EGI: Setting the Record Straight (Again)

Some issues.

Every once in a while, Salter’s ethnic genetic interests (EGI) concept gets attacked by individuals who, in their delusional wishful “thinking,” believe they have discredited the concept, while they of course have not, often relying on misrepresentation of Salter’s work, bizarre illogic, lies, etc. Some misguided souls on the Right unfortunately join in with this foolishness, and often focus on what they believe – or make believe that they believe – is Salter’s descriptive and prescriptive opinions on the subject of altruistic self-sacrifice for the ethny (and related issues of free riding, etc.). These critics state that Salter and others who promote EGI preach an unrealistic, indeed unhinged, view of self-sacrifice, a view that is independent of reality and, according to these critics on the Right, would alienate people from nationalist activism. They often quote statements like the following from On Genetic Interests:

…it would appear to be more adaptive for an Englishman to risk life or property resisting the immigration of two Bantu immigrants to England than his taking the same risk to rescue one of his own children from drowning…

They therefore portray “Salterism” as meaning that ordinary people should be sacrificing their lives and the lives of their families to prevent the influx of two Bantu immigrants (or something similar) and that is presented as being self-evidently “crazy.”  

Let’s take a closer look at this issue, concentrating on what Salter actually wrote in On Genetic Interests, taking everything into context, and elucidating from all of that what Salter is actually describing and prescribing. Please note that when I quote from Salter I do so exactly, and the spelling of certain words reflect British-Australian, rather than American, conventions.

The above quote about “resisting the immigration of two Bantu immigrants” is clearly being taken out of context by the critics, who aver that Salter is either suggesting that people will behave in this manner (descriptive) or that he is advising that they should behave in this manner (prescriptive), or both. The actual context of the statement is that it follows an intricate discussion of population genetics and genetic kinship and Salter is clearly theoretically (“it would appear to be”) speculating on adaptive behavior in an objective sense. He does not expect, or advise, e.g., that a person will strap a torpedo on their back and swim out to blow up a migrant boat while at the same time ignoring their own child drowning. That Salter (obviously) realizes that people do not normally behave in this manner (although one needs to remember self-sacrifice of self or family in warfare) can be observed in various parts of the book, including in the chapter on ethics, where Salter writes:

An interest that is only partially discerned or invisible to many eyes, is unlikely to be the subject of adaptive moral feelings. Thus morality is likely to be more adaptive on the small scale, in matters of individual and familial relations, than in large scale ethnic affairs. While practical ethics should never drift too far from the anchor of sentiments, to think responsibly about ethnic affairs requires more deliberation and systematic fact-finding than is necessary in the personal realm.

See also my discussion of "Salterian" ethics, including the issue of “bounded rationality.”

Thus, the idea that people have a inherent moral sense in which they would typically engage in radical self-sacrifice for “large scale ethnic affairs” (apart from open war) is NOT something that Salter espouses, and to argue otherwise is an outright lie.

What about prescription?  What does Salter advise? Let us look at Section 6e: Maximizing the ratio of fitness benefits to costs. Salter writes:

Minimizing the cost of ethnic altruism is more often a salient issue than minimizing family altruism. Because the former is much more vulnerable to the risks of free riders, to incomplete information about kinship coefficients, and to other uncertainties. 

Here Salter very clearly states that minimizing the costs of ethnic altruism is “more often a salient issue” than doing so with respect to familial altruism, since the ethnic situation is affected by free riding (lack of reciprocity), uncertainty about kinship (e.g., in cases of shallow genetic gradients, such as French vs. German, can we be sure that the altruism is being properly directed to those more genetically related?), and by “other uncertainties.”  He then states:

When all the other variables bearing on the adaptiveness of ethnic altruism are favourable, it is adaptive to make large sacrifices for one’s ethny. But when that is not the case, as it so often is not, it is inherently more difficult to invest adaptively in one’s ethny than in one’s children and other close relatives.

Once again note the phrase by Salter here: “it is inherently more difficult to invest adaptively in one’s ethny than in one’s children and other close relatives” and compare that to the unfair and cartoonish depiction of Salter advocating wildly destructive self-sacrifice on behalf of the ethny.  The enormous gulf between what Salter actually advocates and how his critics portray his work underscores the breathtaking dishonesty and mendacity of those critics.

