Originally published at: Race, Nation, and Ethnicity (07 Jan 2023) | Corey J. Mahler Podcasts
(including all podcasts)
…
bc1qcr72vyc4v0jt25g98rg2ry87zwujd54m8nzrcg0xb3e698A919DB7Fee8294D1502819e6b6300d48c54UpSYuyE1GqkkwjcXnTjfsPJ84HNnpn9VGb9ZsaZWRzX
WEBVTT
00:00:00.960 → 00:00:14.460
So, as ever on the right, there has been a great deal of discussion over the issues of race, ethnicity, nation, nationalism, and related matters.
00:00:14.460 → 00:00:29.920
And so I want to go over these issues to make sure that people understand what is actually being said when these terms are used, what is sometimes not being said, what is being deliberately misstated, et cetera.
00:00:30.940 → 00:00:44.300
And so it is important to go over exactly what these terms truly mean, so that you know when someone uses them to mean something else, he is attempting to deceive you.
00:00:44.300 → 00:00:47.340
And so, of course, we start with race.
00:00:47.340 → 00:01:00.240
The second sense of the word race, the first of course just meaning running, is a group of people descended from a common ancestor, or a class of persons allied by common ancestry.
00:01:00.240 → 00:01:02.780
Those two things, of course, mean the same thing.
00:01:02.780 → 00:01:09.040
It came to us through French, and earlier most likely through Italian, ultimately from Latin.
00:01:09.040 → 00:01:12.460
The Latin being radix, root.
00:01:12.460 → 00:01:20.120
Now, some modern etymologists and linguists will attempt to say that it did not come from radix, that it has no connection to that.
00:01:21.040 → 00:01:24.920
I would hope most of you can see through that for what it is.
00:01:24.920 → 00:01:26.960
It’s an attempt at deception.
00:01:26.960 → 00:01:31.440
It is an attempt to deny the connection here.
00:01:31.440 → 00:01:32.300
What does the term mean?
00:01:32.300 → 00:01:34.560
It means people of a common stock.
00:01:34.560 → 00:01:35.340
Well, what does that mean?
00:01:35.340 → 00:01:37.720
People of a common root.
00:01:37.720 → 00:01:39.960
People with a common ancestor.
00:01:39.960 → 00:01:42.320
And so that is what race means.
00:01:42.320 → 00:01:45.140
It means people of the same blood.
00:01:46.200 → 00:01:47.100
But what is a nation?
00:01:47.680 → 00:01:57.940
Well, nation comes from us, ultimately, from Proto-Indo-European, the root being gene, which means give birth or beget.
00:01:57.940 → 00:02:02.720
Now, some may be wondering, how do we get from gene to nation?
00:02:02.720 → 00:02:04.640
Because those words are rather different.
00:02:04.640 → 00:02:05.140
It’s true.
00:02:05.140 → 00:02:13.040
They are different in form, but it really takes two steps to see how we get from gene to nation.
00:02:13.040 → 00:02:18.060
And so it comes to us through Latin, before that, from old Latin.
00:02:18.060 → 00:02:23.800
Old Latin would be Gnasci, and that is be born, G-N-A-S-C-I.
00:02:25.220 → 00:02:29.620
It drops the G in Latin, becomes Gnasci, be born.
00:02:29.620 → 00:02:33.000
Also Natus, Nationem.
00:02:33.000 → 00:02:36.740
All of these words related to birth.
00:02:36.740 → 00:02:43.080
And so, of course, you can see the connection there, because if you are related to someone by blood, ultimately that means birth.
00:02:44.740 → 00:02:51.700
That is the only way you can be related to someone by blood, is by birth, ultimately.
00:02:51.700 → 00:02:56.380
And so, nation and race are very closely related terms.
00:02:56.380 → 00:03:01.420
They are not identical terms, and they are not identical for this reason.
00:03:01.420 → 00:03:07.600
Race refers specifically to the people of common ancestry, those of the same blood.
00:03:08.780 → 00:03:19.320
Nation, in English, refers to those of common blood, living in a certain territory.
00:03:19.320 → 00:03:21.120
And so, it is both of those things.
00:03:21.120 → 00:03:24.320
Nation is blood and soil.
