race thinking, n.All

Race-thinking (n.) was ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠still judged by political reason in the 1850s: Tocqueville wrote to Gobineau that his doctrines were 'probably wrong and certainly pernicious.'

Race-thinking (n.) was ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠invented in France as an instrument of internal division and became a weapon for civil war; in Germany as an instrument of national unity and became a weapon for national wars.

Race-thinking (n.) resolved ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠Gobineau's contradiction as race-aristocracy — the decay of mankind and a new natural elite — by actually effecting the 'inevitable' decay in a supreme effort to destroy mankind.

Race-thinking (n.) in ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠Germany was a substitute for nationhood: out of the failure to raise the people to a nation, a naturalistic appeal to tribal instinct and blood was born.

Race-thinking (n.) is ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠a remedy for social inferiority: it lets anybody feel himself an aristocrat selected by birth, and sharing chosenness with an ever-growing mob does no harm, since the unchosen grow just as fast.

Race-thinking (n.) made ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠Germanic superiority, paradoxically, an idée fixe of Frenchmen before Germans or Englishmen insisted on it — born of French nobles discovering in class struggle that they belonged to another nation.

Race-thinking (n.) never ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠created new conflicts or categories; between the men of brilliant, facile conceptions and the men of brutal deeds there is an abyss no intellectual explanation can bridge.