This article made my day, thank you. The frankness about race was an unexpected surprise. I like his use of the compass metaphor to explain white guilt:
"There is something unusual about the psychological makeup of white people. It can be metaphorically described as an inner compass. Due to that inner compass, white people need very little external force or punishment. They do not need much policing, so people can apply their potential to useful activities rather than wasting time donning a uniform and swinging a night-stick.
The absence of this inner compass is why, in Nigeria, no number of police officers can enforce traffic laws at an intersection. Indeed, most traffic enforcers and police officers routinely break the laws they are supposed to uphold (and still insist on taking a bribe at every random stop).
While this inner compass has tremendous advantages for white society, one disadvantage is that members of that inwardly guided culture are prone to tremendous torments of conscience that make them vulnerable to manipulation. There seems to be a miasma of guilt inherent to the very fabric of Western culture, a feeling of inadequacy for failing to measure up to one’s internal yardstick."
This article made my day, thank you. The frankness about race was an unexpected surprise. I like his use of the compass metaphor to explain white guilt:
"There is something unusual about the psychological makeup of white people. It can be metaphorically described as an inner compass. Due to that inner compass, white people need very little external force or punishment. They do not need much policing, so people can apply their potential to useful activities rather than wasting time donning a uniform and swinging a night-stick.
The absence of this inner compass is why, in Nigeria, no number of police officers can enforce traffic laws at an intersection. Indeed, most traffic enforcers and police officers routinely break the laws they are supposed to uphold (and still insist on taking a bribe at every random stop).
While this inner compass has tremendous advantages for white society, one disadvantage is that members of that inwardly guided culture are prone to tremendous torments of conscience that make them vulnerable to manipulation. There seems to be a miasma of guilt inherent to the very fabric of Western culture, a feeling of inadequacy for failing to measure up to one’s internal yardstick."
And we are being manipulated.