Talk:Nordic race/Archive 1

message: I removed this sentence, since I don't really follow it, "Nordicism would never be embraced by White Supremacists again, as Lothrop Stoddard's bi-racialism, the Nazis' Aryanism, and modern White Unity would dicredit the theory." Nordicism clearly is embraced by some white supremacists . Also how has "White Unity" discredited it? I assume this refers to a White Supremacist group. Do they reject the theory (because they have discredited it somehow) or do they embrace it (discrediting it because they are discreditable themselves)? --Paul B 14:49, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: last sentence

message: We have just had a pro-Nordicist addition, which I am moving to talk. It contains what are probably some valuable material about the opinions of Stoddard and Pearson, but articulated as part of a polemical essay in favour of the wonderful freedom-loving Nordics who were notable for their anti-fascist qualities, plus a lot of irrelevant stuff about how their low birth rates somehow means that their "right to survive" is being assaulted:
:Others would argue that this is a distorted view of "Nordicism."  A different view was taken by Dr. Lothrop Stoddard, an American, in such books as "The Rising Tide of Color" and "Racial Realities in Europe."  He describes Nordics as being natural libertarians, whose political institutions tended more towards decentralization and human rights than most other peoples.  Nordic peoples include Scandinavians, who have a long history of parliamentary Althings, that go back even to prehistoric times.  Iceland created in pagan times one of the longest standing republican institutions in history.  In "Racial Realities in Europe," Stoddard observed that up until the 16th century, when Germany was majority Nordic, it was highly decentralized.  Conversely after the Thirty Years War wiped out over half the population in the early 1600's, the population became majority Alpine, and German social and political institutions became increasingly authoritarian, centralized, and severe.  According to Dr. Stoddard, Germany became a majority Alpine country with thin veneer of Nordic culture.
:Interestingly, the 1957 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica observes that during the 1930's, the northern European countries were highly resistant to facism, which tended to be more of a southern European phenomenon.  In his classic work, The Dispossessed Majority, Wilmot Robertson observes that beginning in the 16th century, the Protestant idea of local church government and individualized interpretation of the Bible caught on virtually everywhere in Europe with a majority Nordic population, whereas most other areas remained Catholic.  In fact, when America was founded, its white population was about 77% Nordic/Anglo-Saxon, making early America a de facto Nordic ethnostate.  The Puritans who settled New England and set the tone for early America, came from eastern England, an Anglo-Saxon/Nordic stronghold.  Therefore, "Nordic" does not imply "Nazi" centrism and authoritarianism.
:In his book "Early Civilizations of the Nordic Peoples" the American scholar Roger Pearson describes how the Ionians and Dorians, who created science and the first systematic theory of republicanism and democracy in ancient Greece in the 5th and 6th centuries BC, were a Nordic people.  So were the Sabine and Oscian tribes from central Germany that created the Roman Republic.  "Nordic" includes the Visigoths, who created the ruling class and democratic Cortes of medieval Spain, and the Franks who once led a decentralized France prior to its consolidation by absolutist monarchs such as Louis XIV.  "Nordics" also include the Anglo-Saxon peoples who settled England in the 5th century A.D., as well as the Norwegian and Danish Vikings who created the "Danelaw" area in later centuries.  "Nordics" also include the Lombards, who settled in Northern Italy and comprised the ancestors of many leaders of the Italian Rennaissance. 
:Many people who wish to defend Nordic peoples and their culture claim it is not an issue of "superiority" over other races, but rather the right of Nordic peoples to have the same right to survive as any other people.  Today most Nordic peoples have birth rates well below zero population growth levels, and will succeed in ethnic cleansing themselves off the planet if they are not able to assert their most basic group survival rights.  Furthermore, many Nordic peoples are so obsessed with defending libertarian values that they allow alien peoples to infiltrate their societies, take control of the strategic bases of their social and political order, and shame them with unnecessary guilt and insults to their self-image.  Their current population decline and loss of identity everywhere is hardly the mark of a superior race.
Any thoughts? The last para in particular is just an absurd whinge. Paul B 10:01, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Nordicist addition

