True, but the idea is still remain. Buckley was the product of a very conservative, and very wealthy upbringing.
As for time passing, his style is almost unwatchable now. In today’s world of quick bites and quotes, his slow drawing out of ideas is almost unwatchable. :)
Did you read the link I provided? Calelari quotes from it above.
As Nesrie points out there is a difference between the 1790s and the 1950s/60s. Even there, context matters. For example, Washington, who freed all his slaves upon his death, looks a bit better than Jefferson, who didn’t. Adams, who abhorred the institution altogether, looks better yet (though his opinions can’t easily be disentangled from the fact that he was a Massachusetts man rather than a Virginian). And Lincoln, magnificently wily in his diction during the debates with Douglas in 1858, managed to avoid sounding as racist as many a 1950s/60s figure did, while dodging charges that he was a radical Republican in the Sumner/Stevens mold. (Sumner and Stevens, by the way, are probably more progressive than many folks in our own time.)
It actually does.
If you’ll bear with me and work with the assumption that I am not in fact a white supremacy appologist…
[T]he White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race.
He is not claiming inherent superiority of whites here. He is, instead, pointing out that in the US at the time, whites were more advanced. Not so much superior, as simply better off. Indeed, I believe he himself once pointed out that the NAACP implies this in its very name. It’s for the ADVANCEMENT of colored people. Because, prior to the civil rights movement, due to the history of the US, blacks were disadvantaged.
I do not feel that this is, in itself, an offensive notion.
Likewise, the second quote has a similar underlying concept.
I think that it’s easy to draw a parallel with the language used by white supremacists, but it’s important to note the key difference. The white supremacists are talking about an innate superiority derived from their race, while Buckley is talking about a temporary superiority as a direct result of historical events.
Now, I feel he goes too far here, in extending concrete shortcomings like education level to more abstract notions such as morality. While it’s likely easy to establish a concrete measurement of things like education level being lower for blacks prior to the civil rights movement, I think it’d be much harder to suggest such a thing could be equally established for morality.
And again, all of that aside, I think the reality of Buckley’s views on all of this are a bit more complex than you are making them out to be. From his wiki page:
William F. Buckley Jr. - Wikipedia.
Buckley and his editors used his magazine to define the boundaries of conservatism—and to exclude people or ideas or groups they considered unworthy of the conservative title.[46] Therefore, he denounced Ayn Rand, the John Birch Society, George Wallace, racists, white supremacists, and anti-Semites.
And specifically on segregation:
In the late 1960s, Buckley disagreed strenuously with segregationist George Wallace, who ran in Democratic primaries (1964 and 1972) and made an independent run for president in 1968, and debated passionately against Wallace’s segregationist platform in a broadcast on Firing Line. Buckley later said it was a mistake for National Review to have opposed the civil rights legislation of 1964–65.[citation needed] He later grew to admire Martin Luther King, Jr. and supported creation of a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day national holiday for him.[68] During the 1950s, Buckley had worked to remove anti-Semitism from the conservative movement and barred holders of those views from working for National Review.[68]
In 1962, Buckley denounced Robert W. Welch Jr., and the John Birch Society in National Review as “far removed from common sense” and urged the Republican Party to purge itself of Welch’s influence.[69]
You can watch his interviewing of Wallace on Firing Line in 1968:
Or him interviewing Leander Perez later that year:
(as an aside, I think it’s interesting to hear the same kind of populist, anti-media bullshit pushed out by Wallace as is put out by Trump)
I think that perhaps one thing about Buckley is that while his views regarding race were, to be kind, backwards at one point. However, I do not believe that they stemmed from actual hatred towards non-whites. And because of this, coupled with his intellecutalism, he changed his views over time.
Yes, in his way, he was trying to be ‘progressive,’ albeit with an incredibly condescending view toward black culture as it existed at the time (a culture which, by the way, had already given America much of its most enduring and precious aesthetic heritage).
From context, I get the feeling he actually does mean ‘superior,’ as in, more educated, more moral, more ‘worthy’ to govern. I don’t think this is the same shade of meaning as the NAACP’s, though there may be a certain overlap.
Regardless, he advocated whites holding onto power pretty much by any means necessary and in direct violation of the principles of democratic government. While that’s better than believing in an innate genetic superiority, it’s still… ehh… not good.
Like I said, it’s not good. But he also improved those positions as time went on, and he saw how monstrous segregationists like Wallace were.
I know a dude who is literally dying that looks better than Bannon does.
I blame the end of the fairness doctrine. I believe that was the start of the echo chambers of lies that exist in some of today’s media.
You know what’s not good, ketchup on a well-done steak. You know what’s horrendous, thinking other people are less than you because of their race.
But that’s not why he thought it.
He thought that blacks are less advanced because of the disadvantages that their historical treatment had put them through.
You can sugarcoat his message all you want. Negro backwardness, menial service is useful… you know what you never see this guy say… that minorities are equal. And you know why he never says it, because he doesn’t believe it.
You’re free to admire this guy’s other qualities, but those qualities don’t make him any less of a bigot that Reagan was.
So do you doubt that what he said was true, or do you doubt that he actually presented the argument as I described it?
I mean, the notion that blacks in America had been disadvantaged in the US, and as a result had lower levels of education, seems self evident.
I think him calling blacks uncivilized and uneducated as reason for them not to vote is ludicrous. I did not see him make the same argument against the uneducated and poor whites. You seem to want to give him credit because he didn’t use biology as a basis for his argument. He used them not being “civilized” instead. And what exactly makes them uncivilized and all the whites mind you ALL whites civilized?
