Well, perhaps they should look at certain bizarre sections of the regressive left infecting the universities. In its obsession with Postmodernism, extreme social constructivism, anti-racism, Postcolonialism, diversity and identity politics, we have people like this:
This is Noel Ignatiev, a left-wing professor at Massachusetts College of Art, and co-founder of a journal called Race Traitor, whose motto is “treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity.”
The journal describes its goals as follows:
“The white race is a historically constructed social formation. It consists of all those who partake of the privileges of the white skin in this society. Its most wretched members share a status higher, in certain respects, than that of the most exalted persons excluded from it, in return for which they give their support to a system that degrades them.Asked to explain what he means by calls for “abolishing” whiteness, he explains:
The key to solving the social problems of our age is to abolish the white race, which means no more and no less than abolishing the privileges of the white skin. Until that task is accomplished, even partial reform will prove elusive, because white influence permeates every issue, domestic and foreign, in US society.
The existence of the white race depends on the willingness of those assigned to it to place their racial interests above class, gender, or any other interests they hold. The defection of enough of its members to make it unreliable as a predictor of behavior will lead to its collapse.”
http://racetraitor.org/
“When we say we want to abolish the white race, we do not mean we want to exterminate people with fair skin. We mean that we want to do away with the social meaning of skin color, thereby abolishing the white race as a social category. Consider this parallel: To be against royalty does not mean wanting to kill the king. It means wanting to do away with crowns, thrones, titles, and the privileges attached to them. In our view, whiteness has a lot in common with royalty: they are both social formations that carry unearned advantages”So, in other words, this is social constructivism gone insane. He wants to abolish the idea of “whiteness” because he thinks everything is socially constructed. This is essentially a kind of conspiracy theory that holds that virtually every major problem of humanity would be solved if only people would stop thinking of the “white race” as anything but a fictional, non-existent thing that has been invented by racist oppressors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noel_Ignatiev
“The goal of abolishing the white race is on its face so desirable that some may find it hard to believe that it could incur any opposition other than from committed white supremacists. Of course we expected bewilderment from people who still think of race as biology. ….
Every group within white America has at one time or another advanced its particular and narrowly defined interests at the expense of black people as a race. That applies to labor unionists, ethnic groups, college students, schoolteachers, taxpayers, and white women. Race Traitor will not abandon its focus on whiteness, no matter how vehement the pleas and how virtuously oppressed those doing the pleading. The editors meant it when they replied to a reader, ‘Make no mistake about it: we intend to keep bashing the dead white males, and the live ones, and the females too, until the social construct known as “the white race” is destroyed—not “deconstructed” but destroyed.’”
http://harvardmagazine.com/2002/09/abolish-the-white-race.html
But what average person has the time to examine the minutiae of some regressive left social constructivist lunacy?
When conservatives and your average person hears this man speak, it feeds into paranoid right-wing conspiracy theories that the left is actively planning to commit a white genocide, which is now a popular meme on the far right and so-called “Alt Right.”
And this kind of thing is only the tip of the iceberg of how insane the regressive left has become in its hatred of white people (here and here).
At some point, this kind of unhinged left-wing anti-white ideology was going to cause a horrible backlash of some kind. Are you really that surprised at what is happening in politics as of 2016?
They are screaming at Bernie Sanders as well.
ReplyDeleteA Politico headline: How Sanders Exposed the Democrats' Racial Rift.
The voter dissatisfaction leading to the current left and right wing populism is made to look in the media like it's a white
affair, nothing concerning minorities. The author of that articles accuses Sanders' supporters of white privilege, despite the latest exit polls showing him leading with every minority youth group.
"In U.S., 87% Approve of Black-White Marriage, vs. 4% in 1958"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gallup.com/poll/163697/approve-marriage-blacks-whites.aspx
AFAICS, there is no "White Race" - it's a category that was invented by North American colonialists who wanted those fleeing Europe to have a sense of identity & commonality. All anyone has to do to see this is just start searching for websites that try to defend Whiteness as having some kind of legit pedigree. They're worth a laugh, alright!
