Governor Eyre was himself convinced that much of the unrest owed its origins to “the personal, scurrilous, vindictive and disloyal writings of a licentious and unscrupulous press.”[884] Eyre wrote to the Colonial Office in London on November 20th, 1865, with the opinion that “several persons of better position and education had been engaged in misleading the negro population by inflammatory speeches or writings, telling them that they were wronged and oppressed, and inciting them to seek redress.”[885]
There was also substantial evidence that these inciters had been planning and anticipating the outbreak for some time. One month prior to the rebellion Levien had written to several others, in his own words promising to write editorials “to shield you and them [Blacks] from the charge of anarchy and tumult that in a short time must follow these powerful demonstrations.”[886] Eyre also contacted Colonial Secretary Edward Cardwell with evidence that Levien, Nathan, and others were “closely associated with George William Gordon in all these proceedings,” proving that they were both well aware of the impact their propaganda was having “on the negro mind” and had “designedly pursued them to the issue they expected.”[887], [888]
Joyce’s work thus illustrates several important points. The Exeter Hall phenomenon is an excellent example of nineteenth-century moral idealism and empathy for suffering others expressed at a conscious level in terms of Christian religious ideas. Further, if Charles Dickens is to be believed, Exeter Hall was quite similar to the contemporary left, which typically ignores the wage-lowering and community-destroying effects of mass non-White migration on the native working class, particularly the White working class. It also illustrates how contemporary academic historians, some likely motivated by ethnic animosity toward traditional White majorities and acting similarly to the Jewish intellectuals discussed in Culture of Critique, are committed to inducing guilt over the Western past among White people.[889] To the extent that such campaigns are successful, they depend on pre-existing tendencies toward guilt and empathy that characterize an important subset of Western Europeans—tendencies deriving from the unique evolutionary history and culture of the West, as discussed elsewhere in this volume.
David Hackett Fischer on the “Second British
Empire”
David Hackett Fischer’s Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America has shaped the way I see American history and much else.[890] He provides a compelling account of how the four main British-derived groups (Puritans, distressed Cavaliers, Quakers, and Scots-Irish borderers) differed, and of their struggle for dominance in America. To me as an evolutionist, a major part of the attraction is that Fischer roots these cultural differences in the distant past. Thus, the tendencies of the two main groups, Puritans based in East Anglia and the Cavaliers in Southeast England, go back to the murky period of English pre-history. These groups (Puritans inclined to egalitarian individualism; Cavaliers inclined to aristocratic individualism) displayed very strong cultural differences which were likely influenced by ethnic-genetic differences. as discussed in previous chapters.
Fischer’s Fairness and Freedom continues comparative approach, this time comparing two different British-derived societies, New Zealand and the United States.[891] The basic thesis is that the political culture of New Zealand is much more infused with “an abiding concern for fairness,”[892] while the U.S. is more focused on an ideology of individual freedom. As will be seen, this section echoes the material on the Puritans and the antislavery movement in its emphasis on fairness and empathy for suffering others that came to characterize the treatment of the British colonies in the nineteenth century. Although he places less emphasis on egalitarianism, Fischer also describes New Zealand as highly egalitarian. The “Tall Poppy Syndrome,” which is quite similar to the Jante Laws of Scandinavian culture discussed in Chapter 8, is defined by envy and resentment of people who are “conspicuously successful, exceptionally gifted, or unusually creative.[893] “It sometimes became a more general attitude of outright hostility to any sort of excellence, distinction, or high achievement—especially achievement that requires mental effort, sustained industry, or applied intelligence. … The possession of extraordinary gifts is perceived as unfair by others who lack them.”[894]
The expression ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’ originated in Australia but seems more characteristic of New Zealand. Successful people are called ‘poppies.’ This tendency is perhaps not as strong as it used to be, but, although some successful New Zealanders are accepted, “other bright and creative New Zealanders have been treated with cruelty by compatriots who appear to feel that there is something fundamentally unfair about better brains or creative gifts, and still more about a determination to use them.”[895] Doubtless because of the same egalitarian tendencies, the New Zealand system encourages laziness and lack of achievement—workers insist that others slow down and not work hard. “Done by lunchtime” is the motto of a great many New Zealand workers.
