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Now 88 years old, John M. Ellis studied German at London University, has taught at a series of universities in Britain, Canada, and the United States, and has written several books that are critical of the corruption of the humanities by ideology. His newest book, A Short History of Relations between Peoples: How the World Began to Move beyond Tribalism, is a fascinating and utterly timely piece of work. Why timely? Because we are living in an era when millions of people in the Anglosphere have been taught that the history of their countries is something to be ashamed of, marred by centuries of racism and white supremacy, and that we therefore should not only look with disdain upon our forebears but should applaud when statues of men and women once considered to be heroes of our civilization are torn down.
It’s all a lie, and Ellis challenges it brilliantly. Rather than judge our most prominent and accomplished ancestors by the moral standards of our own day, he argues, we should recognize that they themselves contributed, generation by generation, to the development of those very standards. Ellis sums up those standards with the Latin term gens una sumus, meaning, as he puts it, “that we human beings are all of one family.” Today this assertion is considered self-evident. But five centuries ago it wasn’t. On the contrary, up until around the year 1500, people living in different parts of the world did not look upon foreigners with a sense of common humanity. Instead, they were possessed – every last one of them – of a strong sense of tribalism.
And how could it be otherwise? Virtually none of them had ever traveled beyond their own realms, or even, in most cases, their own local communities. In what Ellis refers to as the “known world” – Europe, Asia, and northern Africa – the fastest means of getting from one place to another was by horse; in the “unknown world” — the Americas, Australia, and so on – the fastest way was by foot. (Native Americans didn’t encounter horses until the Europeans brought them.) Steamships didn’t come along until the early 1800s, and motor vehicles in the late 1800s. Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1455, but for centuries after that books were far too expensive for most people to afford, and in any event the majority of people were illiterate. Unable to travel long distances, then, and lacking anything like newspapers, TV, and the Internet, the people of 1500 knew virtually nothing about other societies and cultures. In fact the only time when they had close encounters with foreigners was in times of war – which was an almost constant occurrence, and which meant conquest, destruction, rape, and even extermination – and so it was only natural to look upon those foreigners with both fear and hatred.
It was in around 1500 that all this began to change. There were three major factors. First, the Age of Discovery began. It would eventually lead to the formation of the British, French, Belgian, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese empires. Brits have now been told to apologize for their empire, as if it were some historical anomaly. In fact, as Ellis points out, there have been hundreds of empires over the course of history. Until a century or so ago, the most natural thing for a powerful country to do was to expand the reach of its power by forming an empire. To be sure, the British empire was anomalous: for one thing, unlike, say, the Russian or Aztec empires, which were created by expanding into neighboring regions, it established contact among far-flung people with very different values and worldviews – and at very disparate stages of development. Before the Europeans arrived, for example, the people of the Americas, Australia, and sub-Saharan Africa didn’t even have the wheel. At first, to be sure, the tribalist mentality persisted. Colonized people distrusted their European colonizers, and the colonizers looked down on their new subjects. But over time attitudes modified on both sides. One factor was the influence of Christian missionaries, who recognized that even savage cannibals were children of God who could learn to be more civilized and humane.
The second factor that helped transform universal tribalism into an expanding sense of gens una sumus was Gutenberg’s aforementioned invention of the printing press. Within fifty years, the entire corpus of ancient Greek and Roman writings had made it into print. The Bible was translated into modern languages – a development made possible by the third factor, the Protestant Reformation, as a result of which Europe’s cultural center shifted northward. In Britain, beginning in the mid 17th century, pamphlets, and later newspapers and magazines, began to be published, enabling a vibrant exchange of ideas – including ideas about the rights of man, such as freedom of the press, which was powerfully defended in Milton’s extraordinarily influential 1644 Areopagitica. The portrait in Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1714), one of the earliest novels, of a friendship between a white and black castaway is now condemned in academia because of the subordination of the black man to the white man, but at the time of its publication the book put into the heads of readers a mind-blowing, unprecedented image of people from two vastly different cultures being able to look upon each other as brothers.
