Cultural Identity

(2012)

(Image: http://personalitycafe.com/)

(Adapted from Cheikh Anta DIOP)

Three dominant factors contribute to the formation of cultural identity:

1. Historical;
2. Linguistic;
3. Psychological.

All three are necessary for the fullest sense of self.

(Image: http://www.historytoday.com/)

Historical Factor

This is the cultural cement that unifies the disparate elements of a people to make them into a whole. This allows a people to distinguish themselves from other cultures with a different history; creating the necessary cohesion for a secure culture to transmit its history down the generations in order to safeguard that culture. However, this history must be true - not propaganda - otherwise the culture will be inherently weak through having to waste time defending the indefensible; political ideology masquerading as objective history.

The thread of continuity which connects people to their past provides a bulwark against external aggression, this is why colonization, enslavement and a debasement of a people requires the erasing of any oppressed culture's history. One's past need not be grandiose, it simply must exist in and of itself – continuity (born of knowledge), is itself, more important than the bigness of ones claims about one's culture.

Without a true history, a people becomes a mere set of population statistics – an abstraction – not a true, fully self-realizing people. Any loss of national sovereignty interrupts the historical continuity necessary for a culture to exist; engendering stagnation (or even regression), disintegration and the partial return to barbarism. A culture that never developed a true culture never really left barbarism behind to begin with, as happened in Ancient Egypt under Roman occupation, despite the fact that Egypt had civilized the world to begin with. A people leaves prehistory behind when it becomes conscious of the importance of history; necessitating the invention of a technique – written or oral – for its accumulation, memorization and transmission.

(Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/)

Linguistic Factor

The most important means of communicating history is a written (or a spoken) language. Because history shapes language, both the form and the content of the language are equally important. Languages follow migratory currents and the particular destinies of peoples, so linguistic fragmentation is the rule. Yet, this heterogeneity hides a kinship; revealing that today's languages sprang from a unitary source; matching the alleged monogenetic origins of human life on Earth and explaining why the oldest written languages originated in Egypt 5,300 years ago. In terms of colonization, all attempts at expanding a mode of expression by official fiat leads to the detriment of one people or another for the benefit of the expanders.

(Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/)

Psychological Factor

Whites have been the only culture in history to decide that the psychological makeup of others is inferior to their own, so that they could try to exploit others (in order to vainly avoid feelings of guilt or shame). Galen (2nd century AD) believed that Blacks had inordinately long penises and a strong propensity for laughter – a belief that has yet to die 1,900 years later; proving its necessity for White supremacism to continue to benefit Whites. The White belief that skin color determines character is the kind of self-fulfilling prophecy endemic in White culture. It helps explain the fact that so many Whites become psychological cripples because of the shame and guilt at discovering no evidence to support their contention of White supremacy. Yet, they continue to believe in it as though belief itself makes it true – as though believing in fairies makes them a living reality. Cultures that believe and practice such nonsense are doomed – both the originators of such claptrap and their intended victims.

This last factor is subjective and qualitative while the Historical and Linguistic factors are susceptible of rigorous scientific measurement. The Psychological factor is a matter of that great abstraction called national temperament and not of genetics. Asking what characteristics never change, despite violent political upheavals, can test this Psychological factor. Blacks' communicative gaiety is a result of reassuring communally-securing social structures; creating a lack of obsessive concern for the future; optimism; goodness; and, community-mindedness. The individualistic social-structures of Whites engender anxiety; pessimism; uncertainty about tomorrow; moral solitude; and, tension about the future amid all its beneficial material effects. There is nothing genetic in this, despite Galen, only the profound psychological affect of any given culture.

Conclusion

There is nothing fixed nor permanent about any of these factors since they change with the prevailing political conditions: A state of permanent flux, as it were. Migration can break linguistic and historical bonds but psychological bonds can remain. This is why the only way to destroy a culture is to commit the near-impossible 100% genocide upon its people.

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Lengthy response to: lou sid linesman

Thank you for your kind words.

Frank TALKER did mean to use the word "affect" (verb transitive: To act upon; to infect or attack as or like a disease; to influence; to move the feelings of) (not "effect" [noun: The result of an action; the impression produced; the meaning conveyed]) in his post because affect is a verb relating to the subjective effect of White supremacism on all people. Effect was used to label the political effect of same.

