Update 2 [9/1/09]: Mr. Auster responded claiming I sent him an extremely long post that he didn't know what to do with. He has buried my post at the end of this comment thread.
From my perspective, Auster mainly objects to the HBDers purported willingness to engage in biological reductionism. He contends that such a dispassionate, wholly un-human foundational basis precludes any larger crusade, such as saving the West or preserving the white race.
Yet, with all this philosophical rumination, one misses the actual objective of both the social conservatism espoused by Auster and the bioconservatism championed by myself, Mangan, The Undiscovered Jew, and Sailer. In the end, intellectual concerns, like if HBD is reductionist, remain picayune with respect to pragmatic solutions. Thus, the most important aspect of the debate isn't internal consistency of the given belief system (whether Auster has adequately proved HBD's inconsistency is tangential to my point). Rather, the final deciding factor in this debate is whose system applies most accurately to real-world phenomenon.
So, do the edicts of social conservatism predict and explain how human groups (and subgroups) function? Or does HBD, with its supposed biological reductionism, provide the best descriptive and predictive tools for how people will act? That's all that matters. Government structures need practical results and they need theoretical models that best capture the complexity of social interactions. The system implemented for societal change must identify the social ill and institute reforms to combat these issues. While the ongoing debate about religion vs. genetic determinism may be interesting, it amounts to intellectual masturbation.
I contend that the structures of HBD, stressing the importance of individual IQ, racial IQ differences, and racial psychological differences, can more accurately describe social phenomenon than the bedrock of social conservatism, such as adherence to religion and traditionalism. Social conservatism, with its focus on religion, fails to accurately diagnosis many problems of the West and thus can offer only a limited strategy for reform. (However. their approach does have some merit as HBDers and socons share many opinions.)
In fact, such an assertion is testable. Let's look at one of the most universal and basic pathologies of humanity: crime. Which belief system, social conservatism or HBD, can best describe and expound upon the existence of crime? The most important aspect of social conservatism is religious belief, so a comparison between that and IQ (the basis of HBD) in regards to crime rate would be appropriate.
In a paper entitled "Does Religion really Reduce Crime?", Paul Heaton of the University of Chicago finds:
Abstract: I find a negligible effect of religion on crime and a negative effect of crime on religion.It's clear that religious adherence has no explanatory power in predicting or evaluating crime. How about IQ? In IQ and the Wealth of Nations, Lynn offers a chart summarizing the relation between IQ and crime/delinquency. For delinquency, the correlation coefficient is 0.45 and for crime, the correlation coefficient is a little above 0.20. So, I think it's obvious who wins there. An analysis of racial crime rates would likely prove even more illuminating.
Conclusion: I find no statistically significant relationship between religious adherence and property crime or violent crime.
For the housing bubble that caused this economic crash, a comparison between religion and race, as predictive measures, would be appropriate. Here's an interesting working paper that attempts to explain the housing crisis:
the housing cycle should be more muted in areas with high concentrations of households whose beliefs or 'values' make them less prone to participating in a speculative mania.To do so, they looked at population share of Evangelical protestants. As Evangelical Protestants tend to be highly religious, this would be a good indicator of how religiosity can predict housing price volatility. Here's the graph:
There's a relationship, but not exactly a rock solid one. How about race? Sailer has written extensively on the "Diversity Recession". Here's the subprime foreclosure rates by race:
I think HBD wins again. That constitutes just two examples, of which there are many more (e.g. while Hispanic immigrants tend to be highly religious Catholics, their failure to assimilate is due to HBD and racial psychological differences). So while Auster can pontificate about HBD's intellectual hypocrisy, HBD clearly presents a far more accurate depiction of human interactions than social conservatism. Insofar as restructuring society, that's what matters.
52 comments:
I have to question the definition of HBD. To me it simply describes the observed facts. Groups have different average traits. It is not a social movement, just a description. Social conservatism describes people with goals. Those people upon learning more about HBD, may use that info to make more informed policy decisions. I think that people who understand things will want to improve conditions for everyone.
