Just recently Thilo Sarrazin, a director of Germany’s central bank, made headlines because he wrote a book critical of immigration, basically saying that Germany is commiting suicide. He says (reasonable and popular) things like “I don’t want my grandchildren and great-grandchildren to live in a mostly Muslim country where Turkish and Arabic are widely spoken, women wear headscarves and the day is measured out by the muezzin’s call to prayer.” He also thinks that Turks aren’t as smart as Germans (they’re not; Richard Lynn on IQ: Germany=102; Turkey = 90); and he thinks that Jews have significant genetic commonality (also true). (A Jewish spokesman said, “Whoever tries to define Jews by their genetic makeup, even when it is superficially positive in tone, is in the grip of a race mania that Jews do not share.” No need to discuss the fact that Jewish genetic commonality discovered by (Jewish) population geneticists can only be explained ultimately by the fact that the Jews have always had a race mania.)
Sarrazin attracted a deluge of criticism for expressing his views. “The German elite is united in its criticism [of Sarrazin]. Sarrazin is representative of a latent Islamophobia, but one which has not been able to take shape in any political formation as we have seen in the Netherlands and Austria.” Sarrazin has now been sacked because of his views–even though they have nothing to do with his position as a banker; his fate will doubtless be a cautionary tale for similarly inclined others.
It reminds us that the consensus among elites throughout the West is maintained not by force of argument but by brute force, although it’s not uncommon for the media to confidently assert that the facts are on their side. (Time magazine: “Experts reject his argument that innate low intelligence is the culprit.”) Another tack is to gleefully assert that Europe has no choice but to admit immigrants because its birthrate is so low—while at the same time noting that the German government won’t do anything to encourage births because that’s what the National Socialists did: “Crucially, however, the memory of Nazi schemes to promote motherhood continues to inhibit governments in Berlin from urging women to have more children.”
But in the end, elites are not willing to let dissident views simply compete for adherents or let people be exposed to scientists like Richard Lynn who, by any reasonable account, is also an expert. It’s all about enforcing orthodoxy.
The question is how to break through this elite monopoly on discourse on immigration and race. I confess I don’t have a clue. That’s what makes the Glenn Beck phenomenon so pathetic. Here’s a guy who has an immense following of angry White people yearning for leadership that would really help their plight. And all he can come up with is a vague commitment to traditional values and the Constitution. I’ve got news for you Glenn: The only important issue is that Whites are becoming a minority and seeing their political power and cultural influence disappearing. The Constitution will be completely irrelevant when Whites become a minority.
But that’s the thing. Idiots like Beck get exposure on the national media. And if Beck somehow strayed off the reservation and started worrying about explicitly White issues, he’d be gone, just like Sarrazin. He probably understands that.
The elites realize that there are large percentages of Whites who would sign on to anti-immigration attitudes with just a little encouragement. Polls in Germany found that 35% disagreed with Sarrazin, while 30% agreed–a substantial minority, especially given that they receive no encouragement from “respectable” sources. Elites understand that a conflagration could be very easily ignited with a bit of encouragement from the top. Sarrazin’s sacking means that 30% of Germans have just been told that their views are completely illegitimate–so much so, that people who hold them should be fired, even if their beliefs are completely irrelevant to their job description.
Policing elite discourse is the name of the game. It doesn’t matter if an anonymous person writes a well-reasoned article on the internet. But it matters a great deal if the director of the Bundesbank writes a book that resonates with popular attitudes and, because of his position, gets a great deal of publicity in the mainstream media. That’s why there was such outrage when James Watson got off the reservation on Black IQ. That’s why the Israel Lobby went crazy when John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt–professors at elite institutions–wrote that the Israel Lobby was a very powerful force that routinely acted against the interests of the US.
Elite consensus is not threatened by people like Sarrazin. Even Mearsheimer and Walt have been effectively contained if votes in Congress are any indication. It’s been shown over and over again that the consensus can be maintained, despite the occasional miscreant. Until we find a way to break through it, we are not going to get anywhere.
