He agreed.
But, I'm also frustrated by how little development has been done on his theory, by him or by others.
Reading his books, it's pretty clear that, while he's a bright, interesting guy, he pretty much made up his categories off the top of his head.
For example, if I recall correctly, he lumps agile athletes together with guys who are really good at working on their cars as all possessing high "kinesthetic" intelligence. The problem is that if you stop and think about the cliques at your old high school, you'll note that there was little overlap between the jocks and the greasers. The gearheads tended to be a little uncoordinated and the football heroes were more into buying cars than fixing them. So, while I'm perfectly happy to agree that there are multiple intelligences, I'm don't think Gardner's term "kinesthetic" is actually pointing to a real single thing. Football star LaDainlian Tomlinson and car-fixer-upper Jesse James (Sandra Bullock's husband) may well both possess unusually gifted cognitive talents, but I strongly doubt they are the same talent.
If anybody is actually interested in quantitatively investigating multiple intelligences, the military's ASVAB test would offer a good source of data. The ASVAB, introduced in the 1970s, is a superset of the military's traditional AFQT enlistment IQ test. To the four highly g-loaded AFQT subtests, the military added six more specific, less g-loaded subtests. For example, one was on auto repair, which would be relevant to Gardner's kinesthetic category. Here are the ten subtests as of 1980:
- general science
- Arithmetic reasoning
- word knowledge
- paragraph comprehension
- numercial operations
- coding speed
- auto and shop information
- mathematics knowledge
- mechanical comprehension
- electronics information
We have a fantastic nationally representative National Longitudinal Study of Youth sample of about 12,000 people who took the military's ASVAB as young adults in 1980, and social scientists have been following the course of their lives with close interest ever since. Most famously, Herrnstein and Murray correlated what they were doing in 1990 against their AFQT IQs in 1980 to furnish most of the novel material in The Bell Curve. But the other six subtests, when correlated with the NLSY demographic data, might provide some clues as to what multiple intelligences actually exist.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Seriously, check out these people: Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation: jocrf.org
ReplyDeleteThey have years' worth of data from people taking their aptitude tests (and I'm considering taking the tests in a few months, for various reasons). They claim that results for aptitudes do not change much from age 14 on, though certain abilities do degrade over time (like manipulation on the "Tweezer test").
They would have their own data on correlations between the various aptitudes they have chosen to test, and they do test against g as well. http://jocrf.org/research/not_just_g.html
Some of the stuff they test: inductive reasoning, structural visualization, ideaphoria (ease in generating new ideas), graphoria (ease in doing clerical work, I think), manual dexterity, rhythm memory, analytical reasoning, memory for design, observation... and much more. These sound like reasonable categories for "multiple intelligences" and I'd contact their researchers to try to get more information.
The notion of multiple intelligences is primarily a method to equalize groups that do poorly on IQ tests. In the end, g is still the governing factor in modern society, because it drives so many other individual characteristics such as an appreciation of history and civilization. I do not believe that anyone can seriously contend that the ability to throw a baseball comprimises an intelligence. Instead, the ability to compete in sports primarily reflects a physical ability.
ReplyDeleteBy giving undue credence to the notion of multiple intelligences, and allowing the term to be broadly categorized and interpreted, we risk losing focus that g is a powerful indicator of success on both the individual and community level. In the end, I think that "g" is what matters most because you can't work with that which you cannot command. So if your capacity for intellectual thought is low, but your creativity is high, then you are not likely to create art equal to Michaelangelo or Bach. I can attest to this, because I know that my ability to conceptualize new ideas is unbelievable compared to the average person, however, I am not on the intellectual level of a mathematician. Therefore, while I might be an idea factory my ideas will never rise to the level of Newton. Instead the most I could have hoped for was to become CEO of a firm and to use my ideas to transform an industry (fortunately, however, I was told my place was better reserved for someone with a different complexion; so today I work in a niche industry and do amazing work that has no significance to anyone - joy).
On a society level, I see the promotion of multiple intelligences as a backdoor way to promote diversity programs. Since we have no proxies for these vague multiple intelligences, we must assume they vary throughout society and people. Therefore, an admissions staff or an HR department has another reason to reach for an ethnically diverse population instead of relying on standardized enrollment or hiring methods. For that reason, I think everyone should be wary of promoting the concept of multiple intelligences until such time as the idea is fully vetted and related to g.
Justin
A "talent" isn't the same thing as an "intelligence." There's one intelligence but many talents.
ReplyDeleteAll tests measure both "g" and factors that are uncorrelated with "g."
I don't see why that model needs to be changed.
Well, I wrote what I thought was a nice post, then it didn't submit properly. I will summarize.
ReplyDeleteI find this idea of multiple intelligences to be somewhat dubious. In the end, g still governs potential. If someone has outstanding creative ability, but low intellectual capacity, then do not expect the result to be Michelangelo. You can only work with that which you can intellectually command. There may be a few exceptions, but not many. In my case, I am an idea factory of extraordinary proportions, but my intellectual ability does not equal that of an achieving mathematician. Therefore, I will never come close to equaling someone like Da Vinci who was brilliant on all fronts.
Scarily, I think this idea of multiple intelligences is just a backdoor method to promote more diversity programs. I am sure that most proponents of the unproven multiple intelligences theory are working to ensure that all groups and individuals are equalized. By promoting the concept of multiple intelligences (and conveniently failing to address the notion that ability is modulated by g), the proponents of diversity can replace standardized enrollment and hiring procedures with purely soft based measures. The end result will be the complete annihilation of the West as more people such as myself (those committed to excellence and paying tribute to the hardwork and sacrifice of our ancestors) fall victim to the process.
