Race-thinking supplied a natural aristocracy to replace the feudal nobility

Evidence

Colonial racism was a major element in that conception of ‘Empire’ which attempted to weld dynastic legitimacy and national community. It did so by generalizing a principle of innate, inherited superiority on which its own domestic position was (however shakily) based to the vastness of the overseas possessions, covertly (or not so covertly) conveying the idea that if, say, English lords were naturally superior to other Englishmen, no matter: these other Englishmen were no less superior to the subjected natives. Indeed one is tempted to argue that the existence of late colonial empires even served to shore up domestic aristocratic bastions, since they appeared to confirm on a global, modern stage antique conceptions of power and privilege. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 571 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Nobility’s conquest doctrine split France into two peoples before race-thinking emerged; Might-right doctrine became naturalized into physical race judgment; Gobineau’s race theory translated caste decline into civilizational decay (+12 more)

Related

• Nobility’s conquest doctrine split France into two peoples before race-thinking emerged (similarity 0.91)
• The modern race concept was modeled on aristocratic caste ideas (similarity 0.90)
• Feudal concepts reaching lower classes made English race-thinking inheritance-obsessed (similarity 0.89)
• Colonial racism generalized aristocratic superiority to justify empire and shore up domestic class rule (similarity 0.87)
• British administrative aloofness fostered belief in permanent racial superiority over subject peoples (similarity 0.83)
• Imperialism would have invented racism even without prior race-thinking (similarity 0.83)
• English race-thinking centered on inheritance and eugenics because gentry assimilation preserved feudal concepts. (similarity 0.82)
• Race thinking was invented by middle-class intellectuals wanting to democratize noble status (similarity 0.80)
• Racial ideology entered English statecraft through governing India, not the colonies (similarity 0.80)
• European race thinking originated as aristocratic status anxiety (similarity 0.80)
• Race-thinking preceded and differs from racism as a full ideology (similarity 0.80)
• Race doctrines gained appeal by granting aristocratic status by birth (similarity 0.80)
• Race ideology offered a substitute aristocracy to displaced elites. (similarity 0.79)
• The Enlightenment laid the basis for modern ideas of race (similarity 0.79)
• Colonial race thinking ordered both the globe and the nation’s internal hierarchy. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• The modern race concept was modeled on aristocratic caste ideas #expands (0.90)
• Colonial racism generalized aristocratic superiority to justify empire and shore up domestic class rule #expands (0.85) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 571
• Colonial racism welded dynastic legitimacy to national community by universalizing inherited superiority #expands (0.85)
• Race replaced medieval citizenship as the principle of European social order. #expands (0.80)
• Evolutionist doctrines translated middle-class ambition into biological race hierarchy #expands (0.75)
• English nationalism’s race-feeling stems from liberty conceived as inherited privilege #exemplifies (0.75) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 466