Arthur Graf J. Gobineau(1818‒1882) can be safely considered the founder of modern racial and racist theory, which had a significant influence on later racial theories in the following century, especially those of Nazi origin.
Gobineau and his racial-racist political theory were a historical product of the reactionary period of France during the reign of Napoleon III Bonaparte (President of the Second Republic in France, 1850‒1852; Emperor of the Second Empire in France, 1850‒1870) as well as of the centuries-old colonial experience of Western European countries in North and South America, Africa, and Asia. It should be noted that all political theories based on racial-racist political theoretical backgrounds are products of Western European civilization.
In the first half of the 19th century, racial theory remained virtually ineffective in Europe. However, during the Second Empire in France, which disillusioned the legitimate feudal structures in the country, and which, during the anti-feudal revolutionary crisis of 1848‒1849, as part of the “party of order”, allowed Napoleon III to come to power in order to defend the old order, there was a renaissance of racial feudal ideology, which soon took the form of modern colonial-racist political theory. A. G. J. Gobineau represented the main turning point in this process of ideological transition. Gobineau was able to renew feudal racial theory and breathe into it a new modernist spirit of racism because it became the combat ideology of the reactionary bourgeoisie against the old feudal nobility.
In essence, the main point of the racial-racist theory and ideology of A. G. J. Gobineau was the struggle against democracy, i.e., against the demand for the implementation of a policy of equality of people at all levels, including racial too. For Gobineau, such a demand was considered unscientific and also unnatural. The reason was simple because for Gobineau, all evil in history stemmed from the idea of equality. For him, this idea was an “atomic bomb” that destroyed all the values of human civilization in a historical perspective. In other words, Gobineau added a modernist bourgeois form to the medieval feudal perception of the “natural” inequality of human races, which in many cases corresponded to the capitalist system.
For Gobineau, the idea, or at least the scientific hypothesis of the equality of people, is only a symptom of the bastardization of the impurity of blood. For him, in so-called “normal times”, inequality is accepted as a phenomenon that is understandable in itself. One of Gobineau’s theses can be reduced to the following: If mixed blood flows in the veins of the majority of the citizens of a state, these same citizens, due to their large numbers, feel called upon to proclaim as a universally valid principle that for them all people are equal.
Due to his racist theory of the primacy of the white race over all other races, A. G. J. Gobineau, unlike his later followers, fell into pessimism due to the inevitable collapse of white culture and civilization, which comes as a result of blood mixing. According to this historical process, the originally purest and highest race of the white man was gradually replaced by members of the “colored” races, which ultimately led to the so-called “bastardization” of the white “superman” (later in Nazi ideology, the German Überman). However, unlike his later (e.g., Nazi) supporters and like-minded people, Gobineau did not offer any methods or goals to “correct” this “racial” situation on a global scale.
It can be stated that the starting point of Count Gobineau’s racial theory was the struggle against liberal democracy, i.e., against the view of the automatic equality of people. Gobineau and his supporters believed that this view was unnatural and extremely unscientific. Otherwise, according to Gobineau, all the misfortune of humanity stems from the view of the equality of people. Gobineau supports the understanding of the natural-racial inequality of people, essentially on genetic grounds. For Count Gobineau, the hypothesis of the equality of people on a racial basis is only the result of the policy of bastardization of the upper racial classes, as well as the result of impurity due to blood contamination.
Count Gobineau argued that in “normal” times, inequality is accepted as something that is natural and quite understandable in a rational sense. However, for him, if mixed blood flows in the veins of the majority of citizens of a political community (state), they, due to their large numbers (democracy), feel called upon to proclaim as a universally valid truth for them, which is that all people are equal. For Gobineau, this is one of the basic examples of the “bastardization” of the higher (white) race in relation to the lower (non-white) races, all within the framework of the will of the (democratic) majority. Here we can clearly see his attack on the basic principle of democracy (the will of the majority), but based on racial differences in society. A. G. J. Gobineau simply transfers social contradictions based on socio-professional differences to the field of racial differences and thus creates an excellent basis for the further development of racist theories and ideologies.
However, unlike most of his later ideological followers, A. G. J. Gobineau expresses extremely pessimistic hypotheses regarding the collapse of the culture and civilization of the white race due to mixing with other “lower” races, which he calls “bastards”. It is important to note that Count Gobineau does not offer any combat goals or methods to “return to normal” this state of affairs.
The racial theory of A. G. J. Gobineau, which he presented in his work on the inequality of human races (see edition:Die Ungleichkeit der Menschenrassen,Berlin 1935), reflected at a given historical moment the position of the French feudal aristocratic opposition, which was largely losing its position on the social and political plane of France after the revolutionary events of 1848‒1849, and which viewed the past as a socio-political state that needed to be re-established and which was reflected in feudal inequality. This feudal inequality was historically based on purely socio-economic inequality within the same local society that possessed more or less the same racial characteristics, but Count Gobineau transformed this inequality into a relation of racial inequality on a global level. In other words, the old feudal noble aristocracy did not like the idea of social equality, because in that case, that same aristocracy would lose its dominant position in society. Consequently, the noble aristocracy fought by all means, even racial theories, to maintain its “natural” (i.e., God-given) privileged position in society against the democratic ideas of the lower social classes about social equality and equal political rights in the same society.
Source: Global Research
