In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France, race was already a weapon in the struggle between absolutism, aristocracy, and the middle class. The warfare spread to the arts and philosophy in the nineteenth century, by which time independent shoots in other cultures had also borne fruit, leaving the grand harvesting on a world-wide scale to our generation. Viewed in the light of such facts, the race question appears a much bigger affair than a trumped-up excuse for local persecution. It becomes rather a mode of thought endemic in Western civilization. It defaces every type of mental activity - history, art, politics, science and social reform.
Jacques BarzunRelated topics
absolutism activity affair aristocracy art bear century civilization class endemic excuse fruit generation grand harvesting history independent leaving light local mental middle mode nineteenth persecution philosophy politics question race reform scale science seventeenth social spread struggle thought time type warfare weapon western arts france facts shootsRelated quotes
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Simon Newcomb