ReplyDeleteThe sins of the man in the video above are just lack of diplomacy and continuing to hype grievances that have been largely addressed in society today.
There's been some good historical reach done on the history of "Whiteness":
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12272
"AFAICS, there is no "White Race" - it's a category that was invented by North American colonialists who wanted those fleeing Europe to have a sense of identity & commonality"
DeleteThis is a terrible piece of politically correct nonsense, so don't get offended.
Race -- for which read: human subspecies -- is real.
It is absurd to deny that there are no biological/morphological differences between groups of human beings, which arise out of isolation, genetic drift and evolution. The science is telling us that there are 5 major races: Caucasian, East Asian, African, Native American and Australian Aboriginal. Obviously Europeans fit into the Caucasian group, which is of course broader than in common thought, though.
It does not follow -- after admitting this fact -- that the hard, hereditarian 19th century racism is true at all, as I point out here:
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2012/07/iq-and-wealth-of-nations.html
Note well: I've had unpleasant arguments with the IQ racial hereditarians, and they hate me.
Exactly. Plus of course the admixture of Neanderthal in Caucasians.
DeleteOne complaint I hear is that medical research tends to be skewed white. This is true! Heart disease varies between whites and blacks. How can this be if the races are just social constructs?
I am curious about your debates. From our discussions I frankly doubt your mathematical skills are up to it. I doubt mine are either btw, and I passed comps in Math, but it's a specialized area, so no offense. (I'll offend you next time we debate Turing machines.)
DeleteHave you seen the data on Ashkenazy Jews and do you deny it?
Do you deny IQ is heritable ?
That grouping always begs the question for me: Where the heck do Indians and other South Asians fit on there? Obviously, particularly in the North, there is some Caucasian from Aryan and other invaders (Greco/Persian/Turkic) conquests. But the South is quite different, and apparently there's more Australian / Pacific Islander halogroups than anywhere else (suggesting that's the route of migration they took).
DeletePlus, I'm not really sure that Native America is really a "racial group", though they did have a lot of time in isolation to evolve on their own. But they appear to have most relations with Siberian Altaic groups of people, which have Eurasian ('Caucasoid') and Eastasian ('Mongoloid') backgrounds.
(Plus there might be some background with early Western Europeans in some Native American tribes - and possibly Micronesian in South American ones).
Then there's also the question of where the lines are really distinguished. For example, many include Somalians/Ethiopians within "Caucasian", and where exactly do many of the Central Asian peoples fall? Krygyz for example look a lot more East Asian than Caucasian to me, while Kazakhs are like 50-50.
And in any event, these kinds of distinctions really matter a lot less than some would have you believe. But denying these minor differences is silly as well.
LK I think the onus is on you to prove that prior to migrating to the US, there was such a thing as a "White Race" in use in popular culture. Or that people in Europe didn't primarily think of themselves as French, Germans, Brits, etc. With the way the Brits oppressed the Irish? Doesn't sound to me like they saw them as cut from the same cloth. And Hitler's policy of Aryan superiority rested on the very notion that one particular brand of European was better than the rest.
DeleteIt doesn't look to me like the Science is pointing where you say it does on this question:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/06/human-race-biology-scientific-racism_n_7699490.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/30/racism-race-explained-science-anthropologist_n_7687842.html
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674417311
http://www.livescience.com/47627-race-is-not-a-science-concept.html
http://www.newsweek.com/there-no-such-thing-race-283123
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization)#Views_across_disciplines_over_time
I don't find what you say offensive, just so much as highly dubious.
Even a proponent of the categories of race admit that not all scientists support it:
Deletehttp://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/does-race-exist.html
DeleteKen B,
Do you deny IQ is heritable?
No, the evidence suggests it is heritable to some degree. But what degree?
The heritability of IQ varies in different research. It has ranged from .40 to .80. James Flynn has put it between .40 to .55. A figure you often see in IQ research is .75. But it doesn’t necessarily follow from this that hard IQ racial hereditarianism is true.
