Gobineau and Racism

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    "The foundation of modern "scientific" racism was Gobineau's (1853-5) Essay on the Inequality ofHuman Races. Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882) was a one-time diplomat who held that humanityis divided into three races, white, yellow and black. He considered that his reasoning establishedthat the black race had an "animal character, that appears in the shape of the pelvis"; has a crudeyet powerful energy; and dull mental faculties but has an "intensity of desire". The yellow race haslittle physical energy; feeble desires; mediocrity; a respect for order; and "does not dream ortheorise". The whites have an energetic intelligence, perseverance, instinct for order, love ofliberty, and sense of honour; they can be cruel, but when they are "they are conscious of theircruelty; it is very, doubtful whether such a consciousness exists in the negro"."Gobineau was, naturally enough for Europeans of his day, a Biblical literalist; and he remainedso all his life, seeing in Darwinism a negation of his view that races always had been and alwayswould be as they now are"http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/cg_science_of_racism.htm

    "Although the beginnings of racism lie far back in history, its actual modern development reallybegins with the Frenchman, Arthur Count de Gobineau [1816-1882] who published his classicracist pronouncement "Essay on the Inequality of Human Races" in 1853-1857. Greatlymisinterpreted by others, he wrote in a romantic fashion of a fair-haired Aryan race that wassuperior to all others. Gobineau maintained that remnants of this race could be found in variouscountries in Europe constituting a tiny racial aristocracy decaying under the overwhelming weight

    of inferior races. He made no special claims for the superiority of German Aryans, nor markedlydenigrated other races. His racialism embraced not so much the races as the classes, thearistocracy versus the proletariat. Nevertheless, his ideas were widely distorted to fit the racialsuperiority theories of others. Hardly noticed in his own country, he enjoyed great popularity inGermany.... In 1890 Gobineau's book was revived and in 1894 the Gobineau Association wasfounded in Germany. His writings were popularised at this time by the Pan-Germans, anextremely nationalistic and anti-Jewish group who, though small in numbers, were very strong,their members including a high proportion of teachers.In 1899, Gobineau's disciples HoustonStewart Chamberlain [1855-1927], an Englishman holding German citizenship, published his twovolume work, "The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century", in Germany. It proved immenselypopular and ran into many editions. Departing from Gobineau's rather flowery ideas, he upheldthe German race to be the purest form of Aryanism and damned the inferior races, the Jews andNegroes, as degenerate.Chamberlain combined the scientific fact of the existence of different

    races with an enriched mystical significance attached to one race, the Aryans, who hadsupposedly existed since the dawn of time. These mystical Aryans were held to be responsiblefor all the great cultures of the past, each of which had declined because the Aryans allowedother races to intermix with them resulting in the fall of that civilisation-Egypt, Greece, Rome allperished. " http://www.toolan.com/hitler/surplus.html

    "Nazi ideology, to the extent that it had one, made garbled use of the racist theories of the Comtede Gobineau, the national fervour of Heinrich von Treitschke, and the superman theories ofFriedrich Nietzsche. It was given dogmatic expression in Hitler's Mein Kampf (1925)."http://www.xrefer.com/entry/220617

    " One of the most influential writers on racial theory during the nineteenth century was Arthur DeGobineau, whose Essay On _The Inequality of the Races_ (1854) would become a major

    component of the racial theories found in Hitler's Mein Kampf. Gobineau maintained that racialmixture would bring about the decline of superior peoples. Given the imperialistic andethnocentric climate of European thought during this period, Gobineau meant that the Nordic andTeutonic peoples of Europe would lose their "racial superiority" if they mixed with the darkerskinned peoples of the Mediterranean and Africa. Later, the British racial theorist HoustonStewart Chamberlain would build on Gobineau's ideas to expound a threat by "Semitic" peoplesagainst the purity of the Germanic "Aryan race. (Dawidowicz, pg 32). He also characterized thisstruggle as an outgrowth of the battle between good and evil (Encyclopedia Judaica, Pg. 183),which placed the race war to come in moral terms. This approach would become a familiar themein Hitler's Mein Kampf. " http://www.cyberlearning-world.com/holocaust/whatisrace.htm

