October 21, 2010

Anti-Intellectualism in American Academic Life

Patricia Cohen reports in the New York Times:
For more than 40 years, social scientists investigating the causes of poverty have tended to treat cultural explanations like Lord Voldemort: That Which Must Not Be Named.

The reticence was a legacy of the ugly battles that erupted after Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then an assistant labor secretary in the Johnson administration, introduced the idea of a “culture of poverty” to the public in a startling 1965 report. Although Moynihan didn’t coin the phrase (that distinction belongs to the anthropologist Oscar Lewis), his description of the urban black family as caught in an inescapable “tangle of pathology” of unmarried mothers and welfare dependency was seen as attributing self-perpetuating moral deficiencies to black people, as if blaming them for their own misfortune.
Moynihan’s analysis never lost its appeal to conservative thinkers, whose arguments ultimately succeeded when President Bill Clinton signed a bill in 1996 “ending welfare as we know it.” But in the overwhelmingly liberal ranks of academic sociology and anthropology the word “culture” became a live grenade, and the idea that attitudes and behavior patterns kept people poor was shunned.
Now, after decades of silence, these scholars are speaking openly about you-know-what, conceding that culture and persistent poverty are enmeshed.
“We’ve finally reached the stage where people aren’t afraid of being politically incorrect,” said Douglas S. Massey, a sociologist at Princeton who has argued that Moynihan was unfairly maligned.

Is that pathetic, or what?

Of course nurture plays a role in poverty. 

It's now 2010, not 1965 anymore, so the discussion should be over the magnitude of the role of nature, not over whether nurture is important.

This article is part of the battle between the the New Centrists against the Aging Leftists. The New Centrists have much of the money (e.g., Gates Foundation billions), so they'll probably win. 

So, it's worth understanding what motivates the New Centrists. Besides the billionaires, what about the foot soldiers?

A big part of this New Centrist obsession (e.g., Waiting for "Superman") with changing the culture of NAMs is motivated by job-seeking on the part of Nice White People. The private sector, with its stock options, used to be cool, but now private sector jobs are in short supply. The public sector, with its jobs with defined benefit pensions and health insurance, is where it's at in 2010. Moreover, violence is down among NAMs, so a lot of Nice White People are thinking they'd like one of those lifetime tenure jobs with benefits and and a pension reforming NAM children. Of course, people already have those jobs, so the people who don't have them are raising a stink about how the people who do have them are discriminating against NAMs by not turning them into Nice White People and thus should be fired ... and replaced by a new set of Nice White People.

91 comments:

Anonymous said...

There's plenty of anti-intellectualism in the comments section of this blog as well, if we're going to be honest with ourselves here.

Anonymous said...

Look Steve, blogging about the plight of black and Hispanic Americans is all fine and good. But we need to articulate a concrete set of plans here, in order to address the root of the issue. While this idea will never pass muster with the public at large, I've always believed that a radical course of eugenics could help to close the IQ gap between blacks and Hispanics and higher IQ groups. What we need to do is to sterilize the lower portions of the black and Hispanic IQ distribution and promote reproduction amongst the higher IQ blacks and Hispanics, as a means of addressing the racial gap. While this idea will never take off, at least it's far more concrete than anything you've ever suggested. You mostly seem to enjoy shooting so large a fish in so tiny a barrel.

By the way, we could endorse William Shockley's idea and advocate the sterilization of all people of low IQ, regardless of race. Charles Murray has pointed out those with IQs of 120 contribute basically everything of value to society. Assuming a white average of 100 and a SD of 15 and assuming that IQ is normally distributed, that would mean that only the top 10% of society contribute anything meaningful to human civilization. I definitely agree that most people are superfluous in general and would fully support at the very least a program of voluntary sterilization for those with sufficiently low IQs. It's hard to imagine that you would disagree with these sentiments, given your excessive focus on and interest in HBD issues.

Garland said...

To re-state what many here already know: the real Voldemort position is nature, as explained by that remarkable Ed School survivor Steve has linked to in the past.

Average Joe said...

There's plenty of anti-intellectualism in the comments section of this blog as well, if we're going to be honest with ourselves here.

Since many "intellectuals" are intent on pushing discredited, politically-correct theories I would say that "anti-intellectualism" is a good thing.

Udolpho.com said...

first anon, the door is that way...

read Daily Howler for a good critique of the faddish "Waiting for Superman" crowd...he's very thumbs down on Rhee

Louis B. said...

In other news, Steve's use of the term "NAM" is awfully condescending. It's like they're another species or something.

Henry Canaday said...

I just re-read Moynihan’s memo to Lyndon Johnson, “nine pages of explosive dynamite,” in a collection of Moynihan’s letters last night.

What would Moynihan, or any other of the Boys of ’65, have predicted would happen if the black illegitimacy rate rose from a mid-60s level of 30% to today’s 70%+? They probably could not have imagined that we would still have major cities or much of a functioning country.

Yet, improbably, we have handled that increase, plus an extraordinary rise in the white illegitimacy rate as well. I think we have handled it by three means: a massive increase in subsidies, a massive increase in prison population and a massive increase in preferences.

The massive increase in subsidies meant that single mothers could at least raise kids in decent material conditions, with enough food, shelter and medical care for them to grow up strong and physically healthy.

The massive increase in incarceration means that the massive number of violently inclined black youths could be shut up for years, keeping the rest of us safe and, given the improvement in prison conditions, keeping the incarcerated not too miserable.

The massive increase in preferences means that fortunate and influential blacks have secured very decent middle-class jobs and are much more eager to protect these than to do much or rant too loudly about the state of under-class blacks except symbolically, every once in a while for old time’s sake.

