From the Associated Press:
Heritage Official Resigns Amid Controversy
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 10, 2013 at 4:38 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AP) — A co-author of a disputed Heritage Foundation report on a new immigration bill has resigned amid controversy over claims he made about immigrants having low IQs.
A spokesman for the conservative think tank confirms Jason Richwine's resignation without offering any details.
Richwine was one of two authors of a report released Monday that said immigration legislation pending in the Senate would cost $6.3 trillion over 50 years as immigrants consumed federal benefits without making up for it in taxes. The report quickly came under attack as critics from the left and right said it didn't account for economic benefits from immigration.
Attention focused on Richwine when his 2009 Ph.D. dissertation from Harvard University surfaced in which he asserted that immigrants have lower IQs than the "white native population."
Richwine's crime was not being wrong, but being right.
As anthropologists Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox said about Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes, the psychology of the story suddenly goes all wrong at the very end. As you’ll recall, the two “weavers” contend that only intelligent people worthy of holding their jobs can see the new clothes. So, just because one little brat is saying “The emperor has no clothes,” the mob isn’t going to suddenly agree with the kid. They are instead going to get very angry at this obviously stupid child who, clearly, isn’t even worthy of holding his job of street urchin, unlike all of the respectable people who deserve their positions of authority, who are all smart enough to see that the Emperor is wearing a ... uh ... new, higher form of clothing.
And here's David Weisel's article in Slate about how I quoted Richwine on my blog, thus proving his guilt.
As anthropologists Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox said about Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes, the psychology of the story suddenly goes all wrong at the very end. As you’ll recall, the two “weavers” contend that only intelligent people worthy of holding their jobs can see the new clothes. So, just because one little brat is saying “The emperor has no clothes,” the mob isn’t going to suddenly agree with the kid. They are instead going to get very angry at this obviously stupid child who, clearly, isn’t even worthy of holding his job of street urchin, unlike all of the respectable people who deserve their positions of authority, who are all smart enough to see that the Emperor is wearing a ... uh ... new, higher form of clothing.
And here's David Weisel's article in Slate about how I quoted Richwine on my blog, thus proving his guilt.
that's it. i'm moving to belarus.
ReplyDeleteIf you want people to speak the truth, and actually fight to spread the truth, instead of lies, you need an alternative to what Mencius Moldbug calls the Cathedral.
ReplyDeleteWhat stands out in Charles Murray's "Coming Apart: White America 1960-2010" is that the media, think tanks, government, the legal profession, and universities are all inter-connected, under control of a hugely intermarried elite who all know and are related to each other, and are not independent.
Mark Steyn can say what he pleases, and National Review can't really fire him, because he is independent. He makes about 95% of his money from his books, columns, and speaking engagements. He does not care. Neither does Ann Coulter, or Rush Limbaugh really, about what "the Cathedral" thinks. If NRO wants continued page views and donations, they have to keep Steyn.
By contrast, Derb was not well known enough, entertaining/funny red-meat like Coulter and Steyn, to be basically a superstar beyond reach.
Scholars, etc. are hideously vulnerable this way (see Victor Davis Hanson) because their only source of money and employment is writing and speaking about stuff that does not really grab people and does not create an independent, non-elite-intermarried source of income.
What "the Cathedral" really is at its core is nothing less than an updated version of the Catholic Church in 1100. If you want to be a scholar, that's it.
The solution is to use the internet, and appeal to popular tastes speaking the truth. Being entertaining and true at the same time.
The truth is preferable to lies. Lies are by definition rube-goldbert, baroque, and fairly ugly. Truth is simple and beautiful. Knowing the truth helps. The Emperor may have new clothes but he's naked (and stupid to act believing a lie) and likely to die of a cold in the winter. The key is presenting the truth in a funny and entertaining way that is popular.
I don't see why he felt it necessary to bring up Hispanic IQ. What matters to the rest of us is whether immigrants earn enough to pay more in tax than they receive in benefits. That will correlate with IQ, but it is a bit like doing a DNA test of 7 year olds to see who will run faster. Easier to line them up and see who finishes first.
ReplyDeleteRace is like an extended family and we should be careful about gratuitously causing offense. It is less offensive and more pertinent to say Hispanics are paid poorly.
This is shocking, even to me, someone hardened to the self delusion and out right deception that goes with organised political correctness. It's very much a "message hit", if you speak truthfully to power you will lose your job and be drummed out of polite society. They may have well as stuffed a sock on his mouth, a the Sopranos.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what the reaction of the liberal academy will be to this blatant attack on intellectual freedom. I'm tipping deathly silence. But I would not be surprised if a few piled on to the side of the authorities.