Justin
The problem with multiple intelligences is that the all other ‘intelligences’ are pigmies in comparison to the conventional ‘g’ factor. The ‘g’ factor uniquely defines man and enables him to significantly and historically elevate his existence. It is clearly the most relevant and economically rewarding for the average person living in a modern first world society.
ReplyDeleteGazelles may have more kinesthetic intelligence and dogs may have a higher EQ, but I don’t find either particular impressive in the grand scheme of things. William Shockly’s research and inventions have made my life much better than whomever who was the world’s fastest man during those years. I suspect Oprah will be as irrelevant as Phil Donahue in 10 yrs but the research going on now into the genetic basis of disease and the therapeutics that arise from this work will have historic impact on humanity.
The only caveat is those with high IQ that also have other 'intelligence' traits at the right place and time in history to alter its course like famous statesmen, entrepreneurs, generals, etc. An interesting counter thought experiement would be to try to compile a list of low-IQ historical figures that have significantly improved human existence (artists?).
- JAN
It's like I said on the other thread: there is no reason to think that multiple intelligences slot as easily into the categories people like Gardner tend to make up. The general intelligence factor doesn't fit easily into such a category. You find g coming into play more or less strongly in a variety of testable abilities the multiple intelligence crowd proposes. Any other intelligences that might exist are likely to be broadly and elusively distributed just like g is.
ReplyDeleteCurrent theories of multiple intelligences remind me of outmoded theories of learning. We've all heard the idea that there are visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners. On the surface it sounds appealing but modern research suggests no evidence for it. Individuals undoubtedly learn better in various ways but differences in learning styles don't appear to divide along simple lines we might quickly recognize.
I think the basic flaw in our thinking is assuming too often that the brain is going to obey the sort of basic psychological categories people can think up when in fact it's a far more alien thing than we give it credit for. Evolution has had its own plan in determining what kind of cognitive differences exist and how they interact and it doesn't care what we might think of it.
Steve Sailer: Here are the ten subtests as of 1980:
ReplyDeletegeneral science
Arithmetic reasoning
word knowledge
paragraph comprehension
numercial operations
coding speed
auto and shop information
mathematics knowledge
mechanical comprehension
electronics information
Mary Pat: Some of the stuff they test: inductive reasoning, structural visualization, ideaphoria (ease in generating new ideas), graphoria (ease in doing clerical work, I think), manual dexterity, rhythm memory, analytical reasoning, memory for design, observation... and much more. These sound like reasonable categories for "multiple intelligences" and I'd contact their researchers to try to get more information.
First off all - obviously human beings are vastly more complex creatures than any single quantity like "g" could ever hope to measure.
Now I assume that [many] people are [or would be] interested in pursuing a search for "alternate intelligences" because they are motivated by a sentiment which would sound something like "Okay, blacks and hispanics [mestizos/aboriginals] fail rather catastrophically on tests for 'g', but surely blacks and hispanics must be good at SOMETHING - we just have to find out what that something is."
Hollywood certainly loves to cast blacks & hispanics in this role, c.f. the sailer, in The Hunt for Red October, who was an aural/sonar/signal processing genius, or the electronics wizard in Ocean's Eleven, or, more recently, the "master" crossword puzzle-ist, and his son, who reads mystic symbolism off of cereal boxes, in M Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water.
But here's where I would have to play the role of The Devil's Advocate - if you set out on this quixotic journey, in search of just what it is that blacks & hispanics are really good at, and if you intend to be completely intellectually honest with yourself about it, then you have to be prepared for the possibility that at the end of your journey, you will come to the conclusion that blacks & hispanics really aren't good at much of anything at all.
At this point, I have nothing statistical to offer - just a lot of anecdotal observations over the course of my life.
For instance, you might say, "Well, surely blacks & hispanics are good at working with their hands!" And I'd say - well, I know a girl who's a big financial muckety-muck with a major American textile firm, and when I asked her why they had to offshore their manufacturing to Asia - why they couldn't use Central/South American labor, or illegal alien labor here in the USA - she said, much to my surprise, that for whatever reason [and she was perplexed by it herself], "hispanics" [mestizos/aboriginals] just can't seem to operate looms - she indicated to me that somehow it [loom operation, sewing, etc] was just beyond their abilities.
Then you'd say - "Well surely they're good at drawing!" And I'd say, Really? What are their percentages in the graphic arts at Walt Disney, Industrial Light & Magic, Marvel, or DC? I don't have any earthly idea what the numbers might be, and given how liberal those institutions are, I wouldn't discount the possibility of quota hiring, but on the other hand, I wouldn't be at all surprised if those outfits are pretty much 100% white [with of course the occasional Asian kids].
And you'd say, "Well that's not fair - nobody draws by hand anymore - everyone uses Illustrator or Renderman, and that immediately puts blacks & hispanics at a disadvantage".
And I'd say - uh, well, if "they" couldn't make the transition from stitching together buffalo skins to working on textile looms, then why would you expect that "they" could make the transition from sketching by hand to sketching with Illustrator? [Assuming they could even sketch by hand in the first place...]
Then somebody would say, "Well look how good blacks & hispanics are at sports."
And I'd say, okay, the blacks are pretty good at football and modern "basketball" [really jungle ball], the hispanics are pretty good at baseball, and they're both pretty good at boxing, but where are they in the technique-driven skilled sports?
Where are the black & hispanic champions in swimming, wrestling, tennis, gymnastics, figure skating, and the like?