Anonymous said...

Personally I think Rushton has it about right.

Anonymous said...

Your argument of the job seeking motivation doesn't make sense. Gates and the Waiting for Superman crowd explicitly want to gut tenure and unions for teachers. That's the primary reason why this reform is bipartisan, and republicans like Chris Christie are so enthusiastic.

DCThrowback said...

Sounds like we should've all been listening to John Derbyshire when he told us all to "GET A GOVERNMENT JOB."

Now, it's not good for the overall health of the country and its future prospects, but at an individual level, Steve nails the appeal of such a sinecure (well, for as long as it lasts until the private sector can't support it anymore).

Anonymous said...

So, in 45 years will a similar article that it's now ok to talk about the natural causes of poverty? I'm guessing not until computers are doing all of our thinking or brain enhancing drugs or other treatment are available.

But it is pathetic. That sentiment was alive and well ten years ago and it discouraged me from pursuing graduate work in the social sciences.

Severn said...

Well, the left is willing to admit that culture causes poverty. As long as it is white culture you're talking about. It's only black culture which they hold blameless.

Difference Maker said...

If by anti-"intellectual"ism as against those aforementioned jokers in the article, then take heart my son, we are the good guys

Anonymous said...

The problem with this career plan is that as states and the federal government go broke they will be far less able to fund these programs. The parents of these underclass kids either rarely vote or vote so exclusively for Democrats that no one takes their needs seriously.

The middle aged and older whites who make up the largest voting group didn't mind subsidizing NAM children when times were good. But now the pie is shrinking, and when it comes down to Social Security and Medicare or programs to help little Pepe and little Ray Ray the older white voters will vote for their own interests, and underclass kids of all races will be screwed (not that they weren't already by their own parents).

The UK is slashing welfare to be able to afford things like public education and transportation. It's only a matter of time and Republicans in power before we do it here.

Marlowe said...

I thought the hegemonic anti-racist discourse had always presumed a cultural explanation - that the white culture bore responsibility for the plight of the black man and had to be systematically destroyed.

Mr. Anon said...

Doesn't surprise me that he was fired by National Palestinian Radio. Listen to NPR, by all means, but never give them anything.

That should be another thing we should demand of a republican congress - the terminating of all public funding to NPR and PBS, like they said they would 15 years ago. Let's knock the "P" out of 'em.

Chicago said...

People are suspicious of those deemed "intellectual" for very good reasons; the results from following their advice are usually disasters. The "best and brightest" gave us the Vietnam disaster. Self styled intellectuals have pioneered forced school integration, the religion of multiculturalism, unwanted mass third world immigration, "social justice" claptrap, the list is endless. They always make it all sound good while wrecking everything in sight. When you move out of the area of the hard sciences and into the humanities you get lots of charlatans. The real problem with intellectuals is that they in fact aren't.

Truth said...

"There's plenty of anti-intellectualism in the comments section of this blog as well, if we're going to be honest with ourselves here."

In fact, identifying the intellectualism is like going to the county dump with a satchel to collect tin cans.

Veracitor said...

It is to laugh. Those white people haven't quite realized that they want to fire lots of black teachers for fulminating incompetence. That's what getting rid of the bottom x% means. So to cure racism they'll have to practice it (well, not really, but in the minds of nice white people, "disparate impact" is racism, no matter how neutral the actual criterion).

We've known since the Coleman report at least that black teachers are, on the average, less competent than white ones, so they're overrepresented in the "bottom x%".

For what it's worth, besides liberal heads exploding, I predict a new round of double standards: the bottom x% of white teachers will be fired but the even lower bottom x% of black teachers will be spared, to provide "role models" for black students... net result... no improvement in conditions for black students!

Anonymous said...

Contemporary sexual licentiousnes
(LUST ) has had an enormously dysgenic impact in the ghettos.

Anonymous said...

...and yet blacks have high birth rates and white women seek out black men. Just look at Adam Taliferro's wife.

Just shoot me said...

"By the way, we could endorse William Shockley's idea and advocate the sterilization of all people of low IQ, regardless of race. Charles Murray has pointed out those with IQs of 120 contribute basically everything of value to society"

Yan Shen, is that you? Are you up past your bedtime again?

Anonymous said...

I read the article as admitting that the liberal elite has grown comfortable with "cultural" explanations simply as a way of shoring up their defenses against "genetic" explanations.

RKU said...

By the way, we could endorse William Shockley's idea and advocate the sterilization of all people of low IQ, regardless of race. Charles Murray has pointed out those with IQs of 120 contribute basically everything of value to society.

Ha, ha!---"Yan Shen" should realize that repeating extremely distinctive phrases and arguments on different blogsites tends to eliminate his mask of anonymity. Maybe he needs to take some pills to boost his own IQ...

Anonymous said...

NAM = ?

CC-bLF said...

"In fact, identifying the intellectualism is like going to the county dump with a satchel to collect tin cans."

What?

Anonymous said...

"It's now 2010, not 1965 anymore, so the discussion should be over the magnitude of the role of nature, not over whether nurture is important."

Oh, like the evidence for nature wasn't clear for all to see a hundred or a thousand years ago. Good social science simply confirms common sense. There can never be any progress in social science, meaning that it will never tell us anything our great-grandmothers didn't know already. When our ancestors worried about "breeding", they were really talking about genetics.

Anonymous said...

"Is that pathetic, or what?

Of course nurture plays a role in poverty."

Patricia Cohen didn't say that: she said "culture," which WE know is a collective expression of nature, but this gives liberals a safe and sanitary wrapper to put around the notion that certain ethnic groups tend to be untalented and immoral.