More optimal strategies for ethnic altruism could include (bold font in original):

…political activity and inexpensive but repetitive acts of favouritism shown to ingroup members. Favouring many individuals at low per-unit cost also helps overcome the free rider problem.

Thus, low cost and relatively low risk activities focusing on mild ethnic favoritism, social and political activism, donations of money and effort to pro-ethnic groups, etc.- which all groups except for Whites do on a routine basis - is certainly reasonable and not outrageous, and is a far cry from sacrificing one’s life or that of one’s family.  Again, to ignore what Salter actually writes is the height of dishonesty and mendacity.

Salter also writes (bold font in original):

When a person’s family is already provided for such that further investment yields greatly diminished returns, there is a rising payoff to investing surplus resources in the ethny. Resources at the discretion of an individual but derived from the public realm are well invested ethnically.

Thus, take care of family first and then, once that is dealt with, surplus investment can be for the ethny; again, this is a far cry from the dishonest caricatures of Salter’s position. Further, individuals in positions of authority can use public resources (not sacrificing their own personal resources) to help the ethny; this can be particularly appropriate since use of those public resources for personal and/or familial use may be overtly illegal (e.g., anti-corruption and anti-nepotism laws) or at least will leave the person open to public accusations of corruption or familial nepotism, impugning their character. This viewpoint is reasonable and prudent; nothing is there about dramatic and radical self-sacrificial altruism.

Salter also favors defensive over offensive activism (e.g., preventing the influx of alien peoples into your territory rather than expansion of your ethny into other people’s territories) as the defensive minimizes costs while preserving the core of EGI. With respect to warfare (where, descriptively, people have historically engaged in self-sacrificial altruism for the ethny), Salter also clearly states that the self-sacrifice of an ethnic population in warfare can sometimes by exploited by free riding elites. Thus, far from being a wild-eyed proponent of radical self-sacrifice, Salter at times questions whether the willingness of a population to engage in self-sacrifice may be exploited by self-serving elites.

With respect to the side argument that when people do engage in self-sacrifice for ethny, such as in war, they do so for proximate interests (patriotism, nationhood, culture, perception of a foreign danger – sometimes exaggerated by elites), rather than a cold calculation of EGI, well, Salter discusses that as well. Note the comment quoted above – “An interest that is only partially discerned or invisible to many eyes, is unlikely to be the subject of adaptive moral feelings” and the call for analysis, and note, even more so, that many of the proximate justifications for self-sacrifice are merely a surface veneer covering the ultimate concerns over group genetic continuity (even if not openly stated, or even recognized, as such).  

Thus, people may be more easily motivated to defend EGI when it is presented through some more proximate proxies; however, the end result is often the same.  Also note that proxies for EGI, such as wave-the-flag patriotism and other indirect, proximate concerns, may be more easily manipulated by free riding elites to get the population to engage in activities that have the net effect of decreasing ethnic (including ethnic genetic) interests. A reading of Salter’s book makes clear he deals with concerns over motivating factors, including arguments I won’t get into here, but we are moving away from the main argument – that claims that Salter expects radical self-sacrifice for EGI, and indeed advocates such, are wrong and fundamentally dishonest, in light of what Salter has actually written on the subject.

Now, having done the serious analysis, I can now engage in some ad hominem. As clearly shown in this post, the attacks against "Salterian" EGI are at best completely wrong and misguided and at worst openly dishonest.  What motivates such ineptness and dishonesty? Let’s tackle the dishonesty first.  Criticisms of the EGI concept typically originate either on the “anti-racist” Left (including ideologically motivated academics) as well with HBDers. The latter group is motivated by personal ethnic interest (e.g., Asian, Jews, etc. who specifically want to discourage White ethnic activism while practicing their own), familial ethnic interest (Whites intermarried with Asians, Jews, etc.), and/or people ideologically committed to aracial cognitive elitism. The inept fraction of anti-"Salterians" are typically those who can’t think for themselves (or be bothered to actually fully read Salter’s work) and who blindly follow the comments of leftist academics and HBDers as “the final word” on this subject.  However, just because others practice mendacity or stupidity does not obligate you, the reader, to follow their lead.