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CHAPTER 4
RACIAL BELIEFS
I. Biology and Moral Equalitarianism
Few problems are more heavily loaded with political valuations and,
consequently, wishful thinking than the controversy concerning the relative
importance of nature and nurture. Opinions on this question signify more
than anything else where each of us stands on the scale between extreme
conservatism and radicalism. The liberal is inclined to believe that it is
the occasion that makes the thief, while the conservative is likely to hold
that the thief is likely to create the occasion. The individual and society
can, therefore, according to the liberal, be purposively improved through
education and social reform. The conservative, on the other hand, thinks
that it is “human nature” and not its environment which, on the whole,
makes individuals and society what they are. He sees therein a reason and
a justification for his skepticism in regard to reforms.*
The liberalism of the Enlightenment which later developed such strong
roots in this country tended to minimize the differences between individuals
and peoples as to inborn capacities and aptitudes. To Locke, the newborn
child was a tabula rasa upon which the “sensations”—that is, in modern
language, the entirety of life experiences—made their imprint. Environ-
ment was thus made supreme. As to the inborn capacities and inclinations,
men were, on the whole, supposed to be similar} apparent differences were
of cultural origin, and men could be changed through education. This
was the basis for the philosophical radicalism and the rationalistic optimism
which French, and also some English, writers developed during the
eighteenth century. Individual differences in mental traits were sometimes
recognized. But so far as groups of people were concerned—social classes,
nations, and what was beginning to be called “races”—equality of natural
endowments was the general assumption.
It should be remembered that these philosophers were primarily reacting
• The generalization expressed in this paragraph has its exceptions. Though it is hardly
possible to be a true biological determinist and yet a political liberal, it is possible to be
an environmentalist and yet a conservative. The easiest rationalization in the latter case is
to perceive of the environment as very tough against politically induced changes. William
Sumner and his theory of mores is the classical American example of such a marriage
between a radical environmentalism and an extreme political conservatism. (See Appendix a.)
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