Victor Davis Hanson falls of the wagon (again)

[Thanas]

Mark Adomanis

The eternal wretchedness of Victor Davis Hanson
As a recovering movement conservative, I have (or would at least like to think I have) a sharp eye for its flaws -- for detecting those instances in which it is simply unable to deal with the truth and thus resorts to prevarication, misdirection, or simple dishonesty.

Victor Davis Hanson is one of the highest profile and most widely-read conservative commentators -- his basic shtick is to compare America’s imperial adventure du jour to those of the Greeks or the Romans. There then follows a bunch of very confused historical comparisons that invariably come to the conclusion that the answer to the present difficulty is more military force, more invasions, more bombing, and more "American leadership." Hanson has, as of late, also made a name for himself with hackneyed attacks on Obama’s Keynesianism and the generally left-wing, socialist, and nasty way in which the president manages the economy.

But I’m not going to attempt to refute Hanson’s entire opus; many other more capable and entertaining writers have already done that. No, what I want to do is to point out a single instance of almost unbelievable factual sloppiness which marred one of his recent posts at National Review. Finally reacting to the riots in Britain, after writing 3 separate blog posts and an article, Hanson wrote:

It is fascinating to see how postmodern Western societies react to wide-scale rioting, looting, and thuggery aimed at innocents. In Britain, politicians contemplate the use of water cannons as if they were nuclear weapons; and here the mayor of Philadelphia calls on rappers to appeal to youth to help ease the flash-mobbing that has a clear racial component to it (is the attorney general’s Civil Rights Division investigating?). His appeal is perhaps understandable, but many of the themes of rap music — violence against the police, racial chauvinism, and nihilism—may well be some of the cultural catalysts behind the flash violence, though to suggest as much would be seen as more racist than the racist profiling used by the flash beaters. All these incidents are symptomatic of a general breakdown and loss of confidence in Western society. Such urban violence was of course a constant in 19th- and 20th-century Europe and America, but now it is deeply embedded within modern sociology and no longer seen quite as criminality.

Now it just so happens that I hail from Philadelphia and that I have actual read a number of articles on the shameful and appalling episodes of "flash mob" violence. If one read Hanson’s post and knew nothing else about what has recently transpired, one would inevitably come away with the conclusion that the city’s mayor was a weak-willed coward, a milquetoast so bereft of leadership that his only answer to the problem of rampaging youths was to appeal to rappers. In other words, you would think that Michael Nutter was a prime example of the rottenness and corruption of contemporary liberalism, and perfectly emblematic of its failure and of the broader “loss of confidence in Western society.”

How surprising, then, to learn that Philadelphia’s mayor recently gave a shockingly strong-worded and blunt speech at a traditionally African-American Baptist church in which he said, among other things:

"If you want to act like an idiot, move. Move out of this city. We don't want you here anymore."

"You've damaged yourself, you've damaged another person, you've damaged your peers and, quite honestly, you've damaged your own race. You damaged your own race.

"If you want . . . anybody else to respect you and not be afraid when they see you walking down the street, then leave the innocent people who are walking down the street minding their own damn business. Leave them alone."

“Parents, get your act together. You need to get hold of your kids before we have to."

"A particular problem in the black community is we have too many men making too many babies that they don't want to take care of," he preached to applause. "We end up dealing with your children.

"They're lawless. They act with ignorance. They don't care about anybody else, and their behavior is outrageous. Well, we're not going to tolerate that."

Nutter’s speech also criticized black fathers for being nothing more than "sperm donors and ATMs" and was, considering the context, about as hard-hitting and brash as possible (he was in a church after all, so one wouldn’t exactly expect him to go on an expletive-filled tirade). At a news conference on Monday, as if to explicitly negate the “root cause” thesis that Hanson so clearly despises, Nutter even went on the record as saying "I don't care what your economic status is in life, you do not have a right to beat someone's ass on the street." Indeed Nutter’s speech was so-over-the-top that he actually drew criticism from a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Now I’m not arguing that Nutter is right, nor am I defending (or attacking) his approach. I don’t want to get into the argument over what an appropriate response to youth violence is. What I am simply pointing out is that it is 100% factually inaccurate, absolutely and completely wrong, to argue that Michael Nutter is some lily-livered liberal who blames everything on "root causes" and who doesn’t see the flash mob violence as criminality. Indeed it’s very hard to see how Nutter’s speech, in which he spoke positively of the role of religion in his own personal development, demanded that people take responsibility for their own actions, and encouraged fathers to play a positive role in the lives of their children, differs in any way from what a Republican would say in the same situation.

