A question, and an answer

Diogenes

Diogenes

Nemo me impune lacessit
Contributor
Q: Is the human tendency to preferentially gravitate toward associations with other humans sharing the same physiognomic characteristics inherent?



A: Yes, the tendency is inherent (partly innate), though modulated by experience. Humans, like many social animals, exhibit in-group favoritism and homophily—the preference for associating with similar others—including on visible physiognomic traits such as facial features, skin tone, and other racial/ethnic markers. This is not purely cultural or learned from scratch; there are clear biological and early-developmental foundations.


Evidence from Developmental Psychology​


  • Infant studies: Newborns show general preferences for face-like stimuli, but by 3 months, infants often demonstrate a visual preference for own-race faces when exposed primarily to their own group. This emerges early in life, consistent with perceptual narrowing (tuning to frequently encountered stimuli). Studies across cultures (e.g., Caucasian, Chinese infants) show this pattern.
  • By 6–9 months, infants associate own-race faces more positively (e.g., with happy music) and show biases favoring own-group. Other-race effects (poorer recognition of different-race faces) also solidify around this time.
  • These preferences can flip or weaken with diverse early exposure (e.g., other-race caregivers), showing gene-environment interaction: the bias is prepared by biology but calibrated by input.

Genetic and Evolutionary Basis​


  • Twin studies: In-group favoritism (including racial/ethnic) shows substantial heritability. Rank-order stability over time is largely genetic (~74% in one longitudinal study), while changes are more environmental. There appear to be mechanisms for affiliation with "arbitrary" groups alongside essentialist processing of ancestry/similarity cues.
  • Evolutionary logic: Kin selection (Hamilton's rule) favors relatives sharing genes. Visible cues like physiognomy reliably signaled relatedness in ancestral environments before global mixing. This extends to broader coalitions via "ethnic markers." Out-group caution reduces risks (pathogens, conflict). Similar patterns appear in non-human primates and other species.
  • Homophily in networks: Across societies, friendships, roommates, marriages, and social ties show strong same-race clustering, even after controlling for opportunity structures. This holds in schools, colleges, and online.

Nuance: Not Fixed or Deterministic​


  • Plasticity: Diverse environments reduce the strength of own-race preferences. Multicultural societies or mixed caregiving can produce other-race visual preferences in infants.
  • Multi-factorial: Physiognomy is one cue among many (language, culture, behavior, proximity, shared interests). Race is a fuzzy, partly clinal biological reality (visible ancestry correlates with genetic clusters at continental scales), but human variation is mostly within-group. Social constructs amplify or suppress the tendency.
  • Universal ethnocentrism doesn't imply hatred, fixed hierarchies, or policy prescriptions. It is a default bias observable across all groups, not unique to any.

In summary, the preference is inherent—rooted in perceptual, genetic, and evolutionary mechanisms—but not immutable. It reflects how humans (as a hypersocial species) navigate similarity for trust, cooperation, and risk management, shaped by both nature and early experience. This aligns with broader findings on tribalism.



Discuss.
 
The term "racism" (and "racist") is quite recent in English, with no evidence of a prior established neutral or positive meaning as simply "an affinity for associating with similar-looking humans."

Its earliest recorded uses were already critical.

Etymology and Early Usage​


  • The word "racism" first appears in English around 1902, used by Richard Henry Pratt (founder of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School) in a speech decrying racial segregation: "Association of races and classes is necessary to destroy racism and classism." He framed it as something harmful that mixing would eliminate.
  • "Racist" as a noun/adjective emerged shortly after (around 1919–1930s), often in the context of European ideologies like Nazism or earlier "racialism." Earlier related terms included "racialism" (from the 1870s), "race prejudice," "race hatred," or "negrophobia."
  • Dictionaries like the OED and Merriam-Webster initially defined it around beliefs that race determines human traits/abilities, often with notions of superiority—tied to 19th-century "scientific racism," eugenics, and justifications for colonialism/slavery. It wasn't coined as a descriptor for benign in-group preference.