"Moreover, violence is down among NAMs, so a lot of Nice White People are thinking they'd like one of those lifetime tenure jobs with benefits and and a pension reforming NAM children. Of course, people already have those jobs, so the people who don't have them are raising a stink about how the people who do have them are discriminating against NAMs by not turning them into Nice White People and thus should be fired ... and replaced by a new set of Nice White People."

Steve is soooo way off base here. The big movement is to regard social services for the exploding brown underclass as a jobs program for the brown underclass, thereby creating a faux brown middle class made up of tenured public employees who will yank the lever for Democrats even if you surgically removed what little brains they have.

Anonymous said...

72.3% is the current rate of black illegitamacy (Phyllis Schafly column a week back).

Only 27.3% of black children are born in wedlock.

----------------------------------


The out-of-wedlock birthrate for blacks was merely roughly 25% in 1965.


The hispanic out-of-wedlock rates are now up to 52.5%.

The white out-of-wedlock rates are now roughly up to 28%, and probably approaching 40% in the white underclass.



We subsidized single motherhood, especially amongst blacks, and we are getting what we paid for.


I think, because Im a cynic, that the socialist left did this on purpose as to set a "low bar" (fatherless blacks) for societal performance.

When the other races don't perform down to that "low bar" (fatherless blacks), they get accused of racism, and pressure is applied (due to that racism secret-weapon-thingy the left has) to make sure that every other group performs down to that "low bar".


Taking my evil cynicism further, who? whom?
(Who is benefitting from this present arrangement in which middle class whites/asians are basically accused of being racists for outperforming fatherless-broken-homed-blacks constantly and are told to close the achievement gap in all areas of life constantly?) Uh-huh

Anonymous said...

isn't it telling that the FIRST thing that Anita Hill did when she heard Ginny Scalia Clarence Thomas's voicemail message was to call THE-FBI???!!! i mean, what was she thinking? ? that the wife of a Supreme Court Justice was threatening her?? via voicemail???
<> i think it's quite telling about her... it reveals her TYPE of mentality
<> she believes taht she is always a victim.....
<> someone is always after her.....
<> i'm not sure if her accusations some 2 decades ago were bogus, but i'm inclined to believe it is
<> she exhibits the classic female-victimization psychosis.
<> she's an academic feminist, through and through---always whining, always a victim.

Fred said...

For the slow commenters here:

1) In this post, Steve wasn't presenting a solution, but describing the motivations of those criticizing the teachers unions as the obstacle to NAM achievement in schools.

2) The increase in welfare subsidies for single mothers caused the spike in illegitimacy. Anything the government subsidizes, it gets more of.

Stuff Black People Don't Like said...

Henry Canaday -

Brilliant response in how we have handled the crisis of rising illegitimate rates and the detritus that spawns from these interactions.

Claverhouse said...

An Anonymous said


By the way, we could endorse William Shockley's idea and advocate the sterilization of all people of low IQ, regardless of race. Charles Murray has pointed out those with IQs of 120 contribute basically everything of value to society. Assuming a white average of 100 and a SD of 15 and assuming that IQ is normally distributed, that would mean that only the top 10% of society contribute anything meaningful to human civilization. I definitely agree that most people are superfluous in general and would fully support at the very least a program of voluntary sterilization for those with sufficiently low IQs.


All these low-minded dubious statements disregard what a 'human civilization' is for: it cannot be benefit-restricted only to those who have 'proved' themselves in some way, or are so capable of 'proving' themselves. Any more than one can flame-thrower every living thing, in a garden, sterilizing from the contamination of future life all except large apple trees and claim the result is an ideal orchard.

The apple trees will all die off btw.


High Culture is made --- mostly, or possibly nearly mostly since much is narrow craftmanship by non-clever specialists --- by men of better intelligence: A Culture, on the other hand, is created by the manifold activities of the numberless mass loosely directed by their rulers. Drones ( aristocratic or paupers, intelligent or stupid, holy men or drunkards ) have at least as much contribution as any factory worker or directing civil servant or business magnate. And the two latter need the others as much as the others need them. To end up with only the latter would be as cheerful as ending up with high-IQ Lenin and the intellectuals from the Politburo for eternity.

Claverhouse said...

Cont:

We got on without intellectuals and capitalists and directors of thought for several millions of years; I should not suggest that was a fine existence, but at least whenever one killed one's fellows it was not on idiotic grounds of 'I'm --- arguably --- cleverer than you are.'

Intelligence is valuable, but it is not the most important quality a human can have, and the possession of intelligence is highly overrated by the intelligent.

Simon in London said...

Hmm, black men make good drill sergeants. I think the schools need more drill sergeants. The feminisation of education is partly to blame.

headache said...

Truth said...
In fact, identifying the intellectualism is like going to the county dump with a satchel to collect tin cans.


Yeah, I feel the same way parsing your written trash.

Wandrin said...

"the real Voldemort position is nature"

Agree

The Hindenberg line over "race is just a social construct" is starting to break so they're constructing a second line of defence behind it.

Also they're about to ditch black people as a tool for attacking white people with. Obama was the last straw. It's going to be all Hispanic and Asian now.

This will come as a relief and to a certain extent a pleasure as they don't like black people but have had to pretend for decades.

headache said...

Chicago sez:When you move out of the area of the hard sciences and into the humanities you get lots of charlatans. The real problem with intellectuals is that they in fact aren't.

I couldn't agree more.

M Schwartz said...

***“We’ve finally reached the stage where people aren’t afraid of being politically incorrect,” said Douglas S. Massey, a sociologist at Princeton who has argued that Moynihan was unfairly maligned. ***

Heh, no that would be when they can argue that Arthur Jensen was unfairly maligned.