message: Woo that quite inaccurate isin't finnland supose to be the most nordic country
This comment is an example that most people who read the article, or at least many people, think that this is really an objective article of the Nordic race. I have pointed it out, but some people do not want to see it.
:And who are you? And what improvements do you propose? Paul B 17:28, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The map is presented as a historical document representative of the theory. Nobody is claiming it is accurate in the slightest, whatever "accuracy" would mean in this case. --Fastfission 19:35, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  inaccurate map 

message: I added McDougall's quote about the Nordic race and somebody introduced it with the words "the concept of a superior Nordic race was well established". I read almost the whole book and McDougall DOES say that the Nordic race is superior to the Alpine and Mediterranean races in SOME respects but INFERIOR in others - he simply says, that they have different qualities. So the introduction is misleading. 
And I think this is a problem with all of the article - which should be divided or at least have another title, because:
The tripartite model was accepted among ethnographers - but you seem to prefer to mention those who thought the Nordic race was superior in general - like Chamberlain for instance. So in this article this fraction has a dominace which it does not deserve and which distorts the situation of those years.
There are seperate articles about the Alpine and about the Mediterranean race which are properly categorized as historical race definitions - there should be an article titled "Nordic race" - and it should contain information about the fact, that a number of ethnographers had there own theory of superiority - which is described in this article.
And by the way - Hitler read McDougall's book before he was imprisoned and at the latest got his ideas there. Furthermore Gordon Williamson wrote in his book "The SS: Hitler's Instrument of Terror" that Hitler didn't take Himmler's concept of creating an order of Nordic heroes seriously but let him have his way as long as the SS was completely loyal.
Regards, the Hobbit
PS To provide some further information about the Nazi Aryan-theory here's a definition contained in an encyclopedia produced in the Third Reich – the “Volks-Brockhaus” from 1935: it says Aryans: … members of those races that have lived in Europe for a long time (nordisch, fälisch, dinarisch, westisch, ostisch, ostbaltisch) especially in contrast to the vorderasiatische and orientalische races. Only Aryans can hold public office and serve in the military and Arbeitsdienst. I think the race names could be translated with -  Nordic, Falish, Dinaric, Mediterranean, Alpine, East Baltic – and – Semitic.
--80.131.255.235 16:05, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The article should be divided

message: Hi, I apologize if this comment does not go here. I'm just a reader of the wikipedia wishing to contribute. My comment is that the article lacks of historical placement. The presented facts would be easier to grasp if the previous and following theories on the subject are mentioned (not widely explained, but at least mentioned). It would also help to describe the particular conditions that motivated the "popularity" of the Nordic theory during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
:Yes, this is the right place to comment. Could you explain what previous and following theories you are referring to? Do you mean theories concerning racial categories? Paul B 22:17, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Now it's my time to apologise for my delayed response. I think the problem is that WP:OR policy makes it difficult to comment on the causes for the rise of Nordic theory unless we have citations. Oddly enough, there's really very little written about it. Most of this article is based on primary sources. It's relatively easy to describe the rise of the theory, but much more difficult to say why it seemed so compelling at the time. Obviously it follows the general pattern of the rise and decline of race theory, which is important from around 1850-1950. It's very difficult to separate the scientic and socio-political reasons for both the rise and the decline. It's hard to believe that its sheer coincidence that the main proponent of the theory that Mediterraneans were the "top race" was an Italian and that most of the proponents of Nordic theory were German and English. But of course they all claimed that their arguments were purely scientific. Political events (the rise of empires), science (darwinian theory), philology (IE theory) combined to support the rise of a theory that was flattering to Northern europeans. If you look at what Benjamin Franklin has to say in his essay on human populations he obviously wants to say that Anglo-Saxons are a superior race, but he also has "enlightenment" values about rationality working to counter ethnic prejudice, so he half contradicts himself. I guess the developments of the mid-nineteenth century allowed "superior race" argument to seem coherent and well-supported, while it also drew on deep-seated prejudices about national character in England and Germany. The decline of the theory was obviously precipitated by its association with Nazism, but it was already in decline in Britain and the US. Again it's difficult to separate the science from the politics. It would be good to find a way to discuss this without violating WP:OR. Paul B 15:13, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Historical perspective