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    "The supremacy of the Nordic Aryan was first proclaimed in a book (Inequality of Human Races(1854)) by a French author and diplomat (count Joseph Author Gobineau) thirty-five years beforeHitler was born. Gobineau picked up the notion, set forth sixty years earlier by the Englishphilologist, Sir William Jones, that in antiquity there had been a great and pure Aryan race.Gobineau insisted that just as the Aryans were superior in the past they were still so in thepresent. He propounded the doctrine that different races are innately unequal in talent, worth andability. Gobineau argued that only the "white Aryan races" were capable of creating culture andthat the "darker races" only borrow. He proclaimed that races change their innate character onlyby crossbreeding and that the white race was "exhausted" because their racial composition wasno longer pure.The nationalism of the time led most white intellectuals to accept Gobineau's view.They attempted to prove that their own national group had most closely preserved its pristineracial purity and virtue. In France, racialist interpreters (Pictet in 1859 and Lapouge in 1899)"proved" the innate superiority of the "French race." In Great Britain and in the United Statesthere were "numerous supporters of the view that the 'Anglo-Saxons' were the human cream ofthe 'racial' crop; among these were the British historians J. A. Froude (1818-1894) and J.R.Green (1837-1883), and the later American writers Madison Grant, Homer Lea, and LothropStoddard."1 In Russia, racialist tinged publications like Nikolai Danilevsky's Pan-Slavism Russiaand Europe(1869), coupled with a nationalistic populist movement, proclaimed the "Slavs as oneof the finest products of civilization."2 In Germany and Austria, pride in one's alleged Aryan

    origins also found its proponents in men like Wagner who declared the superiority of the Germanrace." http://smoter.com/aryans.htm

    "Nazi ideology drew on the racist doctrines of the comte de Gobineauand Houston StewartChamberlain, on the nationalism of Heinrich von Treitschke, and on the hero-cult of FriedrichNietzsche, often transforming the ideas of these thinkers. Nazi dogma, partly articulated by Hitlerin Mein Kampf,was elaborated by the fanatical Alfred Rosenberg. "http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/section/NatlSoci_Ideology.asp

    "Racial theorists in the 19th century were the first to confuse the term "Aryan" (a linguistic term)with race. The term "Semitic" also had a linguistic origin. Of particular interest among the earlyracial theorists was Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882), who used anthropology, linguistics andhistory to formulate a theory in which race explained virtually everything in the human experience.

    In his "Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races," Gobineau argued that he and his fellowFrench aristocrats were superior to the French masses by virtue of their pure Aryan stock. Thedecisive events of history are determined by the iron law of race, he asserted, and human destinyis decreed by nature and expressed in race. "History shows that all civilization flows from thewhite race," and the jewel of this race is the Aryan, which survived as a superior race, hemaintained. However, he warned that cross-breeding and race-mixing were threatening its verysurvival. Gobineau's essay was translated into German forty years later and had a powerfulinfluence on Germans such as composer Richard Wagner and his son-in-law, Houston StewartChamberlain, who, in turn, influenced Nazi racial doctrine. "http://www.remember.org/guide/History.root.modern.html

    "Joseph-Arthur, comte de Gobineau (b. July 14, 1816, Ville-d'Avray, Fr.--d. Oct. 13, 1882, Turin,Italy) was a writer and ethnologist who created a theory of racial determinism that had lasting

    impact on European and American racial beliefs. Between 1853 and 1855, Gobineau published a4 volume work entitled Essay on the Inequality of Human Racesin which he argued that theAryan race were superior to all others. The term Aryan was derived from Sanskrit word aryameaning noble and represented a people who lived in northern India. 19th century linguists tracedall European languagues to an Indo-European origin. Immodestly declaring Aryans the pinnacleof civilization, the race Gobineau explained was responsible for everything and anything valuableever created. Therefore they had to preserve their special racial character by preventingintermixture with inferior races.Gobineau's admirers included his student Houston StewartChamberlain and Adolph Hitler, among others."http://www.dartmouth.edu/~hist32/History/White.htm

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    http://www.natvan.com/cgi-

    bin/webc.cgi/st_main.html Aryan bookstore to promote Aryan ideas. Does nothave any worksby Charles Darwin but does have4 versions of Mein Kampf and this: PHILOSOPHY OF COUNTDE GOBINEAU, By Spring

    "The idea that the blond Aryans were a superior race was first raised explicitly in 1853 by oneJoseph Arthur, comte de Gobineau. De Gobineau was a respected ethnologist who argued in allseriousness that the Aryan races would prosper as long as they did not allow themselves to betainted by mixing with black and yellow peoples. De Gobineau's ideas were widely popular andare said to have influenced Richard Wagner and Friedrich Nietzsche. Stripped of the scholarlytrappings, Aryanism soon filtered down to the beer halls and eventually became one of the centraltenets of Nazism. By then it had shed any linguistic significance; Hitler justified his persecution ofthe Slavs on the grounds that they were racially inferior, although they spoke Aryan languages."http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_269.html