I mean, honestly, if you sat down a bunch of conservative writers, or the Republican version of Aaron Sorkin, and said, "Write a speech about personal responsibility that you would love to hear delivered by the African American mayor of a major east coast city," would it differ in any substantive way from the speech that Nutter actually gave?

It turns out that if you only read Hanson’s post you would know less than you knew before reading it. You would come away thinking that the mayor of Philadelphia was a quisling and an idiot. In this way Hanson’s commentary, like that of many of his comrades, is negative value added -- you understand less about the world, and have a poorer understanding of objective facts, after you read it than you did before doing so.

In the grand scheme of things, this is a relatively minor error. Hanson has, of course, been just as wrong about much more important issues dozens of time over the past decade. But this little episode is highly suggestive -- Hanson is so sloppy and hackneyed in his writing, so ready to unquestioningly parrot cheap caricatures, that he cannot even recognize when someone is taking his side in an argument. Judging by the basis of what he has said and done, Michael Nutter is just about the worst possible example of the "paralysis" of Western society. That Hanson is incapable of recognizing this says everything you need to know about the extent to which he cares about truth or about informing his readers.

UPDATE: Victor Davis Hanson has responded to my article. As if to prove my point about the sloppy and careless way in which he goes about his writing he says:

Note: I was reacting to a CBS news item of August 9th titled “Mayor Nutter Calls On Hip-Hop Artists To Help Battle Flash Mobs.” Of course, I did not write that the mayor was weak-willed, a coward, a milquetoast, etc., but simply thought that his initial appeal as reported on August 9th was “perhaps understandable,” but misplaced. The hyperbole and unhinged adjectives are not mine, but belong to the hysterical Adomanis himself.

I am glad that it was also reported elsewhere (and apparently mostly later) that the mayor in fact had also seemingly dropped his emphasis on rap music, and had also given a courageous speech reminding black youth of their own responsibilities. But that was not the initial news story I was referring to; indeed, one could write a number of posts on all the news items about the flash mobs that were being disseminated at various times. And of course, I retract nothing: it really is most unwise to enlist hip hop and rappers, given that many of the themes of that genre — anti-police bigotry, racial prejudice, misogyny, and violence — are more part of the problem than the solution.

The news articles to which I linked, the ones that outline the mayor’s remarkably tough rhetoric about personal responsibility and the need for the black citizens of Philadelphia to own their own actions, were published on August 8th. The piece Hanson responded to (that was supposedly the "initial news story”) was published on August 9th. I know that dear Victor is a professor of classics and not of math, but August 8th is before August 9th. The speech that Nutter gave about responsibility, the one that Hanson had clearly never heard of, occurred before Hanson wrote his post. It’s therefore glaringly obvious that Nutter’s speech was not some sort of pivot away from dealing with rappers but was part of a comprehensive strategy to address youth violence.

Furthermore, Hanson seems to think that his own laziness somehow excuses him. Since he only read that single news item, it’s just totally unfair to expect him to have read any other stories about Michael Nutter and his response to the flash mobs. I won’t pretend that I go to the Library of Congress before authoring a blog post but, for pride’s sake if nothing else, I try to always read at least 2-3 sources to confirm a story. I would certainly make sure I did some proper research before insinuating that the mayor of a major American city responded to mob violence solely by asking rappers for help.

Hanson evidently thinks that his (allegedly) superior intellect and the rightness of his cause allows him opine on matters without, you know, actually having any idea what he’s talking about.

I’ll further add that it’s beyond hilarious that someone who sub-titles a section "idiot beat" can whine in such a self-pitying manner about "ad hominum" attacks. This is absolutely standard practice for movement conservatives like Hanson, who, out of one side of their mouth, will mourn the "loss of civility" and out of the other side of their mouth will darkly compare their political rivals to barbarians.

[hongi]

Hanson is just another shmuck trying to convince himself and the rest of society that his Classics degree is worth something. Congratulations Victor, you can read Greek. You're still wrong about everything else.

[Lonestar]

Still not as good as that article claiming that the only benefit of the Congress of Vienna was "no major wars in Western Europe for most of the 19th Century".

[Thanas]

Oh yeah, that. I had succesfully blocked that off.

[Darth Wong]

I'm sick of all this conservative wanking over Rome and Greece. They were both horribly barbaric, backward nations by modern standards. Why do they keep trying to uphold them as standard-bearers for western civilization? Why do they keep acting as if we should look up to their ideals? And of the two, Greece was worse, being even more racist than Rome, yet these imbeciles tend to act as if Greece is the one we should look up to more, and look up to the Spartans (the most racist and barbaric of the lot) most of all.

