The kind of subanthropic
exism in which a human body as a whole is
referred to without having to simultaneously refer to other human beings or
things as well, is absolute total physical subanthropic exclusivism (X.74).
At least two manifestations of this kind of exclusivism deserve our
attention here, namely 'etatic' and racial, or other forms of generative,
exism.
Etatic is the word we shall use for age-related; it derives
from aetas and indicates age in the sense of the number of
years a human or other sentient being has lived. (When etatism
is employed as short for etatic exclusivism it should not be
mistaken for the differently pronounced homograph traditionally
denoting a doctrine which advocates state intervention in either a
large or too large a number of fields.)
If the object of age-related exism is the factor age
itself, then it is age-centered exclusivism (X.297.0); if it is an
age group, then age-based exclusivism or agism (X.297.1).
An example of
abnegational age-centered exism is the
attitude of vehemently condemning racism, sexism and other forms of
discrimination or exclusivism, while participating or tacitly acquiescing
in all sorts of agism.
Both age-centered and age-based exism are
unitary, but the former is
interfactorial and the latter
infrafactorial.
As already discussed in
section 2.1.3, the dimensional manifestations
which can be distinguished for a tetratomic subdivision of age-based exism
are juvenile (X.297.19), adult young-age(-centered)
(X.297.37), middle-age(-centered) (X.297.72) and
old-age(-centered) exclusivism (X.297.73).
A few components of these nondichotomous manifestations are:
- discrimination of juveniles, often
called "minors", by adults, for example, with regard to human
rights, their chances, access or acceptance (X.297.19.13);
- discrimination of juveniles and middle- and old-age
people by young adults (X.297.37.8);
- preoccupation with youth, possibly
leading to exclusive behavior, such as excessive artificial
attempts to look or stay young (X.297.37.11);
- fear or distrust of, uneasiness with, or alienation from,
young (adult) people and their thoughts and way of life, particularly by
older adults (X.297.37.15);
- discrimination of children and adults
under a certain age, considered (too) young, and other adults
over a certain age, considered (too) old by adults who are, or
would be, neither (too) young nor (too) old themselves (X.297.72.8);
- sentimental preoccupation with old age, or
exclusive respect for old-age people by young and middle-age
people who aggrandize old age in certain or in all respects
(X.297.73.11); and
- fear or distrust of, uneasiness with, or
alienation from, the elderly and their thoughts and way of life
(X.297.73.15).
The exclusion or discrimination of children and
young and middle-age adults by elderly people (X.297.73.8)
involves the institution of gerontocracy. The relegation of
the elderly to old-age homes or 'total institutions' is a form
of old-age exclusionism (X.297.73.13).
Generative absolute total physical subanthropic exclusivism
(X.149) is the exclusion or exclusivity of a whole human body on
the basis of subanthropic physical characteristics relating to
biological generation. In the broadest sense these characteristics
are racial, in the narrowest sense familial. Thus we shall
distinguish racial exclusivism, generative familial exclusivism
and one variant in between, namely generative ethnical exclusivism.
Generative is added because familial and ethnical
irrelevantism can also be cultural, that is,
nonphysical. Racial exclusivism or racialism (X.597) is exism
re one or more, but not all subspecies of humans distinguished by, among
other things, a particular color, that is, pigmentation of their skin,
and possibly the application of this exism to anthropically
conceived beings. (Some antiracists have claimed for
nonontological reasons that human 'races' would not exist at all,
but this preposterous existential abnegational racialism is due
to their inability to differentiate the truth- and the
relevancy-conditional. Rejecting the distinctions made by racists they
feel forced to contend that it is not true that these distinctions
would exist, because they cannot comprehend what it means
that they would not be relevant, whether truly drawn or not.)
Generative ethnical exclusivism (X.596) is exism re one or more, but
not all, ethnic communities belonging to one of humankind's races, and
possibly the application of this exism to
anthropically conceived beings. Generative familial exclusivism
(X.299) is exism re consanguineous members of a human family or
group of families smaller than an ethnic community, such as a
caste.
We shall now first examine some of the
componential and
operational manifestations of racialism.
Like etatic exclusivism also racialism can be manifested in an inter- and
in an infrafactorial way.
Aggrandizemental race-centered
exclusivism, for instance, is among other things an exclusive or
disproportionate attention for race discrimination in comparison with
other forms of discrimination.
(Thus it has been pointed out by others before that an overemphasis upon
race as a factor of distinction will be counterproductive when trying
to combat racism.)
It also refers to a
practise or policy
of making irrelevant, racial distinctions without considering or treating
one race, or group of races as superior or inferior to the other.
This is what (racial) apartheid in the literal
sense is supposed to stand for, and which not only has been, or
still is, advocated by a privileged racial minority, but
elsewhere also by racial minorities which used to be, or still
are, the victims of racism themselves. This type of interfactorial
racialists all hold that people should go to, and
have, their own 'homeland' (or at least their own schools and
clubs) on the basis of the race they belong to. In theory none
of them need advocate or support any form of infrafactorial
racialism as well (as their separate but equal slogan may
suggest), but in practise both manifestations of racialism
usually or always go together.
Infrafactorial racialism is race-based exclusivism or racism
and the aggrandizemental component of this exism is, as a
cognition, the belief that a certain race or group of races
would be superior.
If
sentimental, it is the preference for one
or more characteristics of that race or group of races per se, leading to
exclusive behavior or preoccupation with those characteristics.
(Some theorists have argued that the wrongness of racism does not lie in
the irrelevance or arbitrariness of the racial distinction made, but in
practises like slavery and other forms of oppression.