The other definition I wonder about is religious adherence. I mean a criminal is not an "adherent" to his religion. Rather he violates it. It seems pretty logical to have more people who adhere to a religion in a more crime ridden area as they seek a social network to protect themselves from crime. Those living in a highly orderly and low crime environment don't need that so much. I think of China and Japan, even Korea and Scandinavia. Even in high crime areas, most people are not criminals and they want to be protected from them. Sure there are the wolves in sheep's clothing who claim to be members in order prey on unsuspecting victims, but these psychos are not "adherents". Surveys of this sort demonstrate the weakness in the social sciences that we so often note.
Think about it, if I were a single mom in a crime ridden urban area, I would be more likely to take my kid to church to keep him safe and out of trouble even if I had no faith. If I were the same mom in small town Vermont, I could just let him run around the neighborhood.
HBD explains the basis for differences. Social conservatism is a reaction to the consequences.
In the end, intellectual concerns remain picayune with respect to pragmatic solutions.
This is where Auster misses the bus. He's very heavy on intellectual concerns and very light on solutions.
The interesting question is: what does it mean to be a 'white' person? To a Aryan types it means someone who's blonde, blue-eyed and has pale white skin with no black ancestors for which there are reliable family records. To a black person anyone with pale skin would be considered white (except albino 'blacks'). A black person would lump Caucasian, Semitic and Mediterrean people of different skin tones as 'white' even though some whites (Nazis) were happy to gas the Semitic whites (Jews).
Obviously if there's a notion that white people are ultimately beneficial to civilisation there should still be a eugenics program as there are still plenty of stupid, violent, criminals whites alongside the productive whites.
Re: Auster,
Auster keeps going on and on about Darwinism, but HBD isn't really related to Darwinism.
Darwinism explains the origins of biological changes over long stretches of time but HBD is simply concerned with biological differences and similarities as they currently exist.
In other words, it doesn't matter if racial differences emerged because God manipulated the human genome, what matters to HBDers is that such differences exist now and how they apply to present policy.
To me it simply describes the observed facts.
So does economics
Some criminals *are* sdhering to their religion, e.g. 9-11 perps (Kill all non-believers - Koran)
Auster seems to be dug into his position and won't budge because he gets caught up in abstract value judgements rather than policy implications.
Fortunately, I don't believe most social conservatives are as intetersted in philosphical minutae as LA.
Most white, middle class, evangelical families will be interested in HBD only to the extent that HBD justifies or refutes social conservatism (ie does HBD justify banning gay marriage?).
Maybe we should start looking at ways to apply HBD towards justifying conservative social policy instead of getting into arguments over Intelligent Design vs Evolution?
OnSTDV: How does HBD explain this: "According to Gallup, in 1948, only 4% of Americans approved of marriages between whites and blacks. By 2007, that number had reached 77%."
As I wrote in my essay, "Reason, Morality, and Progress:"
"If you believe the evolutionary psychologists, morality is an emotional instinct and a product of literally millions of years of mindless environmental pressures…but these poll numbers suggest another possibility…that morality can change – and change quite rapidly – due to reason – a heightened understanding of what is truly 'right and wrong' – not just what is personally useful for our 'sperm competition.'"
http://mustardseednovel.blogspot.com/2009/04/reason-morality-and-progress.html
The crudest straw man ever built: "The most important aspect of social conservatism is religious belief".
Besides, comparing social conservatism and HBD is comparing apples and oranges. (As silly girl correctly implies).
Re: House price volatility and evangelical population
There's a relationship, but not exactly a rock solid one.
Actually, that scatter plot suggests a pretty rock solid relationship. Just non-linear. From the look of it, could be biphasic exponential decay. What it is saying is that there is a threshold effect.
In the end, intellectual concerns remain picayune with respect to pragmatic solutions.
No, they do not. In order to arrive at a "pragmatic solution" one must first have a definition of the problem. Ones definition of the problem will vary dependng on ones "intellectual concerns".
Pragamtic solutions only come into play once we all agree on the general outlines of the problem to be solved.
To take the immigration example, many of the anti-imigration HBDers take it for granted that, once the HBD perspective on group differences are widely known, everybody will agree with them on curtailing non-white immigration.
I believe that it is pretty obvious that the left has long been aware of group differences, and supports large scale non-white immigration for precisely that reason. Their goals, their "intellectual concerns", are not ours, even though they agree with us on the science.
The "problem" they are trying to solve is the American personality, and they can use the science of HBD in the pursuit of their goals just as easly as we can in the pursuit of ours.
