Chapter 2 – The History of the Classification - The Right to Kill

“Emotions can produce wonderful speeches and stirring op-ed pieces. But emotions alone cannot produce policies that will achieve what they promise.”
Capitol Hill hearing on tensions in U.S.-U.N. relations by Madeline Albright

The Right to Kill

Consider for a moment the history of racial and ethnic differences of the past. It is simple to review historical evidence and recall quickly the German Holocaust of an estimated 6 million Jews. But that is certainly not the only episode of ethnic cleansing. Facts demonstrate that actually as distasteful as it may sound, the Jewish Holocaust pales in considerations of more recent genocide. In Rwanda during the spring of 1994, Hutu military forces began attacking people of the Tutsis ethnic group. The Red Cross estimated that within a one month period more than 500,000 Rwandan’s (both Hutu and Tutsis) died in the conflict. The attacks started after an April 6th plane crash in 1994. A crash that killed Rwandan President Habyarimana set off an ethnic conflict between two groups so similar that we as Westerners can find no real difference. The attacks and killings began the very night of the crash, suggesting an already established distrust or disagreement between the two groups. By late June the killing had stopped only after international interdiction from the French and Belgium governments. The total death toll exceeded 800,000 people within a 100-day conflict. The totals suggest 8000 people a day. Had Hitler and the German nation employed this level of genocide from 1936 until the end of World War II, one could calculate more than 24 million Jews would have been killed. The Rwandan conflict showed ethnic-cleansing processes combined with modern technology enabled people to kill each other at a rate more than 4 times that during the 1930s and 1940s. Atrocities of this level should cry out to the people of the world. Why? What historical or biological process compels people of the same basic biologic design to commit such horrific acts of mass killing? Certainly the answer is not easy, however, I believe the basis for the separation lies in a history of classification. We can not change our history. Furthermore, recognizing our history as distasteful is also not enough to stop this behavior. One only need watch human behavior from, the Crusades, the Native American Holocaust, the destruction of the Zulu nation, Russian attacks on Armenia, conflicts in Bosnia, Rwanda, recent attacks on farms in Zimbabwe and the list goes on. Do not let this list fool you. There is no group that can stand innocent as victims or as perpetrators. These discussions are not to blame or lament. Rather these discussions are to understand. Either we must find a clear separation that can be respected or we must see the role of racial and ethnic classification as a dated misunderstood process.

We may have to first look to the past to understand the present. Doing as was done by Hitler and the Hutu military we will first create a scapegoat to our problems. We can quickly place the blame on a German Biologist from 1795, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. He was the first to propose the classification process. At least as we understand it today. Can he really be the scapegoat? No – ultimately the failure resides within us. Like so many other scientists Blumenbach’s principles were more complex than the average individual can comprehend in totality. Consider for a moment the aforementioned example of Newton or Einstein. Newton set down his laws of motion and kinematics over 400 years ago. After 400 years, only a select few people in our world today understand his writings in their completeness. A few understand his writings to an introductory proficiency, but most either mis-construe the laws of motion or know little more than an apple will fall to the ground when it leaves a tree.

Newton wanted to explain nature as it was observed. This desire determined his choice of axioms. Strictly speaking, the success of Newtonian dynamics rests not on the verification of individual axioms, but on the success of the entire scheme in predicting what we observe.
-- Jones / Childers Contemporary College Physics


Just as Newton wanted to explain the laws of observed motion, Blumenbach wanted to create a method to compare osteomorphological differences. Blumenbach recognized that humans were distinctly different animals. Specifically what he realized was that Homo Sapiens were the one group of animals capable of walking upright. Although Homo Sapiens share many osteomorphological similarities to apes, Blumenbach noted that the similarities certainly ended with any physical characteristics associated with locomotion. Blumenbach noted a marked difference between quadraped and bipedal activity, and that there was significant variation within the group of Homo Sapiens biped group. Darwin’s research and publication entitled the Origin of the Species would not be published for more than a half of a century. For Blumenbach to note humans as an object of Natural History was revolutionary for his time. As most revolutionary thoughts go it was also very mis-construed. Blumenbach was school, trained and placed emphasis on comparative anatomy. Specifically Blumenbach enjoyed studying cranial structures. Although Blumenbach traveled little he was able to create distinct classifications of cranial morphology amongst groups. Originally, in his work, De generis humani varietate nativa liber translated as On the Natural Varieties of Mankind, Blumenbach states cranial structure, skin color and hair texture can be used to create four classifications of mankind. By his third edition the breakout expanded to 5 groups and he provided us the terms - Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian, American, and Malayan. At the same time Blumenbach divided people into sub classes of Homo, he made special emphasis to the gap between man and animal. Furthermore he ardently attacked all political or social abuses of his anthropological ideas that suggested that any group is on a lower level of humanity than any other group. As you will soon read, Blumenbach was astutely aware that superficial evaluation of phenotypic differences can easily classify a group, however, determining the measure of robustness of humanity is not as easily determined.