00:03:25.720 → 00:03:28.980
So, nation is race plus territory.
00:03:28.980 → 00:03:32.120
That is the actual meaning of nation.
00:03:32.120 → 00:03:42.340
And so, for instance, those who will argue that you have a nation made up of different groups are just making an incoherent argument.
00:03:42.340 → 00:03:51.480
That’s not a nation, because a nation, definitionally, is a race, a group of common blood, plus a territory, soil.
00:03:52.560 → 00:04:00.220
And so, a bunch of groups living together in a common territory, who do not share blood, is not a nation.
00:04:01.460 → 00:04:05.720
That’s a bizarre or a civil war, is what that is.
00:04:07.400 → 00:04:09.340
There is another term that is worth mentioning.
00:04:09.340 → 00:04:13.800
I mentioned it in the opening, as it were, and that is ethnicity.
00:04:13.800 → 00:04:15.820
Ethnicity means the same thing as race.
00:04:15.820 → 00:04:21.500
This is just coming to us from Greek, instead of from Latin.
00:04:22.640 → 00:04:33.740
This is particularly salient to Christians, because some of you will already have recognized the Greek word underlying, ethnicity, because it’s very similar.
00:04:33.740 → 00:04:37.340
It is ethnos, ethne in the plural.
00:04:37.340 → 00:04:43.480
Ethnos just means nation or race or people.
00:04:43.480 → 00:04:48.460
Hence, ethnicity and race are again identical.
00:04:48.460 → 00:05:00.040
In the Septuagint, which is to say the Greek translation of the Old Testament, this is translating goi or goyim, which is Hebrew for nation or race.
00:05:00.040 → 00:05:02.920
I would hope you are seeing a theme here.
00:05:02.920 → 00:05:14.200
And so when someone speaks to you about ethnicity and tries to distinguish it from race, do not let him do that, because ethnicity and race are identical.
00:05:15.280 → 00:05:20.000
In a somewhat similar fashion to sex and gender.
00:05:21.500 → 00:05:33.220
Now, in the modern usage, the left, and which is to say Marxists, of course, have attempted to make this ambiguous, to disconnect these terms.
00:05:33.220 → 00:05:39.220
Sex is the biological reality of male or female, man or woman.
00:05:40.320 → 00:05:45.940
Gender is the expressed reality of the biological reality.
00:05:45.940 → 00:05:54.360
And so men are masculine, women are feminine, male and masculine are the same thing.
00:05:55.440 → 00:06:03.620
They express different aspects of the reality of being a biological male, of being XY.
00:06:05.320 → 00:06:15.580
Female and feminine and woman are expressing different aspects of the reality of being XX, of being a biological woman.
00:06:17.660 → 00:06:21.100
The terms are essentially identical.
00:06:21.100 → 00:06:24.820
They just addressed different parts of the reality.
00:06:24.820 → 00:06:29.440
Same thing for race and ethnicity.
00:06:29.440 → 00:06:30.880
I’ll get into that another time, perhaps.
00:06:30.880 → 00:06:38.200
But they are slightly different in sense, but they do not express, they do not refer to different realities.
00:06:39.600 → 00:06:47.300
If you say someone is German, that is both his race and his ethnicity.
00:06:47.300 → 00:06:49.040
They are the same thing.
00:06:50.160 → 00:07:06.780
So I am, although it does get a little more complicated when you speak of the United States, and I’ll get into that now, the reason it gets a little more complicated for the United States, and this is just, this is how nations form, because you can create a new nation.
00:07:06.780 → 00:07:08.840
The nations are not set.
00:07:08.840 → 00:07:11.260
We’ve seen new nations created in history.
00:07:12.080 → 00:07:20.640
For instance, those who stepped off the Ark, three males who would go on to found a number of nations.
00:07:20.640 → 00:07:23.880
Noah did not have any more children, so he didn’t found any more nations.
00:07:23.880 → 00:07:31.040
He, of course, is the father of all of them, because he was the father of all three of the men who went on to form nations.
00:07:31.040 → 00:07:35.480
In order of their birth, Japheth, Shem, and Ham.
