Voltaire and the ‘Blacks’ - The true, repugnant face of the “Enlightenment”

Orthodox Outlet for Dogmatic Enquiries	Atheism

When putting together all my studies regarding the (Greek) 25^th of March anniversary and the (Orthodox Church's) “Hidden School”, I was obliged to read all the “wisdoms” of progressive historians on these topics as well. That was where I noticed how the “refrain” common to all of them was their condemnation of the Church as something obscure and medieval, supposedly because She was opposed to progress and the light that the enlightenment movement had brought to mankind. And naturally, they never ceased to point out that the Church was also opposed to the 1821 revolution in Greece for its liberation after 400 years of Turkish occupation - the appearance of which we are being told we supposedly owe exclusively to the Enlightenment, which is the most progressive thing ever to have appeared on earth, given that we people all owe our “human rights” to it.

So, all people are indebted to the Enlightenment…..

All people?

Well, almost all, but not quite….

Because all those - who so vehemently label as an obscurantist anyone who dares to express any opposition to the enlightenment movement – have “forgotten” to show us another, not-so-enlightened aspect of the “century of lights”…

In other words, they omit to tell us that human rights -albeit a good and perfect idea- apply exclusively to ... the white race! Yes, all those magnificent and outstanding anti-racists of our time happen to be the staunch supporters and fiery heralds of the cruelest racist movement ever to have appeared, which is none other than the Enlightenment. This explains why all the major representatives of the Enlightenment are also the toughest kind of racists – in fact, with a racism so savage, that it profoundly shocks every person who has noticed it…

We will now begin with the views expressed by the Enlightenment’s “crème de la crème”, namely Voltaire, on negroes and their … “rights”; this philosopher had made the following… non-racist statement when describing our negro fellow-men :

"Essay on the Manners and the Spirit of Nations"

«Leurs yeux ronds, leur nez épaté, leurs lèvres toujours grosses, leurs oreilles différemment figurées, la laine de leur tête, la mesure même de leur intelligence, mettent entre eux et les autres espèces d’hommes des d i f f é r e n c e s prodigieuses »:

Essai sur les moeurs, INTRODUCTION.[1]

(Their round eyes, their flattened nose, their lips which are always large, their differently shaped ears, the wool of their head, that very measure of their intelligence, place prodigious differences between them and the other species of men.)

«Εt ils n’ont d’homme que la stature du corps, avec la faculté de la parole et de la pensée dans un degré très éloigné du nôtre. Tels sont ceux que j’ai vus et examinés»:

Essai sur les moeurs, INTRODUCTION.[2]

(And they are not men, except in their stature, with the faculty of speech and thought at a degree far distant to ours. Such are the ones that I have seen and examined.)

«Εt on peut dire que si leur intelligence n’est pas d’une autre espèce que notre entendement, elle est fort inférieure. Ils ne sont pas capables d’une grande attention; ils combinent peu, et ne paraissent faits ni pour les avantages ni pour les abus de notre philosophie»:

Essai sur les moeurs, κεφ. CXLI.[3]

(And one could say that if their intelligence is not of another species than ours, then it is greatly inferior. They are not capable of paying much attention; they mingle very little, and they do not appear to be made either for the advantages or the abuses of our philosophy.)

And the best quote:

«C'est une grande question parmi eux s'ils son descendus des singes, ou si les singes sont venus d'eux. Nos sages ont dit que l'homme est l'image de Dieu: voilà une plaisante image de l'Etre éternel qu'un nez noir épaté, avec peu ou point d'intelligence! Un temps viendra, sans doute, où ces animaux sauront bien cultiver la terre, l'embellir par des maisons et par des jardins, et connaître la route des astres. Il faut du temps pour tout»:

Lettres d’Amabed, Septième lettre. D'Amabed.[4]

(And it is a big question whether among them they are descendants of monkeys, or if monkeys come from them. Our wise men have said that man is the image of God: behold a pleasant image of the eternal Being with a flat black nose, with little or no intelligence! A time will come, without a doubt, when these animals will know how to cultivate the earth well, to embellish it with houses and gardens, and to know the routes of the stars. Time is a must, for everything.)

