The most inherant;ly cruel race?

Great Debates
1

Is it possible for a certain racial type to have an inherent trait, emotional or mental, different from other races, uninfluenced by social or environmental conditions?

There are 4 basic racial types in the world, with all others being variations: Oriental, Caucasian, Indian, and Black.

In one race I’ve noticed a tendency of unusual cruelty towards virtually all living things, much more so than in the others. This race is currently existing in several stages of development around the world, ranging from ultramodern to third world technology. Throughout history, they have displayed a dichotomy of wonderful, delicate arts and remarkable sensitivity towards beauty and astounding inhumane treatment of all living things.

I watched a couple of programs in which members of this race matter of factly did the following;

Cooked live fish in such a way as to keep the head alive, then consumed them as the tortured fish gasped away while being picked apart.

Hung up live snakes, casually slit them open to drain the blood for medicinal reasons and left said creature to slowly die, squirming on a nail.

Captured live sharks at sea, sliced off all of the fins for soup, and dumped the still living creature over the side, to slowly suffocate being unable to swim to keep water flowing over the gills.

Take live squid, snap their foreparts off by hand, toss the squirming ‘heads’ aside, gutted the still twitching bodies and cooked them up.

Hacked up living lobsters without benefit of first numbing them in ice.

Sliced off chunks of flesh from living fish to serve up fresh in a meal.

In wars, they have documented histories of being inhumanly cruel to their prisoners, often taking delight in allowing the common soldier to beat helpless subjects to death, allowing civilians to beat and hack them up and applying hideous and prolonged torture.

They have been known to slaughter each other by the thousands, with the most recent historical event recording fields with the bones of untold hundreds rotting in them. In WW2, allied parachutists landing in civilian territories when their aircraft went down were often cut to ribbons by the natives before being captured by troops.

They have a history of doing medical experiments on prisoners, often without any form of anesthetic. In every one of their nations today, the power is held by the males, with the societies being mainly paternalistic.

In war, they have developed the majority of the most nasty and painful killing techniques known to mankind, many of which are designed not to kill fast, but to incapacitate and kill slowly.

It also has been observed that they seem to need a strictly regulated society and that society is often more riddled with corruption than in others.

Today, long after the last great war, some people are wondering if the ‘enemy’ section of this race should have received much more international punishment than it did as public disclosure of their horrific acts during war time come to light.

Traditionally, their technology ranges from creating virtually mindless soldiers to willingly sending in overwhelming numbers of poorly equipped civilian ‘troops’, who snatched up the weapons of fallen comrades and who were slaughtered by the hundreds trying to defeat a much smaller, better equipped force.

They have also spread lies among their populations in times of war, terrifying them of enemy troops so that, if invaded, they suicided by the hundreds or fought to the death, thinking that they would be killed anyhow.

Yet, conversely, they have developed some of the most treasured philosophies, greatest poetry, most beautiful linens, magnificent music, fantastic construction techniques and are responsible for making many of the first, great technological advances used in peace. Their over all, or predominate form of religion is a peace based one.

The race?

Oriental.

(You thought I was going to say black, didn’t you?)

All of the other races have displayed similar tendencies throughout their histories, but not as consistently as the Oriental ones. (Just watch Iron Chef for their empathy towards living creatures.)

Is it just me? I like to consider myself unbiased, but these facts just jumped out at me the other day and I started putting them together, having read extensively of Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, and Vietnamese histories.

No American Indian ever developed a history of such cruel practices, though they did not always treat captors well.

Caucasians have displayed a particularly violent history, encompassing many insidious tortures, but later banning them and even forbidding certain weapons of mass destruction in war.

Blacks have a violent history among mainly themselves in Africa, often wiping out entire tribes, practicing various forms of torture but not to the degree and depths of the Orientals.

So, is it possible for a ‘pure’ race to inherit certain cruel traits from one generation to the next? Would crossbreeding be a solution or better education?

