Concept

Nordic race

Overview

The Nordic race is an obsolete racial classification of humans based on a now-disproven theory of biological race. It was once considered a race or one of the putative sub-races into which some late-19th to mid-20th century anthropologists divided the Caucasian race, claiming that its ancestral homelands were Northwestern and Northern Europe, particularly to populations such as Anglo-Saxons, Germanic peoples, Balts, Baltic Finns, Northern French, and certain Celts and Slavs. The supposed physical traits of the Nordics included light eyes, light skin, tall stature, and dolichocephalic skull; their psychological traits were deemed to be truthfulness, equitability, a competitive spirit, naivete, reservedness, and individualism. In the early 20th century, the belief that the Nordic race constituted the superior branch of the Caucasian race gave rise to the ideology of Nordicism.

With the rise of modern genetics, the concept of distinct human races in a biological sense has become obsolete. In 2019, the American Association of Biological Anthropologists stated: "The belief in 'races' as natural aspects of human biology, and the structures of inequality (racism) that emerge from such beliefs, are among the most damaging elements in the human experience both today and in the past."

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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But the human race does not alone afford evidence of the violent heat in these regions; it is shown also by all other animals and by the state of the surrounding atmosphere. The natives of those countries which lie under the more remote northern parallels (that is to say, under the Arctic circle and beyond it[68]) have their zenith far distant from the zodiac and the Sun’s heat. Their constitutions, therefore…
Ptolemy, Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos
States what Nordic race is.
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This poor Scandinavian Hero-worship, that whole Norse way of looking at the Universe, and adjusting oneself there, has an indestructible merit for us. A rude childlike way of recognizing the divineness of Nature, the divineness of Man; most rude, yet heartfelt, robust, giantlike; betokening what a giant of a man this child would yet grow to!--It was a truth, and is none. Is it not as the half-dumb stifled voice of…
Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History
The author is tied to Nordic race in the knowledge graph.
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At first a mere mockery and dismal laughing-stock to the enlightened Norway public. Nevertheless by unheard-of fighting, hungering, exertion, and endurance, Sverrir, after ten years of such a death-wrestle against men and things, got himself accepted as King; and by wonderful expenditure of ingenuity, common cunning, unctuous Parliamentary Eloquence or almost Popular Preaching, and (it must be owned) general human…
Thomas Carlyle, Early Kings of Norway
The author is tied to Nordic race in the knowledge graph.
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Philosophers who discussed Nordic race

Thomas Carlyle

Related ideas

Opposing perspectives

Racism

Place in the tradition

Part of Fascism.

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