Okay, you've got Serena & Venus in tennis. And a few years ago, there were Debi Thomas & Surya Bonaly in figure skating.
And I will readily admit that the most likely explanation is that the technique-driven skilled sports require enormous investments in time & money on the part of the parents of the children who would like to take up those sports, but that most black & hispanic parents don't have that kind of time & money to offer to their children [or have the time & money, but, for whatever reason, refuse to make the investment].
But at the same time, the fact that not only has there never been a major black swimming champion from anywhere, at any time, in any place - but that even in this day and age, "most" blacks don't seem to be able swim in the first place [death by drowning* being a major occupational hazard for any black who comes near a body of water] - surely has to raise some red flags as to a weird, inherent limitation in their manual dexterity.
For that matter, are there even any blacks or hispanics in the ranks of the super-nerd computer gaming champions? I have no idea what the numbers are, but my impression is that gaming champions have an overwhelming likelihood of being Asian, of all things. Don't know whether that's different for e.g. EA Sports Madden NFL, but I'd be surprised if it were.
And finally someone will bring up music - "Surely the blacks have a great natural talent for melodies, harmonies, and rhythms!"
And I'd say - spend an afternoon with Johann Sebastian Bach & The Modern Jazz Quartet: Blues on Bach is one of the most depressing cultural statements I've ever encountered in my entire life - listening to it & thinking about the demographic implications of it are enough to drive you to despair.
Anyway, maybe that's enough pessimism, doom, and gloom for one afternoon.
But I will say this - again, anecdotally: My impression is that if you want to measure an off-beat "alternate" intelligence, then the one that is of paramount importance is attention span.
If there were some way to measure attention span, then you'd probably be pretty far along in determining & predicting success in life.
And I think that if there were some way to measure [or to have measured] attention span over the course of the last fifty years, then you'd discover that it plummeted catastrophically - first with the introduction of television, and then again, more recently, with the introduction of video games - so that today, most people have just a fraction of the attention spans that their ancestors had fifty or seventy-five years ago [and I'd imagine that you'd discover that even individual adults living today have probably seen their own attention spans decline over the course of their own lives, as a result of the decline of book reading, and the rise of television viewing, pr0n surfing, game playing, and the like].
But I also imagine that ultimately you would discover that attention span correlates pretty strongly with "g", just like everything else does.
*Which is not to make fun of people who experience death by drowning - it's difficult to imagine a more terrifying way to pass through to the end of it all.
I suspect that you suspect that you already know why people aren't looking into this. Your opening remarks explained why, didn't they?
ReplyDeleteAnon --
ReplyDeleteBlacks are not active in swimming, figure skating, tennis (the Williams sisters the exception) and Golf for ECONOMIC reasons (it's also the reason for few coaches in most sports being black).
To be a coach, like say USC's Pete Carroll, one must first pay dues as an assistant making almost no money. You make more money working at Von's. This requires financial support from wives, parents, etc. Most Blacks lack this financial support network.
The same is true for Swimming, where payouts are few and time-deferred. Michael Phelps, remember him? How much money did he make relative to say, Reggie Bush? Quick who won the last men's figure skating event? Or the women's?
As for "what are Blacks good at" the answer is MUSIC. Starting with the staggering genius of Scott Joplin and continuing through Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Jelly Roll Morton, Mahalia Jackson, Lady Day, Nat Cole, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Big Joe Turner, Little Richard, James Brown, Otis Redding, and on into Branford and Wynton Marsalis, Blacks DEFINE American music.
Ellington's compositions, or Davis's, are every bit as complex (some might argue more so) and beautiful as Beethoven's or Mozart's.
ALL Rock music takes it's syncopation structure from the work done FIRST by Joplin, and developed through Armstrong to Johnson to Elvis. It's why Rock's EMOTIONAL appeal when done right continues to move people. It's a masterful innovation.
Sadly, the cultural crisis of Blacks, who have a 20th Century record of ASTONISHING musical contributions is clearly in decline -- RAP being the last thing to come out of the Black Community that gave America MoTown and Staxx records.
What does that have to do with g? Not much. Talent is talent. Though of course a man like Ellington had extremely high g, his work is sadly neglected.
"As for "what are Blacks good at" the answer is MUSIC. Starting with the staggering genius of Scott Joplin and continuing through Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Jelly Roll Morton, Mahalia Jackson, Lady Day, Nat Cole, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Big Joe Turner, Little Richard, James Brown, Otis Redding, and on into Branford and Wynton Marsalis, Blacks DEFINE American music."
ReplyDeleteThanks for countering the moronic comments of that other poster. I tell you it makes my skin crawl to witness the cultural illiteracy of high g nutcases. To say that blacks and Hispanics aren't good at anything is ridiculous and implies that you haven't been around people of either ethnicity. "g" has its place but it isn't everything - it doesn't guarantee a good seamstress when the physicist needs alterations nor does it get you a tasty meal served in minutes. Abilities that don't get tested on IQ tests are often ones that were important in our evolutionary history - being good with your hands for instance in order to make all the things you needed for survival. Physical strength/endurance/ability also played a role in our survival. I'm beginning to think that too much intelligence of the theoretical kind or too many "brainy" people in a population is maladaptive anyway. The more I read this blog, the more I see it this way. Especially since these human computers seem so ready to dismiss cultures without learning anything about them other than their average IQs. Seems to be a faulty and rather limited selection process.
Glad you and mary pat are here to bring some class to the place.
Yes Anon...
ReplyDeleteLets go back to being good with our hands making stone tools and spears. I dont have any wish to live in modern high tech civilization either... never really had a use for 70 year lifespans, economic systems, computers and geewhizzes like airplanes and cars.
