8
There is No Justice in History
UNDERSTANDING HUMAN HISTORY IN THE millennia following the
Agricultural Revolution boils down to a single question: how did humans
organise themselves in mass-cooperation networks, when they lacked the
biological instincts necessary to sustain such networks? The short answer is that
humans created imagined orders and devised scripts. These two inventions filled
the gaps left by our biological inheritance.
However, the appearance of these networks was, for many, a dubious
blessing. The imagined orders sustaining these networks were neither neutral nor
fair. They divided people into make-believe groups, arranged in a hierarchy. The
upper levels enjoyed privileges and power, while the lower ones suffered from
discrimination and oppression. Hammurabi’s Code, for example, established a
pecking order of superiors, commoners and slaves. Superiors got all the good
things in life. Commoners got what was left. Slaves got a beating if they
complained.
Despite its proclamation of the equality of all men, the imagined order
established by the Americans in 1776 also established a hierarchy. It created a
hierarchy between men, who benefited from it, and women, whom it left
disempowered. It created a hierarchy between whites, who enjoyed liberty, and
blacks and American Indians, who were considered humans of a lesser type and
therefore did not share in the equal rights of men.
Many of those who signed the
Declaration of Independence were slaveholders. They did not release their slaves
upon signing the Declaration, nor did they consider themselves hypocrites. In
their view, the rights of men had little to do with Negroes.
The American order also consecrated the hierarchy between rich and poor.
Most Americans at that time had little problem with the inequality caused by
wealthy parents passing their money and businesses on to their children. In their
view, equality meant simply that the same laws applied to rich and poor. It had
nothing to do with unemployment benefits, integrated education or health
insurance. Liberty, too, carried very different connotations than it does today. In
1776, it did not mean that the disempowered (certainly not blacks or Indians or,
God forbid, women) could gain and exercise power. It meant simply that the
state could not, except in unusual circumstances, confiscate a citizen’s private
property or tell him what to do with it. The American order thereby upheld the
hierarchy of wealth, which some thought was mandated by God and others
viewed as representing the immutable laws of nature. Nature, it was claimed,
rewarded merit with wealth while penalising indolence.
All the above-mentioned distinctions – between free persons and slaves,
between whites and blacks, between rich and poor – are rooted in fictions. (The
hierarchy of men and women will be discussed later.) Yet it is an iron rule of
history that every imagined hierarchy disavows its fictional origins and claims to
be natural and inevitable. For instance, many people who have viewed the
hierarchy of free persons and slaves as natural and correct have argued that
slavery is not a human invention. Hammurabi saw it as ordained by the gods.
Aristotle argued that slaves have a ‘slavish nature’ whereas free people have a
‘free nature’. Their status in society is merely a reflection of their innate nature.
Ask white supremacists about the racial hierarchy, and you are in for a
pseudoscientific lecture concerning the biological differences between the races.
You are likely to be told that there is something in Caucasian blood or genes that
makes whites naturally more intelligent, moral and hardworking. Ask a diehard
capitalist about the hierarchy of wealth, and you are likely to hear that it is the
inevitable outcome of objective differences in abilities. The rich have more
money, in this view, because they are more capable and diligent. No one should
be bothered, then, if the wealthy get better health care, better education and
better nutrition. The rich richly deserve every perk they enjoy.
21. A sign on a South African beach from the period of apartheid,
restricting its usage to whites’ only. People with lighter skin colour are
typically more in danger of sunburn than people with darker skin. Yet there
was no biological logic behind the division of South African beaches.
Beaches reserved for people with lighter skin were not characterised by
lower levels of ultraviolet radiation.
Hindus who adhere to the caste system believe that cosmic forces have made
one caste superior to another. According to a famous Hindu creation myth, the
gods fashioned the world out of the body of a primeval being, the Purusa. The
sun was created from the Purusa’s eye, the moon from the Purusa’s brain, the
Brahmins (priests) from its mouth, the Kshatriyas (warriors) from its arms, the
Vaishyas (peasants and merchants) from its thighs, and the Shudras (servants)
from its legs. Accept this explanation and the sociopolitical differences between
Brahmins and Shudras are as natural and eternal as the differences between the
sun and the moon.1 The ancient Chinese believed that when the goddess Nü Wa
created humans from earth, she kneaded aristocrats from fine yellow soil,
whereas commoners were formed from brown mud.2
Yet, to the best of our understanding, these hierarchies are all the product of
human imagination. Brahmins and Shudras were not really created by the gods
from different body parts of a primeval being. Instead, the distinction between
the two castes was created by laws and norms invented by humans in northern
India about 3,000 years ago.
Contrary to Aristotle, there is no known biological
difference between slaves and free people. Human laws and norms have turned
some people into slaves and others into masters. Between blacks and whites
there are some objective biological differences, such as skin colour and hair
type, but there is no evidence that the differences extend to intelligence or
morality.