message: Interesting comment that B. Franklin made about swarthy Swedes.  AFAIK, Sweden is firmly part of Scandinavia, and home to people that the racialists would classify as "Nordic."  Would a comment or clarification about how Franklin's classification of the Swedes as "swarthy" is unusual, especially in light of most Nordicist classifications, be out of line?
:Yes, it's odd, isn't it? I guess he hadn't met many Swedes. The person who first added this passage sneakily left out the reference to Swedes, presumably in order to make BF seem more like a mainstream Nordicist. Paul B 15:48, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Franklin's comments 

message: I think it would be very important to create a section with some information about what modern science has to say in relation to Nordic Theory, especially taking into account that it is still an influencial theory. Here you have some links of interest:
http://www.scs.uiuc.edu/~mcdonald/WorldHaplogroupsMaps.pdf
http://www.dnaheritage.com/masterclass2.asp
http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/21/7/1361/T03
[]
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article1621766.ece
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1393742006
In the meantime I will just add the external links.
Veritas et Severitas 00:45, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: These are mostly about the recent map of Haplogroups in the UK population, plus some general statistical information. I can't see how this supports "Nordic theory". Just scattering web-adresses onto a page is not very helpful. At most we need one link to this evidence, though its connection to Nordicism seems tenuous to me. Paul B 08:39, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Obviously this does not support Nordic Theory. That is the point. It is reasonable that in the presentation of a theory that has had such a great impact in European history 21st century scientific information is provided to shed light on the flaws of the theory, not just opinions of why the theory is flawed. I think a section discussing that would me more than desirable. Veritas et Severitas 17:37, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I've no objection to its being added. Paul B 17:46, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't see how "modern science" confirms that there are some "unique characteristics and qualities among many Northern European peoples" except in the almost truist sense that here are some distinctive physical features and some commonality of ancestry. No-one has ever denied that. The question is whether the the typology (Nordic/Alpine etc) is useful and whether the claimed mental qualities of "Nordics" exist. I don't see the data supporting either of these claims. Paul B 23:12, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

text: The monarch butterfly? Is that supposed to be relevant to something? As it happens I have heard of it, since there is a dispute about whether its represented in a painting by an artist I happen to be an expert on (this one), but that's rather beside the point. And what is this "reference to intelligence" exactly? What on earth has an article on those lovely people the Einsatzgruppen got to do with anything? Can you make a specfic, coherent, debatable point? Paul B 02:05, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nordic Theory and 21st century science 

message: Hitler was the smartest of all Nordics, however he was Mediterranean himself. (Dark Hair, short, narrow shoulders). What a great race nor-dicks are.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.100.44.111 (talk) 09:51, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The smartest race: Nordics

message: The length of the above discussion should be proof enough that a NPOV tag is desperately needed --- Skapur 02:36, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the tag as I think a cooling off period would help. --- Skapur 02:41, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV tag 

message: I came here because of the RfC. Yet there's no RfC section where both positions are displayed and space for neutral commenters to post. 
Hence I just took a look at the article and it looks good to me: NPOV. A good article I'd say. --Sugaar 21:33, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Is this article still requesting comments? If not, it should be removed from Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Society, law, and sex.--Daveswagon 23:33, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The current RfC relates to the debate about splitting Nordic theory and Nordic race. This section refers to an old one from way back. Paul B 23:48, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Which talk section is that? I'm frankly confused. Please label that section as the current RfC so other users can find it and comment without trouble.--Daveswagon 03:21, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's called "Nordic Theory is not the Nordic race". Paul B 10:50, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  <strike>RfC</strike> 

message: In the introduction where the physical appearance of the Nordic race is being described what is meant by 'straight'? Is it in terms of sexual orientation or of body physique? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Digitalapocalypse (talk • contribs) 18:52, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Straight refers to hair - i.e. not curly. Paul B 16:12, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Straight? 

message: Why does this article not exist in German?
Warum gibt es den Artikel nicht auf Deutsch?
Someone from the German Wikipedia with more time than me should write it into the German Wikipedia! --Pletet 13:01, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I find it quite astonishing that there is no German version. I looked for one under a different title, to interwiki link, but could not find anything. Paul B 15:36, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article in German? 