Which brings us to the topic of slavery, which had been a universal practice since the dawn of man. Not until the 18th century did the morality of this institution begin to be seriously questioned – and it was in Britain that this questioning first took place. At least in certain English-speaking areas, the rejection of slavery happened with remarkable rapidity: by 1804 slavery was outlawed in all of the northern United States, and in 1807 it was banned throughout the British Empire. “The British,” writes Ellis, “didn’t at long last stumble into correct values, as their modern detractors want us to believe: they created them! And, having done so, they eventually gave them to the rest of the world, though not without considerable resistance from people beyond the Anglosphere.” Indeed, when the British Navy effectively closed down the sale of slaves – by Africans, of course – on the west coast of that continent, the African slavers switched to the east coast, selling slaves instead to Arabs (many of whom, incidentally, continue to practice slavery to this day, a fact that Western academics prefer not to dwell upon).
As with slavery, no one had ever felt a need to justify empire – it was just a fact of life. But the invention of printing and the increase in literacy led to intensified debates on the topic. Britain owned a large portion of the planet. What gave it the right to do so? This is how the concept of “white man’s burden” developed. Nowadays, of course, this concept is viewed with scorn in academia. But as Ellis maintains, “it changed the rationale for empires, and in a way that would soon mean an end to those empires.” The British Empire is now painted as brutal and oppressive, but mountains of historical evidence suggest otherwise. Many of the Brits’ colonial subjects had lived under other alien regimes, and found the Brits gentler and kinder. Privileged Indians sent their sons to English-language schools and British universities. Colonials readily fought for Britain in the world wars. And even after the Empire was dissolved, many newly independent countries chose to keep the British monarch as their head of state, and over fifty of those countries chose to retain their special ties to Britain by joining the Commonwealth.
Ellis cites Martin Seymour Lipset’s observation that Third World countries that had been British colonies stood a better chance of developing real democracies. Yet whereas British rule had maintained the peace, independence led, in countries like Nigeria, Somalia, and Rwanda, to tribal wars. The point being that whereas European (and especially British) imperialism had gone a long way toward replacing tribalism with a sense of shared humanity, the withdrawal of the Brits (and other Europeans) from some former colonies led them to revert to a tribalist mentality. In any event, the bottom line here is that “the most effective anti-imperialists in world history were the later British imperialists. They dismantled the imperialism that had been so prominent a part of human life for thousands of years.” Of all the empires in world history, “[o]nly the British Empire dissolved itself, and bequeathed to the world the conviction that empires cannot be justified.”
The British Empire, then, was a massive impetus in the spread of the idea of gens una sumus – at least in the sizable parts of the earth’s surface that was, or had been, ruled from London. The expansion of the idea beyond these domains took place as a result of the technological revolution that began in Britain and America around 1800 and that over the next two centuries created “a universal civilization, a way of life whose main elements are now common to most people in the world,” amounting to “the most complete transformation of human life” ever. Racism became anathema. And the notion that racism was anathema, note well, did not originate in Asia or Africa; it originated in the Anglosphere, and was diffused around the world by an Industrial Revolution that was not a single isolated event but “a cascading series of inventions, in which one innovation led to the next, and then the next again. In short, what had really happened was not some particular inventions, but the beginning of a habit of invention” that continues to this day.
Everything in Ellis’s book makes total sense. And every bit of it utterly contradicts the academic consensus about such subjects as imperialism, white supremacy, and racism. Far from being victims of white supremacy, black people in sub-Saharan Africa owe to the West, particularly the Anglosphere, their access to modern technology, medicine, and other benefits that have given them longer and better lives. When Westerners wear, say, Asian-looking clothes or wear their hair like African women, they’re accused of “cultural appropriation” – but if that’s cultural appropriation, what do you call it when non-Westerners use electrical lights, drive a car, or take an airplane? As for racism, even as the West was developing more modern racial attitudes, there were no anti-racist movements underway in Asia or Africa.
