Racial ideology grew from status anxiety, not empirical perception of threat
Evidence
Undoubtedly the most important reason for the trend lay in the pride of ancestry stimulated by the chaotic social climbing of the Gilded Age. At a time when parvenus were managing practical affairs and clamoring for admission to the choicest circles, there was compensation and a measure of status in associating one’s personal lineage with the original fount of national greatness. Thus Anglo-Saxonism became a kind of patrician nationalism. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 195
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the reader’s thesis that manufactured enemies track social/economic anxiety rather than primordial identity. — connects to: Klan growth depended on a confluence of postwar anxieties, not primeval hatred alone — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 1744; Status anxiety drives prejudice through projection and displaced aggression chains — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 563; European race thinking originated as aristocratic status anxiety — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 189 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- European race thinking originated as aristocratic status anxiety
#exemplifies(0.92) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 189 - Status anxiety drives prejudice through projection and displaced aggression chains
#corroborates(0.90) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 563 - Racial status threat may drive conservative shifts even among minorities
#corroborates(0.75) — Maureen A. Craig and Jennifer A. Richeson, On the Precipice of a…, 94