"I think the onus is on you to prove that prior to migrating to the US, there was such a thing as a "White Race" in use in popular culture."
DeleteKevin, that isn't the question.
The question is: does modern science provide objective criteria by which we can divide human beings into groups with common descent in which such groups have common genetic traits that give rise to specific morphological characteristics, because of (a) isolation, (b) genetic drift and (c) evolution? The answer is: yes.
As for your links, I am afraid they stink of the PC culture and science-denial or plain ignorance:
(1) http://www.livescience.com/47627-race-is-not-a-science-concept.html
This confuses species with subspecies.
(2) http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674417311
The author says: "Biological races do not exist—and never have. This view is shared by all scientists who study variation in human populations.". The latter sentence is a brazen and bizarre lie.
(3) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/06/human-race-biology-scientific-racism_n_7699490.html
Ends up admitting races exists!! lol
Kevin, here's Chomsky:
Delete“See, capitalism is not fundamentally racist—it can exploit racism for its purposes, but racism isn’t built into it. Capitalism basically wants people to be interchangeable cogs, and differences among them, such as on the basis of race, usually are not functional. I mean, they may be functional for a period, like if you want a super exploited workforce or something, but those situations are kind of anomalous. Over the long term, you can expect capitalism to be anti-racist—just because it’s anti-human. And race is in fact a human characteristic—there’s no reason why it should be a negative characteristic, but it is a human characteristic. So therefore identifications based on race interfere with the basic ideal that people should be available just as consumers and producers, interchangeable cogs who will purchase all the junk that’s produced—that’s their ultimate function, and any other properties they might have are kind of irrelevant, and usually a nuisance.”
form Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power (2002)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Understanding_Power
Did you read sentence in bold?: "And race is in fact a human characteristic."
smoothcritical@1June 10, 2016 at 3:29 PM
DeleteOn a totally unrelated question: are you a libertarian on economics?
Quoting Chomsky on a question of biology makes about as much sense as Bill Gates calling me up to ask about building a great OS that'll sell millions of copies and revolutionize the PC industry.
DeleteI can't see any other reason for your opposing this other than you think it's "PC." Actually you should be cheering the development! The "PC" take on this as Michael Kimmel puts it: So-called "Color Blindness" is actually a form of "White Privilege" because privilege allows you to delude yourself that society doesn't carry with in it aspects of systemic racism. That's probably a butchered quote, but close.
*Kevin, that isn't the question*
It most certainly is, and actually more important to the issue than biology, because the whole thing boils down to people's political self-identification. People don't consult models of their DNA when asking "What am I?" Race is in popular usage probably closer to Nationalism than anything else, AFAICS. It happens on more of an emotional level. And policy towards other "races" - be it good or bad - is exactly right at that nexus.
It's still common to refer to Hispanics as a race when really, it's a blended ethnic group if anything. Desi Arnaz Sr. was a white man. Conversely, I've met people from Belize Central America that clearly are Black and would be considered so on any other point on the globe.
Or as Gerald Horne points out in the 1st link I posted: You mean Ralph Nader, Steve Jobs and myself are all the same race because we all present as white? I completely forgot Vic Atiyeh the late former governor of my state was Arabic. You can easily see why some appear to be giving up on the category!
So the basic question remains: Was there a way in which Europeans self-identified in pre and post-Western hemisphere colonization time periods? If so, then it's not far fetched at all to see "Whiteness" as something deliberately chosen rather than an innocent recognition of biological reality.
The answer to that has everything to do with whether self-identification as "White" is not ispo facto a product of racism, since it's that very thing that appears to drive policy towards Blacks & Native Americans in the New World.
Other things Gerald Horne has hit upon have also been noticed by historians not even asking the same questions, but that's off-topic.