The root "race" itself evolved earlier (from ~1500s–1600s in English/French, initially for lineages, breeds, or groups, later physical/ancestral categories), but the "-ism" form is a 20th-century ideological label.


Human Affinity for Similar-Looking People​


Humans (and many animals) do show strong tendencies toward in-group preference, including by appearance, due to evolutionary factors like kin selection (favoring genetic relatives), familiarity, trust, and reduced conflict.

This manifests cross-culturally:
  • Tribal, ethnic, or national affinities predate any modern racial categories by millennia.
  • People often prefer faces of their own race in recognition tasks ("own-race bias"), marriage, neighborhoods, etc.—observable across groups, not unique to any one.
  • This is banal human tribalism, seen in ancient texts, warfare, endogamy norms, and even modern data on homophily (birds of a feather).

However, this was not what "racism" denoted when the word entered use. The term bundled observable preferences with ideological claims of fixed biological hierarchies, superiority, and justified differential treatment (e.g., Gobineau's 1850s work or polygenist theories).


Historical Context vs. the Term​


Prejudice, ethnocentrism, xenophobia, and slavery based on visible differences existed long before the word:

  • Ancient/medieval societies distinguished by tribe, language, religion, or origin more than "race" as a biological taxonomy.
  • European colonialism, the transatlantic slave trade, and 18th–19th century science formalized "racial" categories to rationalize power dynamics, shifting from religious justifications.

The word "racism" arose in a context already debating these issues and was weaponized from the start.

It didn't shift from a neutral "affinity for one's own" to a slur; it started loaded. Later 20th-century expansions (e.g., systemic/institutional racism in the 1960s+) built on this.

In short: Natural human tendencies to associate with similar others are real and ancient.

The specific English term "racism" was not a neutral label for that; it was coined amid debates over hierarchy and exclusion.

Conflating the two often serves rhetorical purposes today rather than historical precision.
 
HLix9DRWMAAaFJF


"The modern definition of racism has been deliberately stripped of any stable principle to weaponize it as a political tool.

A real category requires consistent rules that don’t change depending on who is involved.

Under the older understanding, treating people differently because of race was wrong regardless of direction or which group benefited.

Activists replaced this with the “prejudice plus power” framework, which magically transforms anti-white discrimination in hiring, university admissions, scholarships, graduation ceremonies, and corporate programs into something virtuous and “equitable.”

The exact same race based preferences and exclusions applied to whites are labeled racist and hateful.

When the morality of identical behavior flips based solely on the race of the people involved, “racism” is no longer a coherent moral category.

It has become a political weapon used to justify open discrimination against whites and Asians while treating any objection to that discrimination as proof of bigotry."



https://twitter.com/x/status/2069599697468006679
View: https://x.com/Rothmus/status/2069599697468006679?s=20
 
Diogenes said:
HLix9DRWMAAaFJF


"The modern definition of racism has been deliberately stripped of any stable principle to weaponize it as a political tool.

A real category requires consistent rules that don’t change depending on who is involved.

Under the older understanding, treating people differently because of race was wrong regardless of direction or which group benefited.

Activists replaced this with the “prejudice plus power” framework, which magically transforms anti-white discrimination in hiring, university admissions, scholarships, graduation ceremonies, and corporate programs into something virtuous and “equitable.”

The exact same race based preferences and exclusions applied to whites are labeled racist and hateful.

When the morality of identical behavior flips based solely on the race of the people involved, “racism” is no longer a coherent moral category.

It has become a political weapon used to justify open discrimination against whites and Asians while treating any objection to that discrimination as proof of bigotry."



https://twitter.com/x/status/2069599697468006679
View: https://x.com/Rothmus/status/2069599697468006679?s=20
Click to expand...
What about a race claiming spiritual superiority
?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top