Another implicit White community is NASCAR racing, which strongly overlaps with evangelical Christianity, country music, and small-town American culture, particularly that of the South. A famous Mike Luckovich cartoon that appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows a Black man and a White man talking with a Confederate flag flying in the background. “We need a flag that isn’t racist … but preserves White southern culture…” The next panel shows a NASCAR checkered flag. The implicit/explicit distinction could not be more obvious. Ninety-four percent of the NASCAR fan base is White, compared to 92 percent for another implicitly White sport, professional hockey.[984]
A large part of the attraction of NASCAR is a desire for traditional American culture. NASCAR events are permeated with sentimental patriotism, prayers, military flyovers, and postrace fireworks. As sociologist Jim Wright notes, “just about everything … you encounter in a day at the track drips with traditional Americana.”[985]
However, “race is the skeleton in the NASCAR Family closet. On the tracks and in the stands, stock-car racing remains a White-person’s sport.” The Whiteness of NASCAR races can be seen from a comment that, after surveying the crowd at the 1999 Daytona 500, “there were probably about as many Confederate flags here as Black people”—i.e., fewer than forty out of a crowd of approximately 200,000.[986] “The near-universal discrediting of the Stars and Bars as a politically incorrect, if not racist, symbol has obviously not yet reached every Winston Cup fan. Either that, or they just don’t care. And, as you might imagine, there was no pussyfooting or self-flagellation about the point among fans at the Southern 500, which was adorned by a profusion of Confederate flags the likes of which I had not witnessed at any other track.”[987]
Wright stresses the link of NASCAR to traditional small town and rural American culture and its links to outdoor pursuits like hunting, fishing, camping, and guns.[988] There is a large overlap between NASCAR fans and gun ownership. There is also a strong Christian religious atmosphere: Races begin with a benediction and a prayer. There is “a visible Christian fellowship” in NASCAR, including entire teams that identify themselves publicly as Christian teams; many of the drivers actively participate in Christian ministry.[989] Other values in evidence are courage in the face of danger—another throwback to traditional American culture, deriving ultimately from the Scots-Irish culture of the English-Scottish border: “As we enter the third decade of women’s liberation and the second decade of the post-communist era, we’ve come to expect, even demand more sensitivity and empathy in our men than bravado or grit, and the traditional manly virtues of courage, bravery, and ‘guts’ strike many as anachronistic at best, even dangerous and moronic.”[990],[991]
While NASCAR is a White sport, the NBA is widely perceived to be a Black sport. Whites, especially nonurban Whites, are a decreasing audience for the NBA, and in general Whites spend the least percentage of time watching NBA games of all U.S. racial/ethnic groups.[992] Moreover, NBA culture is seen as African-American, and the response of the NBA has been to attempt to make the NBA look more like White America in order to restore its fan base. Sports writer Gary Peterson notes that
for decades there has been a racial divide between NBA players (mostly Black) and the paying customers (largely White). That divide has become a flashpoint over the past 15 years. … Never before have the players seemed so unlike the fans. This divide is the top concern at the league office—even ahead of declining free throw shooting and baggy shorts. For proof you need look no further than the league-wide dress code NBA commissioner David Stern imposed last season. It was an extraordinary step—he might as well have told the players, “Quit dressing like typical young, urban African-Americans. You’re scaring the fans.”[993]
Besides banning ostentatious gold chains and mandating business casual attire, the NBA has also handed out draconian penalties for fighting among players. This is because fighting fits into the image of urban, African-American culture. Fines are $50,000 for throwing a punch plus possible suspension (implying loss of pay).[994] It’s interesting therefore that Major League Baseball does not have similar penalties for fighting and indeed, MLB tweeted about a brawl between the Yankees and the Red Sox—in effect, advertising it. The obvious explanation is that the NBA is anxious to avoid the stereotype of Black urban thugs because of its image as a Black sport (80 percent of the players are Black), while MLB has no need to do that because it is not seen as a Black sport.[995]
The point is not that the NBA is more violent than, say, professional hockey—a largely White sport that is notorious for fighting. Rather, the NBA is conscious of racial stereotyping processes among Whites. Part of NASCAR’s attraction for Whites is that it is an implicit White community. By regulating dress and conduct, the NBA seems to be trying to make the NBA more attractive to Whites despite the racial composition of its players.
Managing White Ethnocentrism: The Problem
with Non-Explicit White Identity
White people are clearly coalescing into implicit White communities that reflect their ethnocentrism but “dare not speak its name.” They are often doing so because of the operation of various mechanisms that operate implicitly, below the level of conscious awareness. These White communities cannot assert explicit White identities because the explicit cultural space is deeply committed to an ideology in which any explicit assertion of White identity is anathema. Explicit culture operates in the conscious prefrontal centers able to control the subcortical regions of the brain.