Anonymous said...

While this idea will never pass muster with the public at large, I've always believed that a radical course of eugenics could help to close the IQ gap between blacks and Hispanics and higher IQ groups. What we need to do is to sterilize the lower portions of the black and Hispanic IQ distribution and promote reproduction amongst the higher IQ blacks and Hispanics, as a means of addressing the racial gap.

Timid. Once polygamy is legalized via the courts, I'd suggest a generation of compulsory marriages between Jewish and African Americans. That would give each Jewish man six African American wives and each Jewish woman six African American husbands. I see it as a Win-Win-Win-Win-Win-Win-Win situation for all concerned.

In theory the offspring of these marriages should have IQs approximately equal to the general white population. Many problems solved at once stroke.

The racists will complain, of course, but since when do they have rights?

Luke Lea said...

It seems to me that the NYT article is a step in the right direction. The next question is how to change that culture. Can it be done by education alone, or will it require new kinds of economic opportunity?

If the latter, I propose we start with tariffs on low-wage imports from abroad, a moratorium on unskilled immigration, a shorter standard work week (30 hours), and a new emphasis on vocational education in the industrial arts instead of trying to get everyone to pass Algebra II.

And one more thing: it would be nice if the federal govenment could provide incentives to help poor people (of all colors) get out of the cities into places where real estate is cheaper and more plentiful.

some other name said...

How real life screws with your pre-conceptions: today in Fort Bragg, CA I was in line for gas behind a 20-year old, overweight (possibly pregnant), tatooed white girl who was wearing a hooded sweatshirt with the logo, "proud future mother." She sensed I was in a hurry and asked me to go ahead. When I thanked her she said, "you're welcome sir."

Whiskey said...

Sterilizing people is an idiot solution so stupid it ought to be laughed out of society. You never know WHAT genes you will need to fight off constantly mutating diseases, bacteria and viruses. So from a pure HBD perspective you want as much diversity in genetics AS POSSIBLE. As a hedge for humanity's survival.

Henry Canady is quite correct, perhaps the best comment I've ever read here. So too the anon who predicts huge struggles over the subsidies now that the money ran out.

Steve is correct, Nice White People want the jobs of existing teachers, administrators, and of course with the Gates Foundation.

helene edwards said...

Steve, did you see I Henry Canaday's remark? He thinks the latter-day increase in the pathologies Moynihan mentioned have been "handled," as if we've absorbed them without serious cost? But isn't that development the main reason for the loss of the California we can't remember so well anymore? Christ, even the Mexican invasion can be traced to the leftist attitudes that prevented the black pathologies from being effectively addresed.

Svigor said...

For more than 40 years, social scientists investigating the causes of poverty have tended to treat cultural explanations like Lord Voldemort: That Which Must Not Be Named.

Lie. Or are they pointing out something in the water when they blame everything on whitey?

Marc B said...

"While this idea will never take off, at least it's far more concrete than anything you've ever suggested."

I've got a more easily enacted solution; stop subsidizing the procreation of the underclass with welfare by placing a 3 year limit on it. The poor would be forced to either get on their feet, leach off of relatives, or sponge off of private charities. Place the same time limit on living in a project or Section 8 housing. Food stamps could be dispensed in more strict manner as well.

Leave them to either struggle to raise every child they pop out or arrest them for child abuse, since many of them would not be adequately providing for them, and starving your own children is a form of child abuse. The kids could be raised in government orphanages until the parents could prove stable enough to raise their own children.

Think of all the job opportunities for all the Nice White People who would be able to not only educate but also raise the children of the underclass in government dormitories.

SFG said...

"I definitely agree that most people are superfluous in general and would fully support at the very least a program of voluntary sterilization for those with sufficiently low IQs."

In peacetime. A lot of stupid people fight well. We might need them if this country ever faces a real existential threat. Don't assume everyone has to be a doctor or a lawyer...

Anonymous said...


What would Moynihan, or any other of the Boys of ’65, have predicted would happen if the black illegitimacy rate rose from a mid-60s level of 30% to today’s 70%+? They probably could not have imagined that we would still have major cities or much of a functioning country.

Yet, improbably, we have handled that increase, plus an extraordinary rise in the white illegitimacy rate as well. I think we have handled it by three means: a massive increase in subsidies, a massive increase in prison population and a massive increase in preferences.


Contemplate what will happen in those states with large incarcerated populations when they can no longer afford to finance the prisons ...

International Jew said...

New York Times still best newspaper in America, and such articles, which artfully avoid saying or seeing the most important things, make best reading. I read isteve very much because he finds best NYTimes articles to me.

Anonymous said...

Nice White People
Steve you're starting to sound like us, your commenters, with the bitter wit and all. Heh.

Anonymous said...

Whiskey said...

Sterilizing people is an idiot solution so stupid it ought to be laughed out of society. You never know WHAT genes you will need to fight off constantly mutating diseases, bacteria and viruses. So from a pure HBD perspective you want as much diversity in genetics AS POSSIBLE. As a hedge for humanity's survival.


Sigh, Whiskey is proving himself as clueless as Truth again.

You only need lots of variance in the MHC. In other genes you want to drive out deleterious genes, like those that reduce IQ and make people like to commit pointless violence as opposed to more directed sorts of violence that helps the ingroup.

Starker said...

"Charles Murray has pointed out those with IQs of 120 contribute basically everything of value to society."

Murray was either misquoted or was having a very bad day. Farmers, mechanics, police, firefighters, plumbers, miners...well, you get the idea...all have average IQs below 120. Let's be generous and acknowledge they contribute something valuable. At their best they might even equal the contributions of New York Times reporters, Beltway intellectuals, Congresspersons, Wall Street greedheads and Ivy League sociologists.

