a bottle of Dewar's?

[cornelis]

This author speaks of good and bad forms of race categories.

[rdb3]

Interesting piece.

[betty boop]

Quick note, it seems the Eric Voegelin has made a compelling argument that this race idea is a take-off from an earlier idea of the unity of human nature. It would be good to flesh out the difference between the earlier view, as in the Christian view you cite, and the later view, which bears so much resemblance.

cornelis, by "this" race idea, which race idea do you mean? I'm sorry but this isn't clear to me in the above context. (But then I'm a little slow on the up-take.) Should I be looking at the "cosmological" view that predated both the Greeks and Christianity? The Greeks? Or was this a question about the post-Christian view? Help me out here! Thanks!

[cornelis]

cornelis, by "this" race idea, which race idea do you mean?

From Voegelin's A History of the Race Idea this idea is "the necessity to create a conceptual apparatus for integrating the living substances."

This motive for integrating living substances (to compare and present similarities that promote identity) has a history. This history of the idea shows that the emphases on the various criteria of comparison change over time, from mythic to physical, from metaphysical to biological. I am intrigued how "an image of man as an earthly, self-contained, unified figure develops." I am fascinated why the shift in attention from transcendent causes to immanent causes engenders such intense disagreement.