February 17, 2012

Telegraph: "The plot to create Britain's super race"

From The Sunday Telegraph:
The plot to create Britain’s super race 
In 1940, Yale University gave 125 children of Oxford academics refuge from the Nazis. Jonathan Freedland reveals how leaders of the eugenics movement may have planned to repopulate a devastated Britain with a 'superior’ breed of human. 
By Jonathan Freedland 7:00AM GMT 12 Feb 2012 
At first glance, it is an utterly benign and heart-warming story, a tale of child-rescue and salvation, of friendship across the ocean at a time of war. And for those involved, especially the children sheltered from Hitler’s bombs by one of America’s most prestigious universities, it was no more complicated than that: an act of altruistic, life-saving generosity. 
And yet this story might have a twist, a suspicion that somewhere behind this deed of great kindness lurked a darker motive. 
The story – which forms the backdrop of my new novel, Pantheon, published under the pseudonym Sam Bourne – begins in the mid-summer of 1940, with Britain isolated and alone against the Nazi menace.  
... That was certainly the fear among the fellows and dons of Oxford in June 1940, as they received an unexpected letter from their counterparts across the Atlantic at Yale. It came from a new entity calling itself the Yale Faculty Committee for Receiving Oxford and Cambridge University Children and it offered nothing less than a haven an ocean away. 
While plenty of British children had already been evacuated from the cities to the countryside, this was an offer on an altogether different scale – the promise of complete escape from the war in Europe. Children who went to America would evade not only the Luftwaffe’s bombs but the dread prospect of German invasion. 
... In the end, the parents of 125 Oxford children decided to say yes to Yale. 
... Among them was five-year-old Juliet Phelps Brown, now Juliet Hopkins, whose parents were convinced that Britain was about “to become a province of Germany” and who could not countenance living in such a place: “How could academics live with people who burned books?” 
... In this, they were not so unique. By one estimate, some 5,000 children sought refuge from the war in the US, with another 6,000 fleeing to Canada. 
... Officially, the Yale sojourn was the product of what Ann Spokes – now Ann Spokes Symonds, long-time chronicler of the evacuation and still active as a historian – refers to as the fellowship of scholars, “the camaraderie between educated people” that connected two great universities. Yale simply empathised with Oxford’s plight and wanted to help. 
But others suspect that is not the whole story. Juliet Hopkins had such fond memories of her time at Yale, she went back there to do postgraduate work, initially staying with her old foster family. Still, she is among those who have long nurtured a suspicion, not about the families who opened their homes to the sons and daughters of strangers, but about the organisers of the Yale effort. Put bluntly, they wonder if their rescue was motivated in part by an idea that today makes most of us shudder: eugenics. 
In the pre-war period, the belief that society should strive to breed a better quality of human stock was utterly mainstream, on both the Left and Right, in both Britain and America. 
Eugenics, one of whose leading evangelists was Charles Darwin’s son Leonard, saw the human race as no different from any other animal: just as a farmer raising livestock seeks to breed more of the strong and weed out the weak, so human society should aim to do the same. 
According to the eugenicists, whose number in pre-war Britain included some of the luminaries of the age – Bertrand Russell, George Bernard Shaw, William Beveridge, John Maynard Keynes, Marie Stopes and others – those deemed superior in intellect and of greater moral worth should be encouraged to have more children; those branded inferior should be urged, or even coerced, to have fewer children or none at all. 
Could this kind of eugenic thinking have prompted Yale’s decision to offer a haven to those Oxford children? Was Yale hoping to save the offspring of the British academic elite, protecting those 125 children because it saw them as a future leadership class especially deserving of preservation? Is it true that, as Hopkins puts it, “They wanted to save the gene pool”? 
It is striking that Yale’s offer was made exclusively to the children of Oxford and Cambridge. Note the words used by Dr John Fulton of Yale Medical School, a prime mover behind the effort, who declared that his rescue committee hoped to save “at least some of the children of intellectuals before the storm breaks”. 
... Crucially, eugenics was not just mainstream in pre-war Yale, it was, in the words of Gaddis Smith, Emeritus Professor of History at Yale and the author of a forthcoming history of the university, “red hot”. 
... Meanwhile, Smith describes Yale’s president until 1937, James Angell, as “a fanatic eugenicist in the worst meaning of that word”. According to Angell, who wrote an introduction to Leonard Darwin’s What is Eugenics?, “Modern medicine, unless combined with some kind of practicable eugenic program, may result in an excess of feeble and incompetent stock.” In other words, pre-war Yale was in thrall to an idea that today strikes us as horribly close to Nazism. 
Smith is candid that the university was then also “notorious as a bastion of anti-Semitism”. The professor has seen documents that show there was some discomfort at the discovery that one of the Oxford mothers was “a Jewess”. 
This, then, was the intellectual climate of the campus in which the Oxford evacuation plan was hatched. 
Even without an explicit statement of intent, it seems hard to believe eugenics did not play a key part in the decision to protect those 125 “children of intellectuals”, thereby deeming their lives more worthy of saving than the lives of those other British children who would have been lost. 
Once Pantheon was completed, I sent an early copy to Juliet Hopkins. She discovered there something she had never known before – that Ellsworth Huntington, the man who had taken in her brother, her mother and her, the man she still remembers as a kindly, grandfatherly figure so generous he insisted his two British foster children be educated privately at his expense, was not only the Professor of Geography at Yale. He was also a past president of the American Eugenics Society. 
And so, seven decades later, the suspicion lingers on. 
'Pantheon’ by Sam Bourne is published this Thursday (Harper Collins, £12.99 )and is available from the Telegraph bookshop at £11.99 + £1.25 p&p. To pre-order, call 0844 871 1516 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk

Jonathan Freedland / Sam Bourne is a columnist for the Guardian and the Jewish Chronicle.

From the dust cover promotional copy of Pantheon
The darkest secrets of World War II… finally revealed. 
Europe is ablaze. America is undecided about joining the fight against Nazism. And James Zennor, a brilliant, troubled, young Oxford don is horrified. He returns one morning from rowing to discover that his wife has disappeared with their young son, leaving only a note declaring her continuing love. 
A frantic search through wartime England leads James across the Atlantic and to one of America’s greatest universities, its elite clubs and secret societies – right to the heart of the American establishment. And in his hunt for his family, James unearths one of the darkest and deadliest secrets of a world at war…

Spoiler alert: The darkest secret of WWII (and of a couple of decades after that, as well), apparently, is that Ivy League and Seven Sisters freshmen had their pictures taken naked as part of a study of whether body shape could be used to predict behavior. (There is, or was, a naked picture of Hillary Clinton at Wellesley in some dusty archive somewhere. John Derbyshire wrote about William Sheldon's study in 2002.) It all had something to do with eugenics and since we all now know that eugenics=Hitler, it's, therefore, the darkest secret of WWII.

In a sane world, some friend of Jonathan Freedland would have laughed out loud at him when he recounted the plot for his upcoming thriller and said, "Oh, come on, Jonathan: eugenics, Yale, Nazis, elite WASP secret societies, Darwinists, shiksas being talked into taking their clothes off for dubious reasons: this sounds like a Mel Brooks parody of tired Jewish obsessions and neuroses." 

But in our world, nobody dares laugh and explain to poor Mr. Freedland that his fixations are amusingly shopworn and stereotypically Jewish, so we keep hearing this kind of hilariously stupid stuff over and over.

116 comments:

  1. A cursory look at today's Britain should reassure anyone that the eugenics project failed.

    ReplyDelete
  2. They're not just stereotypically Jewish. They're also stereotypically educated black. You don't think the gals at The Root would be comfortable with this eugenics project, do you?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Prof Zennor, brilliant but troubled... Perfect.
    Gilbert Pinfold.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I can't say how the Brit intellectuals perceive themselves though I'm pretty sure the Queen Mum believes she and Charles and one of the grandsons belong to the super race.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Tim Worstall quotes Freedland's Guardian column, showing that Freedland has more understanding than you give him credit for:

    The Fabians, Sidney and Beatrice Webb and their ilk were not attracted to eugenics because they briefly forgot their leftwing principles. The harder truth is that they were drawn to eugenics for what were then good, leftwing reasons.

    Freedland is an interesting writer. He wrote a book some years ago "Bring home the revolution", putting the argument that the American revolutionaries represented a major thread of British political thought at the time, and that the conflict was best understood as being within the British political environment, rather than being a "national" struggle like 20th Century independence movements.

    At the time I read that book I was much impressed and recommended it to everyone. I have since changed sides with respect to 1776 and all that, but the point that it was basically an ordinary left vs right battle is just as important to me still.

    ReplyDelete
  6. swimming swan2/18/12, 3:52 AM

    Wouldn't this purported super race be more Revenge of the Nerds than the Olympics held in the Village of the Damned?

