Are Caucasians the same as whites? What are their historical and modern definitions?
Caucasians"The term has only become familiar to Chinese people in recent years, but it has been around in the West for hundreds of years. Although it has proven to be an outdated and erroneous concept in the field of physical anthropology, it is still widely used in the social sphere in some countries.
So,"Caucasian race"Who exactly is that? What are the changes in its meaning? How do you use it now? Objectively speaking,"Caucasian race"The concept was born out of, and is a direct product of, the Eurocentrism and white supremacy thinking of Westerners.
In the 18th century, the German scholar Minas first proposed the concept of "Caucasians" in his book "Outline of Human History". The background of his concept was directly related to the general perception of Europeans at that time, who believed that human beings originated in the area around the Caucasus Mountains, and this perception was mainly based on two religious legends, the legend of Noah's Ark and the legend of Prometheus, which came from two cultural systems that had a great influence on European civilization at that time, the ** religious cultural system and the Greco-Roman cultural system.
Copy 1: It is rumored that humanity faced extinction in a great flood, and only a man named Noah and his family survived by hiding in a huge ark.
Since then, all humans in the world have been considered descendants of Noah's family. From ancient times to the present, it has been said in Europe that the Caucasus Mountains are the place where Noah's Ark docked, so in Europe at that time, the Caucasus Mountains were regarded as the birthplace of mankind.
The legend of Prometheus, on the other hand, originated from the Greco-Roman religion, the dominant religion in Europe before the introduction of ** religion to Europe. In this religion, Prometheus made human shapes out of clay, after which Athena, the goddess of wisdom, infused the souls of these clay figures and made them human.
Prometheus also taught humans a lot of knowledge. However, the main god Zeus forbade humans to use fire, and Prometheus saw that humans were living in poverty without fire, so he stole fire from the sun god Apollo and gave it to humans.
However, this angered Zeus, so he chained Prometheus to the cliffs of the Caucasus Mountains and sent an eagle every day to peck at his liver and torture him. But Prometheus remained resolute and was eventually rescued thousands of years later by a hero, Hercules.
Copy 2: In ancient legends, prehistoric humans were wiped out due to a great flood, and only Noah and his family survived by hiding in a huge ark. Legend has it that all humans in the world are considered to be descendants of Noah's family.
From ancient times to the present, it has been said in Europe that the Caucasus Mountains are the place where Noah's Ark docked, so in Europe at that time, the Caucasus Mountains were regarded as the birthplace of mankind.
The story of Prometheus, on the other hand, comes from the Greco-Roman religion, the dominant religion in Europe before the introduction of ** religion to Europe. In this religion, Prometheus molded human forms out of clay, and then Athena, the goddess of wisdom, infused the souls of these clay figures into them, making them human.
Prometheus also taught humans a lot of knowledge. However, the main god Zeus forbade humans to use fire, and Prometheus, seeing that humans were living in poverty without fire, stole fire from the sun god Apollo and gave it to humans.
But this angered Zeus again, so he chained Prometheus to the cliffs of the Caucasus Mountains and sent an eagle every day to peck at his liver and torture him. However, Prometheus remained resolute and was eventually rescued thousands of years later by a hero, Hercules.
Prometheus Bound is a world-famous painting that stems from an ancient legend that believes that the Caucasus Mountains are the birthplace of humanity. This legend attracted a lot of attention in Europe in the 18th century, and it is widely believed that humans originated in the Caucasus.
This concept influenced not only the people, but also the academic circles of the time, and eventually gave birth to the term "Caucasian". It was in this context that Minus came up with the concept of "Caucasians".
Originally, the term "Caucasians" referred to the various indigenous groups around the Caucasus, but over time, the concept gradually took on a more superior meaning.
Minas introduced the concept of "Caucasians" in **, but he soon expanded the concept to include Europeans, Jews, Arabs, Berbers, Ethiopians, and Indians by the 1790s.
During this period, Minas's colleague Johann Friedrich Blumen** used emerging research methods such as skullometry to classify humans into five races: Caucasian,, Malay, Abyssinian (Ethiopian) and Indian.
It is worth noting that both Minas and Blumen** believe that the Caucasian race is superior to other races in terms of intelligence and achievement attainment. Since both Miners and Blumen** were teachers at the University of Göttingen in Germany at the time, their views came to be known as the Göttingen School of History.
While drawing the skulls of "typical" Caucasian women, Blumen** also made the point of representing the human race in different colors. He referred to the Caucasian race as Caucasian, the race as the yellow-brown race, the Abyssinian race as the black race, the Indian race as the copper-red race, and the Malay race as the black-brown race.
These names later became widely used by different ethnic names in countries around the world, and are closely related to the naming of Blumen**. Although the Göttingen School of History has made widespread use of the concept of different races, there has been a constant debate about which groups of people are included in each race.
In particular, many European and American scholars have put forward different views on Europeans, who are theoretically classified as "Caucasian races".