Anonymous said...

Intellectualism in the ghetto:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtpu1eudqvs&feature=rec-LGOUT-exp_fresh+div-1r-7-HM

How to score a 2400 on the SAT.

Anonymous said...

"And one more thing: it would be nice if the federal govenment could provide incentives to help poor people (of all colors) get out of the cities into places where real estate is cheaper and more plentiful."

Are you freakin' crazy? The Feds do provide such a thing--Section 8 vouchers---and they forced me to sell my house 10 years ago and move to this neighborhood which is...guess.... now filling up with Section 8s! Damn people who think like you.

Anonymous said...

It's like they're another species or something.

Well, at least another partially inbred extended family or something.

stari_momak said...

New (well 2008) teen preggers figures out today. Arkansas redneck whites, 54 mewling brats per 1000 Britney wannabes. California browns, 66 mewling bratz per 1000 Selena wannabes.

Vanishing Cali whites, 15 mewling brats per 1000.

Anonymous said...

Simon in London Hmm, black men make good drill sergeants. I think the schools need more drill sergeants.

If Murray is correct [in his Footnote #44] when he calculates that the average IQ of a young black person in America today is no higher than 80, and if you need an IQ of, say, 100 to be an NCO [non-commissioned officer, or "sergeant"], and if, like whites, blacks have an IQ standard deviation of 15, then only 9.1211% of all American blacks could even potentially qualify to be NCOs.

If you up the NCO requirements to IQ 105, then you're at 4.77906% of the black population.

And for an NCO requirement of IQ 110, you're at 2.275% of the black population

PS: A little googling turned up this interesting article, from 2008:


Intelligent soldiers most likely to die in battle
by Ewen Callaway
19 December 2008
newscientist.com

Being dumb has its benefits. Scottish soldiers who survived the second world war were less intelligent than men who gave their lives defeating the Third Reich, a new study of British government records concludes.

The 491 Scots who died and had taken IQ tests at age 11 achieved an average IQ score of 100.8. Several thousand survivors who had taken the same test - which was administered to all Scottish children born in 1921 – averaged 97.4...

Low-ranking soldiers accounted for three-fifths of all deaths, and their IQs measured by their childhood tests averaged 95.3. Officers and non-commissioned officers made up for about 7% and 20% of war deaths respectively. Officers scored 121.9, bringing up the average IQ for those who died. Non-commissioned officers scored an average of 106.7...



The original paper is here:


Childhood IQ and in-service mortality in Scottish Army personnel during
World War II

psy.ed.ac.uk

The 'more skilled' other ranks (13% of 'war deaths') had a mean IQ (S.D.) of 105.41 (12.52). The 'non-commissioned officers' (20% of 'war deaths') had a mean IQ (S.D.) of 106.7 (12.06). The 'officers' (7% of 'war deaths') had a mean IQ (S.D.) of 121.89 (6.03)...

Officers and NCOs, who comprise 27% of the fatalities and have respective mean IQ scores of 106.7 and 121.89, were expected to fulfil leadership roles and thus would have been more likely to expose themselves to greater risk. Furthermore, there might be some link to the well-documented relationship between mental ability test scores and job performance (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998). It is possible that, in general, higher IQ soldiers displayed greater combat motivation and therefore put themselves in more life threatening situations...



PPS: This morning I was stopped at the head of a traffic intersection, and noticed that there was a huge tractor-trailer on the cross road, to my right, about to make a left turn across my lane.

And as the dude & his rig flew past me, I noticed that the driver was a huge, obese black guy, and I immediately thought of Arthur Hu's calculation that the Wonderlic folks recommend an IQ of 100 to 108 for a "Driver, bus or truck" [fortunately I had already backed up to give him some extra room].

But it's a little scary when you have so much HBD theory on the brain that you can foresee actuarial horrors by just glancing at people.

Anonymous said...

"In other news, Steve's use of the term "NAM" is awfully condescending. It's like they're another species or something."

You mean like "WASP"?

How about "SWPL"?

Or is this sort of thing only "condescending" when directed at "NAM"s?

Anonymous said...

"Timid. Once polygamy is legalized via the courts, I'd suggest a generation of compulsory marriages between Jewish and African Americans. That would give each Jewish man six African American wives and each Jewish woman six African American husbands. I see it as a Win-Win-Win-Win-Win-Win-Win situation for all concerned."

Thats an outrage. People being forced into giving up their reproductive rights for the benefit of society. No we have to sterilize the lower segment of...oh wait.

big bill said...

Her comments are bizarre.

Surely she understands that nurture is important.

She is a leftie, after all, and therefore denies any genetic differences that could manifest themselves as cultural differences.

I think her comment is directed to a slightly different phenomenon.

The problems for lefties is how to recognize [ahem] not-quite-as-good-as-everybody-else minority statistics, while somehow removing any NAM moral agency from the equation.

A clan, tribe, sept, nation of people are individually and collectively responsible for their "culture". Therefore, finding the roots of NAM dysfunction in their "culture" makes them responsible.

Lefties cannot make that jump. So they must place the moral agency in something else: white folks. It is evil white oppressors (and apparently THEIR evil white culture) that keeps the noble NAM (or rather People of Color) cultures down.

Thus, NAM cultures are constantly striving for goodness and light, but are oppressed by evil white culture. Oppression explains the now-70+% black bastardy rate and the 5-times-as-violent NAM crime rate.

To find the blame in NAM "culture"--the collective, natural expression of their being-- is therefore to hold them morally accountable for their behaviors.

