"[W]hile ... biblical and theological justifications for racism maintained some purchase and an ongoing foundational influence, racism as we understand it in the modern context crystallised with the emergence of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century. It was through Enlightenment ideals and science that racist theories developed, spread and really gained hegemonic power. As a more humanistic and universal vision of society developed in parts of Europe, science and reason came to replace or complement older ideas. While the Enlightenment is often described uncritically as the origin of our progressive modern world, and used to demonstrate the west’s ‘civilisational superiority’, it was also inextricably linked to the rise of racism as a new pretext for domination by the white man." Excerpts from Reactionary Democracy How the racism and the populist far-right became mainstream
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51