    "German eugenics was influenced by an aristocratic French writer, Arthur Count de Gobineau(1816-1882). In the mid-1850s, Gobineau had published a racist tome entitled Essay on theInequality of Human Races.He argued that a tiny fair-haired Aryan aristocracy had always beenthe flower of Europe, but it had lost its vigor by intermarriage with inferior races. The French

    generally ignored the book, but Germans loved it. In 1890, the book was revived, and in 1894admirers founded the Gobineau Association, which included many teachers. In 1899, anEnglishman holding German citizenship, Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855-1927), published abook building on Gobineau, entitled The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century.He argued thatthe Germans were the purest of the Aryans, and he attacked Jews and blacks. The book wasreprinted over and over. When Adolf Hitler wrote Mein Kampf -- exalting the Aryans,promoting eugenics, and damning the Jews -- his writing was powerful, but not original. "http://www.eugenics-watch.com/roots/chap09.html

    "Dr. Alfred Ploetz ... in 1905 founded the "Gesellschaft fr Rassenhygiene" [Society for RacialHygiene] in Germany. Later it changed its name to "Gesellschaft fr Rassenhygiene (Eugenik)",which means the Society for Racial Hygiene (Eugenics). This change of name took place afterGalton's announcement that racial hygiene and eugenics were in fact synonymous terms. These

    terms used in the German language were not only interchangeable, but racial hygiene was takento be the German translation of eugenics. As racial hygiene was closely connected with politicalanthropology - a pseudo-science developed by Gobineau - eugenics was used as the scientificbasis upon which racialist and political ideas, especially those of the Nazis, were based."http://www.africa2000.com/INDX/hitlersmen02.html

    "During the 19th century there arose a notion--propagated most assiduously by the Comte deGobineau and later by his disciple Houston Stewart Chamberlain of an "Aryan race," those whospoke Indo-European languages, who were considered to be responsible for all the progress thatmankind had made and who were also morally superior to "Semites," "yellows," and "blacks." TheNordic, or Germanic, peoples came to be regarded as the purest "Aryans." This notion, which hadbeen repudiated by anthropologists by the second quarter of the 20th century, was seized uponby Adolf Hitler and the Nazis and made the basis of the German government policy of

    exterminating Jews, Gypsies, and other "non-Aryans. ... Gobineau's theories, now discredited,were the product of years of historical, anthropological, and ethnological studies and were part ofa general European interest in biological and sociological determinism. The Essaihad a markedeffect on the thinking of such men as the Germans Richard Wagner and Friedrich Nietzsche, and,in time, a movement called Gobinism developed. In the 20th century, racist politicians such asHouston Stewart Chamberlain, an English disciple of Wagner, and Adolf Hitler turned to

    Gobineau for inspiration." http://www.diespinne.org/histime.htm

    "The superiority of white Caucasion Europeans had been proved in battle after bloody battle all

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    over the globe. Gobineau, a philosopher of 19th century Europe translated this supermacy into adoctrine which proclaimed that God made man in three or four different experiments before hishand achieved perfection. In experiment one, he overbaked the clay and as happens to bread,the product was burnt black. This was the African race. The next experiment went the other wayand the underexposure produced the light coloured Chinese. The third attempt was browned bythe fire and God had boobed once more and produced the Indians. Only at the fourth attempt didGod achieve perfection in the form of the Caucasian European in this way was obviously Godschosen and hence a master race. Adolf Hitler believed in this rabid racist construct. He furtherwished to correct the errors of the Almighty by extermining all those who were non-white. Hebelieved these mistakes to be pathogenic mutants and a peril to the master race."http://members.tripod.com/adm/popunder/tripod_popunder.html?member_name=anantmithal&path=Itihaas&client_ip=152.163.188.227&ts=1028767612&ad_type=EMBED&category=games&search_string=Hitler+Gobineau&id=d90864e88693eda50f2b3268cdf3cb91

    "National Socialism was not grounded in a well-formulated ideology. Its underlying ideas includedsuch abstruse and contradictory doctrines as the following: the Nordic master race was created torule over inferior races, especially the Jews;" http://gi.grolier.com/wwii/wwii_national.html