message: I have removed the following section because it constitutes OR according to the rule against creating a new synthesis of material derived from sources. Only one uses the term "inferiority complex". Neither of them speak about Nordicism. Both are about German nationalism, which is a different thing, and they discuss widely different periods of history. The central point is reasonable - that the theory of innate recial superiority compensates for the actual lack of concrete "Nordic" achievements in the ancient world. This is exactly what Gregor meant when he said it was a "philosophy of despair". But we would need proper sources on critiques of the racial theory itself.Paul B 16:06, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You have not replied to the central point. The only other thing I deleted was the sentence about Oppenheimer, which has no relevance to Nordicism. Paul B 17:49, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Stop spouting empty threats. You can "report me" as much as you like. Deleting is as much a normal part of Wikipedia as contributing. The article hardly ignores the importance of Nordicism in Germany, but as it states, it was influential in America and elsewhere too. It did not "start" in Germany at all. It's impossible to determine any simple national point of origin. For example, one of the earliest theorists of "Saxon" racial superiority was the Scotsman Robert Knox, follwed by the Frenchman Arthur de Gobineau, drawing on the much earlier French writer Henri de Boulainvilliers. You are confusing German nationalism with Nordicism. This article is about the latter, which is a racial theory. Racial theory did not exist - at least not in recognisable form - during the Renaissance. I only deleted the irrelevant stuff about the Renaissance, and incorporated the second quotation in the end section, as you should have seen if you'd even bothered to look. As for Oppenheimer et al, no justification was given here for including it. It neither confirms nor contradicts Nordicism. Ripley's model, for example, has the so-called "Nordic" or "Teutonic" race as descendents of the paleolithic population, split from the Meds by an influx of "Alpines". Oppenheimer's study of the British population does not contradict this at all. It doesn't confirm it either. That's because so-called "Nordic race" is in essence part of a typology based on bone structures. It's neither proven nor disproven by models of genetic history. Paul B 23:27, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I have explainecd in detail why I have made the changes that I did. You have produced no responses to these points at all. You have not even shown any sign that you even understand them. A quotation has no right to be present simply because it's a quotation. If it isn't even about Nordicism it has no place in the article. It's not even spelled correctly. Have you even looked at the version in which I incorporated the relevant quotation - making links that you are simply undoing in knee-jerk reversions. Think about the structure and flow of the article. Don't just glue on lumps of stuff. Paul B 00:30, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Nowhere did I say that "Nazi or German Nordicism has nothing to do with Nordicism". That would be nonsensical. The article hardly underestimates its role in Nazism does it? I said that German nationalism is not the same as Nordicism. The fact that you so completely misunderstood this fairly simple point is disconcerting! However I will look at this version. Paul B 00:59, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Then why does an anonymous ip keep reinstating this stuff, which is from a rather poorly reviewed book about American attitudes to Hispanic culture. The Hispanic Review says of this book that "the reader in search of significant literary, historical or cultural insights will be disappointed" (summer 1974). The section isn't even correctly spelled or properly footnoted. That, of course, would be a minor matter if it were pertinent, but it is a rather tendentious account of German nationalism, not of Nordicism, which, as has already been noted is not even German in origin, even though it eventually became most popular in Germany. The inferiority complex claim is already in the article. Paul B 23:32, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Inferiority complex

message: the phrase is an anachronism in such a context. it has connotations—primarily that mixing is a Bad Thing—which weren't such a concern for classical authors. martial is quite proud of his iberian ancestry, and tacitus himself (from outside latium, and probably from outside italy proper) probably wasn't a "pure" roman. when one takes into account his harshly negative report on the jews' refusal to intermarry with others, it's pretty clear that this phrasing creates a misleading impression. 
the word i've used instead is autochthonous; i think that's a better summary of his view on the ancestry of the germanic tribes. (a report on how nordicists and german nationalists used tacitus to support their notions of racial purity would be valuable, but these ideas should be delineated clearly rather than creeping into the text unheralded.) 67.68.240.172 22:51, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, the section was originally cut and pasted from march of the Titans by an anonymous editor. I tried to remove the more blatant white is right aspects, bnut it still seemed relevant given the use of Tacitus later by German nationalists. It also seemed important to point to the ancient literature on the idea that excessive paleness is a weakness. Paul B 23:36, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I get accused of being a white supremacist one minute and of being on a crusade against the glorious white race the next. che sera. Paul B 15:15, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