The Chinese have historically slaughtered hundreds of thousands of their own people and the Japanese have been known to treat prisoners of war more inhumanely than the Nazis did. (Excluding the Jews. The Jews were set up to be scapegoats leading into genocide by the Nazis.)

The Africans happily delivered hundreds of thousands of their own into slavery, but even that doesn’t qualify because they were broken up into warring tribal territories, ruled by absolute kings, who were interested in the riches obtained in exchange for living bodies and the taking over of the newly vacated lands. Equipped with buyer supplied advanced technology, a single king could wipe out many poorly armed tribes.

Well? Have I missed something or gotten my comparisons wrong?

2

INCOMING!!

3

<passes Adven a history book>

I think you need this more than I do.

4

Hoooo, boy.

Look, if there WAS a gene that produced higher levels of “cruelty”, there’s no reason to assume that it’d be linked to the genes that determined superficial features.

Among the whole slew of different peoples living at one point or another, you’ll find thousands of examples of cruelty.

Vlad the Impaler.

Caligula.

Adolf Hitler.

Britney Spears.

The examples you mentioned are simply cultural tendencies, and are not related in any way to “genes”.

5

If you don’t drop this race comparison which suggests that oriental atrocities are hopelessly rooted then your opening post has no merit. If you can’t see that what you are trying to highlight has a cultural basis alone then there is no point in discussing your allegations. I may point out that cruelty to sharks is common in British Columbia waters out of anger for ruining fishing lines, and many restaurants in North America boil lobster and crab live, ensuring ultimate freshness.

6

**

I doubt it.

**

I’m no expert but I thought there were suppose to be more then that. I thought Australian aborogines and south pacific islanders were also classifed as their own race.

**

Based on our cultural standards they might be cruel.

**

All living things or just animals. If this is the race I’m thinking of they tend to venerate the elderly in a much better fashion then we do in our own culture.

**

Sounds like Japan. But I suppose there could be other places where this is sometimes done.

**

China? At any rate this doesn’t sound particularly cruel to me. I think kosher beef is killed in much the same manner. Perhaps some Jewish Doper would be so kind as to let me know if I am correct.

**

China, Taiwan, and possibly Viet-Nam. This kind of behavior doesn’t seem unique to any particular race to me.

**

I like to go fishing. Of course I hook 'em and reel 'em and then they slowly suffocate until I can get them to shore.

**

I usually throw them in boiling water while still alive.

**

Didn’t we cover this in your first example?

**

I’d like to see which race doesn’t have atrocities against their enemies? Even some of the natives of the American continents did some things that would curl our toes today.

**

Well if someone had been bombing my home I might be tempted to take out any pilot that floated to the ground.

**

Wow, now I’m surprised. It sounds like you’re talking about the whites folks and the tables have turned on my assumptions! gasp!

**

What the hell. It’s gotta be the white folk now. They’ve killed the most people this century because they devised the most efficent methods of killing the teeming millions.

**

Especially if they’re a bunch of dumb commies.

**

Unfortunatly a lot of war criminals did manage to elude justice after the war. But as a whole Japan was devastated and their infrastructure was rebuilt. But as history has taught us it was better then punative actions against them as a whole.

**

Ever hear of the Crusades?

**

Ah yes, the first casualty of war is always the truth.

**

Wow, that sounds like Europeans!!

**

Wow, turns out I was right. Next time I’ll read the end of a message before I reply.

**

I know the Chinese, and perhaps the Japanese, place a premium on the freshness of food. Maybe if we weren’t so disconnected from where meat comes from and how we make it edible we wouldn’t find their practices hard to swallow.

**

Yeah there were a lot of bad things done in the past. Hell, some bad things being done in the present. But I think you’re painting them with a very wide brush.

**

Yeah, sacraficing thousands of prisoners of war isn’t such a cruel practice.

**

My my aren’t we all enlightened?

**

So the Asians had better access to technology. Bully for them.

**

Nah, I think it all boils down to the culture. I wonder of “pure blooded” third or fourth generation Asians in the United States are put off by the live fish eating thing.