Too often, humanity as a whole looks at things for what they are and not what they are intended to be or even known to be. But to understand intention is not an easy process. This lack of understanding creates a situation of ambiguity amongst the masses that can result in terrible injustices, and wasted efforts. When I was in high school, I was selected as part of a group of students that would attend a college philosophy course for a day. Our role was to observe and then return to the school to discuss what we had heard, seen and experienced. Some 20 plus years later I remember the lecture. The lecture was addressing the works of Plato and a review of Socrates death. In the work Phaedo, Plato attempts to address the meaning and reality of a soul. The question at hand is what is a chair? The common answer is that a chair is something on which I sit. But can you not sit on a desk or a bed? In so doing does sitting on it alter its form? No. Sitting on a bed does not alter the intention that the bed was formed for the purpose of sleeping. Likewise standing on a chair to change a light bulb or using the chair to block a door does not make the chair a ladder nor a door stop. The chair was made for the purpose of sitting and we know a chair based on our knowledge. Blumenbach created groups to classify people. Placing people in these groups only serve as a method to classify within the group. Just as you could place chairs into groups by color, or comfort. It still remains a chair. The purpose of a distinct chair makes no chair less worthy than any other. Consider for a moment the following. A comfortable recliner heavily padded and made of soft material is not what you will find at mission control at NASA. The mission control experts need chairs that sit up right. They need chairs that role from point A to point B. In some cases these “Mission Control” chairs can be more expensive than a comfortable recliner. However, have you ever considered watching a 3-hour movie at your house in a up right desk chair on rollers? This may seem to be a ludicrous example, but now apply the information to racial classification. Blumenbach had knowledge of specific differences amongst cranial structure and he used this knowledge to extract groupings. I dare say the common individual does not know the exact meaning of cranium – That portion of a skull that encloses the brain – much less the dimensions which separate the races.

Let us consider the time in which Blumenbach categories of classification were suggested. European cultures were expanding throughout the globe. Britain, France, Germany and Spain and a host of other European nations were beginning to populate places like the Americas, India, Asia and Africa. In each case of migration, the European settlers were meeting indigenous people like the American Indian and Zulu Warriors. In some cases the meetings were amicable but all too often they were not. In many cases the new European settlers were a taxing burden on societies that did not understand the European method of life and certainly the Europeans found these log isolated cultures to be tremendously different from themselves. In all cases the human variation and environmental adaptations in skin color, size, religion and cultural ornamentation beaconed a substantial difference. Given the relatively recent scientific success of the Enlighment Period of Europe, it seemed simple for Europeans to militarily overwhelm their opponents. Not to mention the blessing of a relatively fair climate of European homeland had enabled significant population growth of the Caucasian race. Remember this sentence for in the near future of this writing we will address population growth as a key factor in our understanding of classification. With the political and social powers of Europe suggesting that expansion was destined by God, and a strong Christian desire to proselytize the faith of Jesus Christ, Europeans set out to convert or kill those cultures not in agreement with their own. Imagine the concepts of this period placed on the more recent invasion on Iraq. Iraqis speak a odd language, they worship the “wrong” god. They clearly have not developed their resources as well as us. As a testament, they still ride donkeys and live in thatched huts in the country. Certainly we should either convert them or kill them. In a sense this is what we are doing. America is attempting to convert them to democracy and a method of capitalism. Many in America believe this is what is best for the people of Iraq. Many people in Iraq believe this is best for them. However, there are those that disagree. Right, wrong or indifferent (and certainly this book is not about political conflict in the middle east) it is happening. There is a cultural change that is occurring, and it is occurring at the expense of life. We can only hope that it does not occur with the same volume of death that occurred in Rwanda.

In all cases of cultural transformation there is sure to be conflict. This conflict in many cases results in death and violence. This supposed tenant of transformation conflict is in juxtaposition to the humane position of peace and love. To provide a sense of justification, people of the past and present have sought out religious, and scientific support for the action. Blumenbach through attempting to develop an anatomical and anthropological classification of humans inadvertently also created a basis for the political ministers to justify their actions.

Once Blumenbach provided a basis of scientific measurements associated with racial classification, it became simple for political and even religious leaders to extract the pieces that they needed to propel their cultural agendas. Consider Blumenbach position on cranial capacity. Blumenbach showed with tremendous success as well as others have after him a direct correlation between cranial size and race. It is been measured on many occasions that on average Asians have the largest cranial capacity when normalized to body mass, whites although smaller than Asians are larger than blacks. Although it is very tempting for me to launch into a discussion on intellectual ability and its correlation to cranial volumes, I must ask the reader to be patient. The story is still a bit to complex for that. For the reader that quickly sites the well-documented correlation and good science of study, I would ask that you continue to read. Without the full picture of these studies it is easy to accept the “right to kill” based almost solely on cranial differences. Recall the discussion above where we reviewed the discussion on Newton’s Axioms. “Strictly speaking, the success of Newtonian dynamics rests not on the verification of individual axioms, but on the success of the entire scheme”. Yes there is a correlation here, but it is long been accepted that there is a correlation between full moons and birth rates. However a study conducted by Daniel Canton at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Appalachian State has provided strong evidence that full moon birth rate occurrence is a minimum whereas birthrates show a maximum during the third quarter. The Latin term for this form of reasoning is non sequitur. Literally interrupted this means it does not follow. However, the human mind is conditioned to associate any two significant events and thus extract from them a new reality. Specifically in our case of discussion Blumenbach showed a difference in both size and construct amongst the races. Adding later studies, perhaps first presented by the famous Anthropologist Dubois, that cranial capacity normalized for body mass demonstrates a direct correlation to intellectual ability, the political forces at hand obtained the fodder required to continue the cultural manipulations. These political and religious juggernauts that cranial capacity dictate a level of humanity have provided the much-needed impetus to implore methods of genocide throughout history. Imagine for a moment that this axiom of phenotypic measurement should be taken to the extreme. The murder case could be as follows. How big was the victim’s skull? How big is the defendant’s skull? Clearly he had the right to kill the victim because he has more cranial capacity. Thankfully, Blumenbach’s axiom of cranial capacity is not applicable for this general case.