This whites-are-responsible-for-everything ideology is corrosive to black folks. You can find lots of black-on-black website where blacks say "we can't wait for the white man", or in its stronger form, "we can't blame the white man". They are uncomfortable saying that around whites, however, since they don't truly want to own their own pathologies. Hence "the legacy of slavery" (whatever that means).

Believe me, a black man struggling to keep his kids on the right path never says, "that's OK son, you couldn't help knocking that 13-year-old up. It's the Legacy of Slavery."

In earlier years, black leaders such as BT Washington and WEB Dubois freely admitted to black moral inferiority (when considered as a group) and held black folks responsible for their own uplift. They had no problem accepting their inferiority when they were actually inferior. They knew the better sort of black folks, when held to the white standard, would easily meet it.

They did not blame their moral failures on white folks, they simply wanted to be recognized when they met the (mutually accepted) white standard.

They did not deny their moral agency.

Mel Torme said...

"72.3% is the current rate of black illegitamacy (Phyllis Schafly column a week back).

Only 27.3% of black children are born in wedlock."

What about the other 0.4 %? Alien abductions/impregnations, or just "not sure" on the questionaire?

Anonymous said...

"I've got a more easily enacted solution; stop subsidizing the procreation of the underclass with welfare by placing a 3 year limit on it. The poor would be forced to either get on their feet, leach off of relatives, or sponge off of private charities. Place the same time limit on living in a project or Section 8 housing. Food stamps could be dispensed in more strict manner as well. "

Welfare reform works only for a population that feels shame about taking charity, but we now live in an era of mind bending surpluses of people with no shame and no working skills who think they have a right to life's necessities. Moreover, they take an entirely casual attitude toward having children since the state pays them a bounty to procreate.

And isn't it wonderful that Hispanics with no ambition live contentedly in their section 8 tribal longhouses, surrounded by their spawn, and outlive the lonely infertile overworked white man, the foolish founder of the brown man's feast, and his 1.6 white children by two years on average.

For a Hispanic in America, the socialist wet nurse nanny state has fully arrived and takes better care of him than he could take care of himself.

Anonymous said...

Everyone is so gloomy. Cheer up - remember the DeSoto.

There is a recurring filler news story about how the last speaker of some obscure language just died and now that language is also dead. My reaction is - "Who was she speaking to if she was the last?".

This is the same impulse that gets some people all choked up over some endangered species - usually a miserable little fish or lizard.

But these soft headed ideas are fighting the reality of a wave of extinction that inevitably follows the wave of diversity.

A century ago there were lots of different automobiles. Some are now just legends like the Stanley Steamer or the Hupmobile. But in recent memory we have seen many brands and marques dissolve. I had a Packard when I was a teenager. Hudsons raced against Nashs. More recently - "Its not your father's Oldsmobile" became a catch phrase. before the Olds became extinct (I'm uncertain that the Olds is fully extinct - but I'm quite sure about the DeSoto).

I used to have an Osborne computer - when wiser people owned a Kaypro.

Languages, automobiles, and computer types have all winnowed down over time. So it will be with races.

Various Pacific Island sub-races have already disappeared and probably some American Indian tribes too. The Hutu and the Tutsi are trying to speed up the process.

I suspect that by the end of the twenty first century there will be only half as many unique peoples as there are today even if the total population is much greater.

The Tasmanians may all be gone now. Soon all Australian Aborigines will follow. Who can doubt that? Just as we now debate if we have Neanderthal blood in us, future Australians will blog about some trace of Aborigine anscestry.

So the question remains which race or races will be the last? The leading contenders at this point look to be Europeans (West Asians) or Chinese-Japanese-Koreans(east Asians). I don't see how Africans or even Indians (South Asians) can endure. Certainly many people now alive will read one day of the death of the last full blooded Aborigine.

Notice I'm not advocating the end of blacks but I am predicting it. In the long run a race marked by low intelligence and high social pathology just won't endure.

Albertosaurus

Slampo said...

"A big part of this New Centrist obsession (e.g., Waiting for "Superman") with changing the culture of NAMs is motivated by job-seeking on the part of Nice White People."

You nailed it again, dude. 'Bout time to cobble together about 25-30 of your best pieces, spruce 'em up a little, and see if some mainstream publisher has the 'nads to put 'em between covers. You never know.

Anonymous said...

Louis B

First, please change your picture it makes you look like you're wearing a tinfoil hat. Second, do not assume because we short hand that we do not regard our fellow citizens as lesser or different species. We have been talking to each other for months and years on isteve.

Kylie said...

Luke Lea said..."It seems to me that the NYT article is a step in the right direction. The next question is how to change that culture. Can it be done by education alone, or will it require new kinds of economic opportunity?"

Uh, no, that's not the next question. And since logic is apparently not your strong suit, let me spell it out for you.

A problem identified nearly 50 years ago has been greatly exacerbated by government intervention. This suggests that more of the same governmental "help" will only further exacerbate the problem that "help" was intended to alleviate.

So the next question should be, how can we motivate the occupants of that culture to change it in a way that we, the taxpayers, consider an improvement over the current situation of subsidized pathologies?

Hint: the answer doesn't include spending more of the taxpayers' money.

Anonymous said...

" The Feds do provide such a thing--Section 8 vouchers"

Not to mention recent subprime loans..I love it when the do-gooders suggest some solution that has already been tried and done to the hilt..please try to pay attention.

Victoria said...

Once polygamy is legalized via the courts, I'd suggest a generation of compulsory marriages between Jewish and African Americans.

Not bad. After all, whenever there is a black-white intermarriage, it's usually between these two groups anyway. (Most recent, linguist John McWhorter.)