...
anonymous: Blacks are not active in swimming, figure skating, tennis (the Williams sisters the exception) and Golf for ECONOMIC reasons
ReplyDeleteAs I indicated above, I agree that economics [possibly compounded by some strange, obstinate refusal on the part of Blacks to master learned skills] is the most plausible explanation for their lack of participation in technique-driven skilled sports.
However, I find it deeply disturbing that we are well into the 21st Century, and "most" Blacks still don't know how to swim.
There's something very wrong about that fact.
anonymous: Blacks DEFINE American music.
Tell that to Stephen Foster, Daniel Decatur Emmett, George R. Poulton, Benjamin Russell Hanby, James Pierpont, Thomas Brigham Bishop, Percy Montrose, Patty & Mildred Hill, John Philip Sousa, Jack Norworth, George Evans, Ferde Grofé, Samuel Barber, Paul Whiteman, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Hoagy Carmichael, Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, Louis Prima, Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, Walter Kent, AP Carter, Jimmie Davis & Charles Mitchell, Bill Monroe, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, Paul Desmond, Henry Mancini, Vince Guaraldi, Willie Nelson, Elmer Bernstein, Jerry Goldsmith, etc etc etc...
And we won't bother to mention the years that Antonin Dvorak & Gustav Mahler spent in New York City [and yeah, I know all about Antonin Dvorak and the Negro Spiritual].
anonymous: Ellington's compositions, or Davis's, are every bit as complex (some might argue more so) and beautiful as Beethoven's or Mozart's.
I'm sorry, but we're wasting our time even trying to talk to one another.
PS: You didn't mean to say Ellington & Davis, you meant to say Strayhorn and maybe Hancock or Jones, but even if you had said Strayhorn and Hancock and Jones, then we'd still be wasting our time talking to one another.
I'm trying to see the distinction between what people are calling intelligence and these various aptitudes. G is measuring a certain kind of cognitive aptitude, correct? Then why not measuring musical aptitude, or dexterity?
ReplyDeletePerhaps "multiple intelligences" is a misnomer, and g/intelligence should be lumped in with the other aptitudes. One item I've definitely noticed a difference on is a sort of kinesthetic memory (I'm thinking of touch-typing here) -- I'm good at touch typing, which yes, took some training, but I know lots of people who have done the same training and still can't touch type. In particular, my huband is high g like me, but no matter how many times he's trained, he just can't get touch-typing. And I know people of average intelligence who type exceedingly fast. I think this kid of aptitude does have an impact on certain types of jobs, but yeah - if you're in management, your kinesthetic or musical ability won't have much impact, but your ability to think on your feet and respond to changing conditions will have a large impact.
Anyway, I'm finding the aptitude stuff interesting, because it's not much talked about. Generally you get the Gardner wishy-washiness without any specificity or data. Even if nobody is much interested in funding research in looking at ethnic disparities in aptitude distributions, I bet there would be some interest in finding out which, if any, of the aptitudes are correlated, and which are correlated (if at all) with g.
"Lets go back to being good with our hands making stone tools and spears. I dont have any wish to live in modern high tech civilization either... never really had a use for 70 year lifespans, economic systems, computers and geewhizzes like airplanes and cars."
ReplyDeleteYou're being deliberately dense. I'm sorry but I think we still need people who excel or at least are happy to make a living with what you consider to be lower level skills. What's your plan, get rid of all people with IQs lower than 130 then create machines to do all the grunt work? BTW, some people who are good with their hands sculpt or play musical instruments. Let's try to retain some fine motor skills before we all turn into big brains living in virtual reality on the internet.
It's obvious you have no artistic ability whatsoever, another math brain trying to rule the world in its lopsided way. Perhaps we should inject you with estrogen to improve your perspective.
Regarding comments about blacks not being proficient at swimming and figure skating, this has nothing to do with talent but with choice. Black people generally don't swim or figure skate. However, if they did, they would definitely dominate figure skating and maybe swimming. Blacks are slightly disadvantaged in swimming by dense bones and narrow feet, however, their naturally superior musculature is advantage. I personally don't think there is a single sport where whites can compete with talent blacks. Black people are just too physically superior.
ReplyDeleteJustin
Tell that to Stephen Foster, Daniel Decatur Emmett, George R. Poulton, Benjamin Russell Hanby, James Pierpont, Thomas Brigham Bishop, Percy Montrose, Patty & Mildred Hill, John Philip Sousa, Jack Norworth, George Evans, Ferde Grofé, Samuel Barber, Paul Whiteman, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Hoagy Carmichael, Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, Louis Prima, Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, Walter Kent, AP Carter, Jimmie Davis & Charles Mitchell, Bill Monroe, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, Paul Desmond, Henry Mancini, Vince Guaraldi, Willie Nelson, Elmer Bernstein, Jerry Goldsmith, etc etc etc...
ReplyDeleteHuh? I've heard of Willie Nelson, but who are the rest of those people? Is that the best Whites have to offer in terms of music? Willie bloody Nelson?! Your argument has been damaged by this revelation of how out-of-touch with today's culture you are.
"Even if nobody is much interested in funding research in looking at ethnic disparities in aptitude distributions, I bet there would be some interest in finding out which, if any, of the aptitudes are correlated, and which are correlated (if at all) with g."
ReplyDeleteI know of some skills/intelligence correlations that may be Scots-Irish. Most of the women in my family have strong verbal IQs (I'd say above average but can't be more accurate). Though we don't have much else in common, you could describe most of us as garrulous. A few of us are avid readers as well and seem to be able to read at a faster than average rate. We also tend to make great typists and legal secretaries.