Perhaps reflecting egalitarianism, Fischer claims that until the mid-twentieth century—and then doubtless only because of Western influence—there are no words for fairness in languages apart from English, Danish, Norwegian, and Frisian (and notably excluding German).[896] Moreover, the words for fair and fairness have no Greek or Latin roots, but are nevertheless traceable to an Indo-European origin. The original Indo-European word meant “to be content,” later giving rise to the Gothic fagrs, meaning “pleasing to behold” and often connoting blond hair and fair complexion. It eventually came to mean something that could be agreed on by most parties—e.g., a fair price.
Unlike Albion’s Seed, where the focus is on deep, long-lasting (dating from the earliest record keeping) and quite possibly ethnic-genetic differences in explaining cultural variation, Fairness and Freedom provides an entirely cultural explanation for the development of a universalist sense of ethics of fairness in the West:
In early ethical usage, [words for fairness] tended to operate within tribes of Britons and Scandinavians, where they applied to freemen in good standing. Women, slaves, and strangers from other tribes were often excluded from fair treatment, and they bitterly resented it. The tribal uses of fair … were full of historical irony. These ideas flourished on the far fringes of northwestern Europe among groups of proud, strong, violent, and predatory people who lived in hard environments, fought to the death for the means to life, and sometimes preyed on their own kin. Ideas of fairness and fair play developed as a way of keeping some of these habitual troublemakers from slaughtering each other even to the extinction of the tribe. …
Something fundamental changed in a second stage, when the folk cultures of Britain and Scandinavia began to grow into an ethic that embraced others beyond the tribe—and people of every rank and condition. This expansive tendency had its roots in universal values such as the Christian idea of the Golden Rule. That broader conception of fairness expanded again when it met the humanist ideas of the Renaissance, the universal spirit of the Enlightenment, the ecumenical spirit of the Evangelical Movement, and democratic revolutions in America and Europe.[897]
Thus, beginning in only a northern subset of northwest Europeans, Fischer proposes that there was a series of completely cultural shifts beginning with Christianity and culminating (as Fischer later contends) in what I would see as the rather overwrought sense of fairness that now underlies the culture of the Western. Saying that “something changed” offers no explanation, but simply points to a set of proposed historical shifts. Fischer provides no further ideas on why these changes happened.
Fischer contends that fairness is much less important in American history compared to freedom. At present, fairness tends to be a buzzword among Democrats, while conservative thinkers at times reject the entire concept. Still, Fischer claims that “the frequency of the word fairness has been increasing in American usage during the twentieth century, though far below freedom and free. Even so, few Americans think of fairness as the organizing principle of their open society.”[898] In England, the usa
ge of fairness has been increasing steadily since 1800, while the usage of liberty has been in steady decline from a peak around 1780.
After briefly recounting the four main British-derived American groups described at length in Albion’s Seed, Fischer describes the very different pattern in New Zealand. The immigrants to New Zealand came from various parts of England, but without strong cultural differences. They tended to be at least of the middling rank, some with aristocratic connections; most came with assistance from organizations who were keen to select on the basis of moral character and other traits. For example, a typical program required a letter from the prospective immigrant’s vicar attesting that the immigrant was “among the most respectable of his class.”[899] The Scots who migrated to Otago on the South Island are described as “the better educated and religiously disposed of the lower and middle classes.”[900] Perhaps reflecting these processes, the IQ of White New Zealanders is slightly above the White average. Two large studies performed in 1989 and 1997 found that the IQ of White New Zealanders to be 101 and 102 respectively.[901]
According to Fischer, the basic difference between the U.S. and New Zealand is that the American colonists were treated horribly by the British (“six generations of American colonists were challenged by the British to fight for their rights.”[902] Fischer notes that the Bill of Rights is a list of specific grievances against things the British had done to the American colonists from 1760–1775. Moreover, the economic model for the American colonies was designed to benefit England rather than the colonies. All this resulted in a powerful ideology of freedom.