The rest will get the message.
Um, Weisel's article seemed pretty sympathetic, to me. Certainly 'fair and balanced', and as non-hostile/objective as he could be while being sure he'd sill have a job in the morning!
ReplyDeleteRichard Spencer and Marcus Epstein described as 'paleocons' did give me a double-take, though!
This is shocking, even to me, someone hardened to the self delusion and out right deception that goes with organised political correctness. It's very much a "message hit", if you speak truthfully to power you will lose your job and be drummed out of polite society. They may have well as stuffed a sock on his mouth, a la the Sopranos.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what the reaction of the liberal academy will be to this blatant attack on intellectual freedom. I'm tipping deathly silence. But I would not be surprised if a few piled on to the side of the authorities.
The rest will get the message.
Professor Borjas deserves especially intense criticism here, considering that he has tenure at Harvard(thus has nothing to fear as far as losing his job is concerned) and because he himself has written politically incorrect writing that he felt people really needed to hear. Even if he has some qualms about some of the policy implications of Richwine's research (which is fine), Borjas really has a moral obligation to speak out for him and strongly defend his former graduate student's right to explore controversial areas. As it is, Borjas apparently gave a statement in a Slate article that is - not to put too fine a point on it - simply weak and cowardly.
ReplyDeleteI don't see why he felt it necessary to bring up Hispanic IQ. What matters to the rest of us is whether immigrants earn enough to pay more in tax than they receive in benefits.
ReplyDeleteI see. Thanks for explaining that.
Quick question: Do you think there's any correlation between IQ and the ability to, on average, create enough wealth to outweigh the cost of the "benefits"?
A sort of negative congratulations to you -- your comment counts as the most moronic I've seen on Mr Sailer's blog in a long time. And that's saying something.
One piece of advise: do continue to post as "Anonymous" -- otherwise it might prove a bit embarrassing.
eah. Thanks for quoting my first sentence. If you read the second sentence, you'd see your question was answered! "That will correlate with IQ..."
ReplyDeleteI remember the Simpsons lampooning the cathedral after l'affaire Watson. "But Principal Skinner, boys ARE better at math than gi..."
ReplyDelete"I'm not allowed to have opinions anymore. All I can say is no one is better than anyone else and everyone is the best at everything."
What matters to the rest of us is whether immigrants earn enough to pay more in tax than they receive in benefits.
ReplyDeleteThat may be one thing that matters, but it's not the only thing, or even the most important thing.
If we insist that the only thing that matters about immigrants is that they be able to pay their own way, then A) we look like heartless, greedy bastards, and B) we set ourselves up for any immigrant group that does tend to become tax-paying within four generations or so. How many Chinese might like to move here if there's a civil war there a couple decades from now?
Immigration restriction is about a lot more than keeping down the cost of government.
If you read the second sentence,...
ReplyDeleteOK. So the next time I see an article telling me about how Hispanics lag academically, I'll mutter to myself that it's because their parents are poorly paid.
One piece of advise:...
Should be advice -- a positive congratulations to me for catching my own typo.
"Race is like an extended family and we should be careful about gratuitously causing offense. It is less offensive and more pertinent to say Hispanics are paid poorly."
ReplyDeleteHere's the problem anon: if we don't broach the issue of inborn differences, and IQ in particular, the fact that "Hispanics are paid poorly" will be blamed on white racism and institutions, not on hispanics themselves. W/o IQ it'll just be about how whites need to do MOREMOREMOREMORE!! and how awful whitey is for paying them so poorly.
While a soft touch may be needed initially, before too long you're gonna have address the underlying reality.
Borjas pretty much throws Richwine under the bus with his comments in Slate. His claim that "economic outcomes and IQ are only weakly related" is just blatantly false. Weigel's article in itself is the most decent piece anyone in the MSM has written about this kerfuffle, so I don't understand why Steve slags him off.
ReplyDeleteIn 2010, as first noticed by Yahoo News’ Chris Moody, Richwine wrote a couple of pieces for Spencer’s new white nationalist magazine Alternative Right.
ReplyDeletePeople say things are getting worse, but I see a lot of improvement. 10 years ago, the MSM would never have used the term "white nationalist". Especially not in a critical article. Instead it would have used the incorrect terms "white supremacist" or "neo-nazi". That's progress. It legitimises our concerns. With the other terms, the immediate implications are that we either think that we are superior (which demonstrably is not the case in certain areas compared to other races) or that we want to kill6millionjews!!1!.