    ReplyDelete
  7. A Leviathan sized government tacitly encourages dysgenia (cacogenics)by turning a blind eye and allowing unfettered immigration by lower cognitive types. The same Leviathan uses transfer payments to tacitly encourage dysgenia(cacogenics) amongst the unmarried in its expanding underclass.
    Over the preceding forty years Leviathan puts policies in place, which demoralize, dispirit and disparage the nativist population. Slowly Leviathan creates, by regulation, second-class citizenship for them. The natives, the majority, lose hope, give up discipline and engage in criminality.
    However the cognitive elite continues to thrive amidst the simmering cacogenic chaos. The ‘overeducated elitist snobs’ (Murray) continue to vacuum up high IQ conformist kids from the hinterlands. These conformist kids happily become Janissaries in the new Ottoman Empire of Brains. They preach their doctrine of universalism and SAT gained Life wisdom in print and media everywhere.

    But there is a problem, the universalism which creates the rationale for these cacogenic policies does not really apply to the OES(overeducated elitist snobs). Waay too many of them come from a group that is overrepresented by a factor of 10 in most opinion influencing positions. Wow almost forty percent of billionaires are from this ethnic group that is only two percent of the population? Doesn’t sound so universal, numbers are hard to deny.
    So that’s it, universalism with accompanying Cacogenic chaos preached by the government which is heavily influenced by a particularist group.
    Sounds like a book to me with movie rights to follow

    ReplyDelete
  8. What is this fear of eugenics anyway? I can't think of a better gift to future generations. I can remember a high school teacher warning us that elites would "build a super race on us", if we didn't keep on eye on them!

    Eugenics doesn't require coercion, or at least very little. Why on earth should the bottom 5% in IQ and personality problems be reproducing? I don't get it. Why shouldn't we have more kids from smart parents?

    The truth is, with a high functioning population, many social problems fade away.

    Question: Could it be envy of a superior population in the future that keeps us from improving the human race? They would be better than us and we can't stand it.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Nursing Hurt Feelings in Flyover Country2/18/12, 4:44 AM

    In a sane world, some friend of Jonathan Freedland would have laughed out loud at him when he recounted the plot for his upcoming thriller and said, "Oh, come on, Jonathan: eugenics, Yale, Nazis, elite WASP secret societies, Darwinists, shiksas being talked into taking their clothes off for dubious reasons: this sounds like a Mel Brooks parody of tired Jewish obsessions and neuroses." But in our world, nobody dares laugh and explain to poor Mr. Freedland that his fixations are amusingly shopworn and stereotypically Jewish, so we keep hearing this kind of hilariously stupid stuff over and over.


    How in Hades did that make it past Komment Kontrol?!?

    Anonymous didn't even have to say "Scots-Irish".

    Or "MacFreedland".

    PS: After umpteen le Carre novels & Matt Damon movies, "Bourne" is about the sorriest-assed excuse for a pseudonym that I've ever seen in my life.

    Are you sure you didn't get fooled by another Onion parody?

    PPS: And since when do people go announcing their pseudonyms to the public at large?

    Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of the thing?

    Are you absolutely certain that this wasn't an Onion parody?

    ReplyDelete
  10. I am Lugash.

    Good lord, he's as nutty as General Jack D. Ripper.

    I am Lugash.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Florida resident2/18/12, 5:04 AM

    Dear Mr. Sailer !
    Thank you, besides everything else, for the reference to Derbyshire's old article.
    Your F.r.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I think those are more like liberal obsessions than Jewish obsessions.

    On the other hand, reducing everything to ethnicity, to the point of absurdity, is one of YOUR obsessions, Steve ;)

    Believe it or not, a persons ethnicity does not wholly determine the content of his thought. There ARE other factors. Sometimes a person is just a liberal and thinks like a liberal and not because he is Jewish.

    Its funny how we all have our intellectual blind spots, whether we are liberals or Steve Sailer types. Sure, ethnicity can and often does play an important role in shaping a persons thought, and this has often been overlooked, but to someone of Steves temperament, it begins to be THE explanation for every little facet of a way a person think. Its quite absurd and tedious already.

    I say this because I dont want our side of the fence to become more and more like the liberal side, where a few ideas that have some level of validity become our obsessions and blown out of all proportion to their importance. I fear this has already happened.

    ReplyDelete
  13. swimming swan2/18/12, 5:19 AM

    I hear our very own Freckles belongs to the master race. Chortle, chortle, guffaw...

    ReplyDelete
  14. Henry Canaday2/18/12, 5:32 AM

    Basil Seal Rides Again.

    Do you remember the scenes in “Put Out More Flags” where Basil used his power to assign the dregs of cockney progeny evacuated from the Blitz to the homes of South English gentry as a tool to extort favors from these vulnerable folk? Like a clever stock trader who shorts stock, Basil understood how to exploit reverse eugenics.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Georgia Resident2/18/12, 6:00 AM

    "Juliet Hopkins had such fond memories of her time at Yale, she went back there to do postgraduate work, initially staying with her old foster family. Still, she is among those who have long nurtured a suspicion, not about the families who opened their homes to the sons and daughters of strangers, but about the organisers of the Yale effort. Put bluntly, they wonder if their rescue was motivated in part by an idea that today makes most of us shudder: eugenics."

    Isn't that a bit arrogant of her, to assume that she, and the other Oxford children chosen for Yale's hospitality, were picked for their superior genes? I mean, it seems that it's only a hunch, apparently based off the fact that all the Oxford children were so obviously superior to the average British.

    ReplyDelete
  16. The supreme irony of this story is elite schools are, of course, meant to create a superior breed of people to populate elite positions. And with men and women being allowed equally into elite schools, smartest men and smartest women are likely to mate and have smartest kids.

    And what is globalism but elites of the world coming together to rig the system for their maximum benefit, from Tel Aviv to NY to Hong Kong to Paris to Berlin to New Delhi.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Freedland said: Eugenics, one of whose leading evangelists was Charles Darwin’s son Leonard, saw the human race as no different from any other animal: just as a farmer raising livestock seeks to breed more of the strong and weed out the weak, so human society should aim to do the same.

    Hunsdon replied: Aside from (in my view) having a spark of the divine, I'm not quite sure just how the human race is different from any other animal.

    Also, farmers breeding livestock don't necessarily seek to breed the strong and weed out the weak, they breed for desirable characteristics.

    Look at cattle. Wait, that sounds like a goy joke. Look at horses. From the Shetland pony to the Arab to the quarter horse to the Clydesdale, there's a whole range of differing characteristics, not this monolithic "strong" that Freedland sees.

    ReplyDelete
  18. "I say, chaps, don't you think that rather than saving our children, the Yanks ought to save some Cockney trash? Posterity might thank us."

    "Well, old bean, it wouldn't be our posterity that did the thanking, would it now?"

    "Quite."

    Besides, I always figured that the deepest, darkest secret of the Great Patriotic War was either Operation Paperclip or the Katyn forest coverup.

    ReplyDelete
  19. "There was a huge spy-ring in America that gave secrets to the Soviets(including secrets to the Bomb, the most carefully guarded secret in the US), and there were communist-sympathizers(many of them Jews) with an agenda to undermine American values and interests."

    Why, that's hysterical, paranoid, ludicrous, outrageous, etc.

    "American elites were cooking up their own plot to Nazify Europe after WWII..."

    Wow, so truthful, so courageous, so enlightening, so blah blah.

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

    Looks like the 'commies' won the culture war and get to write history anyway they want.

    ReplyDelete
  20. The French movie(directed by the Jew who made LA HAINE) CRIMSON RIVER says there's a mountain university somewhere in France that is trying to hatch a new breed of Aryan superfolks.

    Too bad there was no Skank with Ass Tattoo to take out the Yale Nazis.

    ReplyDelete
  21. I would like to hear more about such plots as Lavon Affair and USS Liberty incident.

    ReplyDelete
  22. eugenics for white people,bad;
    eugenics for Jewish people,good;
    eugenics for black people,racist:

    This the modern MSM,bureaucrats educrats doing our thinking.

    ReplyDelete
  23. I think a distinction should be made between positive eugenics and negative eugenics. Positive eugenics would seek to increase the number of smart people while discouraging dumb people from having lots of kids. (But dumb people would not be banned from having kids. Rather social policy and contraception would be provided for the poor that they'll have less kids.)

    Negative eugenics would be where dumb people will be sterilized or, in extreme cases, killed. That would be more like Nazism.

    ----------

    By the way, who came up with 'negative rights' and 'positive rights'? This terminology makes Constitutional rights sound negative and bad while making socialist 'rights'--which aren't rights but entitlements--sound good and humane.

    If liberals came up with these terms, why did conservatives accept the terminology? Why do conservatives keep accepting terms like 'negative rights' and 'homophobia' which make people who support the constitution and oppose 'gay marriage' sound negative and sick in the head?