At the end of the 19th century, the development of an ethnographic map of the world sparked controversy among many scholars about the classification of ethnography. For example, the American scholar Carlton Kuhn advocated the classification of the Ainu people of Central Asia, North Asia, and Japan as Caucasian, while the British scholar Thomas Henry Huxley argued that Asian peoples did not belong to the Caucasian race.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Lotrop Stoddard proposed that ethnic groups in the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Central Asia, and South Asia be classified as brown, while those in Europe, Turkey, and parts of North Africa should be classified as Caucasian.
Although there is controversy over the definition of Caucasian people and the origin of skin color, most European and American scholars generally agree that the various ethnic groups developed independently and at very different rates, and that some of them have entered a higher stage of development.
These theories have led the Caucasians to be seen as the fastest and highest stage of development, surpassing other races. However, in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, these theories were also used by some politicians to justify restrictions on immigration, apartheid, racial discrimination, and even racial **, bringing great disasters to mankind.
With the continuous development of emerging technologies such as genetic research, people are gradually realizing that in the long run, there is a close correlation between genetic similarity and geographical proximity of human beings.
Modern Hungarians, for example, are an ethnic group that historically migrated from Asia to Europe, and the language they speak is not an Indo-European language, but a Ural language that is prevalent in Finland and northern Siberia.
However, recent genetic studies have shown that modern Hungarians are genetically closer to the surrounding Czech, Slovak, Austrian, Romanian, and Yugoslav ethnic groups, and less correlated with other Uralian-speaking ethnic groups.
In addition, modern Hungarians are closer in appearance to those of their neighboring countries, and are quite different from their ethnic groups of origin. These findings reveal the complexity of human history and cultural diversity, and provide a better understanding of the relationship between human genes and geography.
There are many ethnic groups similar to the Hunters around the world, which shows that ethnic transformation has not been uncommon in history. While humans differ in appearance, the prevailing view is that the existing definition of human race lacks biological rigor and correctness.
On the contrary, the concept of ethnography is more sociological and changes with cultural perspectives than biological. As a result, even physical anthropologists gradually stopped using the concept of "race" in the second half of the 20th century because it was biologically obsolete.
Despite this, the concepts of "ethnicity" and "Caucasian race" are still widely used in the field of sociology and in American society.
The U.S. census defines "Caucasian" as "white," but in fact "Caucasian" is also widely considered synonymous with "Caucasian" in American society.
In recent years, some nuances have emerged in the meaning of "Caucasians" and "Caucasians" due to the presence of Latinos. The term "Caucasian race" is widely used, both formally and informally.
Through the cultural export of the United States, the term "Caucasian race" has also become widely known around the world. However, in the United States, the term "Caucasian race" is not just a sociological definition, its connotation has changed many times.
For example, there was a 180-degree shift in the United States about whether Indians belong to the "Caucasian race". In 1918, an Indian named Bhagat Singh Tinder received American citizenship.
Dinder came to the United States in 1913 for graduate school, and later served in the U.S. Army in World War I, where he received American citizenship in 1918. However, under the U.S. Naturalization Act, which went into effect in 1906, only free whites and African-Americans were eligible for U.S. citizenship.
However, most European and American scholars at that time believed that Indians also belonged to the "Caucasian race", and "Caucasian" and "Caucasian" were synonymous with "Caucasian" in the United States, so Tinder was also eligible to become an American citizen.
Tynd's service in the U.S. Army, however, the implementation of the Naturalization Act caused controversy. The bill aims to limit naturalized Americans to European immigrants and the descendants of black slaves, not Asians.
As a result, Tinder was quickly opposed to his naturalization in the United States and his citizenship was revoked within a short period of time. However, Tinder was not reconciled, and he demanded the restoration of his American citizenship on the grounds that he was a high-caste Indian, belonging to the Aryan and Caucasian races.
After much effort, he was granted American citizenship again in November 1920. However, the Oregon Naturalization Service filed a lawsuit shortly after, demanding that Tinder's citizenship be revoked, and the case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
As for whether Indians belong to the Caucasian race, there was a fierce controversy in American society at that time. However, an incident occurred in 1922 that directly affected the outcome of this case.
On the eve of World War II, the U.S. Supreme Court filed two historic cases on the determination of nationality of aliens. Among them, a Japanese named Takao Ozawa applied for U.S. citizenship on the grounds that he had lived in the U.S. for 20 years and that he believed that Japanese should be considered white.
However, due to the strong hostility of the American society towards East Asians such as China and Japan at the time, the case was finally decided in 1922 after several years of trial, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Japanese were not white, so Takao Ozawa was not eligible to become a naturalized American.
Also three months later, a similar verdict was handed down in the case of the Indian Tinde. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that high-caste Indians are not Caucasian as defined by the United States, nor are they white.
As a result, Tinder's U.S. citizenship also needs to be revoked. These cases go some way to proving that the concept of ethnicity is seen more as an abstract concept in sociology, and its definition may change depending on the cultural perspective.