SOCIOL 208 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Systematic Ideology, Role Of Christianity In Civilization
24 May 2018
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Department
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Historical Race
Development of Racial Ideology
• Graves: Race is not something that has existed forever. You can watch the
development of it, which shows what race actually is.
o We see race in a specific way, but in actuality it doesn’t exist
• Graves’ goal:
o Show readers “there is no biological basis for separation of human beings
into races and that the idea of race is a relatively recent social and
political construction”
Five Concepts of Interest
• Ideology of race
• 2 schools of thought on history of race
o First school of thought: using race to predict individual and social
characteristics is recent ( ~ 15th century)
▪ Graves: changes in social institutions during European Age of
Discovery (colonial domination and enslavement of non-
Europeans) were responsible for development of racial ideology
o Second school of thought: race is fundamental to the way humans think
▪ No scientific proof of the ancient identification of these differences
as race or some similar concept
▪ Race not a universal tendency
• 3 early theories on the origins of racial thinking
o Tower of Babel
▪ When God came down, people began to see complexion and
preferred to be with people of their color
▪ The population received racial awareness
o Curse of Ham
▪ Noah’s son was cursed, some theorize that the curse was
blackness
▪ If this were true, we would expect to find racial hierarchy in ancient
Christian civilization, which we don’t (so this is not true)
o Aristotle’s “Chain of Being”
▪ All organisms are made of fire, air, water, earth
• Ratios can be different (earthworms vs humans)
▪ People say that this shows that some humans created differently
and therefore lesser than others (this is not true)
o Some say Greek distinctions between barbarians and political citizens are
the origins of race
▪ Not like race though because barbarians could become political
citizens
▪ Barbarians live according to nature rather than the law
• 2 potential explanations for the development of racial thinking
o The idea of race and racial supremacy was developed from an unbiased,
scientific, objective interpretation of diversity among human beings
o Subjective, biased, non-scientific interpretation of a divergent set of social
environments and relations is used to validate the idea of race and racial
supremacy
• Race and the demand for labor
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Development of racial ideology: graves: race is not something that has existed forever. Ideology of race: 2 schools of thought on history of race, first school of thought: using race to predict individual and social characteristics is recent ( ~ 15th century, graves: changes in social institutions during european age of. If this were true, we would expect to find racial hierarchy in ancient. St. clair drake: differentiate between early prejudice and the systematic ideology of race. Slavery and racism: slavery existed for thousands of years, color prejudice existed in various forms for over a thousand years, social race: In contrast, race and racism as we know it are relatively recent: a group defined as race in law or by custom that is not anatomically similar enough to be defined as a race. In contrast to biological race, social race does not embody genetic differences.
