Rise

Nobody chooses to be a white supremacist.

In every western country, every white child is taught from earliest childhood (in church, in school, by all media), that whites are no better (and sometimes much worse) than any other type of people. They are also taught that if they depart from this teaching in the slightest degree, that it is an evil heresy, and they will be ostracized by all good people everywhere.

Then, occasionally, a white person finds out about all the great things white people actually did like build advanced civilizations, great world religions, impeccable philosophy, exquisite art, invent science, conquer most of the world, make moral progress, cure diseases, reduce global want and suffering, lift a finger toward the stars, invent iPhones. And he is puzzled because these achievements, by a relatively small minority of the world’s population, seem much more impressive than the sets of achievements made by other groups, which are often impressive enough in their own right.

And then a stray, seemingly ineluctable thought occurs to him, “Maybe whites are ‘superior’ to those other groups.” And once he has thought that thought, once he has used that taboo word (“superior”), he cannot unthink it. And all arguments against it may seem puny. “Sure, Indian and Chinese civilization are great,” he admits, “but just look at what the Europeans did!” And he might even look down on Stone Age tribes, whose societies cannot even be compared to the greatness of what he sees in European civilizations.

Now if he’s a naturally compliant person, he stays true to his moral programming: He forgets about these thoughts and never admits having thought them. But if he’s a rebellious person, an anti-social one—unconcerned about the moral judgements of others—he may become a white supremacist. And if so, he will have done so, without ever making a conscious choice.

The white supremacist just can’t make his brain obey socially orthothodox norms. Being a white supremacist in 2016 is a lot like be an atheist in 1716.