On the other hand, New Zealand encountered the kinder, gentler British Empire of the mid-nineteenth century and later. The “Second Empire” as it developed in New Zealand was “highly principled and deeply Christian, with an elaborately developed sense of justice and equity. … Their acts often fell short of their ideals. But there was a constancy of striving in their lives, and they planted the seeds of an ethical system that kept growing long after they were gone.”[903]
Unlike in the American colonies, the British encouraged self-government in New Zealand and tried to protect the Maori natives. New Zealand did not have slaves, indentured servants, or plantation economies; there was no significant number of distressed cavaliers such as those who shaped the culture of the American South. By the nineteenth century, the British Empire rejected mercantilism aimed at benefiting England in favor of free trade. But the most important characteristic of the British Empire at the time of New Zealand colonization beginning in 1840 (at a time when Americans were conquering a continent at the expense of the natives) was a greater emphasis on social justice. Colonial administrators like Captain William Hobson (“a leader of high probity … [who] recruited able and honorable men to serve in the colony”[904] were concerned about justice and fairness—self-consciously trying to uphold a universalist morality.
Thus, we see a strong sense of “high-mindedness”[905] and crusading moral universalism taking hold in New Zealand. Bishop George Augustus Selwyn, who became Anglican Bishop of New Zealand in 1841, was “a high-principled idealist” with a “broad ecumenical version of Christianity which in New Zealand became linked to an idea of racial equality between Pakeha [i.e., Whites] and Maoris”; Selwyn was “a fierce defender of Maori rights.”[906]
The contemporary culture of White guilt and idealization of non-Whites seen throughout the West has resulted in a secular-based moralism that ignores Maori cannibalism and their culture preoccupied with intra-Maori warfare. College campuses have become hotbeds of positive attitudes toward Maoris. A military officer refers with contempt to contemporary academic “maoriolatry.”[907] On the other hand, the Maoris themselves have realized that their culture left something to be desired. A nineteenth-century chief asked, “What did we do before the Pakeha came? We fought, we fought continuously.” In the end, a great many Maoris doubtless viewed the coming of White colonists in positive terms.
This high-mindedness and commitment to fairness can be seen in a much stronger tradition of socialist tendencies in New Zealand than in America. For example, “New Zealand after 1891 began a sustained program to redistribute its lands,”[908] not by confiscating large estates but by government purchases when they came on the market. Fischer documents a stronger concern in New Zealand for fairness for all citizens—not without a struggle, of course, but more successfully than in the U.S. “In general, New Zealand had remarkably little in the way of hard-right, hard-core conservatism that was stronger in Britain, the United States, and Canada. … [Even the most conservative elements] supported women’s suffrage and other Progressive measures.”[909]
The socialist bent of New Zealand can be seen by its response to the Great Depression. Whereas the philosophy of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal is described as “helping people help themselves,”[910] New Zealand instituted direct payments to people who were suffering from the economic collapse. These policies were intended to “put people to work and were also meant to establish a principle of fairness, equity, and social justice.”[911] During the 1930s there was a large increase in public ownership of banking, steel, coal mining and airlines so that by 1939, 25 percent of New Zealand workers worked for the government; in the U.S., it was 8 percent. However, there was no attempt to get equality of classes. (Fischer depicts Sweden as more radically socialist than New Zealand—see Chapter 8.) Rather, the goal was “to support an ideal of individual autonomy and individual empowerment.”[912]
In the U.S., on the other hand, Roosevelt opposed alms for the poor: “The Federal Government must and shall quit this business of relief. … I am not willing that the vitality of our people be further sapped by the giving of cash. … We must preserve not only the bodies of the unemployed from destitution, but also their self-respect, their self-reliance.”[913] The American Social Security system is the only program for old age support where funds came out of the current wages of workers. New Zealand created a national health system in 1938 that is a mix of public subsidies and private payments. As in the U.S., there was opposition from physicians’ groups, but compromise was possible. This has not been the case in the U.S. apart from the Medicare program for seniors—until the recent, extremely controversial passage of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