I think you’ve missed a lot. I don’t see how you could think it was genetic. If you’d read all those books then surely you must have come to the conclusion over how different their culture is from yours and mine. Although I wouldn’t want to eat a fish that was still twitching I see nothing cruel about slicing open a snake and letting it bleed to death.

Marc

7

Marc, you’re a more patient man than I.

8

The Romans would often capture animals for use in their gladiatorial games. Julius Caesar once proclaimed a series of games in which several thousand animals were killed in a very short time - possibly a week, maybe even less, I’m not sure.
Some people, often of Hispanic origin (where do they fit into the 4 race setup, anyway?), like to hold cockfights, which are also very cruel to the animals.
Scientists of all races engage in testing things like cosmetics on animals, which can often be cruel.

Perhaps you should also read up on, for example, European history, particularly the Medieval and Ancient periods. Plently of cruelty there.

In Pre-Columbian Central America, neighboring tribes would often agree to go to war just so they could capture opposing soldiers to use as sacrifices.
One culture (the Mayans?), played a game with a ball and a hoop on a wall where the losers were sacrificed to the gods.

Yes, Caucasians do have an extermely violent history. There’s hardly been a time where there wasn’t at least one war in Europe. Many leaders were often deposed and killed. Here’s a site with a list and short biography of all the Roman Emperors. Many of them were killed by their own men!
Just because torture devices were later banned doesn’t take away from the fact that they were used for hundreds of years. The Inquisition, the Witch Hunts, the gladiatorial games, the Holocaust, the Roman persecution of Christians, the Crusades, jihads, and slavery are all examples of violent and cruel events from Western civilzation, and except for slavery, all these were acts were against other Caucasians. I’d also like to point out that while the Chinese invented gunpowder, it was Europeans who realized its potential to use in weaponry. The Chinese used it mostly to make fireworks.
As for banned weapons of mass destruction, the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, India, and Pakistan all own nuclear weapons, which are about as destructive as you can get.
What’s my point, Adventurious82? ALL cultures have histories full of cruelty. They all have “documented histories of being inhumanly cruel to their prisoners” and “been known to slaughter each other by the thousands”, as many good sources can confirm. The examples from above are by no means complete, just what I could think of off the top of my head in about 15 minutes. Since you say you’re fond of reading about history, there’s plently left that you seem to have missed, and I’d encourage you to look into it.

9

How can you have a problem with the people who brought us “bloomers”?

10

**

The Chinese did use rockets to some limited success in battle. “In 1232 AD the Chinese used rockets against the Mongols who were besieging the city of Kai-fung-fu. An arrow with a tube of gunpowder produced an arrow of flying fire.” http://history.msfc.nasa.gov/rocketry/tl1.html
So while they didn’t invent guns they were certainly the first documented examples of people who used gunpowder in weapons.
Marc

11

6 Day Bicycle race
We are all of the Human race. No less no more.

12

Just another jumper on the bandwagon.

Adventurious82: It has been argued extensively here at this board ( and many other places ) that the concept of race in the broad categories you assign has NO basis in genetic reality. Rather it is a cultural artifact. I consider this argument to be won ( and so, to the best of my knowledge, do the vast majority of scientists ). In light of this, your entire premise is inherently flawed. ALL racial traits ( assuming there are any that could be categorized across the board for those huge groups you’ve labeled, something I just don’t believe ) are influenced by society and environment.

At any rate your examples, while interesting, don’t really prove a thing. And in fact they’re wrong in a number of particulars as a few posters have already pointed out. Just a few examples/comments:
1.) American Indians could be just as brutal in warfare as Europeans. Arguments that scalping was introduced to NA by Europeans aside ( something I don’t think I personally buy, by the way ), rape and mutilation were common practices in inter-tribal warfare among NA tribes. That’s not even to mention the systematic mass sacrifices by cultures such as the Aztecs, who massacred thousands in this fashion.
And by-the-by, where’d you get the idea that American Indians were a separate race, anyway? The classic separation by racialists ( not synonmous with, but often linked to, racists :wink: ) was Negroid, Caucasoid, Mongoloid ( which generally subsumed both “Orientals” and Amerindians ), and for those Italians astonished and chagrined at getting there asses whipped by inferior “Africans” at Adowa in 1898, Capoid ( Ethiopians, essentially ).