What repulsion that supreme Enlightener and FOUNDER of human rights –Voltaire- must have truly felt for black people! And how the teachings of the Holy Bible must have annoyed him (that all people originate from one sole couple, Adam and Eve) And how could it be otherwise, given that for all racists this specific teaching of the Bible is like a red rag to a bull (see the amazing analysis by William B. Cohen, The French Encounter With Africans: White Response to Blacks, 1530-1880, Indiana University Press 2003, p. 84 etc.).

Of course the above are just a small sample of the beautiful non-racist things that Voltaire had written about negroes.

So, was it only Voltaire who had such…humanitarian and very anti-racist views? Of course not! Listen to what the equally great, enlightened philosopher David Hume says:

«I am apt to suspect the Negroes, and in general all other species of men, to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was any civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent in action or speculation. No ingenious manufactures among them, no arts, no sciences... Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many countries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction between these breeds of men»:

Of national characters, in Essays: Moral, Political and Literary.[5]

It is a well-known fact that the great American president Thomas Jefferson – who, while in Paris had actually participated in the drafting of the famous Declaration of Human Rights for man and citizen – was himself the owner of more than a hundred negro slaves…

We will now apprehend that great philosopher of MORALITY in an … anti-racist explosion of his (and this is where we all die laughing): Mr. Emmanuel Kant (yes, the famous Kant!), who says the following:

«Die Negers von Afrika haben von der Natur kein Gefühl, welches über das Läppische stiege. Herr Hume fordert jedermann auf, ein einziges Beispiel anzuführen, da ein Neger Talente gewiesen habe, und behauptet: daß unter den hunderttausenden von Schwarzen, die aus ihren Ländern anderwärts verführt werden, dennoch nicht ein einziger jemals gefunden worden, der entweder in Kunst oder Wissenschaft, oder irgend einer andern rühmlichen Eigenschaft etwas Großes vorgestellt habe, obgleich unter den Weißen sich beständig welche aus dem niedrigsten Pöbel empor schwingen und durch vorzügliche Gaben in der Welt ein Ansehen erwerben. So wesentlich ist der Unterschied zwischen diesen zwei Menschengeschlechtern, und er scheint eben so groß in Ansehung der Gemüthsfähigkeiten, als der Farbe nach zu sein»: Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen, Vierter Abschnitt.[6]

(The Negroes of Africa have not received any intelligence from Nature that rises above foolishness. Mr. Hume challenges anyone to suggest even one example of a negro who has displayed any talent. As he himself verifies, among the hundreds of thousands of blacks who have wandered far away from their homelands, even though many of them have been liberated, not one exists who has succeeded in anything great, either in the arts or the sciences or in any other noteworthy thing. On the contrary, among the whites, people continuously rise above the low point that they were and they evolve through their superior qualifications, attaining worldly fame. The difference therefore between the two races is an essential one: It appears to be equally big, both with regard to the capabilities of the mind, as well as to the color.)

And I will close this brief walk through the wonderful and… enlightened world of the Enlightenment, with the revealing words that Abraham Lincoln had said in regard to the rights that negroes in America could have, following their liberation:

«I will say, then, that I AM NOT NOR HAVE EVER BEEN in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the black and white races---that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with White people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the White and black races which will ever FORBID the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the White race»:

4th Lincoln-Douglas debate, 18 ix. Collected Works, Vol.3, pp.145-146.[7]

And this was the great liberator of negroes, Abraham Lincoln… (see related images below)

Behold, the disgusting brutality of the Enlightenment in all its glory; an enlightenment which had proclaimed human rights and equality in many ways, but with one condition: that they apply exclusively to the white race. And as we all know, these “radiant” teachings of the enlightenment did not remain in written form, but were implemented with the utmost precision and fastidiousness during the years that followed, both through colonization but also through the racist discriminations that were officially established in the larger countries of the “enlightened” West, with America first and foremost.

This, my friends, is the enlightenment that the “enlightened” intellectuals want us to embrace as “progress” and “light”. This is the enlightenment that whoever dares to reject or even doubt is characterized as an obscurantist enemy of progress, of science and all the other things that we are aware of. This is the philosophy in whose name all the dynamic anti-racists of our time swear by.

Just so that we be fully aware of what they are “promoting” to the world….