Most people claim that their social hierarchy is natural and just, while those
of other societies are based on false and ridiculous criteria. Modern Westerners
are taught to scoff at the idea of racial hierarchy. They are shocked by laws
prohibiting blacks to live in white neighbourhoods, or to study in white schools,
or to be treated in white hospitals. But the hierarchy of rich and poor – which
mandates that rich people live in separate and more luxurious neighbourhoods,
study in separate and more prestigious schools, and receive medical treatment in
separate and better-equipped facilities – seems perfectly sensible to many
Americans and Europeans. Yet it’s a proven fact that most rich people are rich
for the simple reason that they were born into a rich family, while most poor
people will remain poor throughout their lives simply because they were born
into a poor family.
Unfortunately, complex human societies seem to require imagined
hierarchies and unjust discrimination. Of course not all hierarchies are morally
identical, and some societies suffered from more extreme types of discrimination
than others, yet scholars know of no large society that has been able to dispense
with discrimination altogether. Time and again people have created order in their
societies by classifying the population into imagined categories, such as
superiors, commoners and slaves; whites and blacks; patricians and plebeians;
Brahmins and Shudras; or rich and poor. These categories have regulated
relations between millions of humans by making some people legally, politically
or socially superior to others.
Hierarchies serve an important function. They enable complete strangers to
know how to treat one another without wasting the time and energy needed to
become personally acquainted. In George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, Henry
Higgins doesn’t need to establish an intimate acquaintance with Eliza Doolittle
in order to understand how he should relate to her. Just hearing her talk tells him
that she is a member of the underclass with whom he can do as he wishes – for
example, using her as a pawn in his bet to pass off a flower girl as a duchess. A
modern Eliza working at a florist’s needs to know how much effort to put into
selling roses and gladioli to the dozens of people who enter the shop each day.
She can’t make a detailed enquiry into the tastes and wallets of each individual.
Instead, she uses social cues – the way the person is dressed, his or her age, and
if she’s not politically correct his skin colour. That is how she immediately
distinguishes between the accounting-firm partner who’s likely to place a large
order for expensive roses, and a messenger boy who can only afford a bunch of
daisies.
Of course, differences in natural abilities also play a role in the formation of
social distinctions. But such diversities of aptitudes and character are usually
mediated through imagined hierarchies. This happens in two important ways.
First and foremost, most abilities have to be nurtured and developed. Even if
somebody is born with a particular talent, that talent will usually remain latent if
it is not fostered, honed and exercised. Not all people get the same chance to
cultivate and refine their abilities. Whether or not they have such an opportunity
will usually depend on their place within their society’s imagined hierarchy.
Harry Potter is a good example. Removed from his distinguished wizard family
and brought up by ignorant muggles, he arrives at Hogwarts without any
experience in magic. It takes him seven books to gain a firm command of his
powers and knowledge of his unique abilities.
Second, even if people belonging to different classes develop exactly the
same abilities, they are unlikely to enjoy equal success because they will have to
play the game by different rules. If, in British-ruled India, an Untouchable, a
Brahmin, a Catholic Irishman and a Protestant Englishman had somehow
developed exactly the same business acumen, they still would not have had the
same chance of becoming rich. The economic game was rigged by legal
restrictions and unofficial glass ceilings.
The Vicious Circle
All societies are based on imagined hierarchies, but not necessarily on the
same hierarchies. What accounts for the differences? Why did traditional Indian
society classify people according to caste, Ottoman society according to religion,
and American society according to race? In most cases the hierarchy originated
as the result of a set of accidental historical circumstances and was then
perpetuated and refined over many generations as different groups developed
vested interests in it.
For instance, many scholars surmise that the Hindu caste system took shape
when Indo-Aryan people invaded the Indian subcontinent about 3,000 years ago,
subjugating the local population. The invaders established a stratified society, in
which they – of course – occupied the leading positions (priests and warriors),
leaving the natives to live as servants and slaves. The invaders, who were few in
number, feared losing their privileged status and unique identity. To forestall this
danger, they divided the population into castes, each of which was required to
pursue a specific occupation or perform a specific role in society. Each had
different legal status, privileges and duties. Mixing of castes – social interaction,
marriage, even the sharing of meals – was prohibited. And the distinctions were
not just legal – they became an inherent part of religious mythology and practice.
The rulers argued that the caste system reflected an eternal cosmic reality
rather than a chance historical development. Concepts of purity and impurity
were essential elements in Hindu religion, and they were harnessed to buttress
the social pyramid. Pious Hindus were taught that contact with members of a
different caste could pollute not only them personally, but society as a whole,
and should therefore be abhorred. Such ideas are hardly unique to Hindus.
