Why Conservatives Reject HBD
I previously explained why liberals reject HBD. I argued that it allowed liberals to tacitly censure American society as racist and classist. Yet, SWPLs are only one political bloc of whom most members dismiss HBD. A large portion of conservatives do not find HBD plausible either. For this article, "conservative" will refer to those who practice traditional values, such as religion and pro-life, and generally vote Republican.
Many conservatives consider morality to be the fundamental difference between right and left wingers. In their view, conservatism works because it's based on traditional values, a predetermined moral guide, and religious adherence. Heather MacDonald, an atheist conservative, mentions this:
Conservatives don't accept the liberal doctrine of moral relativism. This implies conservatives adhere to fundamental principles when assessing the viability of culture. As a result, conservatives eagerly blame NAM underachievement on the libertine, aggressive, and self-destructive mores of NAM communities. They reason that when a community lacks a moral basis like their own, it produces unstable and underachieving members. They see these decadent communities as providing ample evidence for their morally-based worldview.
Strongly connected to the above ideas, conservatives believe the anti-social behavior of NAMs reflects lack of moral control. Instead of blaming genetic predilections for higher group crime rates, dysfunction is caused by the absence of a moral guide. While HBDers understand the effects of low-IQ in regards to misbehavior, future time orientation, and judgment, conservatives generally believe any willing community can be imbued with positive values. In their view, a person's willpower and moral teachings determine his actions, not genetics.
I do applaud the conservative dismissal of HBD for actually instituting reasonable alternative programs. But in the end, both liberals and conservatives are obscuring the facts of HBD and how these shape our society.
Many conservatives consider morality to be the fundamental difference between right and left wingers. In their view, conservatism works because it's based on traditional values, a predetermined moral guide, and religious adherence. Heather MacDonald, an atheist conservative, mentions this:
what makes America superior to Europe, we were told by conservative opinionizers, is its religious faithJust to get the point across, here's two more (duplicated from original quotes):
where a prominent columnist said to the group standing around him: "We all know that what makes Republicans superior to Democrats is their religious faith."
Liberals are willing to forget about principles and values to get what they want. Conservatives hold a strong belief in principles and values to move forward.While liberals discount HBD as a means of castigating the entirety of Western Civilization, conservatives do so to promulgate their perspective of morality. They intend to repudiate two aspects of NAMs: a debased culture and a lack of moral control.
Liberals also think they should dictate what 'fair' is based on emotional criteria, whereas Conservatives point to the letter of the law, and use traditional values instead of being moral relatviists.
Conservatives don't accept the liberal doctrine of moral relativism. This implies conservatives adhere to fundamental principles when assessing the viability of culture. As a result, conservatives eagerly blame NAM underachievement on the libertine, aggressive, and self-destructive mores of NAM communities. They reason that when a community lacks a moral basis like their own, it produces unstable and underachieving members. They see these decadent communities as providing ample evidence for their morally-based worldview.
Strongly connected to the above ideas, conservatives believe the anti-social behavior of NAMs reflects lack of moral control. Instead of blaming genetic predilections for higher group crime rates, dysfunction is caused by the absence of a moral guide. While HBDers understand the effects of low-IQ in regards to misbehavior, future time orientation, and judgment, conservatives generally believe any willing community can be imbued with positive values. In their view, a person's willpower and moral teachings determine his actions, not genetics.
I do applaud the conservative dismissal of HBD for actually instituting reasonable alternative programs. But in the end, both liberals and conservatives are obscuring the facts of HBD and how these shape our society.
8 comments:
It might be hard to sell HBD to conservatives by explaining the evolutionary basis because a subset of conservatives are religiously opposed to the premise. However, many conservatives, even religious fanatics, are educated in math and science. Few, if any, are opposed to the idea of natural selection within a species, since it is immediately demonstrable, like dog breeding. Using empirical data from the here and now like the book, IQ and the Wealth of Nations or even much shorter explanations like LaGriffedulion online would appeal to many conservatives.
Liberals are more likely to lap up the evolutionary basis, but they are resistant to logic and evidence because they seek other variables as the real basis.
The prefer to leave it open ended rather than settle on a conclusion. So once again liberals reject evolution as the basis for the particular differences as observed.
So I would say conservatives could be easier because you only have to dodge one bullet, vs. liberals who can speculate infinitely for excuses not to see the facts.
Conservatives believe Liberals are immoral, and Liberals believe Conservatives are stupid and have a deficient moral understanding; they believe they are actually MORE moral than Conservatives.
So, who's correct?
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The problem is, how much credibility would HBD conservatives have if they intended to justify disparate impact via IQ and population statistics? Would this not lead to an immediate exclamation of racist, bigot, and ostracization of said individual from future public discourse?
Without the mainstream being acquainted with the concept of genetics, the average being different from the individual, the difference between equal opportunity and equal outcome, and the possibility that certain traits in individuals may be correlated to variables like race, they will not accept HBD even grudgingly.
Somewhere along this path of logic, people get lost in a sea of cognitive dissonance, usually when data that shows group trends or differences is presented. People are too interested in identity politics at the moment to consider that it may be anything more than an attack of their group, and indeed some would use it to justify white nationalism or use group membership as a proxy for certain variables instead of treating people on an individual basis.