Frank TALKER's experience has been that it is only worth doing something right if it is done in public and the result is meant to last. All experimentation should take place in private - to avoid potential shame and embarrassment. Perfectionism can lead to the paralysis arising from the dread of making public mistakes - a fear less likely to show itself in private. (Some actors love multiple "takes" when making movies but, since the results are public and permanent, their perfectionism is understandable. And yet the same actors can be prepared to make umpteen mistakes during rehearsals, so are not as prissy as they might, at first, appear.) Context is all-important here.

Your comment on the form and content of Frank TALKER's words is interesting, but Frank TALKER is not talking about himself. He, therefore, makes no attempt to get anyone to like him, since he discusses a reality that exists outside his own head and which existed before he was born. Personal issues are not relevant here (especially in a blog unequivocally-labelled "POLITICS") only objective truth - no matter how painful that may be. An emotionally-cold style is therefore essential to make this primary point clear - and all the points that necessarily flow from it, as well as to avoid any accusation of bias or partiality. This is also why Frank TALKER writes in the third-person. The first-person is subjective and the second-person very offensive to those who make the political decision to take Frank TALKER's comments personally, when these comments are clearly-presented impersonally - like the scientific statement that: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. It is easy to see how this last statement can become personal if rewritten; eg, Anything you can do I can do better! The latter statement requires a personal knowledge of the person speaking to determine its veracity; the former only an impersonal knowledge of physics. For this reason, 'a cursory pen-picture, outlining frank talker's basic character motivation' would assist no-one in knowing whether what Frank TALKER says is true. The only way to know this is to eidetically-appreciate the nature of objective reality and compare this appreciation with Frank TALKER's statements. Either by analysing the given statement to see if it makes sense, in itself (eg, "All married men are bachelors" makes no sense because of the definitions of the words involved, so no survey of outside reality is necessary to know this). And, if it makes sense comparing it with objective reality (eg, "There is a gorilla in the backyard" makes sense as a stand-alone statement, but not if there are no gorillas in the backyard). Nowhere in what Frank TALKER says is there a need for any personal engagement with Frank TALKER, since this would be to confuse the personal with the political, such that anything Frank TALKER says can simply be put down to a superficial character or a defective personality. It is Frank TALKER's greatest wish to avoid such confusion and, like Jack Webb in Dragnet, focus solely on 'just the facts'. (This is why Frank TALKER's "About Me" contains nothing about Frank TALKER.)

Frank TALKER cannot possibly be an 'honest racist who, with absolute intellectual rigour and integrity, hates both races in equal measure (there exist only two races in frank's world)'. Frank TALKER accepts that there is only one species of human being - homo sapiens sapiens - and one cannot hate that which does not exist. People who try merely hate themselves and there is no evidence that Frank TALKER hates himself. It is an inherent fallacy to assume that just because one talks as if something exists that it does. If this were so, then the mere existence of the words "God", "Santa Claus" & "Master Race" would prove the existence of these entities. Frank TALKER clearly sees - along with the Feminists - that there is a political reality created by Humankind and a metaphysical reality created by Mother Nature. The former is a creation of people's minds, which may or may not relate to reality; eg, Flat-Earth Catholicism or Soviet psychiatry. The latter is always objective, so can never be gainsaid without risking one's mental health; eg, What goes up must come down or two plus two equals four. Frank TALKER must address both, to fully address reality, since hallucinations like White supremacism, the existence of the subconscious and religion are, like all hallucinations, existents; albeit only to their adherents. This is why experience and empirical research are so important to save us from those who would wish to claim that only they know the truth and that we must, therefore, follow them. Such people always disparage science because they can never get science to agree with their wayward ideas. When Frank TALKER talks about what Whites call "race", he avoids the term precisely because its existence suggests that something it labels actually exists - a plurality of "races"; regardless of the fact that no biologist, anywhere in the world, has ever demonstrated this to be the case. It is a political fact, not a scientific one, yet must be discussed as if it were objectively true precisely because lives are at stake.