The kids could be raised in government orphanages until the parents could prove stable enough to raise their own children.

If there were ever a time for the return of the orphanage, it is now, during this 70% (and rising) illegitimacy rate among blacks. Rather than being battered and splattered by Mama's serial boyfriends (and often by Mama herself), these pathetic souls would be better off in facilities where they could be cared for by people dedicated to the Cause. The orphanages would not necessarily be government-run, but a hybrid of private donations and government assistance.

Severn said...

What would Moynihan, or any other of the Boys of ’65, have predicted would happen if the black illegitimacy rate rose from a mid-60s level of 30% to today’s 70%+? They probably could not have imagined that we would still have major cities or much of a functioning country.

Yet, improbably, we have handled that increase, plus an extraordinary rise in the white illegitimacy rate as well. I think we have handled it by three means: a massive increase in subsidies, a massive increase in prison population and a massive increase in preferences.



These "solutions" were feasible for a country which was 90% white, 10% black, and very wealthy.

How feasible will they be in the coming America which will be 50% white, 30% Hispanic, 15% black, and not especially wealthy?

Truth said...

"Not bad. After all, whenever there is a black-white intermarriage, it's usually between these two groups anyway."

No Vicki, I haven't researched the subject, but I would say that Jews comprising 2.5% of the white population would make this unlikely.

josh said...

Thoughts: A)I read an article about Gates just yesterday(!) in some biz magazine. A couple of points:A guy with the Gates "foundation" said if you could get teachers rated in the top 25% of all teachers to teach black kids,you would eliminate the racial gap.White kids,it is presumed,will get lousy teachers. (I live btw in the Highland Park/Deerfield area on Chicagos North Shore. Teachers at these high schools are THE highest paid in the state.Do you think the Jews of HP will happily greet black teachers from the South Side--oh wait,this wont apply to them,it will only apply to white Christians!And working class at that so does that mean that a large group of whites will be deliberatley dumbed down and mal educated,while the upper tiers blithely go their merry way? B) The story reported on a HS school in Denver that,given that Lord Gates had previously ascertained that small schools do better than big schools,was broken down into 3 small schools. Well sir,those 3 schools flopped,with students fleeing like SWPLs at a Glenn Beck rally, and the school died. It later re-opened,it said,without Gates funding. Never,said a wise man,underestimate the power of a shnook. Is it possible that the whole school close da gap crusade is another Viet Nam,with an endless series of monstrously stupid Robert MacNamaras marching in to screw things up?

none of the above said...

First anonymous:

Perhaps, instead of complaining about this problem, you could be part of the solution? Offer an alternative viewpoint.

There are these huge differences in black/white measurable outcomes--not just IQ, but educational success, income, crime rate, lifespan, infant mortality, all kinds of stuff. It would be nice to explain those differences, since they all represent a lot of people getting the sh-tty end of the stick in life, and we'd really like to find a way to make those differences go away. A world where blacks did just as well as whites across the board would be a better world--the US would be in much better shape, for example. But if it is possible to get there, we have to know why those differences are happening, and why they have persisted.

A reasonable first cut at an explanation would include maybe four variables. Let's say:

a. Different starting positions. (Blacks are generally poorer than whites, for example.)

b. External forces from the surrounding culture screwing blacks over--discrimination, counterproductive social programs, the drug war, broken schools, whatever.

c. Internal cultural forces within the black community--acceptance of single parenthood, putting a low value on education, etc.

d. Statistical differences in innate ability--differences in IQ, personality, etc.

This is an oversimplification (all models are), but it captures most of the discussion I've seen. The mainstream media view seems to me to rely about 90% on (a) and (b), maybe 10% on (c), and to almost never mention (d) except to call its advocates racists.

I suspect that (c) and (d) are both important components of a real explanation for the differences in outcomes. I could surely be wrong--this isn't my field, after all. The best way I know to determine who's right is to make sure that people can discuss all four terms of this model in public, without being called nasty names or having their careers ruined.

(c) and (d) are uncomfortable things to argue for. Perhaps the only thing more unkind than telling someone he's wrecked his kids' future by raising them wrong is telling him he's wrecked their future by passing along sh-tty genes.

And yet, we need to understand this. Even genetic differences may be fixable, given future technology. (And the genetic differences could conceivably be something like a need for slightly different nutrients.) Culture is also hard to change, and yet, people make huge changes to their culture all the time, when the reasons are good enough.

Anonymous said...

Farmers, mechanics, police, firefighters, plumbers, miners...well, you get the idea...all have average IQs below 120. Let's be generous and acknowledge they contribute something valuable.

A population with an average IQ of 110 or even 120 will have plenty of people with IQs under 120, and even under 100.  It will just be less than we have now, and the sub-90 fraction will be a lot smaller.

Anonymous said...

>Your argument of the job seeking motivation doesn't make sense. Gates and the Waiting for Superman crowd explicitly want to gut tenure and unions for teachers.<

How clueless can you be?

I'll break it down for you.

They want tenure gutted - why? So some current teachers will be fired. That means those positions will open up. Superman thus gets a job.

Unions are also barriers to upstarts who want to muscle in by the method of "out with the old, in with the new."

Superman can't get a job because the people holding those jobs now have tenure and are in unions. So Superman hollers against tenure and unions.

Of course, Superman's tune will change once he steals those jobs.

Repeat: what's protecting current education employees from Superman's stealing their jobs is tenure and unions. So Superman is against tenure and unions. He wants those jobs.

Nobody said Superman was against benefits and pensions. Just tenure and unions (for now).

Anonymous said...

I thought "culture" was the go-to word when nature rears its head (see Whiskey about a year ago).