2.)My Serbian grandmother killed chickens by twisting their heads off. I have a hard time thinking of her as inherently cold and brutal :slight_smile: . And she made damn good chicken soup :smiley: .

3.)Folks have pointed out - Heck you]ve pointed out, that Europeans ( and everybody else, to boot ) “used” to engage in all manner of nastiness( I’ll leave off arguments of more current white practices of inhumanity - South Africa anybody? ). Given this, how do you square “inherent” traits with this supposed improvement in manners. Were these traits bred out somehow, selected against because all those guys killing and raping left and right failed to reproduce :rolleyes: ? Was it just imposed by the brutality of the times and we ( I’m a good ole’ white guy, myself ) with our inherently superior genetic material eventually grew out of such things? Or are you willing to concede that maybe culture and environment do have a role to play?

In answer to your last question - Yes, I think your comparisons are invalid and you have missed things. But I’d be happy to keep discussing this if you wish :slight_smile: .

  • Tamerlane
13

As for a serious answer to the question asked in the title, I just have to go with the Dark Elves.

Adventurious82, I do not agree with your conclusions about the “oriental race”. First of all, it seems to me that your premises are invalid. Secondly, I believe that your logic in dealing with these premises is flawed. Finally, even if I were to grant you the above two points, I do not believe that what you have said would be enough to support your conclusion.

I’ll start by discussing the evidence which you present. I am of the opinion that many of the things which you present as fact are either inherently not true, or are unsupported by evidence. Your initial statement that there are “4 basic racial types in the world” has been discussed by others in this thread, so I see no need to do more than earmark it as one such falsehood. Your assertion that in every oriental nation “the power is held by the males” is also untrue; if you were familiar with the politics of this region, you would know that many countries have females in high government positions. Some, such as India I believe, have even had women presidents. That’s more than the United States can claim.

You claim that “In one race I’ve noticed a tendency of unusual cruelty towards virtually all living things, much more so than in the others”. This claim is supported by a list of atrocities committed by various people at various times on the Asian continent. Your list of anecdotes certainly demonstrates that there are cruel “oriental” people, but it fails to demonstrate two very important things. First, you do not show that this “unusual cruelty” is a trait of all asian people, or even of a significant portion thereof. Secondly, you do not provide adequate evidence to claim that the incidence of “cruelty towards virtually all living things” is significantly lower among the other “races”.

For every anecdote you provide which shows “orientals” as cruel, I’m quite sure I can provide an anecdote for any of the other “races” which is equal in barbarism. You claim that “No American Indian ever developed a history of such cruel practices”; I assume that you must never have heard of the Aztecs. Do some reading on their culture; I assure you that the cruelty shown towards their prisoners will definitely not disappoint whatever prurient curiosity you may have.

You discuss “the oriental race” as a monolithic entity, as though the actions of the Emperor of Japan and a farmer in Guam are somehow part of the same thing. Asia contains a multitude of ethnic types, with different cultural and genetic histories. Lumping them all together and then trying to make value judgements about them as a whole seems questionable to me. How exactly are you defining “oriental”? Is it a geographic, genetic, or cultural description?

Do you believe that “race”, as defined by your OP, is a word which contains significant descriptive value?

You claim that you have “read extensively of Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, and Vietnamese histories”, so I will assume that any conclusions you draw about the “oriental race” is bases solely upon these cultures. Do you think it is possible to generalize from this small sample to other Asian cultures? You claim that “All of the other races have displayed similar tendencies throughout their histories, but not as consistently as the Oriental ones”. With what other cultures are you making the comparison? i.e., with what other country’s history would you claim to be reasonably familiar?

Now on to the conclusion of your post, which as I’ve said I do not see as being supportable by the details which you have provided. You ask:

First, another question. What exactly is a “‘pure’ race”? My initial interpretation of this was to read it as “one entire racial group, as defined earlier, inluding all subcategories thereof”. Is this what you meant to imply?

