too many politically correct people (erroneously) assume that hbd’ers are racists (in the bad sense of the word) or supremacists or neo-nazis who have eeeeeevil intentions.
not me. and not a lot of other hbd’ers either, i think.
to get an idea of where i’m coming from, just read james crow‘s “Unequal by nature: a geneticist’s perspective on human differences.” i agree whole-heartedly with everything he wrote in that article — 110%. here’s a little excerpt:
“It is important for society to do a better job than it now does in accepting differences as a fact of life. New forms of scientific knowledge will point out more and more ways in which we are diverse. I hope that differences will be welcomed, rather than accepted grudgingly. Who wants a world of identical people, even if they are Mozarts or [Michael] Jordans?
“A good society ought to provide the best kind of environment for each person and each population. We already do this in part. We give lessons to musically gifted children. We encourage athletes and give them special training (and sometimes dubious drugs). Students elect courses according to their abilities and interests. We have special classes for those with disabilities, and such classes are becoming more specific as the causes of the disabilities are understood.
“We cannot, of course, tailor-make a special environment for every individual, but we can continue to move in this direction. Finding a genetic basis for a trait doesn’t mean that environment is unimportant. Indeed, more environmental influences on the human organism are constantly being discovered, often through genetic studies.
“A test of our democratic institutions will be the degree to which people can accept all our differences and find ways to fit them into a smooth-working, humanitarian society. And I argue that we should strive not only for maximum personal satisfaction but for maximum contribution; each of us owes society the fruits of our special gifts. I believe strongly that research into the genetic and environmental causes of human differences should continue and be supported. The newer procedures brought about by molecular advances and computers will greatly accelerate discoveries.
“I believe that knowledge, even unpleasant knowledge, is far preferable to ignorance. I hope that American society can be less fearful of learning the truth about biological inequalities and more courageous in using discoveries in ways that are humanitarian and promote human welfare.“
couldn’t have said it better myself.
(note: comments do not require an email. we’re all inequal. yay!)
James Crow [Oh God, not that name!] has got it exactly wrong, and is risibly silly.
HBD deniers know that acceptance of HBD reality would lead to the permanent condemnation of a large majority of blacks and Mexicans to the underclass. An underclass with few opportunities for economic advancement, and with even fewer in the future as our meritocracy (or credentialism, if you prefer) becomes more entrenched. It means that most undergraduates at Berkeley will be Chinese, Japanese or Hindu. It means that a large percentage, perhaps a plurality of undergraduates at elite Ivy League schools will be Jewish. Blacks and Mexicans would be absent from elite colleges, and whites would be substantially displaced.
Even the “talented tenth” of blacks is in trouble. Their presence the middle class depends on government jobs. The civil rights/affirmative action movement failed to move them into productive private sector jobs, and any serious attempt to control government deficits will cast them back into poverty.
In an HBD-governed world, racial differences would be so glaringly obvious and have such serious negative impacts on individuals that wide-spread racial violence would be inevitable.
So HBD deniers may deluded, but the social problems they wish to avoid are real. Thus the insistence on affirmative action, PC and heavy subsidies to the underclass. Anything to hide the differences.
In the long run, the choices are aggressive government actions to reduce economic differences (including censorship) or racial separation. What becomes of the US then?
Hey bob, let me thank you on behalf of all the other readers for your long winded and stupid comment. How about… wait for it… we just do more racial separation! It’s what everyone of every race wants, after all. What becomes of the US then? It disappears and is replaced by a ridiculously prosperous confederation of white republics. The horror!
@elizabeth – “Hey bob, let me thank you on behalf of all the other readers for your long winded and stupid comment.”
let’s keep the conversation civil, shall we? thnx.
Fantasy land! Sure, once we all know the truth about HBD, nobody is going to be pissed! We will all work together to understand our differences and create a harmonious multiracial society! Nobody will be pissed about 80+ years of being lied to by academics and worthless politicians. Utopia awaits!
Separation and awful retribution is coming. Plan for it…
The sad thing is…had the liars not told the lies in the first place…it could have been avoided forever.