Turns out even "culture" makes people nervous.

If it isn't nature and it isn't nuture, then what explains the black-white gap everyone is so upset about? "Rich people stealing from poor people" makes no sense.

Guess there isn't a black-white gap at all. We're all equal! Except when we're not...

Clearly, the solution is more billion$ thrown at Education.

Anonymous said...

>I haven't researched the subject, but I would say that Jews comprising 2.5% of the white population would make this unlikely.<

LOL. Truth, draw some sets. Nothing is statistically unlikely about it. (Whether it's actually true or not, I don't know, and neither do you.)

Anonymous said...

none of the above not only hit it out of the ballpark - he also hit it out of the parking lot. Thanks. That's certainly the most accurate assessment of the situation I've seen in ages.

Anonymous said...

While I'm giving thanks, thanks to Steve for that brilliant and biting last paragraph (a sociological masterpiece worthy of Tom Wolfe) that many people seem determined not to understand.

Marlo said...

It's been a while since I've left a comment here. Is "Victoria" still pretending to be black?

Marc B said...

"This is an oversimplification (all models are), but it captures most of the discussion I've seen."

Excellent post, but you've left out possibly the most important and overlooked factor:

E) Innate Temperament/Impulse Control

Anonymous said...

none of the above said:


A reasonable first cut at an explanation would include maybe four variables. Let's say:

a. Different starting positions. (Blacks are generally poorer than whites, for example.)

b. External forces from the surrounding culture screwing blacks over--discrimination, counterproductive social programs, the drug war, broken schools, whatever.

c. Internal cultural forces within the black community--acceptance of single parenthood, putting a low value on education, etc.

d. Statistical differences in innate ability--differences in IQ, personality, etc.


A, B, and C are all dependent on, and consequences of, D.

Improve the gene pool and you improve outcomes ...

alonzo portfolio said...

@Victoria:

I've posted this before but you might have missed it. In SF there's a Jewish lawyer named Gilda Turitz. She actually states in her C.V. that when she was 15, she promised her self she'd marry a black man, "and I did." Needless to say, she lives in Marin County and makes her living defending large corporations against product liability claims. The purest SWPL I know.

TGGP said...

Sociologist Doug Massey, where have I heard of him before.

He also blurbed "Generations of Exclusion" and is cited within.

SFG said...

"No Vicki, I haven't researched the subject, but I would say that Jews comprising 2.5% of the white population would make this unlikely."

I'm from NYC, we have lots of Jews, so let me chime in ;) . Jews don't (usually) marry blacks, they marry SWPL WASPs, Asians, and Indians. I knew of a Chinese doctor who married a teacher who was half Jewish and half Indian. And there were plenty of blonde girls around who could find a Jewish grandparent when they were interested in me. ;) (Don't worry, no miscegenation resulted.)

Marlo said...

Why are comments being censored? I thought we were against censorship and PC stuff?

Anonymous said...

Marlo: Why are comments being censored? I thought we were against censorship and PC stuff?

There's a lot of debate about that amongst the regulars - whether

1) Steve censors them himself, or

2) Someone at Google [which owns Blogger/Blogspot] is intentionally censoring them [a la the Olof Aschberg URL censorship], or

3) The Blogger/Blogspot software/hardware package [frontend/backend combo] is so shitty that it regularly drops comments at random, or

4) Some combination of the above.

Victoria said...

Marlo said... It's been a while since I've left a comment here. Is "Victoria" still pretending to be black?

No, but she still is black and expects to be so until she leaves this mortal scene. People like you, whether black or white, are so easily perturbed. You've probably, by now, come to accept the variations in political views among blacks, but it seems that an anti-miscegenation viewpoint on the part of a black bugs the crap out of you. Mixing it up, are you?

I've posted this before but you might have missed it. In SF there's a Jewish lawyer named Gilda Turitz. She actually states in her C.V. that when she was 15, she promised her self she'd marry a black man, "and I did."

Well, this used to be standard. Whenever we blacks heard about a relative or any other black having married a white, the spouse was always a Jew. Considering the early devotion to the "civil rights" cause, it makes sense, doesn't it?

Svigor said...

...and yet blacks have high birth rates and white women seek out black men. Just look at Adam Taliferro's wife.

Something like 4% of white women have ever had sex with a black man. Not a whole lot of seeking out going on there.

But we could always chuck statistics and go with your celeb example.

Svigor said...

No Vicki, I haven't researched the subject, but I would say that Jews comprising 2.5% of the white population would make this unlikely.

I am unaware of any reliable count of the American Jewish population.

Svigor said...

(c) and (d) are uncomfortable things to argue for. Perhaps the only thing more unkind than telling someone he's wrecked his kids' future by raising them wrong is telling him he's wrecked their future by passing along sh-tty genes.

Joe was born with a broken leg. He brings suit claiming Bob broke his leg.

Is it "unkind" for Bob to point out in his defense that Joe was born with a broken leg?

Or was it "unkind" of Joe to bring suit, and "unkind" of his shyster lawyer to enable it? Isn't Bob's pointing to fact simply "enlightened self-interest?" And if Joes are bringing the same suit against Bobs the world over, isn't pointing out the facts a moral imperative? Sure, if you ignore all the Bobs of the world, as if they're dirt, you can make the argument that all this is unfair to the Joes of the world who haven't brought suit, I suppose.

Joe and his shyster should've thought things through more carefully, if they're so sensitive.

Marlo said...

uhh, "Victoria"...I'm not the least bit concerned about your views on miscegenation. It's the fact that you often describe yourself as "a black" and that you tend to use phrases like "we blacks". Those are dead giveaways...nobody black actually says crap like that