    What are called 'negative rights' should be called positive rights, and what are called 'positive rights' should be called negative rights. Constitutional rights positively give us the freedom to be free and pursue happiness. Entitlement 'rights' rob us of our freedom and make people dependent on freebies.

    It's like 'blue state' and 'red state'. Why didn't conservatives fight that terminology? So, libs are cool-blue and conservatives are hot-crazy?

    ReplyDelete
  24. Before we can win the culture war, we need to fight the terminological or linguistic war. Terminology establishes the terms of the debate.

    If one says, "I'm not a homophobe," it assumes there really is a problem called 'homophobia'.
    The question to ask is, "just what the hell is this 'homophobia'"?

    And straight sex should be called real sex.

    And 'negative rights' should be called 'REAL POSITIVE RIGHTS' and 'positive rights' should be called 'false positive rights'.

    ReplyDelete
  25. According to the reviews, there is a risible scene in the novel where the hero, a top flight intellectual, is stunned to learn that such liberal worthies as H.G. Wells, Keynes, Shaw, etc, were all interested in eugenics. Apparently, we are supposed to believe that an intellectual of the period would have no knowledge of such things.

    RE: the "scary" revelation about Ellsworth Huntington,

    The guy is still worth reading; his books are full of the kind of pre-WW2 interest in the interaction between biology and environment.For example, he has some fascinating stuff on the relationship between mental vigor and climate.

    Syon

    ReplyDelete
  26. These guys go on and on, but if scientists created a pill that made people smarter, I'll bet whole bunch of progressives will say make it available to everyone to improve the race.
    Sure beats 'waiting for superman'.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Steve,

    Hillary Rodham went to Wellesley College, where she wrote a thesis on Saul Alinsky.

    ReplyDelete
  28. I think I know that the Fox News scandal in UK was really about. It was to force the Murdochs to cut a deal. If Murdochs wanna be let off easy, they gotta make their news less conservative. Look at Fox News. It got rid of Judge Joe Napolitano and Glenn Beck.

    Btw, when Juan Williams was 'blacklisted' by NPR, he was hired by Fox. Any chance Fox will hire Buchanan after he was fired by MSNBC? Nope.
    I say the Murdochs cut a deal with liberals to save their own skin.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Wouldn't the naked pictures of Hillary be at Wellesley, not Vassar?

    ReplyDelete
  30. The irony of eugenicists fleeing from eugenicists. What were the Nazis about if not eugenics? That's like the black panther party moving to Canada before Che Guevara's inauguration day.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Perhaps it would be useful to propose a moral principle here: You don't have to justify your reasons for empathy and kindness to others, any more than you have to justify your romantic feelings or your friendships.

    Are you helping those African war orphans from white guilt? Are you sending money to the development NGOs in El Salvador because you know and like a lot of Salvadorans? Are you helping a couple kids escaping a war because you care more about smart people than dumb people? Are you helping someone in your church through a hard time because you feel more responsible for members of your church than for the world at large?

    You don't have to justify any of that. There aren't really wrong reasons to empathize with others. Some people empathize more easily with people of their own race, class, language, religion, ethnicity, occupation, nation. Fine. You can't get it wrong--whatever helps you see other human beings as worth going out of your way to help is okay.

    Some of the most generous things are done on that basis--raising money to send to another parish in a very poor country, endowing a scholarship for kids like you, etc. It's one of the dumbest things in our society that anyone can score points off accusing people of being kind for the wrong reasons.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Can anyone speak to the point of having a pen name when you readily admit your real name? Perhaps you could want to publish trash fiction under one name and serious academic work under your real name, but there'd be no point if you admitted that you were the author of the pulp fiction.

    ReplyDelete
  33. People like the ones conducting the naked picture project at the university would probably be the type of folks in charge of any eugenics program. Smart enough to make it all sound feasible, too dumb to actually accomplish anything without making a mess of it all.
    The article is just sensationalist blather. The Germans wanted the British as allies and held them in considerable regard, becoming angry when they refused to join in. There was never any genetic threat to the vast majority from the Germans, were they to become occupiers.
    The threat to the existence of the British as British is one that's been caused by themselves in recent times. They've thrown it all away voluntarily.

    ReplyDelete
  34. In a sane world,
    We can qualify 99% of your observations that way. Which makes me wonder, what would you do for a living in a sane world?

    @ reg caesar LOL

    ReplyDelete
  35. OK, so Jonathan Freedland wants to write under a pen name -- well fine, don't we all.

    But then, why "Sam Bourne"? Why not a red-blooded, all-American name like, oh, "Ari Gold," or "Noah Kahan"?
    Why, it's almost as if a certain group were trying to insert its memes in the reader's ear, without letting on it was them.

    Nah, must be some other reason.

    Back to sleep! That's where I'm a viking!

    ReplyDelete
  36. bruce banner2/18/12, 8:35 AM

    an idea that today makes most of us shudder: eugenics
    You see, our age only approves of dysgenics.
    That makes me shudder.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Sad thing is, like Phillip Roths neurotic rage against middle america, it will be wildly promoted by NPR, the NYT, msm, made into a movie, endlessly discussed, and probably shoot to the best seller list.

    And a lot of those 'fans' will be SWPL goy liberals.

    ReplyDelete
  38. And yet, Ashkenazi sub-culture has practiced -- via arranged marriages -- eugenics for many, many generations.

    I witnessed it first hand: my high school classmates ( 96% Jewish, 90% Ashkenazi ) 'hooked up' socially almost exclusively based upon SAT score rank and GPA, etc.

    This also determined who they were interested in as spouses, too.

    And, as a general rule, these were also the 'beautiful people' -- i.e. no one lacked for orthodonture and a girl's rite of passage was a nose job at age 16.

    ( That last item was something to be seen -- bandaged teen girls in every hallway. )

    ------

    The 'Jewish' obsession is, in fact, just an Ashkenazi obsession.

    What would the world look like if every branch of the human tree climbed up their scale?

    -------

    Speculation regarding Adolf's unhinged Jew-hatred has long pointed to his rejection, by Jews, when he attempted to enter fields where they held sway: architecture, etc.

    In the modern day anyone with his exceptional mathematical memory would've never been slotted for the ranks.

    Such a life-path would've spared the rest of humanity much grief.

    -------

    "The Pawnbroker" famously touched a nerve: some commercial activities are TOO Jewish and function as Social Explosive.

    It is a quandary.

    The absolute essence of the diamond trade is wholesale violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act. After all, diamonds not only aren't forever -- they literally burn like coal -- because they're elementally the same. This also means that they can't really be rare, deBeers is constantly having to sweep stones off of the market -- rigging it.

    Yeap, more felonies, upon felonies. Total RICO.

    And 100% Ashkenazi.

    ( And for TOTAL yuuks... now I'm seeing Web ads touting diamonds as the 'new gold.' Sheesh )

    ReplyDelete
  39. Sheldon's work was commented upon
    not unfavorably in the work
    by H. J. Eysenck and G. H. Gudjonsson, THE CAUSES AND CURES OF CRIMINALITY (1989). Derbyshire's comment that Sheldon's research seems plausible, if flawed and thus incomplete as a beachhead for replication, appears to be that of Eysenck and Godjonsson. I doubt there is a campus within the USA where a research proposal, even if lushly funded by private grant, could be approval if it were aimed to "start over" in this direction.

    ReplyDelete
  40. There's a naked picture of Hillary Clinton at Vassar in some dusty archive somewhere.

    Hillary Clinton is a Wellesley graduate.

    ReplyDelete
  41. A context for this sensational story is the integrity at Yale regarding openness to the effects of biology upon human conduct. The great researcher of child development, Arnold Gesell, M.D,
    worked prominently at Yale until
    political pressures edged him out during the 60's, as I recall. At the time of this event, he would have been not unlikely closely associated with it ?? Apart from this event, in the general domain of studying child development, He was supported by grants of cameras from Hollywood, etc., and thus compiled an exact record of changes and dynamics of development in the pre-school child. Among his findings were the distinct differences overall in (overlapping) rates of maturation between males and females, with the females ahead in the game by as much as nine months--a reality that likely impacts the ratio of reading problems for which males have 4x the incidence of females. But after his demise, it was possible for commonly used schedules of maturation to omit all cognizance of this--and other--gender distinctions. In this and other respects Yale at the time was far saner than those who have in recent decades been in control of loony PC and its war against biological realism--against truth.

    ReplyDelete
  42. "those deemed superior in intellect and of greater moral worth should be encouraged to have more children; those branded inferior should be urged, or even coerced, to have fewer children or none at all"

    As Reg has pointed out, what's actually happened is Beveridge's nightmare, dysgenics. Ms Masters-Degree has one designer baby at age 37, Karen Matthews has seven, and Mr Khan's wives have four each.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Sounds like it was a stupid plan. You can't build a master race unless you can get smart women to breed like rabbits.