Subotai
Most white, middle class, evangelical families will be interested in HBD only to the extent that HBD justifies or refutes social conservatism
Socal conservatism is a value system. (As is social liberalism.) HBD, properly understood, is science. Science cannot justify or refute value systems.It can help you actualize your value system, whichever you have, but it can't tell you which one is "best" or "better".
Subotai
Agree with Subotai. Social conservatism is a set of attitudes and moral positions. It's not science. Comparing it to HBD is like comparing anarcho-syndicalism to particle physics. What's the point?
And to those who think HBD can survive without evolution -- isn't the most important recent book in HBD Greg Cochran and Harry Harpending's latest about, um, like, HUMAN EVOLUTION?
Most HBDers happen not to be social conservatives. From what I've seen online we're a young and irreligious bunch. Then why bother making HBD appetizing to socons when they're not natural allies?
The political movement that HBD suggets to me is an old school, prewar, WASPy, Margaret Sanger-style progressivism. Impossible to bring back, I know, but I can dream.
The political movement that HBD suggets to me is an old school, prewar, WASPy, Margaret Sanger-style progressivism. Impossible to bring back, I know, but I can dream.
What you are dreaming of is, of course, a value system. Not a science.
"I believe that it is pretty obvious that the left has long been aware of group differences"
I disagree, I think many on the left fully believe Gould's 'Mismeasure of Man' or Diamond's 'Guns, Germs & Steel'. Many also believe Lewontin's fallacy about race being purely a social construct.
These key assumptions prop up their beliefs.
There is hardly any relationship at all between evangelism and house prices as per the scatter graph. Strong evidence of heteroskedasticity from the data, which suggests that the model is underspecified.
"Strong evidence of heteroskedasticity"
Takes one to know one.
"OnSTDV: How does HBD explain this: "According to Gallup, in 1948, only 4% of Americans approved of marriages between whites and blacks. By 2007, that number had reached 77%."
"
I never said HBD and biology accounted for everything: that's an assertion the social cons keep bringing up. There's 30% left over, that's where reason comes in. But in regards to the above, you surely can't attribute that to social CONSERVATISM. It's pribably leftism and multiculturalism.
"The crudest straw man ever built: "The most important aspect of social conservatism is religious belief"."
Really? see the quotes here:
http://onestdv.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-conservatives-reject-hbd.html
Also, read Auster's site. He repeats over and over that spirituality is the bedrock of his conservatism. I'm not even going to argue this more. Is religion the entirety of social conservatism? No, but it's sure a huge part of it. [Aside, you can be socially conservative and non-religious, but the movement Auster is "leading" is based mostly on religious belief.]
"No, they do not. In order to arrive at a "pragmatic solution" one must first have a definition of the problem. Ones definition of the problem will vary dependng on ones "intellectual concerns"."
OK, I agree that intellectual concerns are very important, but Auster's argument is almsot entirely philosophical. And HBD does "define the problem" in a far better manner than social conservatism, as I showed.
For example, who diagnosis the existence of crime better: social cons who contend its due to a lack of morality/religion or HBDers who says it's about race and genetics?
"The "problem" they are trying to solve is the American personality, and they can use the science of HBD in the pursuit of their goals just as easly as we can in the pursuit of ours."
I simply disagree. No one can use HBD to support an exceedingly diverse society or that bringing in low-IQ people will help the country.
"Agree with Subotai. Social conservatism is a set of attitudes and moral positions. It's not science. Comparing it to HBD is like comparing anarcho-syndicalism to particle physics. What's the point?"
Social conservatism is not only a set of values, but a means to describe and diagnosis social ills. For example, social cons not only say the nuclear family is morally superior, but also that it helps society and children.
HBD, while at its basis is simply science, has readily accepted political and practical implications. There's a reason why so many HBDers drift into policy debates (such as the Steveosphere).
He repeats over and over that spirituality is the bedrock of his conservatism. I'm not even going to argue this more. Is religion the entirety of social conservatism? No, but it's sure a huge part of it.
HBD would only be incompatable with Western morality/spirituality if HBDers wanted to overturn the existing Christian moral structure in the West, an ambition the vast majority of HBDers do not hold.
"The political movement that HBD suggets to me is an old school, prewar, WASPy, Margaret Sanger-style progressivism. Impossible to bring back, I know, but I can dream."