Throughout history, and in almost all societies, concepts of pollution and purity
have played a leading role in enforcing social and political divisions and have
been exploited by numerous ruling classes to maintain their privileges. The fear
of pollution is not a complete fabrication of priests and princes, however. It
probably has its roots in biological survival mechanisms that make humans feel
an instinctive revulsion towards potential disease carriers, such as sick persons
and dead bodies. If you want to keep any human group isolated – women, Jews,
Roma, gays, blacks – the best way to do it is convince everyone that these
people are a source of pollution.
The Hindu caste system and its attendant laws of purity became deeply
embedded in Indian culture. Long after the Indo-Aryan invasion was forgotten,
Indians continued to believe in the caste system and to abhor the pollution
caused by caste mixing. Castes were not immune to change. In fact, as time went
by, large castes were divided into sub-castes. Eventually the original four castes
turned into 3,000 different groupings called jati (literally ‘birth’). But this
proliferation of castes did not change the basic principle of the system, according
to which every person is born into a particular rank, and any infringement of its
rules pollutes the person and society as a whole. A persons jati determines her
profession, the food she can eat, her place of residence and her eligible marriage
partners. Usually a person can marry only within his or her caste, and the
resulting children inherit that status.
Whenever a new profession developed or a new group of people appeared on
the scene, they had to be recognised as a caste in order to receive a legitimate
place within Hindu society. Groups that failed to win recognition as a caste
were, literally, outcasts – in this stratified society, they did not even occupy the
lowest rung. They became known as Untouchables. They had to live apart from
all other people and scrape together a living in humiliating and disgusting ways,
such as sifting through garbage dumps for scrap material.
Even members of the
lowest caste avoided mingling with them, eating with them, touching them and
certainly marrying them. In modern India, matters of marriage and work are still
heavily influenced by the caste system, despite all attempts by the democratic
government of India to break down such distinctions and convince Hindus that
there is nothing polluting in caste mixing.3
Purity in America
A similar vicious circle perpetuated the racial hierarchy in modern America.
From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, the European conquerors imported
millions of African slaves to work the mines and plantations of America. They
chose to import slaves from Africa rather than from Europe or East Asia due to
three circumstantial factors. Firstly, Africa was closer, so it was cheaper to
import slaves from Senegal than from Vietnam.
Secondly, in Africa there already existed a well-developed slave trade
(exporting slaves mainly to the Middle East), whereas in Europe slavery was
very rare. It was obviously far easier to buy slaves in an existing market than to
create a new one from scratch.
Thirdly, and most importantly, American plantations in places such as
Virginia, Haiti and Brazil were plagued by malaria and yellow fever, which had
originated in Africa. Africans had acquired over the generations a partial genetic
immunity to these diseases, whereas Europeans were totally defenceless and
died in droves. It was consequently wiser for a plantation owner to invest his
money in an African slave than in a European slave or indentured labourer.
Paradoxically, genetic superiority (in terms of immunity) translated into social
inferiority: precisely because Africans were fitter in tropical climates than
Europeans, they ended up as the slaves of European masters! Due to these
circumstantial factors, the burgeoning new societies of America were to be
divided into a ruling caste of white Europeans and a subjugated caste of black
Africans.
But people don’t like to say that they keep slaves of a certain race or origin
simply because it’s economically expedient. Like the Aryan conquerors of India,
white Europeans in the Americas wanted to be seen not only as economically
successful but also as pious, just and objective. Religious and scientific myths
were pressed into service to justify this division. Theologians argued that
Africans descend from Ham, son of Noah, saddled by his father with a curse that
his offspring would be slaves. Biologists argued that blacks are less intelligent
than whites and their moral sense less developed. Doctors alleged that blacks
live in filth and spread diseases – in other words, they are a source of pollution.
These myths struck a chord in American culture, and in Western culture
generally. They continued to exert their influence long after the conditions that
created slavery had disappeared. In the early nineteenth century imperial Britain
outlawed slavery and stopped the Atlantic slave trade, and in the decades that
followed slavery was gradually outlawed throughout the American continent.
Notably, this was the first and only time in history that slaveholding societies
voluntarily abolished slavery. But, even though the slaves were freed, the racist
myths that justified slavery persisted. Separation of the races was maintained by
racist legislation and social custom.
The result was a self-reinforcing cycle of cause and effect, a vicious circle.
Consider, for example, the southern United States immediately after the Civil
War. In 1865 the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution outlawed
slavery and the Fourteenth Amendment mandated that citizenship and the equal
protection of the law could not be denied on the basis of race.
However, two
centuries of slavery meant that most black families were far poorer and far less
educated than most white families. A black person born in Alabama in 1865 thus
had much less chance of getting a good education and a well-paid job than did
his white neighbours. His children, born in the 1880S and 1890s, started life with
the same disadvantage – they, too, were born to an uneducated, poor family.