This implies that the control of culture is of critical importance. The story of how this explicit cultural space came to be and whose interests it serves is the topic of my book, The Culture of Critique, combined with the material in this volume on European individualism: these cultural transformations are the result of a complex interaction between pre-existing deep-rooted tendencies of Europeans (individualism, moral universalism, and science) and the rise of a new elite hostile to the traditional peoples and culture of Europe.[996] The result has been a “culture of critique” that represents the triumph of the leftist movements that have dominated twentieth-century intellectual and political discourse in the West, especially since the 1960s. The fundamental assumptions of these leftist movements, particularly as they relate to race and ethnicity, permeate intellectual and political discourse among both liberals and mainstream conservatives and define a consensus among elites in academia, the media, business, and government.
Because implicit ethnocentrism is alive and well among Whites and affects their behavior in subtle ways (implicit Whiteness), one might suppose that Whites are in fact able to pursue their interests even against the prevailing wind of the explicit culture of powerful anti-White social controls and ideologies. The problem, however, is that White ethnic identity and interests can be managed as long as they remain only at the implicit level. In general, implicit White communities conform, outwardly at least, to the official multicultural ideology and adopt conventional attitudes and rhetoric on racial and ethnic issues. This allows them to escape the scrutiny of cultural elites that enforce conventional attitudes on racial and ethnic issues. However, it renders them powerless to promote issues that vitally affect their ethnic interests actively and explicitly.
A good example is non-White immigration. During the 2016 presidential campaign and since Donald Trump’s election, there has been much discussion of immigration stemming from Trump’s proposed policies aimed at preventing illegal immigration. His rhetoric tapped into a very large reservoir of public anger about the lack of control of our borders and, I think, the transformations that immigration in general—legal and illegal—is unleashing. Indeed, his rhetoric on immigration may well have been responsible for his election. Although it is common for proponents of illegal immigration to label their opponents “racists,” the fact that illegal immigration is, after all, illegal has made it easy for mainstream conservatives to oppose it without mentioning their racial interests.
This contrasts with the
tendency within the establishment media—from far left to neoconservative, libertarian right—of presenting little or no discussion of the over one million legal immigrants who come to the U.S. every year—no discussion of their effect on the economy, social services, crime, or competition at elite universities; no discussion of their effect on the long-term ethnic composition of the U.S. and how this will affect the political interests of Whites as they head toward minority status; no discussion of the displacement of native populations in various sectors of the economy; and no discussion of whether most Americans really want all of this. Indeed, it has been quite common for high-profile conservative opponents of illegal immigration to assert their support for legal immigration as a means of dodging the charge of “racism,” although many are also in thrall to business interests wanting cheap labor. While assertions of ethnic interests by non-Whites are a commonplace aspect of the American political and intellectual scene, mainstream explicit assertions of ethnic interests by Whites have been missing since the 1920s (see Chapter 6).
The result is that leftist ideologies of race and ethnicity have become part of conventional morality and intellectual discourse even within implicitly White communities. As a result, such communities are unable to oppose the forces changing the country in ways that oppose their long-term interest. Because there is no mainstream attempt by Whites to shape the explicit culture in ways that would legitimize White identity and the pursuit of White ethnic interests, implicit White communities become enclaves of retreating, resentful Whites rather than communities able to consciously pursue White interests.
Bottom line: The creation of an explicit culture legitimizing White identity and interests is a prerequisite to the successful pursuit of the interests of Whites as a group.
Race Differences in Personality
Race differences in personality explain the unique tendency of Whites to create moral communities where reputation is paramount. The critical role for reputation implies that we evaluate the personalities of group members and potential group members. A reputation as heartless, calculating, untrustworthy or selfish is not going to help one’s status in a moral community, whereas the opposite of these traits will be welcomed. Because of the long history of moral communities in the West, it is expected that research findings will show race differences in traits conducive to membership in a moral community.
As an introduction to discussing race differences in personality, I will briefly discuss an evolutionary theory of personality systems and how they relate to the psychiatric classification of psychopathic personality, the subject of Richard Lynn’s Race Differences in Psychopathic Personality which is discussed below.[997] Bear in mind that individual differences in all personality traits are heritable—approximately half of the variation between individuals in personality traits is attributable to genetic influences.[998]
Some Basic Personality Systems
The Behavioral Approach System (BAS). One set of traits that contributes to reputation within a group as well as to psychopathic personality relates to seeking reward; collectively they are here labeled the Behavioral Approach System (BAS). Among even the most primitive mammals, there must be mechanisms designed to approach the environment to obtain resources, prototypically foraging and mate attraction systems. The BAS evolved from systems designed to motivate approach toward sources of reward (e.g., sexual gratification, dominance, control of territory) that occurred as enduring and recurrent features of the environments in which animals or humans evolved.[999] In the contemporary world, these reward mechanisms can be triggered not only by aspects of the environment humans evolved in, such as social dominance and mating situations, but also by things like synthetic drugs designed to trigger evolved reward centers. These reward systems overlap anatomically and neurophysiologically with aggression, perhaps because aggression is a prepotent way of dealing with the frustration of expecting a reward but not getting it.[1000]
The mechanisms underlying the BAS show sex differences in accord with the evolutionary theory of sex, which predicts that on average males will be higher than females on the BAS system because they have more to gain by social dominance, aggression and control of resources than females.[1001] This is because successful, socially dominant males are much better able than females to translate their success into reproductive success by attracting high-quality females, extra-pair copulations, and, in the vast majority of human societies, multiple mates. Fundamentally, males benefit by being able to control females much more than the reverse, since female reproduction is constrained by the demands of pregnancy and lactation. For example, by leading successful armies, Genghis Khan and his direct descendants were able to set up harems in areas they conquered, with the result that he now has around 32 million direct descendants spread throughout Asia. No female could do that in a similar time period given the limitations of pregnancy and lactation.