Americans are taught to feel guilt about the supposed robbery of Native American land by white settlers, but in fact that land had traded hands frequently over the previous centuries as one Native American tribe conquered, or even exterminated, another; the Europeans were simply one more tribe who’d brought along superior weapons. Also, thanks to the European colonizers, the descendants of those Native Americans “live infinitely better” than before. Edward Said, a hero of academics everywhere, condemned Europeans of earlier generations for looking down on Arabs and other Eastern cultures. But nobody ever asks: what did the members of those other cultures think of the Europeans? In those days, every culture looked down on other cultures. And it was Westerners – especially members of the Anglosphere – who began the process that put an end to all that. In this splendid book, John M. Ellis has provided an invaluable, desperately necessary, and absolutely definitive corrective to the poisonous academic ideology that tells us otherwise.
Thanks Bruce, as you rightly said it is timely.
Sadly getting this into academia will be difficult.
Two things to add.
1. Colonialism ended over 100 years ago, when will Britain stop sending aid to the former colonies? 100 years from now? 50, 25, 10?
2. South Africa is racist today, it is not safe for white people.
The habit of invention.
For over a hundred years, all over Latin America, there has been a common saying, “Esos Gringos!, Siempre estan inventando tantas cosas!” — those Gringos, they’re always inventing so many things!
“Tribalism (which is the best name to give to all the group manifestations of the anti-conceptual mentality) is a dominant element in Europe, as a reciprocally reinforcing cause and result of Europe’s long history of caste systems, of national and local (provincial) chauvinism, of rule by brute force and endless, bloody wars. As an example, observe the Balkan nations, which are perennially bent upon exterminating one another over minuscule differences of tradition or language. Tribalism had no place in the United States—until recent decades. It could not take root here, its imported seedlings were withering away and turning to slag in the melting pot whose fire was fed by two inexhaustible sources of energy: individual rights and objective law; these two were the only protection man needed.” – Ayn Rand
More Randian gibberish….copied and pasted by our biggest tribalist.
“What are the nature and the causes of modern tribalism? Philosophically, tribalism is the product of irrationalism and collectivism. It is a logical consequence of modern philosophy. If men accept the notion that reason is not valid, what is to guide them and how are they to live?
Obviously, they will seek to join some group—any group—which claims the ability to lead them and to provide some sort of knowledge acquired by some sort of unspecified means. If men accept the notion that the individual is helpless, intellectually and morally, that he has no mind and no rights, that he is nothing, but the group is all, and his only moral significance lies in selfless service to the group—they will be pulled obediently to join a group. But which group? Well, if you believe that you have no mind and no moral value, you cannot have the confidence to make choices—so the only thing for you to do is to join an unchosen group, the group into which you were born, the group to which you were predestined to belong by the sovereign, omnipotent, omniscient power of your body chemistry.
This, of course, is racism. But if your group is small enough, it will not be called “racism”: it will be called “ethnicity.” – Ayn Rand
You probably believe you are changing the world by copying and pasting this nonsense. Hint: you aren’t.
“A symptom of the tribal mentality’s self-arrested, perceptual level of development may be observed in the tribalists’ position on language.
Language is a conceptual tool—a code of visual-auditory symbols that denote concepts. To a person who understands the function of language, it makes no difference what sounds are chosen to name things, provided these sounds refer to clearly defined aspects of reality. But to a tribalist, language is a mystic heritage, a string of sounds handed down from his ancestors and memorized, not understood. To him, the importance lies in the perceptual concrete, the sound of a word, not its meaning. He would kill and die for the privilege of printing on every postage stamp the word “postage” for the English-speaking and the word “postes” for the French-speaking citizens of his bilingual Canada. Since most of the ethnic languages are not full languages, but merely dialects or local corruptions of a country’s language, the distinctions which the tribalists fight for are not even as big as that.