My mother and at least one of my aunts also have strong eidetic memories, which may or may not be related to the other abilities. Though certainly if you have a good idea where to find a bit of information, you'll be more efficient. My visual memory isn't quite as strong as my mother's (who says hers has gotten weaker with age) but pretty good if I remember to use it.
For a few years now I've been interested in getting trained as a court reporter or something along those lines. I think I may be getting too old for it though plus the state where I live currently doesn't have any programs nearby. Also, it involves typing words that are heard rather than read which might be a weakness. The appeal is that I'd be valued for speed and accuracy in recording information which is something that can be done in a passive, politically neutral way.
anonymous: I tell you it makes my skin crawl to witness the cultural illiteracy of high g nutcases.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I thought about mentioning the absence of Blacks [& Hispanics] in the Arts.
I'm aware of two Blacks, in my lifetime, who tired to make a go of it in serious music - Kathleen Battle, and Andre Watts [I'm too young to remember Marian Anderson, or the Stalinist, Paul Robeson].
But Kathleen Battle will be 60 next summer, and Andre Watts is already 61, and if any new generation of Black artists has emerged to take their place, then I'm not aware of them.
[I suppose I could mention the Marsalis brothers, but after witnessing the venom & hate which Wynton Marsalis spewed out in Ken Burns's Jazz, it's kinda difficult for me to even think about the guy objectively anymore.]
Anyway, if you posit that Blacks do have some talent at music, then it's awfully strange that they aren't showing up in the major orchestras or opera houses more often than they do.
And in line with my observation about attention span, as above, I'd say that if you do assume that Blacks have some talent at music, then the most likely explanation for their absence in serious music is the lack of an attention span sufficient to lend itself to the sort of devotion, determination, and even obsession necessary to excel at a task whose mastery requires literally decades of boring, tedious, mind-numbing drudgery.
By contrast, the other night, I heard a rap song, within the movie Shadowboxer, which went on and on about the Virgin Mary having an abortion, and F- this, and F- that, and kill this person, and butcher that person, and which, now that I've googled it, appears to have been chanted by an outfit which calls itself "Niggaz Against Society".
[Parenthetically: some online versions of the lyrics have the word "If" in that line - "If The Virgin Mary Had an Abortion" - but you couldn't hear it during the Shadowboxer soundtrack. And the online lyrics I've seen don't make any sense anyway - they're rambling and incoherent and frankly not at lot different from random semantic noise.]
Personally, though, I think it's rather remarkable that the era of Jim Crow was able to produce musical talent like Marian Anderson, Paul Robeson [Stalinist that he was], Kathleen Battle, and Andre Watts, but that the modern era produces the Virgin Mary having abortions.
And if success in life really is, say, 60% genetic, and 40% environmental, then observations like this lead you to wonder whether the Blacks, as a practical matter, weren't really better off under segregation - whether the discipline induced by Jim Crow didn't work to protect them from their own worst excesses.
Along those lines, from watching the TCM & AMC channels, I can assure you that Hollywood made far, far better movies - forty or fifty years ago, when the Motion Picture Commission still ruled the roost - than the garbage and poison which Hollywood spews forth today.
anonymous: "g" has its place but it isn't everything - it doesn't guarantee a good seamstress when the physicist needs alterations nor does it get you a tasty meal served in minutes.
If you go back and look at what I wrote, I SPECIFICALLY addressed the question of weaving and sewing - as I said above, I know a girl [I call her a "girl" - she's about 40 now, but, like many career women, unmarried & childless] who is a CFO at a major American textile firm, and she told me that they have to outsource to Asia because [for whatever strange reason - she didn't understand it herself] the native mestizo/aboriginal peoples of Central & South America can't seem to do weaving & sewing.
As for tasty meals - you know what? That could be tested, and tested rather easily, with little more than a very modest research grant.
Just go to Zagat, or Michelin, or Gault Millau, or wherever, and get their restaurant scores, and then go out in the field and survey the restaurants as to the age/sex/race/ethnicity of their chefs & sous-chefs, tabulate it all in a big database, and see what you find.
Then you'll know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what correlates with what: Are women better chefs than men? Are teenagers better chefs than old geezers? Are West African Blacks better chefs than Pacific Rim Asians?
The numbers are there - all you have to do is gather them.
But here again I must reemphasize what it was that I was trying to warn you about above: If you set out on a quixotic adventure like this, and if you intend to be completely intellectually honest about it, then you damned well better be prepared for the possibility that you will discover some very ugly, disturbing truths about human nature - truths which you will wish you had never learned - and that once you come to learn those truths, you might long for the days when you were just a little more ignorant & naive about these things.
anonymous: To say that blacks and Hispanics aren't good at anything is ridiculous and implies that you haven't been around people of either ethnicity... Especially since these human computers seem so ready to dismiss cultures without learning anything about them other than their average IQs...
You might consider the alternative: That I actually know a little bit too much about this topic - that maybe I attended 12 years' worth of public schools which were 1/3 Black [this was before the Hispanic invasion], that I spent my entire childhood playing football & basketball [& kickball & softball & every other idiotic pasttime] with Blacks, that I worked my way through school in the local hospital, at menial jobs, interacting all day and all night with Blacks, from the lowliest janitors, up through the ranks of the neurosurgeons, and that I have taught blacks in the classroom at levels ranging from the community college to the Ivy League.