00:07:35.480 → 00:07:36.980
Japheth is Europe.
00:07:38.260 → 00:07:55.260
His sons colonized Europe, and the upper fringe of the African continent, which is to say, they ringed the Mediterranean, because of course, you have the Sahara between, you have that border between the Mediterranean rim and the rest of the African continent.
00:07:55.260 → 00:08:01.840
You have the sons of Shem form the Middle East, and as stated, the sons of Ham, of course, then, are Africa.
00:08:01.840 → 00:08:04.280
Asia is mostly sons of Shem.
00:08:06.780 → 00:08:10.920
And so, the United States is a Japhethitic nation.
00:08:10.920 → 00:08:28.480
We are descended from Japheth, but we are not descended from only one of his sons or grandsons, because of course, the table of nations in Genesis lists his sons and grandsons who went on to form the various nations and tribes in Europe.
00:08:28.480 → 00:08:38.620
And so, for instance, I am German, which is to say, I am a son of Ashkenaz, who was a son of Gomer, who was a son of Japheth.
00:08:39.880 → 00:08:44.980
The United States is descended mostly from Anglo-Saxons.
00:08:46.160 → 00:08:54.280
And so, largely, that would be those from what is now the UK, and some from Western Europe.
00:08:54.280 → 00:09:00.100
All sons of Japheth, but not all from the same nation.
00:09:00.100 → 00:09:05.360
Now, race can refer to a smaller or a larger group.
00:09:05.360 → 00:09:12.740
And so, for instance, it is not wrong to refer to all of mankind as the race of Adam.
00:09:12.740 → 00:09:17.500
Or really, you could say the race of Noah, because there was a bottleneck there, and we are all descended from Noah.
00:09:20.680 → 00:09:26.480
But it is misleading, it is wrong, it is deception.
00:09:27.560 → 00:09:38.520
When you attempt to conflate the fact that we are all descended from Adam, and attempt to then argue that we are all one race.
00:09:38.520 → 00:09:44.940
Because when someone advances that argument, he is using the word race in two different senses.
00:09:46.740 → 00:09:51.820
There is the over arching sense of descended from Adam.
00:09:51.820 → 00:10:01.900
But then there is the more concrete sense of French, or German, or Polish, or Italian, or what have you, American.
00:10:03.280 → 00:10:09.600
When we speak of race in the modern context, we almost always mean that more restricted sense.
00:10:11.160 → 00:10:15.340
And so the American race is Western European.
00:10:15.340 → 00:10:18.280
It is Anglo-Saxon in origin.
00:10:18.280 → 00:10:22.560
That is what America, the nation, is.
00:10:22.560 → 00:10:26.700
Now, you have to distinguish nation and country.
00:10:26.700 → 00:10:28.920
The country is the political entity.
00:10:28.920 → 00:10:31.000
Those may very well be the same in some cases.
00:10:31.000 → 00:10:34.820
These days, much less so, historically much more so.
00:10:36.080 → 00:10:39.780
And so the United States is a political entity.
00:10:39.780 → 00:10:44.180
The American nation is a racial entity.
00:10:44.180 → 00:10:46.000
These are not identical.
00:10:47.760 → 00:11:01.960
And so it is very possible to be a staunch nationalist, to support the American nation, and yet oppose just as vehemently the political entity known as the United States.
00:11:03.440 → 00:11:13.440
For some Christians, of course, this will bring up Romans 13 and other such places where you are to submit to rightful authority.
00:11:13.440 → 00:11:15.700
That is a discussion for another time.
00:11:15.700 → 00:11:21.340
However, very briefly, it is worth mentioning that Romans 13 is polemical.
00:11:21.340 → 00:11:24.440
So read it with that eye.
00:11:24.440 → 00:11:26.900
Read it with that lens in mind.
00:11:27.940 → 00:11:29.460
This is not an absolute command.
00:11:31.020 → 00:11:33.740
You do not submit to all authority.
00:11:33.740 → 00:11:36.340
There is rightful and there is wrongful authority.
00:11:38.180 → 00:11:49.840
Perhaps eventually I will get around to the Magdeburg Confession, which gives a thorough Christian treatment of when we are to submit to authority and when we are to, in fact, rebel.