But, of course, it is not for their language that the tribalists are fighting: they are fighting to protect their level of awareness, their mental passivity, their obedience to the tribe, and their desire to ignore the existence of outsiders.” – Ayn Rand
You know, I get accused by your sycophants of hijacking threads. Anyone see the irony here.
Six copy paste Ayn Rand comments on Tribalism. I had no idea that tribalism was an election issue.
“It is obvious why the morality of altruism is a tribal phenomenon. Prehistorical men were physically unable to survive without clinging to a tribe for leadership and protection against other tribes. The cause of altruism’s perpetuation into civilized eras is not physical, but psycho-epistemological: the men of self-arrested, perceptual mentality are unable to survive without tribal leadership and “protection” against reality. The doctrine of self-sacrifice does not offend them: they have no sense of self or of personal value—they do not know what it is that they are asked to sacrifice—they have no firsthand inkling of such things as intellectual integrity, love of truth, personally chosen values, or a passionate dedication to an idea. When they hear injunctions against “selfishness,” they believe that what they must renounce is the brute, mindless whim-worship of a tribal lone wolf. But their leaders—the theoreticians of altruism—know better. Immanuel Kant knew it; John Dewey knew it; B. F. Skinner knows it; John Rawls knows it. Observe that it is not the mindless brute, but reason, intelligence, ability, merit, self-confidence, self-esteem that they are out to destroy.
Today, we are seeing a ghastly spectacle: a magnificent scientific civilization dominated by the morality of prehistorical savagery.” – Ayn Rand
Uh oh, the THX Drinking game is now in effect. Altruism!!!
Well done T. You haven’t had an original thought in years.
You seem to have a problem.Your remarks are an annoying distraction.
This is a comments section, remarks are a normal feature.
Racism recognizes reality. There is not a line at the Congolese embassy for visa or residence permits just so you know. Stop falling into the self denial trap of the accused.
How academia has regressed to myths is astonishing. They are paid handsomely to educate but they have little to offer. Education in America has eventuated into fantasies that appease the egos of the academia elite. If the historical facts are replaced by fiction what is there value to society? They are the antagonists of deception and apart from hard sciences, they fail to perform their societal function; to educate and advance critical thinking. Making sheep who regurgitate their pseudo history is keeping them prosperous as the nation collapses around them.
Integrity has left the station and all that remains is the refuse of intellectually disingenuous imposters.
Very interesting and HONEST assessment of the development of the world and people! It seems like the MORE Westerners do for people the LESS they are appreciated and the MORE they are despised! Sadly, too many “elite libers” feel that way too! For anyone lucky enough to have been BORN in the USA and to condemn it for SETTLING and ESTABLISHING the Greatest Nation on Earth – one suggestion – LEAVE!!
All the “celebrities” who VOWED to LEAVE if ORANGE MAN was elected but then DIDN”T – SHUT UP!
It would be interesting to have various classes – from maybe 9th grade through Graduate School to read this article and get their thoughts. I would imagine they would be most insane at the upper levels!
You may be pleased to know that these are the very lessons that I taught in my community college history classes over a period of approximately 40 years in two states, from 1971 until 2010. Had it not been for the West, slavery and a great host of other evils never would have gained notice for the evils that they were, much less would they have been fought.. I hope my students remember those lessons. But I was just one teacher, increasingly surrounded by hostile school bureaucracies. I believe the purging of nonconforming teachers of history from academia became really serious some time in the early 1990’s, which is when my harassment experiences became so intense that I had to go to lawyers to defend myself — twice, at two schools. At least I managed to survive long enough to keep my retirement benefits. God know what ideologues took my positions once I left.
When I was liberal I didn’t hate Muslims. Now I do.
Pattern recognition is basic to all IQ tests. I recognize the pattern which the dirty Muslims present.
I’m proud of of my new racism. It means I have regained the sense I was born with.
Vishal Mangalwadi gives a modern Indian man’s account of the British in India in his books, particularly his works on William Carey and ‘India-the Grand Experiment.’ This second book details the actions of what BB calls ‘the most effective anti-imperialists in world history.’.