    Margaret Sanger preached more from the fit fewer from the unfit. Is that what we are doing? No. We have fewer unfit and far far fewer fit. Nice job, geniuses.

    ReplyDelete
  44. Roger Rabbit2/18/12, 1:17 PM

    Sounds like it was a stupid plan. You can't build a master race unless you can get smart women to breed like rabbits.

    This could be the core issue here. Pain tolerance does vary inversely with IQ, and childbirth is terribly painful, and even with anesthetics, at the very least inconvenient.

    ReplyDelete
  45. They are not shopworn and stereotypically Jewish -- Mel Brooks would have made it funny. Its shopworn and stereotypically SWPL. Or post-Puritan. Or post-Nordic. Whatever you like. This sounds like it could have been written by Stieg Larsson.

    As for eugenics, how different is that from the traditional Aristocratic concerns of family, inheritance, wealth, and power? Eugenics sounds like typical Aristocratic arranged marriages/breeding coupled with a fear of the peasantry, and horrible fear of the middling classes.

    In turn the post-Puritan "we are all Middling classes" culture that abhors poor and those with the appearance of "upper crust" makes anything along the lines of Aristocratic Eugenics into a bogeyman that is profitable.

    And this is a "deep culture." The idea of a "deep state" is laughable -- most people particularly aristocrats are not that smart. No one ever thought that the Clintons were super-geniuses, nor the Kennedys (clever grifters on the make with self-destructive streaks yes, super-genius no). Human beings are too variable, filled with resentment (see Mark Felt) to make the loony conspiracy theorists even within shouting distance of being correct.

    But deep culture makes sense. Particularly as Nordic societies in one sense are successful in dialing down male aggression (and sexiness) and generally controlling female desire to produce technology oriented societies with terrible unity that run roughshod over others, from clinker-built longships to aircraft carriers and drones. And that culture fears aristocracy because aristocracy in the open kills the technical innovation upon which Nordic type (see also Japan, Korea) societies require to survive.

    ReplyDelete
  46. And the whole point is, that Britain already WAS a super-race: the first nation to industrialize, with all sorts of civil society to insulate itself from political leadership stupidity (domestically at least), and very Nordic in cooperation; the infighting in the 1600's while bloody was dwarfed by the Thirty Years War toll in Germany (~35-40% dead).

    America too already had a super-race, anchored by institutions like Yale, Harvard, Stanford, and University of Chicago, old and new, with lots of male cooperation, a focus on technological advancement, and informal but highly effective social control. They were called Puritans, or Progressives, or now SWPL. They produced Ford, Apple, IBM, GE, and GM.

    ReplyDelete
  47. "Pain tolerance does vary inversely with IQ,"

    What BS.

    Anyway, Mormons manage and so did the Puritans who had the highest fertility and lowest childhood mortality rates in history at that time.

    ReplyDelete
  48. Mordru the Merciless2/18/12, 1:55 PM

    Middle-class society has its own eugenics too, breeding for physical culture, "social skills", controlled psychopathy, and a certain amount of intelligence.

    ReplyDelete
  49. Freedland is an interesting writer. He wrote a book some years ago "Bring home the revolution", putting the argument that the American revolutionaries represented a major thread of British political thought at the time, and that the conflict was best understood as being within the British political environment

    There's a book available online that says the same thing. IIRC, the title is The Secret History of the American Revolution by Carl Van Doren, published in 1941. I can't confirm if that's the book I'm thinking of, because I can't find my local copy. But it's far from an original idea.

    ReplyDelete
  50. I think those are more like liberal obsessions than Jewish obsessions.

    Like that's really a distinction anymore.

    Its funny how we all have our intellectual blind spots, whether we are liberals or Steve Sailer types. Sure, ethnicity can and often does play an important role in shaping a persons thought, and this has often been overlooked, but to someone of Steves temperament, it begins to be THE explanation for every little facet of a way a person think. Its quite absurd and tedious already.

    This seems to be the standard response for those who see EVERYTHING through a Jewish lens; if you criticize Jews for ANYTHING, you criticize them for EVERYTHING. Just look at OneSTDV's recent posts on Jews and vegetarianism. The primary attack/response is "duh yuk yuk Joo conspiracies Joo mind control rays Jooz controlz everything yuk yuk blame Jooz for everything" (Note that this arch-ANTI-SEMITE!!! doesn't care; I gave One credit for having cajones, and moved on). Like we're not supposed to notice that it's the yuk-yukkers who brought Jewish conspiracies, Jewish mind control rays, Jews controlling everything, and Jews being to blame for everything into the conversation. It's "me have bullhorn" boilerplate - they're exploiting the media-inculcated Pavlovian response to any criticism of Jews. It doesn't even begin to approach an argument. Typical sociopathic response, really.

    ReplyDelete
  51. Per the final season of The Wire, isn't "evacuated" only incorrectly applied to people? I.e., buildings and bowels are evacuated - not people?

    ReplyDelete
  52. And yet, Ashkenazi sub-culture has practiced -- via arranged marriages -- eugenics for many, many generations.

    You say that as if it highlighted a contradiction. Wouldn't a farmer like to erase every other farmer's knowledge of breeding practices, if he could? Good practices for me, stupidity for thee.

    They are not shopworn and stereotypically Jewish

    Yes, they are both shopworn, and stereotypically Jewish. Like you.

    Its shopworn and stereotypically SWPL. Or post-Puritan. Or post-Nordic. Whatever you like. This sounds like it could have been written by Stieg Larsson.

    No, they are not stereotypically SWPL, or post-Puritan, or post-Nordic...except in the sense that Whites adopting shopworn, stereotypically Jewish ideas are shopworn and stereotypically shopworn and White.

    As for eugenics, how different is that from the traditional Aristocratic concerns of family, inheritance, wealth, and power?

    Ideas and demographics relentlessly mocked by Jews for the better part of a century now. As manifested in Whites (particularly Anglo-Saxons and other Germanics), anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  53. I think the underlying grievance expressed by Mr. Freedland stems from the reluctance of various gentile nations during the 30s/40s to receive large numbers of Jewish refugees from Europe. A few weeks ago, the Republic of Ireland's Justice minister, Alan Shatter, just before Holocaust Memorial day, officially apologized for the failure of the Irish state to save the Jewish gene pool during the Nazi years, describing the neutral policy of Eamon de Valera's government as 'morally bankrupt'. The idea of Yale taking on the children of top British academics with a view to preserving the Anglo-Saxon race from the Nazi menace while the best of Israel suffered rejection rankles to this day.

    ReplyDelete
  54. John said: Believe it or not, a persons ethnicity does not wholly determine the content of his thought. There ARE other factors. Sometimes a person is just a liberal and thinks like a liberal and not because he is Jewish.

    Hunsdon replied: Ah, like nature/nurture, eh? 60/40? 40/60? In either case, "Jonathan Freedland / Sam Bourne is a columnist for the Guardian and the Jewish Chronicle."

    ReplyDelete
  55. It could be the elites are really devising eugenic methods to be used in the future but putting the masses of dummies at ease with anti-eugenic rhetoric lest the dummy-masses get alarmed at what's up. (Alex Jones keep saying eugenics is coming, it's coming, the global elites are out to control and even kill us!)

    Why was Clinton able to lock up so many blacks in jail and 'end welfare as we know it'? Because he earned credentials as an 'anti-racist'. Credentials covered up his real agenda to control the blacks. Since 'anti-racist' Clinton, the 'first black president' did it, black folks loved him though his policies were neo-Reaganite in many areas. (Indeed, even Reagan couldn't have locked up so many blacks and change welfare policies.)

    Why was Nixon able to start a new chapter between US and Red China? Because he built up his credentials as a solid anti-communist. Humphrey or McGovern would have been attacked by American conservatives had they tried something similar.

    So, if elites are to push eugenics in the future(of course by another name: 'progressive social planning', etc), they first have to earn and seal their credentials as egalitarians. That will fool a lot of people if the elites start slipping through eugenics policies. It's like the Chinese communist party elites keep talking about equality/community to conceal their real intent to amass more power/wealth for themselves.
    And do Jews serve Jewish power by talking of Jewish power? No, they push pro-Jewish policies in the name of 'justice', 'peace', and 'equality'.
    Similarly, a lot of rich powerful don't espouse Ayn Randism for reasons of public relations. If a rich person says, "I'm rich cuz I'm smarter and better than you," he or she attracts a lot of resentment and hatred. But if you act like Bill Gates, you can make gazillions but people think you're such a nice guy and love them.
    Say A and do B.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Eugenics is the best idea ever. Psychopathy, physical disease, and family and social dysfunction cannot be solved except by breeding them out.

    Good people and good families are bred over generations. No success is built in one generation, although success occurs in one generation. Mental, physical, psychological, and even financial success has a long, often hidden pedigree. An individual is not a fly of the summer, or an island. His endowment is the fundamental capital he uses to make good.