[Flagg]

Lets not forget the acceptance of child fucking.

[Stravo]

I'm sick of all this conservative wanking over Rome and Greece. They were both horribly barbaric, backward nations by modern standards. Why do they keep trying to uphold them as standard-bearers for western civilization? Why do they keep acting as if we should look up to their ideals? And of the two, Greece was worse, being even more racist than Rome, yet these imbeciles tend to act as if Greece is the one we should look up to more, and look up to the Spartans (the most racist and barbaric of the lot) most of all.

One of the reasons we see so much of this especially from the right wing is the Cliff Notes history that the US provides its populace. Children are exposed to a crib notes type history in bullet point format without being given the full breadth and depth of it. For example Greece in history class is the birthplace of democracy and cradle of Western thought and Civilization, you get another bullet point on the Alexander the Great and then that's about it. You won't go into the system of slavery, the pederasts, the xenophobic culture, the infighting and backstabbing in Greek society between city states, etc.

That sort of detail is left for College, if you're lucky, and usually only if you actually major or minor in history otherwise you are exposed to a very white washed world. Just look at Sarah Palin and her recent performance regarding Paul Revere and his role in the American Revolution. The Tea Party and their ilk thrive on this white washed bullet point American History they have received because obviously it portrays us in such a positive light, deifies the Founding Fathers (the fact that most were slave holders is given a proverbial shrug of the shoulders and hand waved away quickly) and enshrines the Constitution as some sort of sacred document.

Is it any wonder their view of more ancient cultures is so distorted when their own recent history is nearly unrecognizable?

[Darth Wong]

I'm sick of all this conservative wanking over Rome and Greece. They were both horribly barbaric, backward nations by modern standards. Why do they keep trying to uphold them as standard-bearers for western civilization? Why do they keep acting as if we should look up to their ideals? And of the two, Greece was worse, being even more racist than Rome, yet these imbeciles tend to act as if Greece is the one we should look up to more, and look up to the Spartans (the most racist and barbaric of the lot) most of all.

One of the reasons we see so much of this especially from the right wing is the Cliff Notes history that the US provides its populace. Children are exposed to a crib notes type history in bullet point format without being given the full breadth and depth of it. For example Greece in history class is the birthplace of democracy and cradle of Western thought and Civilization, you get another bullet point on the Alexander the Great and then that's about it. You won't go into the system of slavery, the pederasts, the xenophobic culture, the infighting and backstabbing in Greek society between city states, etc.

That can't be the only problem. Here in Canada, kids learn little more than that about Ancient Greece as well, but it doesn't get wanked nearly as much.

That sort of detail is left for College, if you're lucky, and usually only if you actually major or minor in history otherwise you are exposed to a very white washed world. Just look at Sarah Palin and her recent performance regarding Paul Revere and his role in the American Revolution. The Tea Party and their ilk thrive on this white washed bullet point American History they have received because obviously it portrays us in such a positive light, deifies the Founding Fathers (the fact that most were slave holders is given a proverbial shrug of the shoulders and hand waved away quickly) and enshrines the Constitution as some sort of sacred document.

I think that's more the problem: there's a particular political movement in the US which aggressively promotes this white-washed history, popularizes it, repeats it at every turn to reinforce it, etc. Worse yet, the way they teach it is intertwined with America's own deeply mythologized history, and indeed, this whole notion of "western civilization", of which Americans believe themselves to be the current standard bearers due to military and economic power.

Is it any wonder their view of more ancient cultures is so distorted when their own recent history is nearly unrecognizable?

The more I think about it, the more it occurs to me that "common people" tend to choose beliefs based on how those beliefs make them feel about themselves.

[Serafina]

I think that the reason is quite simple: Greece and Rome were the military and cultural superpowers of their time, and the United States like to see themselves as that as well.
If you give people the idea that you can be a superpower and still have lot's of negative aspects, instead of being a paragon of virtue in every regard, people might apply that idea to the United States as well.

[Darth Wong]

I think that the reason is quite simple: Greece and Rome were the military and cultural superpowers of their time, and the United States like to see themselves as that as well.
If you give people the idea that you can be a superpower and still have lot's of negative aspects, instead of being a paragon of virtue in every regard, people might apply that idea to the United States as well.