I wish Nate Silver had written this thesis instead of Richwine.
ReplyDeleteI used to evaluate government programs for a living. I would develop a team, do a site visit and write up a report. Roughly half of every program I evaluated was put out of business. That's because roughly half of all government programs don't work.
ReplyDeleteI was called a Nazi. And my teams of public volunteers were called, in the newspaper, storm troopers. Pretty damn funny if you asked me.
I considered it a badge of honor to be called a Nazi. Everyone who dared to defund a government program was publicly and personally reviled. If they didn't call you a Nazi you were taking the money under false pretenses.
So it is with being called a racist. Anyone who isn't called a racist today is just not keeping up with his reading.
Albertosaurus
I will let this commenter from the article speak for the level of the Slate crowd:
ReplyDeleteGobaers
One can only counter ignorance with enlightenment, even if it's cloaked in a Ph.D and a fancy think tank job. Perhaps it's time for Richwine to read The Mismeasure of Man, and write a twenty page paper on why he just got canned.
How many Chinese might like to move here if there's a civil war there a couple decades from now?
ReplyDeleteHow many Chinese might like to move here if there's a civil war HERE a couple of decades from now? Could be quite a few, depending on the nature of the conflict.
Here's the problem anon: if we don't broach the issue of inborn differences, and IQ in particular, the fact that "Hispanics are paid poorly" will be blamed on white racism and institutions, not on hispanics themselves.
ReplyDeleteWhile a soft touch may be needed initially, before too long you're gonna have address the underlying reality.
We come together around here on the necessity for immigration control. You are getting into a different issue with your comments, one that is not necessary for the struggle we are in, and one on which a number of us may hold differing views.
Immigration restriction is about a lot more than keeping down the cost of government.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, but consider using "immigration control" rather than "immigration restriction."
Does anyone still believe in the Blank Slate Theory. Angels on pinheads or Santa have more proof of existence.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who disagrees with liberals isn't even allowed to argue their side of the debate. If they give any reasoning for opposing liberalism they're immediately demonized, ostracized, and persecuted. The only thing you can say as a non-liberal is "I disagree with this initiative," which of course has never been convincing enough to stop the latest great fad among liberals from steamrolling across the country.
ReplyDeleteThis country is beyond saving and deserves its fate.
Um, Weisel's article seemed pretty sympathetic, to me. Certainly 'fair and balanced', and as non-hostile/objective as he could be while being sure he'd sill have a job in the morning!
ReplyDeleteI do wonder if he reads iSteve. The "two minutes hate" seems a bit of a give-away. In fact, upon reading it I tend to think you are right. This is far from a Rubin style hatchet job. To actually quote and link to the arguments is not the usual style for such things. Instead, it's like "Here is this prohibited book, lying on this here table! Don't read it, it's very, very bad."
Cail Corishev said: Immigration restriction is about a lot more than keeping down the cost of government.
ReplyDeleteAmen. Some of us care about things like maintaining the American way of life.
Following the advice of the bean counters worked out fantastically in Vietnam, so I see no reason not to apply their methods to existential issues closer to home... As Udolpho might say, SUCK IT NERD!!!
-The Judean People's Front
The by-line for Weigels colums in Slate illustrates a point Sailer makes repeatedly about the corrupt nature of contemporary social analysis:
ReplyDeletePOLITICS : WHO'S WINNING, WHO'S LOSING, AND WHY. Jason Richwine’s friends warned him about researching connections between race and intelligence years ago. The Heritage Foundation scholar should have listened
That is, the key fact about an argument relevant to any political debate is not its intellectual validity but its social acceptability. This is the debating ethics of teenage schoolgirls, complete with bullying, catty remarks & social exclusion.
Mill & Voltaire are turning in their graves.
It seems to me that the Heritage Foundation are the bad guys here. And all academics who don't speak up in support.
ReplyDeleteAnybody keeping score on how many scalps the Cathedral have now?
ReplyDeleteWow, that was fast. I knew the Cathedral was powerful, but not THAT powerful. Mr. Thoughtcrime (oops I mean Richwine) is out so fast that it makes your head spin!
ReplyDeleteIs Richwine Scots Irish? (Not that there is anything wrong with that.)
ReplyDeleteRichwine out, in good company with Watson, Summers
ReplyDeleteNo, that's not a good company. That's capitulation, that's chickening out. Damn it, folks! Stand your ground! When you know the truth is on your side - never apologize, never give in.
Weisel sounds like he agrees with Richwine on the facts and agrees with the Church Of What's Happening Now on the necessity for suppressing the facts. Didn’t we used to have Jews with balls? Are they all in Israel now?
