Tzvetan Todorov, On Human Diversity: Nationalism, Racism, and Exoticism in French Thought (Cambridge. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1993, pp.90-94

Here I must begin by introducing a terminological distinction. The word "racism," in its usual sense, actually designates two very different things. On the one hand, it is a matter of behavior, usually a manifestation of hatred or contempt for individuals who have well-defined physical characteristics different from our own; on the other hand, it is a matter of ideology, a doctrine concerning human races. The two are not necessarily linked. The ordinary racist is not a theoretician; he is incapable of justifying his behavior with "scientific" arguments. Conversely, the ideologue of race is not necessarily a "racist," in the usual sense: his theoretical views may have no influence whatsoever on his acts, or his theory may not imply that certain races are intrinsically evil. [P.91]

            In order to keep these two meanings separate, I shall adopt the distinction that sometimes obtains between "racism," a term designating behavior, and "racialism," a term reserved for doctrines. I must add that the form of racism that is rooted in racialism produces particularly catastrophic results: this is precisely the case of Nazism. Racism is ancient form of behavior that is probably found worldwide; racialism is a movement of ideas born in Western Europe whose period of flowering extends from the mid-eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth.

Racialist doctrine, which will be our chief concern here, can be presented as a coherent set of propositions. They are all found in the “ideal type," or classical version of the doctrine, but some of them may be absent from a given marginal or "revisionist" version . These propositions may be reduced to five.

1.       The existence of races. The first thesis obviously consists in affirming that there are such things as races, that is, human groupings whose members possess common physical characteristics . . . From this perspective,  races are equated with animal species, and it is postulated that there is same distance between two human races as between horses and donkeys: not enough to prevent reproduction, but enough to establish boundary readily apparent to all. Racialists are not generally content to observe this state of affairs; they also want to see it maintained: they are thus opposed to racial mixing.

    The adversaries of racialist theory have often attacked the doctrine on this point. First, they draw attention to the fact that human groups intermingled from time immemorial; consequently, their physical characteristics cannot be as different as racialists claim. Next, these theorists add a two-pronged biological observation to their historical argument. In the first place, human beings indeed differ from one another in their physical characteristics; but in order for these variations to give rise to clearly delimited groups, the differences and the groups would have to coincide. However, this is not the case. We can produce a first map of the "races" if we measure genetic characteristics, a second if we analyze blood composition, a third if we use the skeletal

System, a fourth if we look at the epidermis. In the second place, within each of the groups thus constituted, we find greater distances between [p.92] one individual and another than between one group and another.  For these reasons, contemporary biology, while it has not stopped studying variations among human beings across the planet, no longer uses the concept of race . . .

2.       Continuity between physical type and character. But races are not simply groups of individuals who look alike (if this had been the case, the stakes would have been trivial). The racialist postulates, in the second place, that physical and moral characteristics are interdependent; in other words, the segmentation of the world along racial lines has as its corollary an equally definitive segmentation along cultural lines. To be sure, a single race may possess more than one culture; but as soon as there is racial variation there is cultural change. The solidarity between race and culture is evoked to explain why the races tend to go to war with one another.

   Not only do the two segmentations coexist, it is alleged, but most often a causal relation is posited between them: physical difference determine cultural differences. . . .

3.      The action of the group on the individual The same determinist principle comes into play in another sense: the behavior of the individual depends, to a very large extent, on the racio-cultural (or "ethnic") group to which he or she belongs. . . .  Racialism is thus a doctrine of collective psychology, and it is inherently hostile to the individualist ideology.

4.      Unique hierarchy of values. The racialist is not content to assert that races differ; he also believes that some are superior to others, which implies that he possesses a unitary hierarchy of values, an evaluative framework with respect to which he can make universal judgments. This is somewhat astonishing, for the racialist who has such a framework at his disposal is the same person who has rejected the unity of the human race. The scale of values in question is generally ethnocentric in origin: it is very rare that the ethnic group to which a racialist author belongs does not appear at the top of his own hierarchy. On the level of physical qualities, the judgment of preference usually takes the form of aesthetic appreciation: my race is beautiful, the others are more or less ugly. On the level of the mind, the judgment concerns both [p.94] intellectual and moral qualities (people are stupid or intelligent, bestial or noble. 

5.        Knowledge-based politics. The four propositions listed so far take the form of descriptions of the world, factual observations. They lead to conclusion that constitutes the fifth and last doctrinal proposition namely, the need to embark upon a political course that bring the world into harmony with the description provided. Having establish the "facts,'' the racialist draws from them a moral judgment and political ideal. Thus, the subordination of inferior races or even their elimination can be justified by accumulated knowledge on the subject of race. Here is where racialism rejoins racism : the theory is put into practice .