I wonder if the heavy Christianization of the American right-wing movement isn't also part of this. Christians are taught to divide all forces in the world into two simple categories: Good and Evil. They themselves are naturally on the side of "Good", so their cultural influences must therefore also be "Good". They've been taught over and over that America is a cultural descendant of ancient Greece and Rome (a belief which is only reinforced by their choice of eagle iconography and the architectural tastes of early Americans, who loved Roman and Greek building styles), so this can only mean that Greece and Rome fall on the side of "Good", whatever rationalizations you need to make that happen.

[Serafina]

Another part of it might be how american christians tend to dismiss everything bad in antique times as "just part of those times". Warcrimes and slavery in ancient Israel? Oh that's just the way it was back then.
The reasons for that are of course what you are outlining here - we can't admit that Jesus endorsed slavery, because he was a "good guy".

So there is already a general tendency to whitewash antiquity due to ancient Israel, and it also gets applied to other ancient civilisations, especially the "good ones", as well.


A third part of it is that some people simply do not consider the morality, but rather other achievements to determine who are the "good guys". The Romans had a strong Empire, great cultural achievements etc. - so they are "good guys", regardless of whether they committed genocide or practiced slavery.
And that might be related to the notion that the "good guys" always win, so a successful nation must also be good.

[Simon_Jester]

The tendency to refer back to the Greco-Roman world was universal throughout European and Europe-derived culture until recently- Latin was the language any scholar would know until at the 19th century at the earliest. Rome-derived titles such as "Czar" and "Holy Roman Emperor" remained relevant up into roughly the same time period.

This was mostly because of the universality of Greco-Roman influence in Europe. Everywhere from Ireland to Russia, Romans and Greeks played large roles in shaping basic ideas about law, religion, and culture. The Greeks provided Europe with its first taste of philosophy, and the Romans provided Europe with its first taste of uniform government (albeit bloody-minded government).

The US isn't unique in going back to that pool of references. What may be unique is the combination of idealization of Greece and Rome plus the current of anti-intellectualism that gives rise to "bullet point history," as Stravo puts it- Roman glory is remembered and Roman crucifixions are not for someone like Hanson, because that would undermine Hanson's arguments, which are based so heavily on the bullet point version.


And Serafina, this is a common problem, not unique to American Christians: if your ancestors did something wrong, you have to choose whether or not to 'disown' them as part of your cultural heritage. Even when this is a fairly straightforward choice- Germany 'disowning' the Nazis is one of the best examples I know of- it's associated with a lot of angst and difficulty... and the Nazis were, of all historical criminals, among the shortest-lasting. They can be treated as an aberration upon 'real' German history, one which everyone rightly rejects, without having to reject all German history and culture.

When you start talking about applying the same principle to larger fractions of your history, it gets worse, though. Imagine rejecting all 19th century British or French history because most of the key figures were aristocratic colonialists, and even the ones on the 'right' side of history (say, those who favor republics over monarchies) harbored beliefs that we today would loathe. But then you go farther back and people just get more loathesome, actively keeping peasants in a condition of near-slavery and warring on each other constantly. Religious and cultural mores get more and more foreign the farther back you go.

Do you reject everything in your history that doesn't match up with current standards of acceptable behavior and belief?

You can do it, but if you do, at some point you wind up with a country that has very little sense of history left. It's not unusual for people to decide not to accept that, because it's a fairly steep price to pay in order to purge yourself of the practice of revering historical figures you wouldn't care to invite to dinner.

[Thanas]

I'm sick of all this conservative wanking over Rome and Greece. They were both horribly barbaric, backward nations by modern standards. Why do they keep trying to uphold them as standard-bearers for western civilization? Why do they keep acting as if we should look up to their ideals? And of the two, Greece was worse, being even more racist than Rome, yet these imbeciles tend to act as if Greece is the one we should look up to more, and look up to the Spartans (the most racist and barbaric of the lot) most of all.

I doubt you could call the Romans racists. Of the long list of the complaints about them, racism is not among it.

[mr friendly guy]

I'm sick of all this conservative wanking over Rome and Greece. They were both horribly barbaric, backward nations by modern standards. Why do they keep trying to uphold them as standard-bearers for western civilization? Why do they keep acting as if we should look up to their ideals? And of the two, Greece was worse, being even more racist than Rome, yet these imbeciles tend to act as if Greece is the one we should look up to more, and look up to the Spartans (the most racist and barbaric of the lot) most of all.