ReplyDeleteBorjas really has a moral obligation to speak out for him and strongly defend his former graduate student's right to explore controversial areas.
ReplyDeleteMoral obligation and Academia? You must be living in an alternate Universe.
Richwine has learned a valuable lesson:
ReplyDeleteHeritage is fake opposition. It's part of the Cathedral.
Will we also learn this lesson, seeing what happened to him? No, we won't. We will keep giving to "conservative" institutions. We will keep quoting them. We will keep respecting them.
Why? Because most of us are old guys who still think Reagan (Amnesty 1986) was the greatest.
After the age of 40, most (not all) people's brains calcify significantly. People of a certain age can't change their mental picture of the changing world.
In their minds, the world is always the way it was during their heyday (e.g., their 20s or 30s).
So for Michelle Bachmann "the Soviet Union" is still a threat. For Fox News watchers, black welfare queens driving pink Cadillacs are still problem #1.
Every war we fight is still World War 2.
I reject feminism, but Gloria Steinem (I think) once said something interesting. She said new ideas almost never gain acceptance through reason. They gain acceptance mostly through the older generation dying. We can add to this that even the factual understanding of the world - the mental picture of what it is - also isn't open to new data, for many older people.
My dad recently raved about a diner in another state. He ate there as a young man. He said, "We have to go there - I'll show you what good food really is." I gently asked him when he was there last. The answer was 1958.
How many of us still feel, in our bones, that it's 1958 / 1973 / 1985? How much of our factual picture of the world (not philosophy, just the factual picture) froze decades ago? How many of us explain the current economic downturn by repeating the story of the ant and the grasshopper? How many of us still think George Will is a powerful voice for "our side"?
Let's not allow any of this to dissuade us from writing checks to the Heritage Foundation, though. We mustn't allow the Soviet Union to win.
It should be amazing, but its not, how fast 'conservatives' flee in terror in order to not be called rayciss.
ReplyDelete"We come together around here on the necessity for immigration control. You are getting into a different issue with your comments, one that is not necessary for the struggle we are in, and one on which a number of us may hold differing views."
ReplyDeleteAh, I thought you were mostly worried about how to present anti-immigrant arguments effectively, but it turns out you're just stupid. Sorry buddy, but it's not possible to argue against low-human capital immigration w/o going into WHY it's bad and cannot ever be made to work. And race realism is why. In a rational world we could perhaps remain agnostic about causes and simply look at the deleterious effects, but we don’t live in that world. Here any opposition to immigration is assumed to be racial bigotry. Further, since racism is held to be the greatest evil in the world, the negative consequences of nonwhite immigration don’t even matter. Let racism be destroyed, though the heavens fall! Finally, since third world immigrants are overwhelmingly better off here, the fact that natives are harmed is almost just. Racist bastards, they get what they deserve! And don’t tell me that denialists don’t think this way—their actions suggest otherwise.
Racial disparities are a “different issue” that is not necessary for the struggle we are in? Dead wrong, they are pretty much the entirety of the issue. Sure, the people at the top, both politicians and businessmen, are just self-interested, but this self-interest means they can’t be swayed. Only the drones can potentially be converted, and while it’s longshot, exposing them to the simple truth is all we’ve got. No way we could come up with lies as comforting and self-serving as those of the denialists.
Also, I enjoy your communal message on the part of iSteve readers and their “differing views.” Well, I’ve been reading the comments here regularly for many years, and I can safely say that the commenters do not commonly “hold differing views” on this point. The overwhelming majority are race realists. How curious, that fervent immigration opponents also tend to be race realists. What a coincidence, considering that there’s no connection between the issues . . .
Ah, I thought you were mostly worried about how to present anti-immigrant arguments effectively, but it turns out you're just stupid. Sorry buddy, but it's not possible to argue against low-human capital immigration w/o going into WHY it's bad and cannot ever be made to work.
ReplyDeleteSure it is possible. We use the same arguments that apply against "high-human [sic] capital immigration."
It is both possible AND more effective.
After the age of 40, most (not all) people's brains calcify significantly.
ReplyDeleteIs this literally true?
Regardless of whether literal or figurative, do you have a cite?
Sure it is possible. We use the same arguments that apply against "high-human [sic] capital immigration."
ReplyDeleteIn regard to "high-human-capital immigration," there's a new article out on the corruption of the new hostile ruling class at the University of California.
"Weisel sounds like he agrees with Richwine on the facts and agrees with the Church Of What's Happening Now on the necessity for suppressing the facts. Didn’t we used to have Jews with balls? Are they all in Israel now?"
