Racism Quote by Jonah Goldberg
““The nasty racism that infused the progressive eugenics of Margaret Sanger and others has largely melted away. But liberal fascists are still racist in their own nice way, believing in the inherent numinousness of blacks and the permanence of white sin, and therefore the eternal justification of white guilt. While I would argue that this is bad and undesirable, I would not dream of saying that today's liberals are genocidal or vicious in their racial attitudes the way Nazis were. Still, it should be noted that on the postmodern left, they do speak in terms Nazis could understand. Indeed, notions of "white logic" and the "permanence of race" were not only understood by Nazis but in some cases pioneered by them. The historian Anne Harrington observes that the "key words of the vocabulary of postmodernism (deconstructionism, logocentrism) actually had their origins in antiscience tracts written by Nazi and protofascist writers like Ernst Krieck and Ludwig Klages. The first appearance of the word Dekonstrucktion was in a Nazi psychiatry journal edited by Hermann Goring's cousin. Many on the left talk of destroying "whiteness" in a way that is more than superficially reminiscent of the National Socialist effort to "de-Judaize" German society. Indeed, it is telling that the man who oversaw the legal front of this project, Carl Schmitt, is hugely popular among leftist academics. Mainstream liberals don't necessarily agree with these intellectuals, but they do accord them a reverence and respect that often amount to a tacit endorsement.””
About This Quote
The author argues that contemporary liberal critiques of race echo Nazi rhetoric, suggesting a continuity of racial essentialism across political spectrums.
In simple terms: Modern liberal race theory mirrors extremist language.
Beware of ideological echo chambers.
Themes
Mood
Type
When to use this quote
- academic debates on race
- political discourse on identity
- media analysis of leftist rhetoric
Key Concepts
Practical Applications
- critical media literacy
- historical context education
Questions to Reflect On
- How does language shape our perception of race?
- Can critique of historical ideologies be separated from contemporary politics?