[And I'd add parenthetically: The only students who ever cheated on me, in exams, or assignments, were Black - or at least the only ones who did such a lousy job of it that their cheating was patently obvious - in my entire career, I never even suspected any other students of cheating.]
And if you want some more anecdotalism, then let me throw out something which I thought about saying yesterday afternoon, but which I decided against, figuring that I had already met my daily quota for doom, gloom, and despair: I realized, about 15 years ago, that in my entire life, I had never heard [or seen] a Black person express a sense of curiosity.
I.e. I have never heard [in person] a Black person say something like "Gee, I wonder why..." or "Huh - this is strange..." or "Gosh, you don't suppose that...".
It's as though the emotional response simply isn't to be found in their constitutions.
[Now I probably have heard Thomas Sowell say something like that during, say, an old Firing Line interview, many, many years ago, but I've never in my life met a Thomas Sowell, or a Walter Williams (two more children of Jim Crow, by the way).]
I have much less anecdotal experience with Hispanics [by and large, they appeared on the scene a little after my time], but I did spend more than a year in a research laboratory with a fellow from South America who had a little mestizo/aboriginal blood in him, and the experience was so dreadful that if I even allow myself to think about it, I'll lose my temper & burst a gasket ex post facto.
Anyway, I thought about this whole question again last night, when I saw this essay posted over at Free Republic:
HUMINT: The “Why?” Gene
Do you believe the root cause of human behavior is the result of an individual's genetics or is behavior a product of an environment? Is there a gene that makes us ask, "why?" or is curiosity about interacting with our environment and having access to good answers?
http://humintel.blogspot.com/2007/09/humint-why-gene.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1898188/posts
And I thought about getting on Free Republic and asking the guy, "Okay, if there is a 'WHY' gene, then have you considered the possibility that maybe some people don't possess it?"
But I've had so many accounts banned at Free Republic over the years that I just don't have the energy to do it anymore.
And let me add one final point - in the abstract, I really don't give a damn about Black people [or about Hispanics, for that matter].
[That was something else I realized a few years ago - that I don't care about them, that I don't want to hear their whining and bitching and moaning, and that their sob stories just don't work on me anymore.]
Of course, it's a double-edged sword, in that while I harbor no empathy for whatever suffering they have inflicted upon themselves, I also hold no animus towards them either - at least not a priori.
Yet here's the problem: These sub-literate, violence-prone morons [the Blacks, and, more recently, the Mestizo/Aboriginals] can be ignored when their numbers are small. E.g. when the blacks were only 9% of the population nationwide, as they were when I was a child, their lockstep support of Marxist politicians was at best a nuisance, and only reared its ugly head in particularly tight elections, like Ford-Carter, in 1976. In most other circumstances, though, they could be ignored [certainly it was easy to chart a wide course around them, so as to avoid any contact with them] and they could be left to wallow in their own pathologies.
But the Blacks are now up to 15+% of all births in the USA, and the Hispanics are at 22+%:
Of U.S. Children Under 5, Nearly Half Are Minorities
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/09/AR2006050901841.html
And I don't think that anyone [maybe not even Steve Sailer himself] has spent any time thinking about just what this portends for the future of our country.
I.e. I really don't think that anyone realizes [yet!] just how terrible the remainder of our lives will be, or just how horrible our children's lives will be, trying to co-exist in a "democracy" with that many savages in possession of the right to "vote".
You get little glimpses of it in the mainstream press from time to time; for instance, from just the last few days:
Helen Zille arrested after march
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=vn20070910040027388C653449
[Note that Helen Zille began her career as an anti-apartheid journalist.]
So long, white boy
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/09/17/white_man/print.html
Rangel would swap 'patch' for mother of all tax increases
http://www.suntimes.com/news/novak/560336,CST-EDT-novak17.article
And you know, Charles Rangel is supposed to be one of the "good" Blacks - he dresses in three-piece suits, and speaks a pretty good facsimile of standard English, and yucks it up with Sean Hannity on a regular basis. So if things are this bad when Rangel is in charge, then what happens when the likes of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Louis Farrakhan slither into the Ways & Means Committee? Or at that point, will they even bother to maintain the facade of niceties like committees in the first place? [Do they have "committees" in Zimbabwe, when they decide to seize peoples' properties and lynch them?]
And I don't know where the likes of Thomas F. "White Boy" Schaller thinks he's going to run to, when the Blacks & the Hispanics turn their wrath upon him.
Australia, maybe?
If so, then just how long does he think Australia will be able to hold out, on its own, absent America's protective sphere of influence?
For that matter, I look at the numbers everywhere in the world, and I'm quite seriously worried that there is nowhere to run to this time: That if we can't get smart people to start making babies again, then not just the USA - but the entire world! - is in mortal peril of being cast into a new Dark Age [no pun intended]:
IQ and the Wealth of Nations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations
List of countries and territories by fertility rate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_fertility_rate
You know, when Rome disappeared from the scene, circa 450AD-475AD, it took almost exactly 1000 years for Europe to re-emerge with a culture which was a worthy successor.
That meant a thousand years of breeding and selecting and nurturing - both of a people, and of a culture - wherein the breeders and the nurturers themselves had European root stock to work with, and the example of the Romans and the Athenians to guide them!
But my fear is that if we can't right the ship this time, and right it soon, then we could be looking at a second Dark Age, which could last 10,000 years, or 100,000 years, or which might even signal the end of Homo Sapiens as a species.
On the other hand, if thugs in three-piece suits, like Charles Rangel, start making a power move this early in the game, aimed at grabbing - hand over fist - trillions upon trillions of dollars from the productive citizenry, then the whole thing might just degenerate into a race war before we even realize it.