But economic disadvantage was not the whole story. Alabama was also
home to many poor whites who lacked the opportunities available to their betteroff
racial brothers and sisters. In addition, the Industrial Revolution and the
waves of immigration made the United States an extremely fluid society, where
rags could quickly turn into riches. If money was all that mattered, the sharp
divide between the races should soon have blurred, not least through
intermarriage.
But that did not happen. By 1865 whites, as well as many blacks, took it to
be a simple matter of fact that blacks were less intelligent, more violent and
sexually dissolute, lazier and less concerned about personal cleanliness than
whites. They were thus the agents of violence, theft, rape and disease – in other
words, pollution. If a black Alabaman in 1895 miraculously managed to get a
good education and then applied for a respectable job such as a bank teller, his
odds of being accepted were far worse than those of an equally qualified white
candidate. The stigma that labelled blacks as, by nature, unreliable, lazy and less
intelligent conspired against him.
You might think that people would gradually understand that these stigmas
were myth rather than fact and that blacks would be able, over time, to prove
themselves just as competent, law-abiding and clean as whites. In fact, the
opposite happened – these prejudices became more and more entrenched as time
went by. Since all the best jobs were held by whites, it became easier to believe
that blacks really are inferior. ‘Look,’ said the average white citizen, ‘blacks
have been free for generations, yet there are almost no black professors, lawyers,
doctors or even bank tellers. Isn’t that proof that blacks are simply less
intelligent and hard-working?’ Trapped in this vicious circle, blacks were not
hired for white-collar jobs because they were deemed unintelligent, and the
proof of their inferiority was the paucity of blacks in white-collar jobs.
The vicious circle did not stop there. As anti-black stigmas grew stronger,
they were translated into a system of ‘Jim Crow’ laws and norms that were
meant to safeguard the racial order. Blacks were forbidden to vote in elections,
to study in white schools, to buy in white stores, to eat in white restaurants, to
sleep in white hotels. The justification for all of this was that blacks were foul,
slothful and vicious, so whites had to be protected from them. Whites did not
want to sleep in the same hotel as blacks or to eat in the same restaurant, for fear
of diseases. They did not want their children learning in the same school as black
children, for fear of brutality and bad influences. They did not want blacks
voting in elections, since blacks were ignorant and immoral. These fears were
substantiated by scientific studies that ‘proved’ that blacks were indeed less
educated, that various diseases were more common among them, and that their
crime rate was far higher (the studies ignored the fact that these ‘facts’ resulted
from discrimination against blacks).
By the mid-twentieth century, segregation in the former Confederate states
was probably worse than in the late nineteenth century. Clennon King, a black
student who applied to the University of Mississippi in 1958, was forcefully
committed to a mental asylum. The presiding judge ruled that a black person
must surely be insane to think that he could be admitted to the University of
Mississippi.
The vicious circle: a chance histotical situation is translated into a rigid
social system.
Nothing was as revolting to American southerners (and many northerners) as
sexual relations and marriage between black men and white women. Sex
between the races became the greatest taboo and any violation, or suspected
violation, was viewed as deserving immediate and summary punishment in the
form of lynching. The Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist secret society,
perpetrated many such killings. They could have taught the Hindu Brahmins a
thing or two about purity laws.
With time, the racism spread to more and more cultural arenas. American
aesthetic culture was built around white standards of beauty. The physical
attributes of the white race – for example light skin, fair and straight hair, a small
upturned nose – came to be identified as beautiful. Typical black features – dark
skin, dark and bushy hair, a flattened nose – were deemed ugly. These
preconceptions ingrained the imagined hierarchy at an even deeper level of
human consciousness.
Such vicious circles can go on for centuries and even millennia, perpetuating
an imagined hierarchy that sprang from a chance historical occurrence. Unjust
discrimination often gets worse, not better, with time. Money comes to money,
and poverty to poverty. Education comes to education, and ignorance to
ignorance. Those once victimised by history are likely to be victimised yet again.
And those whom history has privileged are more likely to be privileged again.
Most sociopolitical hierarchies lack a logical or biological basis – they are
nothing but the perpetuation of chance events supported by myths. That is one
good reason to study history. If the division into blacks and whites or Brahmins
and Shudras was grounded in biological realities – that is, if Brahmins really had
better brains than Shudras – biology would be sufficient for understanding
human society. Since the biological distinctions between different groups of
Homo sapiens are, in fact, negligible, biology can’t explain the intricacies of
Indian society or American racial dynamics. We can only understand those
phenomena by studying the events, circumstances, and power relations that
transformed figments of imagination into cruel – and very real – social
structures.