These theorists, however, confuse racism as racism with violations of
personhood in particular: slavery
and oppression are wrong even where and when no racial distinction is
made at all.)
Active abnegational racialism is the
exclusion of members of another race or of other races (than considered
superior) from equal treatment and from equality in general.
A most vicious example of this abnegating exclusivism is the policy of
racial 'apartheid' as actually implemented and according to which even
rights of personhood are
violated because of people's skin-color (and because of their opposition
to that policy itself).
If sentimental, abnegational race-based exism is uneasiness, possibly
fear, alienation or ignorance with respect to members or
characteristics of a race or group of races believed or felt to
be inferior.
As a cognition, supreme aggrandizemental race-based exism is the belief
that the supreme being and/or its earthly incarnation(s), (only) child and/or (last) prophet
can, or do, exclusively belong to, or have an exclusive or special
relationship with, one particular race, the 'chosen' race, as it were.
It is also the custom of depicting the supreme being and/or its divine
avatar(s), child(ren)
and/or prophet(s) as having the skin-color or
other characteristic of one particular race.
A closely related form of principal racialism is demonical abnegational
race-based exism.
This involves the custom of depicting the devil or demons, and possibly
its/their demonical incarnation(s), as having the color or other
characteristic of one particular race or group of races.
Ethnical exclusivism is ethnocentrism when aggrandizemental
(X.596.02). The manifestations of generative ethnocentrism and
abnegational ethnical exclusivism in general follow a pattern
analogous to that of aggrandizemental and abnegational racialism.
A difference may be that it has never been attempted (or
been possible) to exterminate a whole race, while it has been
attempted to exterminate whole ethnic communities of millions of
people. Such genocides or attempts at genocide are acts of
ethnical exclusionism which almost defy every description of
their gruesomeness.
Yet, when people are killed by the same enemy in, for example, the same
concentration camp either for their belonging to a particular ethnic or
national group or for their belonging to a certain ideological or
nonideological minority, one shall not add to this gruesomeness by
exclusively mentioning, or showing compassion for, the members of one
group and by thus completely ignoring all others who had to go
thru the same
ordeal, sometimes better, sometimes worse.
It is very sad, indeed, when even the descriptions of mass murders suffer
from ethnical exclusivism, whether infra- or interfactorial, whether
abnegational or aggrandizemental.
It is even sadder when political and military opponents of the mass
murderers later turn out to display some of the very same discriminatory
and authoritarian attitudes themselves.
(To argue that 'only' 49%, or some smaller percentage, of the people killed
belonged to other groups, is an unsavory majoritarian kind of reasoning
which nourishes the exclusionist neglect of, and feelings of hatred
towards, minorities in the first place.)
An
external sentimental abnegational component
of infrafactorial ethnical exclusivism is xenophobia.
This operation is, like physical forms of exclusion,
affirmative, that is, nonintermediary.
It is often combined with
lingual abnegational ethnical exclusivism,
an intermediary operation which involves the use of pejoratives to denote
the members of a certain people or ethnic group. Another intermediary
operation of ethnical exclusivism is supreme ethnocentrism.
This is the belief that the supreme being and/or its earthly
incarnation(s) or representative(s) can, or do, exclusively belong to,
or have an exclusive or special relationship with, one particular people,
which is implicitly a 'chosen' people or even explicitly called "the
chosen people".
It is also the doctrine that all members of one particular ethnic group
would be guilty of the murder of the supreme being's sole incarnation, a
doctrine for which certain sacred books are a fertile soil, and
which has been religiously employed to 'justify' all sorts of
abominations.
The history of humankind proves that affirmative,
exemplary and
intermediary forms of ethnocentrism always
tend to go together with abnegational ethnical exism, if not in the same
person with respect to different ethnic groups, then in different persons
with respect to the same ethnic group.
Thus, it is probable that those who consider themselves members of a chosen
or superior people, or who adhere to, or help to perpetuate, an ideology
claiming or implying that they belong to such a people, shall once be
chosen as the victims of the abnegational component of the same
exclusivism.
The demise of abnegational ethnical exclusivism and racialism can only be
brought about when no one of whatever people or race will suggest
anymore that
'er people or race
would be superior.
So long as some people believe in their ethnic superiority or in a 'more
equal' relationship with the supreme being, its incarnation(s) or its
'last' prophet on the basis of their ethnicity, there will be no ethnical
inclusivity.
A recrudescence of the most monstrous kinds of ethnocentrism and
other forms of generative subanthropic exclusivism (to say
nothing of religionism and nationalism) must then always be
feared for.
What applies to racial and ethnical exclusivism applies, in principle,
equally to familial exclusivism and therefore we can be relatively
short about this
integral manifestation.
For discrimination on the basis of caste (which will return under
class-based exclusivism) there is no special name in this
language, but there is one for 'nepotism', a form of familial exism.
Nepotism is discrimination against nonrelatives, or favoritism
shown to a relative on the basis of family relationship.
If physical and generative (that is, if the relationship is a
consanguineous one), nepotism is self-aggrandizing generative familial
exclusivism (X.299.08).
The familial exclusivist need not favor 'er own family
tho,
'e may also favor, and assign
an exclusive status to, a different family, especially one particular
family in 'er community or country.
Such external aggrandizing generative familial exclusivism (X.299.09) is
an indispensable ingredient of
monarchism if supported by people who
are not members of the 'chosen family' themselves.
Whether internal or external, aggrandizemental familial exclusivism differs only
from aggrandizemental racialism and ethnocentrism in being the
narrowest aggrandizemental type of generative subanthropic exclusivism.
So long as this narrowest type continues to exist, no
subject can expect the broader types to disappear, or to have disappeared,
forever.