Ends up admitting races exists!! lol
You're probably referring to this quote:
Biologists use the term “race” to describe variants of a species that exhibit phenotypic differences over geographical ranges. The term gets confused with sub-species and other names. [Evolutionary biologist Theodosius] Dobzhansky referred to fruit fly races, and others use the term for populations that have chromosomal differences but can still mate successfully. It is not clear what the exact criteria for such races are.
If that's the case, read the last sentence carefully.
Where he winds up is in his last reply:
I think race is outdated
"Herrnstein’s argument is based first of all on the hypothesis that differences in mental abilities are inherited and that people close to one another in mental ability are more likely to marry and reproduce so that there will be a tendency toward long-term stratification by mental ability (which Herrnstein takes to be measured by I.Q). Secondly, Herrnstein argues that ‘success’ requires mental ability and that social rewards ‘depend on success’. This step in the argument embodies two assumptions: that it is so in fact; and that it must be so for society to function effectively. The conclusion is that there is a tendency toward hereditary meritocracy, with ‘social standing (which reflects earnings and prestige)’ concentrated in groups with higher I.Q.s. This tendency will be accelerated as society becomes more egalitarian, that is, as artificial social barriers are eliminated, defects in prenatal (e.g., nutritional) environment are overcome, and so on, so that natural ability can play a more direct role in attainment of social reward. Therefore, as society becomes more egalitarian, social rewards will be concentrated in a hereditary meritocratic elite …
DeleteFor Herrnstein’s argument to have any force at all we must assume that people labor only for gain, and that the satisfaction found in interesting or socially beneficial work or in work well-done or in the respect shown to such activities, is not a sufficient ‘gain’ to induce anyone to work. The assumption, in short, is that without material reward, people will vegetate. For this crucial assumption, no semblance of an argument is offered. Rather, Herrnstein merely asserts that if bakers and lumberjacks ‘got the top salaries and the top social approval’, in place of those now at the top of the social ladder, then ‘the scale of I.Q.s would also invert’, and the most talented would strive to become bakers and lumberjacks. This, of course, is not an argument, but merely a reiteration of the claim that, necessarily, individuals work only for extrinsic reward. Furthermore, it is an extremely implausible claim. I doubt very much that Herrnstein would become a baker or lumberjack if he could earn more money that way … [His] assumption that people will work only gain in wealth and power is not only unargued, but quite probably false, except under extreme deprivation. But this degrading and brutal assumption, common to capitalist ideology and the behaviorist view of human beings, is fundamental to Herrnstein’s argument …"
http://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-6/chomsky-on-iq-and-inequality
Ken B@June 10, 2016 at 5:00 PM
ReplyDelete"Have you seen the data on Ashkenazy Jews and do you deny it? "
What, that they have a higher average IQ of about 108–115? No, I have not seen any evidence that it is not true. I would assume it is.
The Japanese and South Koreans also score a somewhat higher average IQ too than Europeans, but that looks like something to do with the their intense culture of education and education achievement in those countries.
As to Ashkenazi average IQ, Steven Pinker has done work on this:
https://newrepublic.com/article/77727/groups-and-genes
Pinker discusses this thesis:
“The Utah researchers Gregory Cochran, Jason Hardy, and Henry Harpending (henceforth CH&H) proposed that Ashkenazi Jews have a genetic advantage in intelligence, and that the advantage arose from natural selection for success in middleman occupations (moneylending, selling, and estate management) during the first millennium of their existence in northern Europe, from about 800 C.E. to 1600 C.E. Since rapid selection of a single trait often brings along deleterious by-products, this evolutionary history also bequeathed the genetic diseases known to be common among Ashkenazim, such as Tay-Sachs and Gaucher's.”
Pinker points out the proof of this has yet to come.
But note carefully: if true, it occurred in the past 2000 years, since Ashkenazi Jews like other Jews came from the indigenous Canaanite population of Bronze age Palestine, and their modern descendants (oriental Sephardic Jews in Israel) don't seem to have the same high average IQs.
In any case, this doesn't prove the traditional hereditarian theory, which postulates IQ differences going back many thousands of years between races with the differences arising from 100,000 to 10,000 BC.