Should we go back through history to all the times some group decided that another group was uncivilized and what happened to that second group? Except we’re not talking about the 1800s, or the 1700s, or a time of exploration and discovery. This is in the freaking 50s/60s, and this man is privileged enough to have an audience and he’s talking about whether or not blacks, American Citizens, are civilized enough to receive basic rights. When he does talk about minorities working, he almost exclusively talks about them in a menial unthinking jobs, as if we didn’t literally have brilliant scientists working at NASA at that very moment who were minorities. As if there wasn’t already a history of intelligent and hardworking minorities not only raising themselves but actually helping change the world while he says something like that…
He spent a lot of time trying to address the differences between the uneducated south blacks and the north… while not doing the same for the whites. He even called his race the “advanced race”.
And do you know what else this man never really does… he never actually lines out what it is minorities would have to do to meet his expectations of being civilized or not inferior.
The guy spoke elegantly enough, presented well, but let me tell you, subtle racism has always been a hell of a lot o more dangerous than the people screaming so loud spit comes out of their mouth. Now we see both parts, the subtle bigots who get really hot and bothered being called racists and the outright Nazis in the GOP, and some of them are being mentioned right here are most certainly to blame for it… which of course, is the point of the topic.
Exactly. Thank Ronnie for that.
I don’t believe he suggested they shouldn’t vote. Is there a particular quote that you are talking about?
I believe that his position prior to the 60s (again, which he later changed, which I think is important) was that they were less civilized because the systematic oppression of blacks in the US for hundreds of years prevented them from things that Buckley associated with civilized behavior, such as being well educated.
I think that the part which is really offensive is that he extended this to morality, which I don’t feel has any basis.
But again, he reverse this position, to the extent of actually attacking it when people like Wallace or Perez said it.[quote=“Nesrie, post:193, topic:130173”]
He spent a lot of time trying to address the differences between the uneducated south blacks and the north… while not doing the same for the whites. He even called his race the “advanced race”.
[/quote]
But whites WERE advanced. Hell, we even talk about this today in the form of white privilege. Whites controlled essentially all of the wealth, and had education levels dramatically above those of minorities.
But honestly, it’s somewhat moot, because we both agree his views in the 50s were wrong. I think they were condescending, at best.
But he changed his views. He argued against segregationists in the 60s and beyond.
What do you think Civil Rights was actually about? What rights do you think they were fighting for if not the basic ones like the ability to vote? And his debate with Baldwin was not in the 50s and certainly addressed voting.
I’m sorry, you’ll have to point out a specific statement he made.
In the discussion with Wallace he specifically attacks the notion of blacks not being granted equal rights.
Is there a point in his debate with Baldwin where he suggests blacks shouldn’t vote? It’s been a while since I watched it, but I seem to recall that debate being about whether the us was built upon the suffering of black men, and whether the system continued that oppression systematically. (“Is the American dream at the expenses of the American negro”)
There’s this:
What are such issues? Is school integration one? The NAACP and others insist that the Negroes as a unit want integrated schools . Others disagree, contending that most Negroes approve the social separation of the races. What if the NAACP is correct, and the matter comes to a vote in a community in which Negroes predominate? The Negroes would, according to democratic processes, win the election ; but that is the kind of situation the White community will not permit . The White community will not count the marginal Negro vote. The man who didn’t count it will be hauled up before a jury, he will plead not guilty, and the jury, upon deliberation, will find him not guilty. A federal judge, in a similar situation, might find the defendant guilty, a judgment which would affirm the law and conform with the relevant political abstractions, but whose consequences might be violent and anarchistic.
Insofar as I can unpack this peculiar paragraph, I think it is saying that an avoidance of ‘violent and anarchistic’ consequences might justify local Southern authorities in denying blacks a vote, though a federal court would be within its rights to punish them for it.
Also:
The question, as far as the White community is concerned, is whether the claims of civilization supersede those of universal suffrage. (…) NATIONAL REVIEW believes that the South’s premises are correct. If the majority wills what is socially atavistic, then to thwart the majority may be, though undemocratic, enlightened .
and
The great majority of the Negroes of the South who do not vote do not care to vote, and would not know for what to vote if they could. Overwhelming numbers of White people in the South do not vote. Universal suffrage is not the beginning of wisdom or the beginning of freedom . Reasonable limitations upon the vote are not exclusively the recommendation of tyrants or oligarchists (was Jefferson either?) . The problem in the South is not how to get the vote for the Negro, but how to equip the Negro-and a great many Whites-to cast an enlightened and responsible vote.
This is slippery writing and not easy to unpack. But I think he is basically saying that the power is best left in the hands of local white southern authorities because they best understand the situation there, and can (with the gentle moral nudging of folks like Buckley) best determine when most blacks will be worthy of the franchise that a hasty Federal government wants to foist upon them. There’s a lot of weaseling in the prose. (He doesn’t, for example, outright say that what black voters want is ‘socially atavistic,’ but rather hinges on an IMO disingenuous ‘if’. The dripping condescension, camouflaged as earnest concern for the greater good, is prevalent throughout.)
Viewed in light of the civil rights struggle, the lynchings of the '30s, and the endemic racism of the region, I find this writing to be at best stunningly naive and at worst morally grotesque.
Yes, I’d concur that it’s bad. But again, I believe he later came to soften those positions and openly argue against the segregationists.
Some credit is due when someone abandons bad beliefs.
Remember that Buckley was defending segregation and denying African-Americans the franchise. It hardly matters that he was not an ideological white supremacist-- he twisted himself in knots to defend the “traditions” of Southern whites because in his mind the intellectual consistency of his conservatism, which demanded that he insist any social change was probably bad, outweighed the moral imagination his education should have supplied him.
[Lots of this thread is arguing about Reagan or Buckley, neither of whom I think are particularly relevant to the current state of US politics.]