Is it possible for any population of human beings to pass on “cruel traits” to their offspring? Certainly it is, in much the same way as it’s possible for a population of human beings to pass on the English language to their offspring. People generally learn their moral principles from their parents and the culture they are raised in.

The first part of your next question, “Would crossbreeding be a solution”, seems to imply that you think there could be a genetic component to this “cruelty”. I have several objections to this implied assumption. As already discussed, the broad definition of “race” used in your OP has little if any correlation to actual genetics. Also, as stated by Tamerlane, a genetic cause would seem to be disproven by other races whose levels of violence have fluctuated independantly of changes in their gene pool.

…

Want some practical advice?

I think that the big thing you missed/wrong comparison that you made was to try to draw too much of a generalization (orientals are the cruelest race) from too small and too skewed of a sample set (they sometimes do mean things; I can’t think of any mean things done by anyone else). Such a conclusion is not meaningful, and I don’t think you’re going to have much luck defending it as it currently stands.

There are certainly things in specific Asian countries that you could object to as “cruel” or “inhumane”, such as the Japanese method of creating sushi, or China’s treatment of its dissidents. But I don’t think this makes all Japanese or Chinese people cruel. Yes, I believe education (or at least public opinion) could change these things, as it has done so in the west.

Feel free to respond to my criticism of your post, if you disagree with anything that I have said.

14

The cruelest race? Human. Variations in pigmentation or the absence/presence of an epicanthic fold have no bearing on the issue.

15

The most inherently cruel race will be the 2012 Olympic marathon (if Houston wins the bid for the Games). 78F and 100% humidity at even a dawn start…they’ll be dropping like flies.

16

This one.

17

I stand corrected. I wasn’t 100% about that, but I thought I remembered reading about how the Chinese never realized gunpowder’s potential as a weapon. Those rockets do seem like a pretty clever idea, and I’d bet they were probably much more effective in battle than the early handguns.
After seeing that site, I’m really glad I didn’t mention the legend of Wan-Hoo, as I remember an elementary school planetarium trip touting that as a fact!

I guess I should revise my statement to: “While the Chinese did use gunpowder for military purposes, Europeans were the ones to realize its true capacity for destruction in cannons, and later, more effective firearms such as the wheellock and flintlock muskets.” If nothing else, this thread shows the importance of not passing off remembered facts as true without bothering to double-check them, no matter how sure you think you are. :o
Protesilaus, feeling kinda embarrassed

{Note- I fixed the code. Lynn}
[Edited by Lynn Bodoni on 02-04-2001 at 12:24 PM]

18

**Adventurious82 wrote:

There are 4 basic racial types in the world, with all others being variations: Oriental, Caucasian, Indian, and Black.**

Could you back this up please? Right now, anthropologist are arguing over how many races there might be (from 3 to 32) and even if the term has any useful, measurable basis.

Is it possible for a certain racial type to have an inherent trait, emotional or mental, different from other races, uninfluenced by social or environmental conditions?

Given the complex nature of human personality, I doubt that one single genetic site could cause people to be “cruel” as you describe it. It sounds like you’re trying to link a complex human personality trait (cruelty) to a single causal agent. I’m not a pscyhologist, but I’d be willing to be that your concept is highly improbable if not outright impossible.

19

Putting aside the question of whether Adventurous82 was sincerely curious or merely engaged in thinly-veiled race-baiting, I find myself wondering if there are … er, “personal problems” in his life that led down this train of thought. E.g., does Adventurous82 have an irate oriental neighbor? Or an oriental boss who gives him grief? Or an oriental girlfriend who just dumped him?

20

Having recently read a few very important historical books I understand where Adventurious82 got his point of view.

The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu and The Return of Fu-Manchu are some of the best treatments of the Yellow Peril. They are also fiction. I am continously amazed at the casual racism shown in the popular culture of the first part of the Twentieth Century. I think racism didn’t become unfashionable until WWII.