Even if its right its only because jews been really literate for thousnds of years (its been required from them to continue study the holy scripture) also the jewish society encouraged them to study holy scrpiture which is not just reading its require from people swrious logical analyze and study of philosophy.
DeleteSo even if we assume that ashkenaji jews have some kind of iq advantage its because they been better educated and in some healthier than the average population (its part of judaism to take care of your hygiene)
That's interesting, Daniel.
DeleteDaniel's healthy Jews claim is laughable. This process, if it happened, happened in Europe during the Christian Era. The healthy Jew thesis also fails to deal with the evidence, such as the Tay-Sach's. Wishful thinking platitudes do not an argument make.
DeleteThe case is important as it is the strongest and most testable claimed case.
You mention Flynn. My own minority view is that the Flynn effect shows there is something deeply wrong with IQ tests as a measure of innate mental capacity. If it measured real capacity then the average person 100 years ago would have an IQ comparable to 70 today, in the bottom 3%. That I think impossible if the difference in scores reflects a real difference in ability. I conclude that whatever IQ measures it isn't what is claimed for it.
Thai sax related to genetics and its lethal the chabce of the baby to survive after his 3 birthday is ridicously low.
DeleteI spoke about hygiene/envioremntal related sickness.
But i am for flynn effect and i spoke about 10-19 centuary study related culture thats all.
Deletesmoothcritical1@June 10, 2016 at 3:29 PM:
ReplyDeleteI’ll ask you the same question I have asked IQ racial hereditarians before. The trouble for the extreme IQ racial hereditarianism is the Flynn effect.
E.g., average IQ in the America has risen by 3 points per decade, but it’s seen in numerous other countries too.
Take the case of America: it is likely that the average IQ in America in 1900 was about 70:
“The average American in the year 1900 had an I.Q. that by today’s standards would measure about 67. Since the traditional definition of mental retardation was an I.Q. of less than 70, that leads to the remarkable conclusion that a majority of Americans a century ago would count today as intellectually disabled.
The trend of rising intelligence is known as the “Flynn Effect,” named for James R. Flynn, the New Zealand scholar who pioneered this area of research. Countless other scholars worldwide have replicated his findings, and it is now accepted science — although there is still disagreement about its causes and significance.
The average American I.Q. has been rising steadily by 3 points a decade.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/opinion/kristof-its-a-smart-smart-smart-world.html
-------------------------
Whites in America had an average IQ of about 70 in 1900 by modern tests. This was no doubt true of the 19th century.
Yet America industrialised and became the greatest economy in the world.
Yet average IQ in the 19th century was about the same level as average IQ today in Ghana, Congo, Uganda, and Tanzania: yet America still industrialised and developed.
The same thing can be said of Japan where average IQ in the 19th century must also have been low by modern standards.
Average IQs have risen over time in America and Japan by the Flynn effect as a consequence of education, economic growth, disease control, nutrition and other factors.
Recent evidence suggests interventions to reduce and prevent infectious disease in children will increase IQ considerably:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-is-average-iq-higher-in-some-places/
How do you explain this?
If an average IQ of 70–80 prevents industrialisation and economic growth from happening, why did America develop?
Ha! We agree I see. This is a real minority position we share. But I think it irrefutable.
Delete"My own minority view is that the Flynn effect shows there is something deeply wrong with IQ tests as a measure of innate mental capacity."
DeleteCuriously, not even Jim Flynn (whom I know personally and have discussed this subject with at length a number of times) would go that far.
He and others say that the general intelligence factor g is real and significant, and he does propose an explanation for the paradox I have sketched above. (I will have to dig up where he's said it, though).
But you're right in that you have put your finger on the issue: an IQ of 70 today is borderline mental retardation. How can our white (I am assuming you are white) ancestors in America (and Europe??) have had an *average IQ* that low and built our societies? Perplexing.