00:11:49.840 → 00:11:56.740
Because not all authority is rightful, and Christians are not to blindly submit to all authority.
00:11:56.740 → 00:11:58.960
But anyway, back to the issue at hand.
00:12:00.760 → 00:12:03.800
We’ve now gone through the terms.
00:12:03.800 → 00:12:11.540
And so the overall point, the real thing that I want to drive home is that terms matter.
00:12:12.740 → 00:12:16.340
And the terms have meanings, and the meanings matter.
00:12:16.340 → 00:12:20.960
You cannot use whatever term you want to mean whatever you want.
00:12:20.960 → 00:12:31.540
If I want you to get me a glass of water, and I ask you for a goat, the odds of my receiving a glass of water are probably fairly slim.
00:12:31.540 → 00:12:33.200
These things have meaning.
00:12:33.200 → 00:12:41.180
It is important to use them with the meaning they have in mind, to use them correctly.
00:12:41.180 → 00:12:45.280
Now, our adversaries are very fond of redefining terms.
00:12:45.280 → 00:12:51.300
They always have been, because Satan is a liar, and so are all of his children.
00:12:51.300 → 00:12:52.240
Do not let them do that.
00:12:52.900 → 00:12:57.300
Insist on using the actual sense of the terms.
00:12:57.300 → 00:13:05.820
If they will not engage with the actual sense of the terms, they are engaging in bad faith, do not engage with them.
00:13:07.060 → 00:13:11.180
That is a categorical prohibition.
00:13:11.180 → 00:13:14.360
Those who are exceptions will know it.
00:13:14.360 → 00:13:16.240
Good odds you are not.
00:13:16.240 → 00:13:25.560
Do not engage with those who are engaging in bad faith, who refuse to use the actual sense of the terms that are necessary to have the debate.
00:13:26.660 → 00:13:30.160
And so in summary, the terms are these.
00:13:30.160 → 00:13:32.380
Race is blood.
00:13:32.380 → 00:13:39.180
It is a group of people of common descent, those who have a common ancestor.
00:13:39.180 → 00:13:45.340
Nation is blood, which is to say race, and soil, which is to say territory.
00:13:45.340 → 00:13:47.640
It is the combination of those two things.
00:13:49.220 → 00:13:56.100
Ethnicity is, for basically all intents and purposes, identical to race.
00:13:58.180 → 00:14:06.560
These terms are vitally important to politics in the United States and in the larger Western world right now.
00:14:06.560 → 00:14:09.400
Nationalism is the way forward.
00:14:09.400 → 00:14:15.460
It is the only godly ideology for government to have when it comes to these issues.
00:14:17.060 → 00:14:24.060
And without these terms, you cannot meaningfully discuss nationalism and what you mean by nationalism.
00:14:25.800 → 00:14:29.300
Civic nationalism, so called, is not a thing.
00:14:29.300 → 00:14:31.620
That is a cult.
00:14:31.620 → 00:14:32.880
That is idolatry.
00:14:32.880 → 00:14:37.540
That is worship of, in the US context, the Constitution.
00:14:37.540 → 00:14:39.560
That is not a real political ideology.
00:14:39.560 → 00:14:41.460
That is a losing strategy.
00:14:41.460 → 00:14:42.280
It’s nonsense.
00:14:43.820 → 00:14:49.180
Ultimately, it is wicked and destructive, but that is a discussion, perhaps, for another day.
00:14:50.700 → 00:15:04.060
We’ve now gone over the terms, race, nation, ethnicity, what the terms mean, why they’re important, and what you should do and what you should not do with them.
00:15:04.060 → 00:15:07.780
Engage with them according to their actual definitions.
00:15:07.780 → 00:15:11.560
Be willing to engage with those who use the actual definitions.
00:15:12.660 → 00:15:22.600
Do not engage with those who engage in bad faith, which is to say those who pervert the terms and refuse to use them according to their actual meanings.
00:15:25.260 → 00:15:34.060
Ultimately, we will win this conflict, but we will not win it by engaging on the enemy’s terms.
00:15:35.120 → 00:15:39.320
We will win by forcing them to engage on our terms.