Racism is a thoroughly modern weapon serving pre-modern struggles

Evidence

In the by far most spectacular and the best known case in this history, racism was instrumental in the mobilization of anti-modernist sentiments and anxieties, and was apparently effective primarily because of this connection. Adolf Stöcker, Dietrich Eckart, Alfred Rosenberg, Gregor Strasser, Joseph Goebbels, and virtually any other prophet, theorist and ideologue of National Socialism used the phantom of the Jewish race as a lynch-pin binding the fears of the past and prospective victims of modernization, which they articulated, and the ideal volkisch society of the future which they proposed to create in order to forestall further advances of modernity. In their appeals to the deep-seated horror of the social upheaval that modernity augured, they identified modernity as the rule of economic and monetary values, and charged Jewish racial characteristics with responsibility for such a relentless assault on the volkisch mode of life and standards of human worth. Elimination of the Jews was hence presented as a synonym of the rejection of modern order. … On the other hand, however, as a conception of the world, and even more importantly as an effective instrument of political practice, racism is unthinkable without the advancement of modern science, modern technology and modern forms of state power. As such, racism is strictly a modern product. Modernity made racism possible. It also created a demand for racism; an era that declared achievement to be the only measure of human worth needed a theory of ascription to redeem boundary-drawing and boundary-guarding concerns under new conditions which made boundary-crossing easier than ever before. Racism, in short, is a thoroughly modern weapon used in the conduct of pre-modern, or at least not exclusively modern, struggles. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 181

Categorization

• XREF: This paradox-that-racism-is-modern-in-form-but-anti-modern-in-content should carry forward into how Islamophobia readings distinguish Orientalism’s modern bureaucratic form from its atavistic emotional content. — connects to: Racism shows natural affinity with anti-modern emotions — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 181; Racism emerges only under design of a perfect society — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 192; Nazi racism was consonant with modern social-engineering worldviews rather than a medieval relapse — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 197 (+1 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that an era measuring worth by achievement needed a theory of ascription to justify boundaries is a dense, transferable mechanism: modernity generates its own need for ascriptive exclusion.

Related

• Nazi racism was consonant with modern social-engineering worldviews rather than a medieval relapse (similarity 0.87)
• Racism shows natural affinity with anti-modern emotions (similarity 0.86)
• The Holocaust was a product of modernity, not pre-modern barbarity. (similarity 0.84)
• The Nazi movement’s novelty was organizing the racial idea, not inventing it (similarity 0.83)
• The Holocaust resulted from distinctly modern social and political conditions (similarity 0.82)
• Racism emerges only under design of a perfect society (similarity 0.80)
• Defeated anti-modern resistance persists latently and eventually uses modernity’s own tools (similarity 0.79)
• Racist ideas and practices predate the modern term and European modernity. (similarity 0.79)
• The Holocaust is a product of modern rational society, not a Jewish problem alone (similarity 0.79)
• The Holocaust combined long-festering social tensions with the rational instruments modernity created (similarity 0.79)
• Modern society’s own attributes can enable holocaust-style genocide, not just racial prejudice. (similarity 0.79)
• Racism is defined by its practice, not by intensity or rationalization (similarity 0.79)
• Modern antisemitism is a learned theoretical product, not raw experience. (similarity 0.79)
• Genocidal potentials remain present in modern society despite democratic constraints (similarity 0.78)
• The Holocaust is a by-product of runaway modernist design (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Racism shows natural affinity with anti-modern emotions #corroborates (0.85) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 181
• Nazi racism was consonant with modern social-engineering worldviews rather than a medieval relapse #corroborates (0.85) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 197
• Racism emerges only under design of a perfect society #expands (0.80) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 192