And God forbid that that should happen.
"On the other hand, if thugs in three-piece suits, like Charles Rangel, start making a power move this early in the game, aimed at grabbing - hand over fist - trillions upon trillions of dollars from the productive citizenry, then the whole thing might just degenerate into a race war before we even realize it."
ReplyDeleteI find it perversely comforting that you have obviously been made more miserable by multiculturalism than me. No offense. I don't wish you ill. It's just that for a long time I've felt that I was the only one who has had their life seriously disrupted by the minions of diversity. I'm not as angry at blacks and Hispanics as you, however, because other white people are the ones who target me for my unpopular political beliefs. There is no refuge for me anywhere among any people.
Since I can't possibly incur any more harm by being blunt, let me say this about the abilities of nonwhites. I think of us as having such different values that it's impossible for us to agree on what constitutes excellence in any field of endeavor. As I say this I can't help but think of many Hispanics who have been high achievers without the need for affirmative action. A girl who lived in my dorm in college was sailing through her pre-med courses. She was probably from the Dominican republic originally. I haven't known any blacks who were so successful academically - though Condolezia Rice comes to mind if you ignore her affiliation with Bush, so it is possible.
The majority of each population is the problem. I hate being melded with people I don't even like well enough to have developed an interest in visiting their home countries. For years we've suffered the destructive tyranny of all striving to have the same brains despite research demonstrating that men and women have very different brains due to their different balances of hormones. And if anyone hasn't noticed, I got tired of trying to act as if I could think like a man years ago. I see this happening with the various races as well. Any skill that the white race demonstrates in particular will be a source of controversy, ire and outright denial to those who aren't genetically predisposed to exhibit that trait. My guess is that there will be a distinct auditory dominance over visual emerge among blacks who I think maintained oral traditions longer than whites. As for Mexicans, Central and South Americans, I don't know. Most highly educated Hispanics I've encountered have been Cuban.
I don't think it's fair for any of us to have to adapt to some monoculture superimposed on us in the name of diversity. I've seen people of other races take offense when interacting with someone usually white who is exhibiting more stereotypically "white" cultural behavior. Blacks complain about having to act white in order to succeed but why should whites have to do the reverse. Do you develop some mulatto class to become teachers and managers so that the separate races are more likely to be treated fairly? Is this even possible?
I understand your anger. People from different races/ethnicities often seem to have different priorities as well. I know I'd certainly like to go back to the ethnic balance of my childhood, stay there and not have to deal with any of this because I'm certain like you that it won't be resolved until long after my death. I've already lost ten years and probably will never be a mother because my life has been so mangled I have nothing to offer as a partner in a marriage.
I also think that the culture that will emerge from all of this random blending of peoples won't be anything I like or understand. It doesn't seem fair that I'm not allowed to live out my life as a white female who was born in the South and raised a certain way. Why don't the younger people and the newer immigrants have to adapt to my ways instead of vice versa?
Ellington's compositions, or Davis's, are every bit as complex (some might argue more so) and beautiful as Beethoven's or Mozart's.
ReplyDeleteOh no, it's the 'jazz harmonies are more complex than classical harmonies' argument. Ugh!
Listen, jazz harmonies tolerate much higher levels of unprepared dissonance than classical harmonies. But this short-circuits jazz as a large-scale medium: without tonal coherence, you can't have a large-scale tonal work. Most famous pieces of classical music are between 25 minutes (shorter Haydn symphonies) and six hours (Meistersinger) in length. I defy you to find me a six-hour jazz opera! It's inconceivable. Jazz is incapable of giving us a 20-song cycle functioning as a single large-scale work (Mullerin,) a fifty-minute long piece for piano solo and 80-piece orchestra (Brahms 2nd,) a two-hour long symphony (Mahler,) an hour-long set of 30 variations (Bach's Goldberg set,) a 20-minute single movement for violin (Bach's Chaconne,) etc etc etc. Jazz solos have less permanent value and are necessarily limited to perhaps ten minutes tops.
That the single 'jazz opera' of significance was 1) written by Gershwin, a Tin Pan Alley composer rather than a 'jazz musician' per se and 2) doesn't sound especially jazzy except in comparison to Mozart just proves my point even more.
Jazz is a legitimate and interesting sub-style, but it can only be compared favorably to the classical corpus by someone who is very ignorant of the range, scale, and scope of classical music.
I did extremely well on the ASVAB's mechanical aptitude section despite knowing almost nothing about mechanics. General test-taking and reading comprehension skills at a high enough level will generally get you a good score.
ReplyDelete"Listen, jazz harmonies tolerate much higher levels of unprepared dissonance than classical harmonies. But this short-circuits jazz as a large-scale medium: without tonal coherence, you can't have a large-scale tonal work."
ReplyDeleteJazz has chords which means themes and variations can be generated - hence a larger work. You probably don't like Philip Glass but certainly if his minimalist compositions can be made opera length so can something written in the jazz style. Any jazz piece would offer more material by comparison. I think you just don't like jazz. And most jazz fans would probably prefer a visit to the dentist than a night at the opera.
anonymous wrote:
ReplyDeleteYou probably don't like Philip Glass but certainly if his minimalist compositions can be made opera length so can something written in the jazz style.
Handwaving is no more impressive in music criticism than in math. If large-scale jazz works can ever rise above the level of potpourris, where is the evidence?
I think you just don't like jazz.
No Bulverism, please. I like jazz fine, but I'm not so ignorant as to compare it to the classical canon. It's like comparing Scott Fitzgerald to Plato.