All Mangalwadi’s books are excellent.
When I lived in America during the 1980s and part of the 90s I started noticing that THE most racist people I met were Negro Americans as they would spew nonsense about the Vietnamese, Mexicans and Arabs and as a European that has lived in Africa, Middle East and Asia I found it rather ignorant and I often told them so.
99% of the things we use in our daily lives was invented, created and discovered by men of the Caucasian Race so perhaps folks could tell me what the Negro people have invented created or discovered for the good of humanity..
Black folks in America need to learn that success is the best revenge and stop blaming everybody else for the situation in their own communities.
”First we have to clean up the neighborhood”… Malcolm X…. and look what THEY did to him..
When I hear “America was built on the backs of slaves” I want to puke. I recently listened to a podcast by the British historian, David Starkey, wherein he said there were probably around 600,000 slaves brought to America concentrated mainly in the south east. If that’s the case, who built the rest of the country? Yes, there were the Chinese out West but do you hear them whining about reparations and discrimination? The black race hustlers have been successful in “re-writing our history” turning it into one of the biggest scams of the modern era. Starkey also noted how not much is said about the current ongoing slavery being perpetrated by the same guilty parties from 500 years ago. Curious how the Anglophiles are the only ones being accused when, in fact, they are the ones who fought and died to end slavery.
INTREPID, WHERE ARE YOU?? WE NEED YOU!! In your absence, the ever-execrable, robotic and microcephalic THX 1138 (named after a bad movie) has been running amok, yet again ruining the quiet enjoyment of our FPM Comments section with endless easy copy-and-paste quotations of his Brain Mother, Ayn Rank (apologies to Otto), unencumbered by any critical thinking of his own. Please come back and be our St. George!, keeping at bay the witless Grendel who endlessly assails us with the irrelevant, randomly-chosen mutterings of the Queen of Objectionableism, whom I used to find mildly interesting until he soiled her legacy with his embarrassing, slavish adoration!
Well, he had 6 comments on Tribalism, all copy paste jobs by Rand. Typical. And I did 6 short responses. But you know, you could help out. The more flak, the more you know you are over the target.
Leftists have used the supposed goal of eliminating racism to completely destroy, obliterate and erase forever our religion, history and culture. I say supposed goal because their real goal is to demoralize, divide and conquer. Logic, reason, justice, and decency are to be replaced with hysterics, emotion, persecution, and degeneracy. People who lead dissolute lifestyles and let emotion rule them are easily controlled.
” But over time attitudes modified on both sides. One factor was the influence of Christian missionaries, who recognized that even savage cannibals were children of God who could learn to be more civilized and humane.”
Like I’ve replied to you many times THX. Christianity has been the most civilizing and humanizing influence in the history of the world. Giving people actual human rights because it looks at the individual as important and its employment of self-examination and seeking truth segued nicely into promoting scientific advancement, which allowed us to live civilized lives in bulk.
Ayn’s propensity to fixate is often at the cost of ignoring other influences and facts. She can’t win the argument by pounding one of her long screeds over and over. The fifth or sixth time saying the identical thing or making it lengthier diminishes rather than helps. It only makes her sound childish and fascist.
No matter how many times” the Ayn repeats” her nearly identical/same OCD paragraphs and pages of the nearly identical argument it doesn’t erase actual history, and it doesn’t make them true. But you took a bad, unrecoverable mauling on the Christianity part, I’m not surprised you tried to cover it up by pasting her thoughts on tribalism.
Boccacio’s The Decameron shows a lot of REGIONAL prejudice. His characters say things like “Rome was once the head and is now the rump of the civilized worlf” and “Most of the women in Pisa are as ugly as sin” Far more recently, Eric Knight’s classic children’s tearjerkrr, Lassie Come Home oozed and drips with it
Hines, the whining, cruel, incompetent, sycophantic kennalman is repeatedly idrntified as a LONDONER.