To be fair to Hanson, from what I understand he looks up more to Athens than Sparta. How much does he look up to Athens? Well according to what I have been told (I think it was from Thanas), Hanson skimps over the fact that Sparta defeated Athens in the Pelopenesian war.

[Thanas]

I'm sick of all this conservative wanking over Rome and Greece. They were both horribly barbaric, backward nations by modern standards. Why do they keep trying to uphold them as standard-bearers for western civilization? Why do they keep acting as if we should look up to their ideals? And of the two, Greece was worse, being even more racist than Rome, yet these imbeciles tend to act as if Greece is the one we should look up to more, and look up to the Spartans (the most racist and barbaric of the lot) most of all.

To be fair to Hanson, from what I understand he looks up more to Athens than Sparta. How much does he look up to Athens? Well according to what I have been told (I think it was from Thanas), Hanson skimps over the fact that Sparta defeated Athens in the Pelopenesian war.

He is somewhat schizophrenic in that regard - he thinks Athens is a direct paralell to the USA (:roll:) and also believes it to have been the best and most modern of all greek city states. At the same time, he thinks the Greek hoplites were great citizen-soldiers (true) and therefore mirror the USA (:roll:). The strength of modern society and ancient one were "agrarian values" (as if the Persians had none of that but the city dwellers of Athens and the slavocrats of Sparta did?) - a somewhat nebulous term which seems to encompass all which he (amateur farmer) holds sacred.

[Stark]

I wonder if early American public architecture and poor education could work to foreshorten history, to create the impression that the classical world and early America werent really that far apart. People believe jesus went to America, and if you had no real knowledge of history or dates, it might seem that America emerged from that background.

[Simon_Jester]

That would apply to a minority of Americans, at most, I think. Probably not a large minority, and not necessarily the minority Hanson is marketing his ideas to. My impression is that material like his plays best among people who are roughly historically literate, but who interpret history in very different ways- not the ones who are simply so pig-ignorant that they don't grasp the difference between 1776 and ancient Rome.

[Stark]

Sigh. I'm not suggesting anyone really thinks this, certainly not consciously. But there are many suggestions of a direct connection throughout different aspects of American society; it's even implicit in their understanding of 'western civilisation'. Something doesn't have to make sense to affect how people think.

[Simon_Jester]

Sigh. I'm not suggesting anyone really thinks this, certainly not consciously. But there are many suggestions of a direct connection throughout different aspects of American society; it's even implicit in their understanding of 'western civilisation'. Something doesn't have to make sense to affect how people think.

Ah. A point.

To some extent you might also chalk that up to the fact that the American founders did look to Greece and Rome for inspiration. The cultural gap between them and classical times wasn't so big (slaves!), and those societies were among the very few available examples of how to put together a democratic system at all. Hence the choice of a title like "senator" for the upper house of the American legislature.

The US circa 1800 was quite different from Greece or Rome, but there was a lot more common ground, and some of it was deliberately cultivated.

[Shroom Man 777]

Don't a lot of nationalistic folks just love making allegories of themselves and other great classical nations of history fighting wars of survival or something to beat back the unwashed hordes of uncivilized barbarians and saving civilization? Certainly, Rome and Greece are portrayed (by idiots) as the centers of the universe back then, the only light in a time of darkness and all sorts of stuff like that, and people just love associating that kind of imagery with themselves as they march on to do their great things.

America isn't the only one who does this stuff. And this helps increase the public appeal of conquests or flexing a nation's military might. Lots of people would like to imagine that their nation is the greatest civilization ever, and is bringing light to the barbarians of the world and so on and so forth. They get off on it.

[Simon_Jester]

That's about the size of it.

People in the European 'world' have been pitching themselves as "the new Rome" pretty much ever since the old Rome fell. The Byzantines did it.* Charlemagne's Frankish empire did it. The Habsburgs (Austrian and Spanish both) did it to some extent. The Russians did it. The British did it a bit with the idea of the Pax Britannica, the Americans do it now. Every time any state aspires to universality of authority or values, they invoke the 'last' time there was universality of authority and values within the "civilized"** world in European historical memory.

Like I said, the legacy of Rome and Greece is so fundamental to European culture that it pops up everywhere. Europeans think of Hellenistic and Roman times as a time when a more enlightened form of civilization spread across much of the then-known world, with the period of the Greek city-states getting an honorable mention mostly because of the role of Athenian philosophy in the evolution of later European society.