And most jazz fans would probably prefer a visit to the dentist than a night at the opera.
Most rap fans would prefer a bullet to the abdomen to a chamber music concert, but who cares?
Cantemir,
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice if you had actually written an opera or a symphony so that you could explain in detail why there can't be a jazz opera or symphony- though you can't argue that there aren't plenty of jazz broadway musicals.
What do you really know about music, Cantemir? I'm not impressed with critics or self-proclaimed experts. I'm more likely to agree with people who know what they like, unless they only listen to one type of music. Please elaborate. There are plenty of music PhDs in this town who can clarify anything I don't understand.
Also, I've heard that true classical music fans often consider opera or any type of program music to be inferior.
What do you really know about music, Cantemir?
ReplyDeleteI hold two graduate degrees from T-1 conservatories, I taught music theory at a T-1 for five years, and I worked as a violinist for a number of years. I was accepted to the PhD program at Eastman, but I decided to get a JD instead. How about you?
Please elaborate. There are plenty of music PhDs in this town who can clarify anything I don't understand.
OK. Western music in the classical, tonal tradition has grammar of some sort, because it is capable of creating intelligible tension, expectation, and release. That is, chords are not just perfume for the ears; there are only a limited number of options as you move from chord to chord, and if you use a disallowed chord, the result is musically ambiguous or just incoherent.
There are two principal schools of thought in North America about the best way to describe its grammar & syntax: neo-Riemannian analysis and Schenkerian analysis. For simplicity, we'll stick with Schenkerianism, which does not require a sidebar on abstract algebra, and which is the majority opinion in America due to the influence of Schenker's students during the emergence of music theory as an independent research field after the second World War.
The Schenkerian paradigm describes musical structure in terms of interactions between structural pitches in the melody and bass line. These interactions follow rules somewhat reminiscent of the species counterpoint taught by Fux in Gradus ad parnassum. That is, the interval between two notes at the same strucutral level may either be a consonance or a dissonance; in the latter case, we need to explain the dissonance as a linear decoration of a consonance, principally a passing note, a suspension, or a neighbor note.
Jazz is fundamentally interesting because, to a certain extent, it liquidates the concepts of consonance and dissonance. the must rudimentary jazz piano solo has much more dissonance per minute or per chord than the most elaborate and dissonant compositions of, eg, Beethoven. This is possible because non-free jazz is based on turnarounds (and their derivatives, elaborations, etc,) so regardless of what the melody is doing, we can still keep our place in the phrase.
In small forms, there is really no limit to what you can do with jazz. Coltrane demonstrated, for instance, that the most advanced concepts of tonal harmony (eg equal division of the octave) were workable and convincing in a jazz context. This is one reason why absolutely every freshman in a jazz program needs to learn how to play "Giant Steps."
On the other hand, since jazz is so saturated with decorative dissonances at the melodic level, it cannot really make structural use of dissonance at deeper levels of abstraction. Consider, for instance, the mystery D# in the second part of the first theme of the first movement of the Beethoven violin concerto. This note sounds out of place (which is only possible given the totally diatonic environment that had prevailed until that point,) and it serves as a touchstone for much of what happens at the structural level elsewhere in the piece. Since the D# would not be remarkable in a jazz context, it would not be useful either.
I hope it's now clear why jazz can not support large-scale harmonic structures. Now, you need to understand that, for instance, The Ring of the Nibelung is a harmonic structure lasting 14 hours! (Or rather, much the way that Ulysses contains "at least one novel," the Ring contains several large-scale harmonic structures which interact - but that is material for a six-volume study, not a blog post.) This is why there are NO large-scale jazz pieces worthy of note. Jazz musicians don't aspire to write them and are not capable of doing so. Jazz players still learn their craft by studying the three-minute tunes and 128-bar solos that jazz does well, and there is no evidence that jazz will ever change in this way.
-C
Congratulations on your accomplishments, Cantemir. I was hoping for a future of bluegrass operas, jazz operas, etc, that folks like me could embrace wholeheartedly. I fear I'll never hum an aria from La Triviata like I might from an opera in one of the above styles.
ReplyDeleteI like jazz. Compared to classical it might not be much but compared to everything else it's almost majestic in scope. There are a few songs on Dave Matthews' (I consider his work jazz, some may not) Before These Crowded Streets that never fail to delight me and are much richer harmonically and rhythmically than most of what I hear. While jazz may be at the top of the hierarchy for popular music, I can see that any jazz "opera" would really just be a musical.
I do listen to some classical but I prefer chamber music to symphonies. And the guys I know around here some of whom had classical training might not be that well-versed in Opera, considering what they play for a living. LOL
Slightly related, I recently read a study relating performance on a task to being conservative vs liberal. It involved switching the pattern of the response when the stimulus changed - conservatives not being able to change their patterns efficiently therefore being perhaps dumber than their liberal counterparts. The interpretation of the results seemed like a leap to me. ( I'd have to do some backtracking to find it though I think it was in Scientific American online.)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I was wondering if people with certain skill sets really have to have a tendency to be either liberal or conservative. All the musicians around here, even many of the country musicians are liberal to the point of being radical. Is it a necessary component of being creative or artistic? Since many artistic people are also left handed, you have to wonder...
Anyway, I was wondering if people with certain skill sets really have to have a tendency to be either liberal or conservative.
ReplyDeleteWagner was a raving commie, but Bach was, by modern standards, a copper-bound fundamentalist. (Ie, a 17th-c Lutheran who believed with every fiber of his being.) Most musicians I know are Democrats but not Greens.