You are correct in your analysis that Whites, in particular, have a problem with objective reality because there lies the proof that a White supremacist country is a lazy one peopled by those who want the self-created advantages of Caucasia without having to work for them, other than engage in the guilt-ridden doublethink necessary to pretend that such advantages do not exist. The many Whites-only debates about positive discrimination, for example, prove that Whites claim Blacks should get no special help; while tacitly stating that Whites, themselves, should continue to get such help from White supremacism. Such debates are, themselves, White supremacist. White supremacists are the ones most offended by being told the truth about White supremacism: White supremacists can never truly know who they are since they can never truly know if his achievements are the result of White supremacism or their own abilities. Such knowledge can only come from unaided adult effort which, for Whites, means renouncing the benefits of White supremacism - or remain in thrall to the gilded cage of White supremacism for the rest of their lives. The negative affects of the latter upon the White ego and self-respect are all too obvious and largely result in violent rage at the man who tells them that their culture is a giant confidence trick designed to get them material benefits at the cost of their very humanity. Whites are angry because they realise that this means living only half a life in a culture based on the quicksand of unearned privilege, where personal relationships become difficult because personal honesty has become so; making Whites endemically-frustrated with regard to emotions and self-knowledge. This creates a culture based solely on hierarchy, where equity (the basis of all successful personal relationships) can never thrive since everyone is desperately trying to one-up each other in order to prove either superiority or inferiority. This fear-of-self is like the specious attempt to forget something painful: The more you try to forget, the more you remember, since you must first remember just what it is you are trying to forget. This is why forgetting and remembering are never true antonyms, but are, in fact, synonyms.

Again, you are correct: '[I]ntellectually racist' is an oxymoron, since you can either be an intellectual or a racist - never both. The implication of such a statement is that Frank TALKER is disagreed with, but the person disagreeing lacks the intellect to construct a logical refutation. The word "intellect" is being used as a pejorative, when it would not be so used if, for example, an "intellectual" discovered the cure for cancer. It is not so much that Frank TALKER is 'extremely perceptive', it is more that he sees the world with the open, uncaring eyes of a child, since to do otherwise is to accept the mean-mindedness and resentment of an existence based solely on the scrabble for material wealth. (This is why Frank TALKER uses the image of a child thinking as his About Me image.) Also, Frank TALKER does not wish to die - either emotionally or physically - since, in White culture, statements that challenge White hegemony can lead to murder. No White - in all of the 115,000 years of the White phenotype's existence - ever really practices the old nonsense about not agreeing with what you say, but being prepared to die for your right to say it, do they?

Some have indeed asked who Frank TALKER is, but the irrelevance of the question proves the irrelevance of the questioner since, as already stated, it is the statement that has to be analysed (ad rem) and not the stater (ad hominem) in order to determine the validity of the statement. Anything else is just cynicism and a vain attempt to claim that the pot is calling the kettle black.

The fact that White supremacist feelings are common for Whites does not mean that 'we all have them', since it is hard to find any culture other than White that indoctrinates its young in this way (Moreover, Whites make up only 8% of the world's population.) You could only assume such a thing if a Black had ever abused you because of your (white) skin colour - which has never happened. Frank TALKER has always found that those who get most heated about White supremacism are White supremacists, precisely because they have the most to lose from its collapse as a cultural practice. You conflate self-expression with attention-seeking and intensity-of-feeling with frustration. Self-expression could just as easily be the result of having something to say and needing to say it to avoid the very frustration of which you speak; while intensity of feeling can just as easily be associated with empathy, sexual excitement or just having heard a really good joke. None of these emotions should lead to any kind of frustration, so long as you do not believe that the world owes you a living - as frustrated attention-seekers always do. After all, people are not frustrated because they cannot get what they want; they are frustrated because they do not know how to get what they want. The word you are looking for here is: Impatience. (It is also illogical to suggest that someone who wishes to stay anonymous is an attention-seeker, since anonymity is the very activity that would ensure no attention!)

If you really want to understand what Frank TALKER stands for (you cannot know who he is, unless you meet him) you could do no better than read The Autobiography of Malcolm X. This book will also help you understand your own culture better.

Copyright © 2011 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.