This chapter's exercise is about doing some personal reflection. There are no right or wrong answers here, instead this is an opportunity for you to take some time and think about your ethical values and beliefs.
A letter to the past (10 mins.)
This exercise asks you to explore what it would take to change your mind about something important.
Imagine someone from the past who held views characteristic of that time. Also imagine, for the sake of the exercise, that this person is not too different from you - perhaps you would have been friends. Unfortunately, many people in the past were complicit in horrible things, such as slavery, sexism, racism, and homophobia, which were even more prevalent in the past than they are now. And, sadly, this historical counterpart is also complicit in some moral tragedy common to their time, perhaps not out of malevolence or ill-will, but merely through indifference or ignorance.
This exercise is to write a short letter to this historical friend arguing that they should care about a specific group that your present self values. Imagine that they are complicit in owning slaves, or in the oppression of women, people of other races, or sexual minorities.
For the sake of this exercise, imagine your historical counterpart is not malevolent or selfish, they think they are living a normal moral life, but are unaware of where they are going wrong. What could you say to them to make them realize that they’re doing wrong? What evidence are they overlooking that allows them to hold their discriminatory views? You might want to write a few paragraphs or just bullet points, and spend time reflecting on what you write.
My dearest Wolfi,
I was reading the Zeitung on Sunday morning. You know that I never skip this self-care ritual of mine, and I was surprised to see your familiar face in a photo taken by a journalist in your town covering a Pro-Rasse rally. I am very supportive of you taking action about the causes that you believe righteous, and this made me ponder whether I should join your National Socialist cause in order to enable the best possible version of the homo sapiens.
I first skimmed Darwin´s Natural Selection theory. It´s indeed impressive. I see how you might be worried about spending resources on taking care of the sick and the weak because we don´t want them to have equally sick and weak offspring. We have done this with dogs even well before we developed script! I understand, why should not we do this with our own species? Good, healthy loyal dogs were fed and had offspring. Unfriendly and sick dogs weren´t fed and taken care of, and eventually, their genes died out.
What I however could not integrate into this reasoning is the argument against tanned people, people belonging to other ethnicities or having particular sexual orientations. This is why I spent my Monday afternoon in the library, reading the scientific research on the differences between Aryans and the rest of homo sapiens. In the past, scientists have made mistakes and new scientific methods and tools have proven them wrong. What if we were wrong here as well regarding which humans should be spared to secure the human species´s best possible evolution?
I could not but think of the African slaves in the US. Ancient empires also allowed slavery, but they didn´t target 1 particular race. Anyone: white, dark, short, tall, strong, or chubby could be a slave and often, slaves would buy their freedom and become citizens. I recently had the opportunity to read more about this topic. Do you know why black Africans and not any other people were enslaved by white colonizers? Apart from taking advantage of the already-existing slave trade in Africa by Europeans and the geographical closeness, of course, it wasn´t because they were inferior, quite the opposite.
White colonizers and native people were dying of diseases against which our African fellow homo sapiens had already developed resistance. So what if black Africans have evolved and are biologically better equipped than Aryans already, and whites have been wasting their precious genes by killing them with hard labour for centuries? We could have saved a lot of money trying to cure diseases for which their genes already had an antidote. It would be a shame that we didn´t interbreed earlier.
Please, consider my observations and I will be looking forward to your next letter. I hope you can give me more insight into the White Supremacy Humanist cause, taking my worries into account.
Liebe Grüße,
Your Victoria G.