If IQ reliably measures a general intelligence factor g, then an average IQ of 70 didn't stop industrialisation. Either that, or something is not right about IQ.
Delete(1) On whether the rise in IQs reflects increased abilities with a higher g loading or not, I'm aware of this.
DeleteIn essence, the greater is the g loading of a subtest, the greater the complexity of the task.
On the basis of his argument that the IQ gains are not in areas with the higher g loadings, Jensen, as you say, dismisses rising IQ scores as not indicating significant cognitive gains or progress. The IQ rises in the Flynn effect are, then, "hollow", he says
(2) even if (1) is true, you still haven't answered my question above.
If average IQ in America was 70 in 1900 and in the 1800s, how did this not prevent economic development and progress in America when their average IQ was basically at the level of much of modern Africa?
Thanks Smooth. Very helpful. A better way to phrase my complaint is if g is real then the Flynn effect affected tests cannot be good measures of g. Your comments are very cogent.
DeleteYou will be called names of course.
The answer to that question LK is that the measured iq s not a good a good measure of capacity but g loaded measures are. Right or wrong that is the argument.
DeleteSo what subtests are the crucial g loaded tests you think properly measure IQ?
DeleteIf there were no significant rises in IQ points from the crucial g loaded tests amongst Americans from 1900 to today, then that implies that core IQ is much the same today as in 1900.
Chomsky again:
ReplyDelete"Consider finally the question of race and intellectual endowments. Notice again that in a decent society there would be no social consequences to any discovery that might be made about this question. An individual is what he is; it is only on racist assumptions that he is to be regarded as an instance of his race category, so that social consequences ensue from the discovery that the mean for a certain racial category with respect to some capacity is such-and-such. Eliminating racist assumptions, the facts have no social consequences whatever they may be, and are therefore not worth knowing, from this point of view at least. If there is any purpose to an investigation of the relation between race and some capacity, it must derive from the scientific significance of the question. It is difficult to be precise about questions of scientific merit. Roughly, an inquiry has scientific merit if its results might bear on some general principles of science. One doesn’t conduct inquiries into the density of blades of grass on various lawns or innumerable other trivial and pointless questions. Likewise, inquiry into such questions as race and IQ appears to be of virtually no scientific interest. Conceivably, there might be interest in correlations between partially heritable traits, but if someone were interested in this question he would surely not select such characteristics as race and IQ, each an obscure amalgam of complex properties. Rather, he would ask whether there is a correlation between measurable and significant traits, say, eye color and length of the big toe. It is difficult to see how the study of race and IQ can be justified on any scientific grounds.
If the inquiry has no scientific significance and no social significance, apart from the racist assumption that an individual must be regarded not as what he is but rather as standing at the mean of his race category, it follows that it has no merit at all. The question then arises, Why is it pursued with such zeal? Why is it taken seriously? Attention naturally turns to the racist assumptions that do confer some importance on the inquiry if they are accepted.
In a racist society, inquiry into race and IQ can be expected to reinforce prejudice, pretty much independent of the outcome of the inquiry. Given such concepts as “race” and “IQ,” it is to be expected that the results of any inquiry will be obscure and conflicting, the arguments complex and difficult for the layman to follow. For the racist, the judgment “not proven” will be read “probably so.” There will be ample scope for the racist to wallow in his prejudices. The very fact that the inquiry is undertaken suggests that its outcome is of some importance, and since it is important only on racist assumptions, these assumptions are insinuated even when they are not expressed. For such reasons as these, a scientific investigation of genetic characteristics of Jews would have been appalling in Nazi Germany. There can be no doubt that the investigation of race and IQ has been extremely harmful to the victims of American racism. I have heard black educators describe in vivid terms the suffering and injury imposed on children who are made to understand that “science” has demonstrated this or that about their race, or even finds it necessary to raise the question."
https://chomsky.info/1978____/
Too many white people at the Orlando vigil.
ReplyDeletehttp://heatst.com/culture-wars/mizzou-race-activists-declare-too-many-white-people-at-orlando-vigil/