In today's politically correct atmosphere and with the next generation of voters being indoctrinated against questioning that genetic differences might account for part of group differences, the mainstream is not going to see a sudden shift to HBD acceptance.
Also, whenever mainstream media delves into risky areas such as genetic studies, they tend to argue that researching and showing differences in traits between groups beyond the superficial has no legitimate purpose other than to promote racism, to denigrate certain groups, and are against it because the results undermine liberals' beliefs in equality of outcome which would be impossible without real discrimination if they believed HBD. For conservatives, it would undermine part of their individualism argument if groups of individuals had in fact disadvantages or advantages in no fault of their own, thus preventing them from equality of outcome.
Conservatives generally believe in fairness through equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome which fails to account for individual differences, but liberals argue that for large groups of people equality of outcome should be right because "there are no differences between groups", and using it would prevent institutional/unconscious discrimination, and the unequal results makers the conservatives' arguments that there is no bias going on more difficult. At least right now, the mainstream on all ends of the political spectrum is not open to the possibility that HBD might explain the disparity between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome, and thus avoid it like the plague.
The problem is, how much credibility would HBD conservatives have if they intended to justify disparate impact via IQ and population statistics? Would this not lead to an immediate exclamation of racist, bigot, and ostracization of said individual from future public discourse?
Without the mainstream being acquainted with the concept of genetics, the average being different from the individual, the difference between equal opportunity and equal outcome, and the possibility that certain traits in individuals may be correlated to variables like race, they will not accept HBD even grudgingly.
Somewhere along this path of logic, people get lost in a sea of cognitive dissonance, usually when data that shows group trends or differences is presented. People are too interested in identity politics at the moment to consider that it may be anything more than an attack of their group, and indeed some would use it to justify white nationalism or use group membership as a proxy for certain variables instead of treating people on an individual basis.
In today's politically correct atmosphere and with the next generation of voters being indoctrinated against questioning that genetic differences might account for part of group differences, the mainstream is not going to see a sudden shift to HBD acceptance.
Also, whenever mainstream media delves into risky areas such as genetic studies, they tend to argue that researching and showing differences in traits between groups beyond the superficial has no legitimate purpose other than to promote racism, to denigrate certain groups, and are against it because the results undermine liberals' beliefs in equality of outcome which would be impossible without real discrimination if they believed HBD. For conservatives, it would undermine part of their individualism argument if groups of individuals had in fact disadvantages or advantages in no fault of their own, thus preventing them from equality of outcome.
Conservatives generally believe in fairness through equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome which fails to account for individual differences, but liberals argue that for large groups of people equality of outcome should be right because "there are no differences between groups", and using it would prevent institutional/unconscious discrimination, and the unequal results makers the conservatives' arguments that there is no bias going on more difficult. At least right now, the mainstream on all ends of the political spectrum is not open to the possibility that HBD might explain the disparity between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome, and thus avoid it like the plague.
let me make an attempt to characterize your position:
liberals believe that underachievement by NAMs is primarily caused by lack of opportunity; conservatives blame it on a pathologically corrupt culture; and the HBD adherent believes that both are wrong in that they greatly discount the effect heritable genetic characteristics.
if that is correct, then i will say that i agree that most in the mainstream do discount the impact of genetics. i must say, however, i fail to see how you are not making the exact same mistake in failing to see the impact of culture and material circumstances as factors that greatly mitigate genetics.
cause and effect in the natural world is an inherently chaotic process. the effect of these three factors is, at the very lest, incredibly complicated; and perhaps so hopelessly conflated that we can say, with not great assurance, which is dominant.
if i have characterized your position incorrectly, please let me know.
@ JR:
I tihnk you got it very much right. But have I actually ignored the significant impact of environment?
I've explicitly stated that environment accounts for about 30% of the gap (though the gap hasn't changed for about 30 years so it probably is at its lowest value now). And further, numerous studies have accounted for cultural and social factors by controlling for these (comparing blacks and whites that attend the same school with parents who have the same kinds of jobs). From this, we can parse out the dominant factors and it happens to be genetics. It seems simple, but in the end, the answer lies mostly with genetic predlictions.
Here's a previous post using a metaphor:
http://onestdv.blogspot.com/2009/05/hbd-too-simplistic-explanation.html
What is the HBD-compatible explanation for the significant increase in crime rates from, say, 1960 to 1970? Or the fact that crime rates remain well above their 1945-1960 levels (and the murder rate would look *much* worse if we were stuck with 1960's medical treatment).
Looking just at recent crime rates, one sees that blacks are more likely to commit crimes than are whites, and that that propensity correlates to the difference in IQ between the two groups. But why were blacks in 1959 so much less likely to commit crimes than blacks in 2009? The percentage of blacks who are young men isn't that significantly different; the Flynn effect tells us that they weren't smarter then than now (and they weren't smarter, relative to whites, than they are now).
HBD doesn't state genetics is everything. I've covered how the Civil Rights movement probably caused a huge increase in black dysfunction:
http://onestdv.blogspot.com/2009/07/black-cultural-norms-following-civil.html
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