    Everyone has always practiced eugenics except the lowest of the low. But now, white gentiles are suppose to abjure and run screaming from it... consigning their lines and futures not merely to chance (which would be bad enough) but also to positively DYSGENIC principles, which means: to ultimate failure.

    It is a self-genocide, into which we were suckered by humbug notions such as twisted Christian altruism, Romantic Love, and now Holocaust-guilt.

    ReplyDelete
  57. They were called Puritans, or Progressives, or now SWPL.

    Except these three groups are different genetically and culturally.

    ReplyDelete
  58. On the face of it, i have never seen what is so "wrong" or "evil" about eugenics. What exactly is so wrong with encouraging intelligent people to have more children? What is so "noble" or "desirable" about having vast hordes of idiots?

    ReplyDelete
  59. So Fleet Street is flogging this book. The other day it was the Daily News (with a "straight" story), now the Telegraph comes out with an ad in interview form. More log-rolling. Of course, this is because the novel is undeniably brilliant, persuasive, popular (before publication), and genius-level. The rational cognitive elite define "worthy" or "superior" as "something one of us does (or one of our more-suck-uppish clients)." In the same way, SNL is considered funny (our Tina-! our gang-!), while flyover folks like me scratch their heads, wondering why such amateurish dreck is given airtime.

    ReplyDelete
  60. "elites of the world coming together to rig the system for their maximum benefit, from Tel Aviv to NY to Hong Kong to Paris to Berlin to New Delhi."

    I think what you meant to say was, 'from Tel Aviv, Hong Kong, and New Delhi to New York, Paris, and Berlin.'

    FIFY.

    ReplyDelete
  61. Glass Houses2/18/12, 4:56 PM

    "Get a load of this guy's obsessions, whoa! How could anyone be so 'stereotypically' obsessive? It bothers me so much I can't stop writing about it. Doesn't he have a friend to tell him how obsessed he sounds?"
    p.s. To a layman it looks more like another upmarket Dan Brown/Harold Robbins promoting his new book along well-established lines of demotic interest. Just FYI.

    ReplyDelete
  62. What is so "noble" or "desirable" about having vast hordes of idiots?

    Idiots are like dogs, obedient and easy to control.

    ReplyDelete
  63. Marlowe said: A few weeks ago, the Republic of Ireland's Justice minister, Alan Shatter, just before Holocaust Memorial day, officially apologized for the failure of the Irish state to save the Jewish gene pool during the Nazi years, describing the neutral policy of Eamon de Valera's government as 'morally bankrupt'.

    Hunsdon replied: Ah, but then Shatter is a member of the tribe himself, isn't he? That smacks less of an apology than an indictment, rather like, not Obama, but Holder, apologizing for slavery in the US. Oops, not Eric Holder either, he's from Barbados. Sheila Jackson Lee?

    Ah well, sins of the father, and all that.

    ReplyDelete
  64. Whiskers said: But deep culture makes sense. Particularly as Nordic societies in one sense are successful in dialing down male aggression (and sexiness) and generally controlling female desire to produce technology oriented societies with terrible unity that run roughshod over others, from clinker-built longships to aircraft carriers and drones.

    Hunsdon replied: Whiskers is talking about the dialing down of aggression that resulted in production of the Viking longship. I guess "O Lord deliver us from the fury of the Northmen" was some kind of Seinfeldian hand wave, "Oh look, it's the soup Nazi, oh look, it's the Northmen."

    ReplyDelete
  65. Pain tolerance does vary inversely with IQ

    Prove it.

    ReplyDelete
  66. >On the face of it, i have never seen what is so "wrong" or "evil" about eugenics. What exactly is so wrong with encouraging intelligent people to have more children? What is so "noble" or "desirable" about having vast hordes of idiots?<

    The answer is contained in the groaner we all loved when we were aged 12:
    - Did you hear the latest dummy joke?
    - That's not nice!
    - Why?
    - I'm a dummy, and I resent it!

    A. Most people are concerned about being wiped out by some new scheme of their overlords. This is a constant in history, though its acuteness varies.
    B. Who will decide what smart and good is? Sure, it will be determined scientifically. Like Marxism (etc.) determined it scientifically.
    C. Even if we get a general consensus on the true and the good, who will be in charge of enforcing or implementing it? What if they are corrupt? What mechanisms will guard us against corruption? Who will guard us from the guardians?
    D. Polarization problems. In the presence of normative terms, such as "smart" and "dumb," or "fit" and "not fit," people choose sides. They consider themselves to be either "fit" or "not fit." No middle, no gradations, no gray areas. "I'm smart, dammit!" or "I'm (considered to be) a dummy, and I resent it!" If they fear themselves to be "unfit" by your lights (most do fear this), then they oppose the program. If they don't oppose the program, then it means that they consider themselves to be fit - i.e., a significant number of them are necessarily mistaken. And they won't be pleased when they discover that they are mistaken.
    E. If you put the eugenics policy to a vote, then you will be shellacked or corrupted (or both). If you do not put it to a vote, then you will have to impose it by stealth or by force. Both of those create opposition.

    Eugenics works best when it isn't an official social program or government plan - when it's cultural instead. We know this because eugenics has been practiced successfully from the beginning of time in just this way. It's called classism, "racism," dynasty, et al.

    The trick is to manufacture consent around certain eugenic memes, not to send teams of old maids into Appalachia to chop off retards' jewels with the aid of local sheriffs and federal grants.

    If you think that the cultural or persuasive approach cannot work, then consider that the DYSGENICS "ad campaign" in the relatively free West has worked only too well for 70 years. Pro-eugenics memes would lead to anti- or at least non-dysgenic government policies; such policies would avoid many of the problems I lettered above.

    Bluntly put: today's sadder but wiser eugenicist must increase memes of classism, "racism," and elitism of a meritocratic kind, and stress the kewlness, hipness, and desirability of smart, healthy specimens over the opposite. Every trick in Bernays' books and more should be used on all cultural fronts, wherever or in whatever capacity the eugenicist is.

    Of course government policy must be worked on so that it will be ready when and as the zeitgeist wants it. But the main job is cultural-persuasive.

    ReplyDelete
  67. ben tillman said...
    Pain tolerance does vary inversely with IQ

    Prove it.


    Disprove it.

    ReplyDelete
  68. The creepy end of eugenics is when it's imposed externally--some state board or judge decrees that you shall be sterilized for the good of the race. That both violates sensible limits on government power and concentrates power in hands that are all too likely to misuse it.

    The two things that make sense in the broad direction of eugenic policies, now, are:

    a. Try to make it easier and more appealing for people at the bottom, who probably are providing lousy genes and lousy upbringings to their kids, not to have kids, especially not as single moms. Making very effective birth control easily available (reliably reversible sterilization surgery for both sexes would be a huge win--a hell of a lot of young males with no intention at all of becoming dads anytime soon might go for this if it were free) making sure welfare programs don't encourage single teenagers to have babies to be able to get out of their moms' houses, making it relatively easy for mothers who realize they weren't ready to have a baby to give the baby up for adoption (and making it easy for them to not have any more till they're ready), all that might help. All this avoids coercion, in favor of nudges in the right direction.

    b. Try to make it easier and more appealing for smart women trying to make something of themselves to have kids. Stuff like making sure that women who meet a college's entrance requirements and have a baby can get a lot of help (free daycare, free pediatric care, family-friendly housing), working out ways to make graduate and professional schools more pregnant-woman or young-mother-friendly, trying to find some way to make good careers easier to have alongside babies--all that might plausibly push things in a good direction, all without any coercion other than the taxes used to pay for it all.

    ReplyDelete
  69. swimming swan2/18/12, 7:13 PM

    The main problem with eugenics would be those who proclaim themselves experts on what traits should be encouraged vs those which should be diminished. No doubt there are as many ideas about what makes a superior human, family and community as there are readers of this blog.

    WRT the ridiculous assertions about pain. Pain tolerance will be directly proportional to physical fitness. The healthier you are, the less susceptible to discomfort caused by extreme temperatures, nonstandard sleeping surfaces, etc.

    ReplyDelete
  70. Allan Shatter "apologizes" for Ireland remaining neutral...

    Of course as a JEW he naturally has no problem with IRISH blood being shed for JEWS. The IRISH can be forgiven for having their own ideas and looking out for their OWN interests.

    Funny how he says nothing about the non-intervention during the HOLODOMOR. Jews were very disproportionately involved in Bolshevism too.

    ReplyDelete
  71. Repopulating Great Britain with the smart fraction of the natives = Evil.

    Repopulating Great Britain with Somalis, Afro-Caribs, Pakistanis, and Bengalis = Good.

    ReplyDelete
  72. "The main problem with eugenics would be those who proclaim themselves experts on what traits should be encouraged vs those which should be diminished."