Another indication of the leftist bent of New Zealand politics has been anti-nuclear activism. In the 1980s and ‘90s, New Zealand unilaterally adopted policies opposed to nuclear weapons, much to the chagrin of the Reagan and Thatcher governments. In the 1990s, the conservatives joined in, sending a warship to the French atomic weapons test site. But New Zealand relented and moved toward collective security, realizing that a small country cannot go it alone. The Clinton administration learned to live with New Zealand’s anti-nuclear policy. Fischer interprets this as an example of its “continuing attachment to ideas of justice, equity, and fairness in the world.”[914]
On the other hand, notions of individual liberty are relatively weak in New Zealand. A Bill of Rights was finally adopted in 1990, but unlike the U.S. Bill of Rights, it incorporated “human rights” (including “natural justice” and explicit assertions of procedural and institutional fairness) rather than, as in the U.S., rights against state power that were so much on the minds of the U.S. Founding Fathers. Most New Zealanders are hardly aware of their Bill of Rights, while in the U.S., the Bill of Rights has high psychological salience to most Americans.
Free Speech in the United States and New Zealand
In the contemporary West, the U.S. is unique in having the First Amendment protecting free speech. However, only a slim majority of the Supreme Court is committed to rejecting “hate speech” laws that would curtail what can be said in public discussions of race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, and there are strong voices in the legal community and among activists clamoring for restrictions on speech.
New Zealand law protects free speech but in recent years the law has aimed at restricting speech related to immigration, race, a
nd ethnicity. A 1993 law states that it is “unlawful for anyone to publish or distribute threatening, abusive or insulting words likely to excite hostility or bring into contempt any group of persons who may be coming to or in New Zealand on the ground of the colour, race or ethnic origins of that group of persons.”[915] Conviction would be a civil judgement, but it is a criminal offence with possible jail sentence if such speech can be shown to be intentionally aimed at causing “ill-will or hostility to the people targeted.”
Given this fairness-freedom divide between the U.S. and New Zealand, perhaps it’s no accident that Jeremy Waldron, a prominent proponent of restrictions on speech, was born in New Zealand and is now a law professor at New York University and an adjunct faculty appointment at Victoria University in New Zealand. Waldron argues that free speech fundamentally collides with fairness in contemporary societies, and therefore advocates ending First Amendment protections in the U.S.[916] Waldron focuses solely on the hurt feelings of the targets of speech, arguing that some examples of racially tinged speech impinge on the ability of racial and sexual minorities to live dignified lives. Waldron would ban statements about group characteristics that I regard as well-supported by empirical data. Waldron claims that any departures from liberal orthodoxy—e.g., that all races have the same natural talents and abilities and that multiculturalism benefits everyone—are so obviously false that they can easily be banned without any loss to legitimate debate. Waldron claims that “in fact, the fundamental debate about race is over—won; finished.” Race is “no longer a live issue.” This sounds more like the pronouncements of a Chief Inquisitor than someone interested in the truth about human differences.
In fact, the debate about race is not over, although the academic world can accurately be characterized as a moral community of the left in the sense of Jonathan Haidt[917]—a moral community that rigorously polices research conflicting with the dogmas of racial egalitarianism. Researchers, such as Arthur Jensen, Richard Lynn, and J. Philippe Rushton who attempt to publish findings on race differences find themselves socially shunned and quickly learn that there are steep barriers to publication in mainstream academic journals and no mainstream grant support for their research.
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