ReplyDeleteI got a little different take: that he was mostly sympathetic and was more troubled by Richwine's associates and what that might mean. Given his sensitivities, I can empathize.
Every time Steve links Brooks, and especially Weigel, I'm overwhelmed with a feeling that these writers must be underwhelmed by their commenters. Serious question: If you're Weigel, who seems by all accounts to be intellectually curious, where would you go for intellectual stimulation? I have no doubt that he's been a lurker here.
Every time Steve links Brooks, and especially Weigel, I'm overwhelmed with a feeling that these writers must be underwhelmed by their commenters.
ReplyDeleteI read the Wiegel piece and had the same thought. The commenters were trying to out snark each other. It's like the old (Gary Larson?) cartoon where the guy's talking to his dog and the only thing the dog hears is his name. Only all the commenters hear is "racist", "nazi", "gay marriage", and "tea party". It would be more interesting talking to the 60's Elisa program than with most of those commenters.
You'd have to be a saint to put up with it.
"Weisel" LOL.
ReplyDeleteDid he speak to you for that piece, Steve? What's the behind the scenes (to the extent that you are behind the scenes) opinion on Weigel on the right?
Anon - we should be careful about gratuitously causing offense. It is less offensive and more pertinent to say Hispanics are paid poorly.
ReplyDeleteBut useless.
Because the response will be:
Why are they paid poorly? Because generations of white, male, Christian heterosexist conservatives have conspired to keep their pay low and stifle their natural creative, productive abilities in check. Duh.
"I don't see why he felt it necessary to bring up Hispanic IQ."
ReplyDelete1. He didn't. The IQ thing was from some years ago.
2. Nice distraction work turming a story about an academic getting sacked for telling the truth into some BS.
I don't see why he felt it necessary to bring up Hispanic IQ....
ReplyDeleteRace is like an extended family and we should be careful about gratuitously causing offense.
It's not gratuitous. We're defending ourselves against an invasion.
I don't think you're being fair to Weisel. That was an almost unbelievably fair article, actually.
ReplyDelete>After the age of 40, most (not all) people's brains calcify significantly.[...]
ReplyDeleteRegardless of whether literal or figurative, do you have a cite?<
One cite.
I reject feminism, but Gloria Steinem (I think) once said something interesting. She said new ideas almost never gain acceptance through reason. They gain acceptance mostly through the older generation dying.
ReplyDeleteThis idea has a much more respectable pedigree than that. For example, Max Planck said that science advances one funeral at a time.
I think Richwine's case demonstrates how race realism has become even more marginal than it was, say, 20 years ago when The Bell Curve was published. Richwine was just pushed aside, and there was not even an attempt to prove him wrong. This sends a clear message that unorthodox thinking about race has absolutely no place in the mainstream. Only people who are already marginal can safely say anything that does not conform to the Narrative.
After The Bell Curve was attacked in a mudslinging style in 1994, more than fifty leading academics published a statement affirming that The Bell Curve reflects mainstream science. Similarly, when Arthur Jensen came under attack in the 1970s, Francis Crick and dozens of others defended him.
But these days, it's difficult to think that any esteemed figure would come to the defense of race realists being crucified, except perhaps some old and dying veterans of earlier disputes. The reason is, I think, that since the 1960s academia has been completely purged of crimethoughts, and younger generations of researchers are not even aware of the relevant data and arguments. All they know are the politically correct dogmas.
why call it the Cathedral? "The synagogue" is a more accurate term.
ReplyDeleteWeigel writes as if Richwein should have just known that writing about IQ would bring down the wrath of the Gods upon him. As if the avalanche of opprobrium which follows - discussing the truth - is just some inexorable reaction - the force of nature itself, rather than what it is: a concerted campaign to enforce the reigning orthodoxy, carried out by publications like the one that Weigel writes for.
ReplyDelete"Anonymous said...
ReplyDelete""I reject feminism, but Gloria Steinem (I think) once said something interesting. She said new ideas almost never gain acceptance through reason. They gain acceptance mostly through the older generation dying.""
This idea has a much more respectable pedigree than that. For example, Max Planck said that science advances one funeral at a time."
So, to clarify the matter: Gloria Steinem did not say something interesting; Gloria Steinem quoted, without attribution, something said by somebody (a man, no less) who was much, much smarter than she is.
Yea no Weigel plays far more open minded than he really is. He was basically the most frequent and most bombastic poster on journolist so believe me he's loving Richwine's getting it hard.
ReplyDelete