    No problem. Just favor guys who look like Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnan.

    ReplyDelete
  73. Disprove it.

    Uhm, the logical thing is to believe in that which is proven, and wait for proof before believing in that which is unproven. So until it's proven, it's hot air. E.g., one assumes Santa Claus is a fairy tale until evidence is provided.

    John said: Believe it or not, a persons ethnicity does not wholly determine the content of his thought. There ARE other factors. Sometimes a person is just a liberal and thinks like a liberal and not because he is Jewish.

    Liberal Jews and Liberal Whites are distinct categories. Liberal Jews think "ethnostates for us, but none for the rest/is it good for us?" is just fine (unless Whites are thinking it). Liberal Whites think "ethnostates for us, but none for the rest/is it good for us?" is evil (unless Jews are thinking it). People generally refer to both groups together as "liberals," but they're quite different.

    ReplyDelete
  74. "trying to find some way to make good careers easier to have alongside babies--all that might plausibly push things in a good direction, all without any coercion other than the taxes used to pay for it all."

    That book's already written: Of Cradles and Careers.

    What do smart mothers want? Good part-time jobs. Things like job-sharing (a full-time job shared by 2 part-time workers, each sharing half the hours and benefits) and telecommuting are already known and proven techniques. Only calcified thinking on the parts of administrators prevents the ideas becoming more widespread.

    Also, there's the simple notion that careers can wait. When the last kid enters school, Mom is at the point in her life that she'd have lots of time for her own career studies.


    "Sequencing: Having it All -- Just Not All At Once"

    The only problem with having young women delay their careers? Money. Without her high salary, how does a young couple get a place to live in a safe (read White) and therefore expensive neighborhood?
    How about a low-interest loan program? If young, high IQ married couples could borrow a few bucks to help tide them over for a dozen years, Mom could pay it back when she goes to work at menopause.

    Elizabeth Warren at Harvard: "The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle Class Parents are Going Broke"

    Or better yet, repeal all anti-discrimination laws so smart young White couples can buy a place in affordable Whites-only neighborhoods and be assured Section 8 (blacks) won't be moving in.


    Young, smart (White) women MUST be encouraged to have babies -- because they are the only ones who can. Make it so they can, and young smart women will follow their hearts and do so.

    ReplyDelete
  75. Negative eugenics is simply the filtering from the gene pool of the lowest performing, least desirable element, however that is designed. It has very little effect on the quality of the top performers. It aims to keep certain people FROM breeding.

    Positive eugenics is selecting the best performing males and females and selectively pairing them, and encouraging to breed MORE. It has no effect on the back end of the curve, but creates a small number of really high performers -or tries to.

    Negative eugenics is generally less invasive and much more cost effective. Positive eugenics offers the possibility of creating a relatively small highly elite population, but has a lot more potential for disaster in many ways.

    NE is, to me acceptable, even an imperative, for governments whereas PE offers nothing but horror scenarios when it is combined with the sanction of governments. On a voluntary basis it is perfectly acceptable for private organizations.

    ReplyDelete
  76. Pain tolerance will be directly proportional to physical fitness. The healthier you are, the less susceptible to discomfort caused by extreme temperatures, nonstandard sleeping surfaces, etc.

    You got that backwards. People with a high pain tolerance, or the motivation to put up with the pain, or even a certain amount of masochism, exercise more, and end in in better shape.

    ReplyDelete
  77. swimming swan2/18/12, 10:33 PM

    "You got that backwards. People with a high pain tolerance, or the motivation to put up with the pain, or even a certain amount of masochism, exercise more, and end in in better shape."

    Why on earth would you confuse athleticism with physical fitness? Good grief. All you have to do is take a nice long walk once a day, climb the stairs instead of using the elevator once in a while and enjoy the occasional bike ride.

    Pain is NEVER necessary just some extra and more energetic movement at least 4 times a week. Add some easy yoga for a little toning if you want to punch up your results a bit.

    ReplyDelete
  78. Not really on topic, but Svigor, your wit and clarity of thought as a polemicist are, as far as modern writers are concerned, rivalled only by Dostoevsky and Céline, in my estimation. I would lament the unworthiness of your opponents relative to your ability, but then I remember who Dostoevsky and Céline were arguing with--namely, nihilistic progressives--and I can't help but chuckle at the fixity of human affairs, encapsulated by Marcus Aurelius's observation that although the players change the stage remains eternally the same. It's also interesting to consider that in every era there is no shortage of lucid men offering warnings, pleas even (as in Dostoevsky's case), to change course or suffer grievous consequences. But, assuming that their generation is different, an exception to the otherwise immutable law, none listen.

    I'm well aware of the absurdity of comparing an itinerant internet commenter with perhaps the greatest writers of the 19th and 20th centuries, respectively, but nevertheless I strongly feel that, context aside, the comparison is apt. It is a dark age indeed when the most perceptive minds are to be found in such ostensibly unserious venues.

    tl;dr: *speaking in nasally voice from "Ferris Bueller"* Svigor, you're my hero. Don't let the bastards get you down.

    ReplyDelete
  79. "I think a distinction should be made between positive eugenics and negative eugenics...etc"

    Agree. I wouldn't want to try and stop people having kids but want the tax-welfare system weighted in the opposite direction to how it is now. We are currently in an artficially constructed and actively dysgenic mode.

    .
    "Can anyone speak to the point of having a pen name when you readily admit your real name?"

    Compartmentalization might be one simple motive. No doubt there are others.

    ReplyDelete
  80. "The idea of Yale taking on the children of top British academics with a view to preserving the Anglo-Saxon race from the Nazi menace while the best of Israel suffered rejection rankles to this day."

    Ironically, for the most part the best Jewish genes mostly survived. The vast majority of Holocaust victims were Polish, Ukrainian and Belarussian Jews, who were considered inferior by German/Austrian/French Jews. German/Austrian Jews, on the other hand, mostly did escape in the 1930s (or had already moved to the US in the 1880s-1910s). The Holocaust arguably had a eugenic effect on the Jewish population.

    ReplyDelete
  81. Roger Rat said...

    ben tillman said...
    Pain tolerance does vary inversely with IQ

    Prove it.

    Disprove it.

    Hunsdon replied: Sir, the onus is generally upon someone making an assertion to provide the proof. In the absence of proof, or at least evidence, we are left with mere assertion, which does not require rebuttal.

    ReplyDelete
  82. "Positive eugenics is selecting the best performing males and females and selectively pairing them, and encouraging to breed MORE."

    It doesn't have to the BEST people. Just ensure that BETTER people--upper 20%--breed more. Over time, that will make a difference. And even an above-average man and above-average woman can produce a very smart kid.

    ReplyDelete
  83. "This could be the core issue here. Pain tolerance does vary inversely with IQ, and childbirth is terribly painful, and even with anesthetics, at the very least inconvenient."

    "Prove it."

    One of the acknowledged indicators to look for to suspect giftedness in children, along with precocity and preference for older playmates, is sensitivity. Sensitivity both in terms of strong feelings of empathy for animals and other children, as well as intolerance to discomfort -- even discomfort as mild as the seam in socks.

    Obviously a nervous system that can't even stand itchy, scratchy clothes is going to have a tougher-than-average time dealing with the intense pain of childbirth.

    http://www.mind-works.org/giftedsigns.html

    ReplyDelete
  84. Gringo said...
    There's a naked picture of Hillary Clinton at Vassar in some dusty archive somewhere.

    Hillary Clinton is a Wellesley graduate.

    2/18/12 10:13 AM
    =================
    VDARE.COM still needs to figure that out....

    ReplyDelete
  85. From Jonathan Freedland's article: "At first glance, it is an utterly benign and heart-warming story, a tale of child-rescue and salvation, of friendship across the ocean at a time of war. And for those involved, especially the children sheltered from Hitler’s bombs by one of America’s most prestigious universities, it was no more complicated than that: an act of altruistic, life-saving generosity.
    And yet this story might have a twist, a suspicion that somewhere behind this deed of great kindness lurked a darker motive.
    The story – which forms the backdrop of my new novel..."


    How about this scenario for his next novel?

    At first glance, it is an utterly benign and heart-warming story, a tale of child-rescue and salvation, of friendship across the ocean at a time of war. And for those involved, especially the children welcomed to England by the social policy of that country's elite, it was no more complicated than that: an act of altruistic, life-saving generosity.
    And yet this story might have a twist, a suspicion that somewhere behind this deed of great kindness lurked a darker motive.
    The story – which forms the backdrop of my new novel concerns the Labour party's deliberate relaxation of immigration controls in order to make Britain more multicultural and to rub the Right's noses in diversity through greatly increased mass immigration, especially from less developed nations....


    I bet Jonathan/Sam is working on the rough draft already.