text: 65, it is obvious that you are Veritas et Severitas, so your edits, as a banned user, should simply be reverted However, speaking personally, I am only too willing to accept legitimate material, but not brainless blind reversions. Paul B 22:16, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Oh what a naughty fibber you are! I have explained in detail my reasons for removing that material, and you have not even provided any response to them. Paul B 14:49, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  tacitus and "racial purity" 

message: This is a fine article which manages to neutrally treat such a controversial subject. I would give it GA, there's just the nagging problem of references. You have a lot, but you don't have quite enough in certain spots. I'm going to go through the article and tag all the places that need them, and if you can provide them, I'll pass it. Well, that and if you can straighten out the "notes" and "references" sections. Why do you have two? Is "references" just further reading, or what? Try to have just one bibliography.
Until then, I'm putting this on hold. Thanatosimii 20:34, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Specifically, although it's clear that this article is written based on extensive sources, it isn't clear which sources these are. I've tagged the big paragraphs that need some source information. That's really all the problem I see. Well, that and the bibiiography. Thanatosimii 20:41, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I've tried to deal with these points. Because some of the evidence slightly disrupts flow (by quoting from writers who haven't been introduced yet) I've put the quotes in the footnotes. I've merged the references into the notes or external links. I've made some slight adjustments regarding the Nazi section. The relation between what Nazis said and what they actually did is often difficult to be precise about (they weren't always entirely honest!). Legally all "Aryan" Germans were equal, but it's fairly clear that Nordicism pervaded the whole culture, and probably affected appointments to the SS and other groups, who were bombarded with Nordicist pamphlets circulated by Rosenberg and Himmler. However its influence seems to have been most dramatically significant in deciding whether to Germanise groups within conqurered populations in Polish and Czech areas. Paul B 19:19, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA nomination 

message: Of course the Nordic Race has been abused by racial theorists. However, clicking wikilink Nordic race I expect some unbiased information about anthropological features, similar to entries like Alpine and Mediterranean race. Instead the wikipedian moralists intend to teach me a lesson about ideology. I think this is outrageous. I think the article itself is ok, but not the intention to represent the Nordic Race entry. This is my reason for inserting the NPOV tag. Rokus01 16:43, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That is not a good reason for such a tag. It does not make this article non-neutral, since you are making a case about a redirect, not about the article iteslf. However, I don't actually think what you suggest is practicable, since any attempt to create a purely descriptive Nordic race article would produce a stub, nothing more, comparable to other articles on the more ideologically neutral of these early 20th century race concepts. It would, in any case, soon get embroiled in debates about Nordicism and become a mirror of this one. Look what happened to the Noric race article when some editors misread the title. See here Paul B 17:31, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't think this is about the "decent thing", but the most sensible. I created this article along with the Med race and Alpine race ones. Another editor (user:Fastfission) almost immediately changed the title to "Nordic theory" and deleted the other two articles, redirecting them here. I was a bit put out - leading to the debate recorded at the top of this page. I undeleted the two other articles and expanded them, but I was eventually convinced that Nordic theory was a better title than Nordic race. The alternative would be two separate articles, one on the Nordic race and one on Nordicism. But the latter would have to explain the anthropological models and the former would inevitably come to include discussion of the evaluation of "Nordic" racial identity. The reality is that the anthropological models that constructed the Nordic/Teutonic category  emerged from earlier theories about 'Xanthochroi', Lapouge's "dolichocephalic-blond" homo europaeus etc. The ideological arguments about these are virtually inseparable from the anthropological ones. Also a great many of the other articles that link to Nordic race are about Nazi and US Nordicism. Linking to a stubby article about head shapes would not be helpful. Paul B 00:26, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Nordic Theory is not the Nordic Race (RFC)

message: Nordicism has alot to do with indo-iranian theory. Meaning, white people originally came from Northern Iran and then migrated to Europe and founded Classical civilizations. But, the Nordics later inter-bred with non- whites. Consequently, destroying the civilization. That is why Southern Italians and Greeks were/are not conscidered white.
I hope you read this E-book, as it will allow you to re-write this article according to the correct Nordic theory which was beleived.
http://www.white-history.com/
:Thank you, but we have to abide by NPOV (Neutral Point of View), not BMPOV (Barking Mad Point of View). Paul B 16:22, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Wiki Article is Not Correct