Seleucus wrote:As we have discussed, yes, the Chinese phenotype is an essential element of Chinese identity, specifically I mean flat faces, short legs, stumpy feet, stubby noses, straight black hair and slanty eyes. ...
And yet the Chinese have at least five distinct ethnic groups?
I expect there are a number of ways we can demonstrate the continuity of identity of ethnicities. One way would be to show that Chinese continue to use the same character since the second millennium BC (Western Zhou period) to identify their nation: 中. ...
So culture not race.
This can probably be said of spoken word too, our word "man" for instance goes back to at least Proto-Indo-European.
We could also notice the continued relevance of works across ages for instance Dream of the red chamber, or the Quran or Plato.
But language has no links to genetics or biology? If it did then babies would not be able to learn a language like a native if adopted by a different 'race'.
We could also look at the opinion of cultural authorities who insist that ethnic identity is incredible stable, which we have done, Kuran whom discusess how cultures are multiply reinforced and Barth who proves culture change happens only at the individual level and is all or nothing . Or we could look at something like Geert Hofstede's work or the World Values Survey that show long-term stable psychologies of peoples. ...
What's a 'cultural authority' when it's at home?
And what has this to do with your view of race?
If we accept with Sperber and Hirschfeld (2006) in their Culture and modularity that some significant amount of culture is genetically encoded, ...
They say nothing of the sort other than a vague hand-wave towards epigentics with zero evidence to support such an assertion.
and we know that we are genetically identical to our neolithic ancestors, this adds support again for longitudinal stability. They further argue that modular neural organization also contributes to cultural stability. ...
Except that everyone's 'modular neural organization' is pretty much the same across the 'races'.
Another angle might be to point out how very rare innovation has been historically, the wheel invented only once in all of history, writing only twice and so on which helps us better understand again why cultures don't change. Stone axe forms persisted for literally hundreds of thousands of years. ...
All of which tends to point to the idea that technology occurs were the circumstances are suitable.
What diaspora? Anthropology tells us that the Semites are still pretty much where they have been for the past 20,000+ years. As Barth says, the cultural watershed lines are the most stable of all, laying unchanged even when genetic migrations, and changes in language and material culture occur. Are you thinking of the Jews? ...
Are they not Semites?
No, the Jews' core cultural identity also changed little despite their 2000 year sojourn through Europe. ...
Oh! It's 'core cultural identity' know is it.
Can you unpack a little more clearly what you're meaning to say here? Maybe some cites or quotes?
Sure,
"Race purity is a grotesque world in view of the fact that for centuries all stocks and species have been mixed, and that warlike—that is, healthy—generations with a future before them have from time immemorial always welcomed a stranger into the family if he had “race,” to whatever race it was he belonged. Those who talk too much about race no longer have it in them. What is needed is not a pure race, but a strong one, which has a nation within it. This manifests itself above all in self-evident elemental fecundity, in an abundance of children, which historical life can consume without ever exhausting the supply."
"It would be founded on a grand culture-creating, race-shaping myth, propagated through art and religion, that enthralls and mobilizes a whole people. It would be less concerned about the race we were or the race we are than about the race we can become."
"Comradeship breeds races ...".