@bob – “So HBD deniers may deluded, but the social problems they wish to avoid are real.”
yes, obviously — but i genuinely believe that we can do something(s) to ameliorate those problems in better ways if we work with the truth and not against it.
lets take the fact that a vast number of american blacks won’t manage to compete in an ivy league world. well, if we know that, and we understand why that is, maybe we — as a nation — can plan better for their future. maybe we can quit taking in peoples (mexicans, guatemalans) who are direct competitors for the jobs that blacks once did (housekeepers, janitors). maybe we can quit funding welfare babies — if you need to be on welfare, sorry — no kids. maybe instead of just handing out cash to welfare recipients we can make these people work for their handouts. i got plenty of potholes on my street that could be filled.
as for whites being displaced by asians at universities — well, if we know that east asians have higher iqs and will displace american citizens in their own country, how ’bout we plan not to take any more of them into this country? like jared taylor, even though the japanese are smart and well-behaved, i don’t want tens of millions of them here in this country.
etc., etc.
no, it’s not all gonna work — it’s not going to work smoothly — and maybe it will be a disaster. but it’s gonna be a disaster anyway with the misguided direction we’re heading in now.
anyway — mostly i just wanted to make the point that hbd’ers are not all ebil people, unlike what the pc’ers think of us. i got a heart, ya know?
@eric – “Sure, once we all know the truth about HBD, nobody is going to be pissed! We will all work together to understand our differences and create a harmonious multiracial society!”
nobody said that. you’re exaggerating.
I tend to think along the same lines as you. But when a commenter on iSteve yesterday made a point that HBD realist = racist by definition, I decided to check the definition.
From the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language:
racism
n.
1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.
So it turns out that he is right: For as long as the word “superior” is not treated as some sort of objective universal and the meaning of “prejudice” is “a preconceived preference or idea”, both definitions apply to any HBD realist.
@nanonymous – “But when a commenter on iSteve yesterday made a point that HBD realist = racist by definition, I decided to check the definition…. So it turns out that he is right….”
yes. that’s why i said: “too many politically correct people (erroneously) assume that hbd’ers are racists (in the bad sense of the word)….”
i recognize that grasping the concept of human biodiversity makes one a racist — how could it not? it’s just that being a racist doesn’t have to mean one has diabolical plans for races or groups that are not one’s own. that’s a connotation that politically correct people have added to the word.
edit: heh. i guess all sorts of biologists must be racists because they recognize that bonobos are innately different from other chimpanzees … or that mountain gorillas and lowland gorillas are innately different … or that the pond scum from one pond is innately different from the pond scum in another pond …. (~_^)
@nanonymous – “2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.”
of course, one has to be careful not to discriminate or be prejudiced against any particular individual because they are a member of such-and-such a race. there are obviously dumb east asians and smart africans. you can never know who you are dealing with until you deal with them.
I’m with you, hbd* chick. Charles Murray put his finger on the problem in the last the chapter of his famous book. He titled the chapter, “A Place for Everyone.” Here’s my take on what such a place might look like. One of the places, I should say, one possible choice for those who are inclined.
The whole burden the tract is that this is indeed a feasible choice from an economic and business point-of-view. Of course I might be mistaken. Economics is a difficult art.
The problem with Bob’s viewpoint is, that the truth remains the truth whether we like it our not, and any society that allows its regnant ideology to get too far out of step with the truth is doomed; the fate of the USSR should have taught us that. I’m not sure what recognizing the truth about HBD will do to our society, but we can all see that denying the truth of HBD is driving our society into financial, social and political ruin. And, last time I checked, our last large outbreak of race-based violence coincided with the final triumph of equalitarian dogma in the 1960’s, and the summer “flash mobs” came after the election of a liberal, not an HBDer. Denial of HBD actually makes racial violence and hatred worse, because, if there are no differences between the races, discrimination is the ONLY remaining answer for disparities between the races, which just leads to more anger, violence, hatred, etc, which further increases disparities. This cycle will destroy America if it isn’t stopped, and recognition of HBD is the only way to stop it. Besides, at the personal level, everyone, regardless of race, pretty much recognizes the truth of HBD anyway, despite what they might feel constrained to say in public. The truth may be uncomfortable, but any society that tries to live by lies is doomed.
I wrote about this issue here and here.
I agree with hbd chick, that it’s much better to face reality, but HBD denialism works pretty well on a social level for many people. Yes, it has horrific political consequences, but it prevents unpleasantness at cocktail parties and the like, which is part of why it survives.
If I recall correctly, Japanese has a word for what we might call the “social truth,” i.e. what you say you believe to other people. This is different from their word for truth. The key is that this “social truth” is not evil or even dispensable, but it should be seen for what it is.
In English we have “white lies,” but that has a negative connotation. “Etiquette” isn’t exactly right, either, and it’s too broad anyway. “Hypocrisy” isn’t really correct either, since it implies a conscious intention to dissimulate. I guess “social truth” gets pretty close but as terms go it’s rather dull.
Reaktionary_Konkvistador once posited that very literal-minded people, such as nerds, see the contradiction between the social and the actual truth, and conclude that we need to do a better job of living up to the ideal, rather than recognizing that as a platitude to smooth over awkward situations. I’m not sure I agree, although that’s probably part of it.