    ReplyDelete
  86. Hmm. Seems to have been a mistake of The Fly-ish proportions, as the UK has ended up the fattest nation in Europe.

    ReplyDelete
  87. Crawfurdmuir2/19/12, 9:42 AM

    After looking at the previous works of "Sam Bourne" as described on Amazon.com, I'd have to say that "amusingly shopworn and stereotypically Jewish" is a description that could equally well be applied to all of them. Even so, such stuff must sell, or publishers wouldn't put it on the market.

    It has always struck me how many of the sort of paperback novels one finds in airport news stands have themes either about Nazis, Nazi survivals, neo- and quasi-Nazis, or something to do with the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Cold War produced a few good spy thrillers, but even at its height, the commies - who were the clear and present danger - never were the favored villains of airport news stand literature. There, the marketing tactic seemed to be to put a swastika on it, and it would sell - even though the Nazis were an enemy safely buried, and quite unlikely to come back from the dead.

    There are not enough Jews in the world to generate the demand for all the books serving up these amusingly shopworn and stereotypical preoccupations. So, the question is - who constitutes the market for them?

    ReplyDelete
  88. Elric of Melnibone2/19/12, 11:50 AM

    JSM:
    One of the acknowledged indicators to look for to suspect giftedness in children ... intolerance to discomfort -- even discomfort as mild as the seam in socks.

    That could explain why opium, absinthe, and heroin were the drugs of choice for the Victorian counter-culture noted for its high intelligence and creativity.

    To the REEFER MADNESS crowd, these drugs were nothing more than painkillers plus discomfort-killers plus tranquilizers. They did not induce violence. Their only real bad thing was they were heavily addictive.

    ReplyDelete
  89. crawford:

    Putting a swastika on the bad guys' flag is a cheap way of letting even the dumbest reader know who he's supposed to be rooting for. It's an easy alternative to having the main bad guy kick some puppies or smack his girlfriend around in the first scene of the novel.

    A huge number of stories are written in which the good guys must mow down a bunch of the bad guys' spear carriers. It's easier to get people to swallow that without qualms if the bad guys can be made absolutely, unambiguously evil. Orcs, trollocs, devil worshipers, nazis, terrorists, all work with common American views to mark the faceless spear carriers out as non-people worthy only of death.

    This is good for escapist literature, since real wars, even against genuinely nasty folks (like the nazis and commies and taliban) involves killing a lot of ordinary, non-monsterous people who were just trying to fight off an invader or defend their homes, or who just got drafted and handed a rifle and are now standing in the way of your next tank advance, or who were just standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.

    ReplyDelete
  90. Not really on topic, but Svigor, your wit and clarity of thought as a polemicist are, as far as modern writers are concerned, rivalled only by Dostoevsky and Céline, in my estimation.

    Thank you for the kind words. Drastic overpraise - I just pick the right side before I fight - but I accept them in the spirit in which they were offered.

    There are not enough Jews in the world to generate the demand for all the books serving up these amusingly shopworn and stereotypical preoccupations. So, the question is - who constitutes the market for them?

    Well, fraud is generally perpetrated on others, not oneself or one's friends. As for demand, I think free marketeers prefer to (at least publicly) venerate it as somehow holy and incorruptible*, but I look askance. It's not terribly difficult to distort the market. Steve's a former marketing man, he could probably hold forth on how the "right" demand can be shaped and cultivated, and the "wrong" demand stunted and ignored.

    It might not be the best analogy, but look at planned obsolescence. Holy, pure demand would shun it in favor of durable goods. But planned obsolescence is by far the norm, and consumers eat it up.

    Mass media mind control works. I think a primary mechanism has to do with its ability to shape and create the public's perception of normalcy.

    *For obvious reasons: just as the drug dealer will tell you he's just giving people what they want, despite any misgivings he may hold, peddlers of other wares will tell you that whatever it is that makes them the most money is what customers prefer.

    ReplyDelete
  91. Obviously a nervous system that can't even stand itchy, scratchy clothes is going to have a tougher-than-average time dealing with the intense pain of childbirth.

    That's not obvious at all. Crooked socks are uncomfortable, not painful, and the problem with crooked socks is that the "discomfort" is correctable and therefore unnecessary. Smart children tend toward the perfectionist, and why should they put up with screwed-up socks?

    How about studies on the reactions of children to vaccinations? How about the reactions of adults to pain? From personal experience I find the notion dubious to say the least.

    ReplyDelete
  92. Lazarus Long2/19/12, 4:40 PM

    Putting a swastika on the bad guys' flag is a cheap way of letting even the dumbest reader know who he's supposed to be rooting for.

    Also, Nazis and their symbolism are more of a red flag (I know, bad pun) than, say, communism. Nazism pushes more of the right emotional buttons. From a purely rational POV, communism is more dangerous, murderous, and evil - but it doesn't make nearly as good a movie villain as Nazism and other fascisms.

    Also, Nazis come close to being a villain everyone can hate, be they liberals, conservatives, communists, capitalists, anarchists, even "moderate" fascists.

    ReplyDelete
  93. intolerance to discomfort -- even discomfort as mild as the seam in socks.

    Bit off topic but - Islam has a prohibition against men wearing silk on the (proto-Victorian) grounds that comfort is sinful.

    ReplyDelete
  94. swimming swan2/19/12, 5:28 PM

    "Crooked socks are uncomfortable, not painful, and the problem with crooked socks is that the "discomfort" is correctable and therefore unnecessary. Smart children tend toward the perfectionist, and why should they put up with screwed-up socks?"

    You're both wrong.

    Men!

    What JSM describes sounds more like neuroticism than genius. Indulging a child in this way might get you a manipulative, self-indulgent adult rather than a genius.

    Perfectionism, simply another personality trait. I've known smart slobs and dumb anal-retentive types. I guess it would be nice if you could assign genius a body shape and personality; because so many seem intent on doing this very thing.

    I would analyze a person's response based on functionality of the behavior before deciding whether or not the specimen is smarter than average, neurotic or whatever.

    WRT seams on socks: Being able to feel the pressure means your seam has crept into a snug place in your shoe. More than likely this fact will mean increased friction that will cause a blister. Ouch. The result being pain so bad shoe wearing becomes unbearable not merely uncomfortable.

    WRT body states: Anecdotally speaking, my extreme sensitivity to heat, cold or even pain means I have fever. Ibuprofen provides the remedy that's the ticket back to normalcy.

    Pain vs discomfort was the other issue. Anecdotally again, if I fail to endure the discomfort of toning exercises, I'll risk wrenching the weakened muscles in my lower back, not smart. Exercise can be used as a prophylactic against many injuries due to sudden exertion.

    Certainly there's the relatively unexplored territory between healthy, necessary physical discomfort and sadomasochistic endurance of pain during physical exertion but I doubt this can be directly linked to IQ though it might map nicely onto dimensions of personality.

    I'd enjoy the mythologies supposed experts generate from time to time; except those irresponsible, fanciful assertions have often been used to malign and marginalize some and invite criminal indulgence of immaturity and bad character in others. Body sensitivity does correlate with percentage of body fat which is why women have lower pain tolerance than men. Sedentary lifestyles also increase body fat vs muscle. While sitting can be associated with studying (or reading pulp fiction), we all know that watching tv and surfing the internet are sedentary activities too. Furthermore, a disciplined student can easily add a half hour of exercise to their daily routine especially if they give up 30 minutes of tv or texting without adversely affecting their academic performance. Some studies even suggest that physical activity improves intelligence.

    I'd say little Egbert could always use more discipline no matter what his IQ. Instead of treating him like baby Jesus or baby Prometheus here to liberate lowly mankind, I'd work on the people skills and balance between life and work that often get ignored when incubating geniuses.

    ReplyDelete
  95. "Obviously a nervous system that can't even stand itchy, scratchy clothes is going to have a tougher-than-average time dealing with the intense pain of childbirth."

    This is just getting silly.

    Besides not all childbirth is horrendous. Mine were easy and my kids are gifted and hate itchy clothes.

    ReplyDelete
  96. "Besides not all childbirth is horrendous. Mine were easy and my kids are gifted and hate itchy clothes."

    Do you have childbearing hips perchance?

    ReplyDelete
  97. That eugenics is controversial or
    unusual is an issue that gets at the schizophrene "cognizance in America of biological constraints upon human nature. No adoption agency goes without many questions about what is known re the ancestry of a child for whom adoptive parents are sought. No sperm donor program goes without keen interest in the biological characteristics--and specifically the intellectual level--of the donor and his parents, aunts, uncles. My own neo-Sailerian theory is that if if very very suddenly and totally pervasively Americans were made to dress and speak in accordance with Victorian era standards, they would all immediately ask: "Why are we doing this?" and the answer would appear to each without dialogue with another..."Because it is eugenic
    if we keep T&A restricted to the marriage bedroom." Hedonism and sexual licentiousness( read: slavery) are base-ic to the matter of
    evading human quality control in having sperm meet ovum.