Of course, the Celts and Carthaginians are no longer around to contest the point, and likewise the Persians and Egyptians have been altered beyond all recognition by the rise of Islam, which makes the argument more appealing. And yes, this does happen in other parts of the world. Muslims are prone to it because they had an even more tightly concentrated golden age- Mohammed and the first few caliphs, who spread their religion across much of the known world in only a few generations, followed by the successful Umayyads and Abbasids who knitted it together so effectively.

Of course, for Islam this becomes a motive for religious fundamentalism, whereas in Europe it drives more secular ideologies like colonialism and neoconservatism in the US.
________

*Of course, the Byzantines were a successor state with continuity of government, so they had a right to...
**I'm not going to defend a definition of 'civilized' which doesn't include the ancient Persia of Roman times, but it still exists.

[Darth Wong]

Don't a lot of nationalistic folks just love making allegories of themselves and other great classical nations of history fighting wars of survival or something to beat back the unwashed hordes of uncivilized barbarians and saving civilization? Certainly, Rome and Greece are portrayed (by idiots) as the centers of the universe back then, the only light in a time of darkness and all sorts of stuff like that, and people just love associating that kind of imagery with themselves as they march on to do their great things.

America isn't the only one who does this stuff. And this helps increase the public appeal of conquests or flexing a nation's military might. Lots of people would like to imagine that their nation is the greatest civilization ever, and is bringing light to the barbarians of the world and so on and so forth. They get off on it.

I suppose that's the problem in a nutshell. Nationalists always love to wank over (and distort) the history of their "civilization" (a word which sounds so much more impressive than "country"). The problem may simply be that America has a surplus of nationalists: a side-effect of the great success they've enjoyed since WW2. It's like the wealthy investment banker who is immensely proud of himself and thinks that everyone else's problem is that they didn't make the same great choices in life that he did, or come from his long line of successful (and of course, impeccably virtuous) ancestors.

[Zinegata]

I'm sick of all this conservative wanking over Rome and Greece. They were both horribly barbaric, backward nations by modern standards. Why do they keep trying to uphold them as standard-bearers for western civilization? Why do they keep acting as if we should look up to their ideals? And of the two, Greece was worse, being even more racist than Rome, yet these imbeciles tend to act as if Greece is the one we should look up to more, and look up to the Spartans (the most racist and barbaric of the lot) most of all.

I doubt you could call the Romans racists. Of the long list of the complaints about them, racism is not among it.

It depends somewhat on the time period however. It wasn't until around the establishment of the Roman Empire that citizenship really became open to all, and there were always marked differences between the different classes of Roman society. Not to mention that they still treated everyone outside of their Empire as dirt; as the concept of universal human rights was foreign to them.

Still... By the standards of other ancient era civilizations however, Rome was remarkably race-agnostic. They were truly a multi-cultural civilization. Totally unlike the Greeks.

[hongi]

To be fair to Hanson, from what I understand he looks up more to Athens than Sparta. How much does he look up to Athens? Well according to what I have been told (I think it was from Thanas), Hanson skimps over the fact that Sparta defeated Athens in the Pelopenesian war.

Ah yes, misogynist Athens that locked women up in their houses and gave them no political rights or representation. Truly the glory of Western civilisation. This is what I hate about Classics, it's not uncommon to find some reactionary blowhard who thinks the past is The Best Thing Ever.

[Thanas]

It depends somewhat on the time period however. It wasn't until around the establishment of the Roman Empire that citizenship really became open to all, and there were always marked differences between the different classes of Roman society. Not to mention that they still treated everyone outside of their Empire as dirt; as the concept of universal human rights was foreign to them.

It does not depend on the time period. Rome itself was funded by outcasts and widely accepted outcasts of all nations and races. In fact, this is what Roman historians universely credited as their success - that they were willing to give citizenship to anybody who moved to Rome, regardless of his background (which, considering city states in those times exiled a lot of people, was a great influx of capital and manpower).

The issues of citizenship however are a question of control and entitlement rather than one of xenophobia and racism. First of all, Rome had no interest in extending universal citizenship over all of Italy considering they were ruling over it while they themselves were a republic, as that would have meant the greatly outnumbered Romans would no longer have control. Nevertheless you see a spread of Roman citizenships throughout Italy as Citizenship was awarded according to individual merit or political reasons.

Class differences did exist but I fail to see what they have to do with racism.

As to treating outsiders as dirt, this is also not true and an oversimplification. Rome was very much interested in Greek and Asian culture and imported both en masse. It was also the first nation for which war had to have a legal and moral justification - the so called concept of a just war, a bellum iustum. In many cases this turned out to be a sham, but the very idea of it is remarkable still considering the times.