Aaronovitch makes the same argument at Mangan’s (emphasis mine):
@eugenicist – “If I recall correctly, Japanese has a word for what we might call the ‘social truth,’ i.e. what you say you believe to other people.”
建前 (tatemae). cool. i didn’t know. thnx!
I don’t find these truths unpleasant. I think they are beautiful. Am I a bad HBD believer?
@statsquatch – “Am I a bad HBD believer?”
heh. no — we love you just the way you are, squatchie. (~_^)
(secret: i don’t find them unpleasant, either. it’s just all those people out there — society — that can’t handle the truth.)
you are sooo raciss
raciss raciss raciss
full of racississm
but i am raciss too so thank you for the raciss paper
@unamused – you’re welcome … waaaaycist! (^_^)
> Even the “talented tenth” of blacks is in trouble. Their presence the middle class depends on government jobs.
Quite so… they also have about 0.9 kids versus ~2.5 at the Black median. We aren’t going to have any more Black heads of state.
> In an HBD-governed world, racial differences would be so glaringly obvious and have such serious negative impacts on individuals that wide-spread racial violence would be inevitable.
I have to disagree diametrically. The model racist society is the entire West before 1960 or so. Starting from ~1635-85 at the latest, which is when Blacks were first kidnapped to Virginia (I think). Everything was pretty cool racially almost all the time. Surely Black life in America was ten times more dignified than it is now. There was no B-W gap in employment.
> Surely Black life in America was ten times more dignified than it is now. There was no B-W gap in employment
I mean of course ~1900 or so – not the chattel slavery period.
> that very literal-minded people, such as nerds, see the contradiction between the social and the actual truth, and conclude that we need to do a better job of living up to the ideal, rather than recognizing that as a platitude to smooth over awkward situations. I’m not sure I agree, although that’s probably part of it.
That pretty much explains the first half of my adulthood. People didn’t seem to take their own axioms to heart.
“‘that very literal-minded people, such as nerds, see the contradiction between the social and the actual truth, and conclude that we need to do a better job of living up to the ideal, rather than recognizing that as a platitude to smooth over awkward situations.'”
i’m afriad i’m more cynical than that.
i’ve come to conclude that the social truths out there that most people believe (which most of them have adopted without reflection, of course) are there not just to smooth over some awkward situations (like having to discuss with a black person at a cocktail party the low average iq of blacks), but rather to cover up the fact that most people are doing something other than what they say — namely looking after their own interests (see hamilton’s quote in my somewhat rambling post on race & iq — sorry, it was late when i wrote that).
that people look after their own interests is not surprising and is as it should be. the rest seems hypocritical — in a very annoying way to us literal-minded folks.
but maybe it wouldn’t work any other way. or not so well. i dunno. i wish i could travel to one of those alternate universes to find out. (~_^)
i’ve come to conclude that the social truths out there that most people believe (which most of them have adopted without reflection, of course) are there not just to smooth over some awkward situations (like having to discuss with a black person at a cocktail party the low average iq of blacks), but rather to cover up the fact that most people are doing something other than what they say — namely looking after their own interests
Good point.
I’ve concluded that trying to find the rational basis for anyone’s behavior, and especially for group behavior, is a huge waste of time, it’s better to go right to what Clotaire Rapaille calls “the logic of emotions” and work from there.
Also, literal-minded people might not just notice the hypocrisy; they’d also be unable to appreciate the necessity of using a polite ruse to covertly advance one’s interests. Why can’t you just come out and say what you’re after? It seems somehow not cricket. Ridiculing someone’s hypocrisy also has the neat effect of lowering the status of the person you’re ridiculing.
@eugenicist – i used the word hypocritical, but that’s really not fair. so many of these behaviors are so very subconscious — like hamilton described them being in “the deepest evolved roots of our psyche” — that people are mostly not at all aware of what they’re doing. i’m sure i engage in these sorts of behaviors all the time, too — maybe less than others — or, rather, maybe i’m more aware of them — but i’m certainly not immune either. i’m human, too! (^_^)
it’s just, when you see it, it’s hard not to see it anymore. like taking the red pill. (~_^) which, i can assure everyone, does not make one more functional in society. =/
“Separation and awful retribution is coming. Plan for it…”
Yeah pretty much lol.
If you’re White, don’t be surprised if you’re asked to burn down a building or two in the next few years. And if you’re a minority, uh, godspeed.
But, hey, here’s something to make you feel better:
http://racialreality.blogspot.com/2011/11/african-iq-and-the-flynn-effect.html