    ReplyDelete
  98. Maybe sensory issues are why smart people tend to be less religious. All those Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes are just too uncomfortable.

    ReplyDelete
  99. The itchy sock meme - this was addressed in the film Finding Forrester.

    Forrester is a reclusive JD Salinger type. There is a scene where he explains why he wears his socks inside out to the brilliant black kid (who suffers from Fear Of Acting White btw). He wont, however, explain this to the white middle class boys who are sent to him by the publishers, how could those retards understand such a thing?

    The whole film is an absolute hoot for any isteveoid.

    ReplyDelete
  100. "Do you have childbearing hips perchance?"

    LOL,

    I am not fat if that is what you mean.

    :-)

    Thin runs in our family.

    ReplyDelete
  101. All of this talk of sensory issues, not to mention childbirth, reminds me of the time that I became involved (disastrously for me, alas) with a woman who is one of the brilliant people that I have ever met.

    Not only was she without question far more intelligent than I am, she possessed boundless reserves of energy, succeeding at a quite respectable white collar position that she had somehow talked herself into despite an utter lack of credentials, as well as teaching yoga part-time and helping to manage a paintball facility on weekends. When I asked her why on Earth she bothered with the latter gig on top of her other two jobs, a position that barely paid enough to cover the cost of her commute there, she said that she simply got a kick out of the experience.

    During that time she also tried her hand at freelance writing, and damned if she didn’t sell an article the first time out of the gate for double the money that I typically manage to get. Luckily for my self-image, however, she never followed up with a repeat performance.

    But the god of biomechanics taketh as well as giveth, as Roissy might put it. That remarkable brain of hers presented a number of difficulties that those of us closer to the middle of the bell curve seldom face.

    For instance, she found most footwear problematic, given that the lace of each shoe always had to be tied with a tightness that was exactly equal. Her diet was greatly constrained by the way that she found the texture of a great many foods slimy and repellent, including avocadoes and milk. And while her musical tastes were generally wider and better developed than mine are, some indefinable quality of jazz caused her to become agitated, even panicky.

    Nor did she handle frustration and setbacks at all well, another trait that I am told is typical of the extremely gifted. When passed over for a promotion that she believed that she deserved (correctly, in my admittedly biased view), she kicked a desk with enough force not only to break, but to pulverize, her big toe, necessitating surgery, and for weeks thereafter she hobbled around on crutches.

    Not long into our relationship she told me that a few years before she had gotten pregnant. Although at the time she considered herself mildly liberal, she could not countenance the thought of abortion and so gave birth--without anesthetic, so I suppose that her tolerance to pain must be fairly high—to an infant that she somehow managed to place with a suitable couple, both of whom are professors.

    Aware that she came from a prosperous, close-knit family that would have been willing and able to help her out, I asked why she had not kept the baby. She said matter-of-factly that she had no maternal instinct whatsoever, only liked other people's children (and those not very much), and would have made a terrible mother.

    Perhaps she was right. Then again, I do know that from time to time she goes up north to see her child (who is uncannily bright, I gather), and I cannot help but recall how she always seemed especially happy and animated right before those visits. Perhaps even geniuses do not always understand themselves as well as they think they do.

    We finally went our separate ways, but this was not my doing. Thankfully she despises all social media, and so I do not spend my evenings drunk and staring at her Facebook page. At least I am spared that.

    ReplyDelete
  102. Eugenicists want the less able to stop having babies and thus add to society by subtraction, but who is getting the message?
    The kind of people who read Charles Murray books and maybe HBD blogs. The ones who know their offspring most likely won't contribute any great advancements to society. They aren't especially good looking, so the effort to step out of society isn't too difficult, they aren't hounded by suitors. Realists.
    The lower classes don't know anything about eugenics. They figure their lives more or less suck, but maybe their kids will do better. Optimists.

    ReplyDelete
  103. Thanks to the anon who mentioned the negative eugenics vs positive.

    NE surely the way to go. We dont want to obsess over IQ too much but stopping anyone under 75IQ breeding would be a good cut off point.

    ReplyDelete
  104. It's like 'blue state' and 'red state'. Why didn't conservatives fight that terminology? So, libs are cool-blue and conservatives are hot-crazy?

    They certainly should have but typically conservatives are blue and reds are, well, reds! The US switch on that is truly bizarre and only serves to confuse things.

    ReplyDelete
  105. "We finally went our separate ways, but this was not my doing. Thankfully she despises all social media, and so I do not spend my evenings drunk and staring at her Facebook page. At least I am spared that."

    Your story has touched me heart, kudzu. I tell ya I was feeling a bit lonely and reclusive having gone to the dogs long ago. I'm feelin' a slight brighter now that you've revealed the truth about modern love and all its digital vicissitudes. Thank ye kindly.

    ReplyDelete
  106. you've revealed the truth about modern love and all its digital vicissitudes

    I haven't got a clue, my friend. Not a goddamned clue.

    ReplyDelete
  107. Propeller Island2/19/12, 10:06 PM

    "Eugenics, Yale, Nazis, elite WASP secret societies, Darwinists, shiksas being talked into taking their clothes off for dubious reasons..."

    Sounds like something that could sell millions of copies.

    ReplyDelete
  108. "They certainly should have but typically conservatives are blue and reds are, well, reds! The US switch on that is truly bizarre and only serves to confuse things."

    That wasn't a bug - it was a feature. Democrats are socialists are communists are red through and through. But for Cultural Marxism to be successfully implemented, it must be by stealth

    Can't have Joe Sixpack having it clearly represented for him visually on the television screen when election results come back, now, can we?

    ReplyDelete
  109. "The lower classes don't know
    anything about eugenics"
    In rural America a century or more ago, even the very dim could not ignore the evidence of selective breeding re livestock, hunting dogs, and the varied families (often with 8-10 children ) in the
    rural locale. The significant role of heredity was not often doubted. The radius of transportation with horse drawn means, was remarkably confined. Negative eugenics, for obvious reasons, was more emphasized--avoiding bad blood.

    ReplyDelete
  110. >"amusingly shopworn and stereotypically Jewish" is a description that could equally well be applied to all of ["Bourne's" books]. Even so, such stuff must sell, or publishers wouldn't put it on the market.<

    I read somewhere that almost the only American readers left now - at least when it comes to novels - are Jewish women, mostly those in the Northeast.

    Most gentiles read only stop signs, technical specifications, Bible-related handbooks, the occasional O'Reilly doorjamb, and the sports pages.

    I wish I thought this was a joke.

    ReplyDelete
  111. >I'd say little Egbert could always use more discipline no matter what his IQ. Instead of treating him like baby Jesus or baby Prometheus here to liberate lowly mankind, I'd work on the people skills and balance between life and work that often get ignored when incubating geniuses [etc. etc. etc.]<

    Heh. Just wait until you have one. You will have quite the learning curve.

    ReplyDelete
  112. Everyone in favour of eugenics always assumes that other people are the ones who get sterilized.

    ReplyDelete
  113. Mass media mind control works.

    Lazarus:

    Also, Nazis and their symbolism are more of a red flag (I know, bad pun) than, say, communism. Nazism pushes more of the right emotional buttons. From a purely rational POV, communism is more dangerous, murderous, and evil - but it doesn't make nearly as good a movie villain as Nazism and other fascisms.

    Also, Nazis come close to being a villain everyone can hate, be they liberals, conservatives, communists, capitalists, anarchists, even "moderate" fascists.


    See what I mean?

    ReplyDelete
  114. Everyone in favour of eugenics always assumes that other people are the ones who get sterilized.

    And most of the people against it assume they'd be the ones sterilized.

    And they're all probably more right than wrong.

    ReplyDelete
  115. read somewhere that almost the only American readers left now - at least when it comes to novels - are Jewish women, mostly those in the Northeast.

    Most gentiles read only stop signs, technical specifications, Bible-related handbooks, the occasional O'Reilly doorjamb, and the sports pages."

    Well, until I recalled my novel-reading Jewish female friend, I'd said Nonsense! I have always read voraciously, but not too many novels (except for the 19th c.) Mostly my reading is geared towards trying to figure out who is really running the world, because none of the elected bodies appear to be on the side of the people. I want to know who, what, why, how, and I want to know it now. This has led down some very obscure paths. I can only get most books I want from Amazon. The bookstores and even the libraries do not have them.
    Plenty of "gentiles" of my acquaintance read. But Linda Gottfredson has a practical barometer of expectations and reading "quality" literature doesn't tend to occur among people with IQs lower than about 112. I guess "quality" literature is like porn, in the sense you can't always define it but you tend to know when you read it.
    The vast majority of people have always gotten their culture watered down, the audience in Shakespear's day being an exception.

    ReplyDelete

Comments are moderated, at whim.