As a result, it’s no surprise that among human adults, behavioral approach is also associated with aggressiveness and higher levels of sexual experiences and positive emotions (e.g., emotions one feels when achieving social dominance or attaining goals).[1002],[1003]
Relevant to psychopathic personality, there are evolutionarily expected sex differences in aggression, pleasure-seeking (including sensation-seeking), and externalizing psychiatric disorders (e.g., conduct disorder, oppositional/defiant disorder), and aggression). Moreover, the social interactions of boys are more characterized by dominance interactions and forceful, demanding interpersonal styles.[1004] On the other hand, females are more prone to depression which is associated with low levels of behavioral approach.[1005] In fact, anhedonia (lack of ability to experience pleasure) and negative mood are primary symptoms of depression within the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) classification.[1006]
The Love/Nurturance Pair Bonding System. In Chapter 3 it was argued that Western populations are more inclined to value the traits of love/nurturance in prospective mates as an aspect of individualist mating patterns and, ultimately, because of the need to cement close family relationships and paternal investment in the harsh environments that northern hunter-gatherers evolved in. Unlike kinship-based societies, marriage is exogamous and based at least partly on personal attraction, including personality characteristics like Love/Nurturance. This trait is also important for status within moral communities. Most people would not find cold-heartedness attractive in a potential marriage partner, nor would they desire cold-hearted people to be part of their moral community because such persons would tend to be untrustworthy and selfish. The following presents a fuller account of the Love/Nurturance system.
Mammalian females give birth and suckle their young. This has led to a host of adaptations for mothering, an outgrowth of which are pair-bonding mechanisms present also in males, although to a lesser extent on average.[1007] For species that develop pair bonds and other types of close relationships involving nurturance and empathy, one expects the evolution of a system designed to make such relationships psychologically rewarding. The adaptive space of Love/Nurturance therefore becomes elaborated into a mechanism for cementing adult relationships of love and empathy that facilitate the transfer of resources to others, prototypically within the family.
The personality trait of Love/Nurturance is associated with relationships of intimacy and other long-term relationships, especially family relationships involving investment in children.[1008] Individual differences in warmth and affection observable in early parent-child relationships, including secure attachments, are conceptually linked with Love/Nurturance later in life.[1009] Secure attachments and warm, affectionate parent-child relationships have been found to be associated with a high-investment style of parenting characterized by later sexual maturation, stable pair bonding, and warm, reciprocally rewarding, non-exploitative interpersonal relationships.[1010] The physiological basis of pair bonding involves specific brain regions underlying the ability to take pleasure in close, intimate relationships.[101
1] People who are high on this system are able to find intimate relationships psychologically rewarding and pleasurable and therefore seek them out, while psychopaths are prone to cold and callous personal relationships.
If indeed the main evolutionary impetus for the development of the human Love/Nurturance system is the need for high-investment parenting, females are expected to have a greater elaboration of mechanisms related to parental investment than males. The evolutionary theory of sex implies that females are expected to be highly discriminating maters compared to males and more committed to long-term relationships of nurturance and affection; cues of nurturance and love in males are expected to be highly valued by females seeking paternal investment. In agreement with this theory, there are robust sex differences (higher in females) on the Love/Nurturance dimension.[1012]
And because empathy is strongly linked to Love/Nurturance, this also implies that women will be more prone to being motivated by empathy for the suffering of others and pathological forms of altruism. In turn, this has important ramifications in the contemporary world saturated with images of suffering refugees, immigrants, and other non-Whites. Love/Nurturance involves the tendency to provide aid for those needing help, including children and people who are ill.[1013] This trait is strongly associated with measures of femininity as well as with warm, empathic personal relationships and psychological dependence on others.
People who are low on Love/Nurturance are prone to psychopathic personality—exploitative interpersonal relationships, lack of warmth, love, and empathy, an inability to form long term pair bonds and close, confiding relationships, and lack of guilt or remorse for violating others’ rights. The finding that males in the general population are three times as likely as females to be categorized with Antisocial Personality Disorder[1014] fits with the robust sex differences in this system. Psychopathic personality, which is characterized by lack of empathy and social bonds, is associated with having many sexual partners, an uncommitted approach to mating, sexual coercion,[1015] many short-term sexual relationships, sexual promiscuity,[1016] and lack of nurturance of children.[1017]
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