Sanger famously stated her goal as "more from the fit, less from the unfit". However, the opposite of that is what her methods ended up delivering. We have a world of over 6 billion people and estimated 2 billion have an IQ over 100. In 40 years we will have about 9 billion, but still only 2 billion with an IQ over 100 and an aging population. Not exactly "more fit".
mike--
I'm talking statistics. Don't be an asshole.
I think many on the left fully believe Gould's 'Mismeasure of Man' or Diamond's 'Guns, Germs & Steel'. Many also believe Lewontin's fallacy about race being purely a social construct.
No, I think it is pretty clear that the bulk of people on the left have no illusions about people being all the same. Their rage at white males makes no sense otherwise. Do you really thibk that Obama, Wright, and Gates regard race as unimportant? Race is everything to the left.
When people on the left do bother to make "we're all the same" type arguments it is merely as a weapon, similar to the way they pretended to be outraged at the Iraq war as long as they found it a useful pose.
Subotai
No one can use HBD to support an exceedingly diverse society or that bringing in low-IQ people will help the country.
People not only can do that, they have been doing it for decades. What is the Democrats immigration strategy but the use of HBD to support an exceedingly diverse society, which also happens to be the sort of society which supports the lefts project in general?
The attraction of Hispanics to the left is precisely that they are different to native wghite Americans, and different in ways the Democrats find useful.
As for "help the county", if you believe as the left does that white Americans are the locus of evil in the world, then making America a non-white country becomes a moral imperative.
You seem to have a very naive view of what it is we are up against. The left is explicitly racialist and is making use of known group differences and immigration to remake the country as they like.
They have been using HBD for generations.
Subotai
HBD, while at its basis is simply science, has readily accepted political and practical implications.
It does not. The newly HBDed conservatives like to think that it does, but they are wrong.
What are the "accepted" political and practical applications if everone accepts that blacks have a lower IQ on average? The left can and will use that as the basis for never ending affirmative action.
What are the "accepted" political and practical applications if everybody accepts that Asians have a higher IQ? It will very easily become a rationale for massive Asian immigration in America.
Science is but a dumb tool. Like any other dumb tool it can be put to whatever uses its users can think of. But it can never offer answers to non-scientific questions, such as "would it be a good thing if America became a non-white country". It can only help people realize their goals, not tell them what goals they should seek.
Subotai
No one can use HBD to support an exceedingly diverse society
The entire point of "diversity" in business and acadamia is that people are different and that maximizing difference is a good thing, i.e. an HBD based argument.
Left and right agree that people are different, they disagree as to what policy should flow from that fact.
The only people who might be taken aback by HBD are the neocons. And I have my doubts about them.
Please note that I'm not attacking HBD here. I'm simply pointing out its limitations. It's not the neutron bomb against the left which some on the right imagine.
If you want to take down the left you need to attack their vision of the ideal society, not argue over science. Science can help the left reshape society just as easily as it can help the right.
Auster hasn't answered because he can't. There is no argument he can make on the grounds of experimental success that puts social conservatism in a good light. Therefore he will ignore this completely, as he ignores anything he can't argue his way out of.
@ Rollory:
He buried my post at the end of this comment thread (link below) and didn't even respond to it (claiming, in an e-mail, that I sent him an extremely long post with a bunch of charts and stuff so he didn't know what to do with it):
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/014104.html
You seem to shift from the social conservatism vs HBD division to the beginning of a discussion of the much bigger topic of values and beliefs in general.
Should you not then draw on the 'values' work of Lawrence Harrison (in 'Culture Matters' and 'The Central Liberal Truth'; he's anti-multiculturalist, so you might like him).
And other people research shifting values too - eg Ronald Inglehart. Covers around 80 nations, I think.
There are by now some pretty sophisticated Maslow-based models being used to analyse the values of Left and Right (ie psychographic segmentation).
Don Beck's Spiral Dynamics is thought-provoking too.
Not least as Beck would never talk about the "Left" or "Religion" in crude, monolithic terms.
You need to talk about the type of values behind 'the Left' (or the Right).
You might in fact be talking about the tribal Left (or Right!), the opportunist/predatory Left, the hierarchical/conformist Left, the pragmatic/achiever Left, the sensitive/postmodern Left, the systemic/holistic Left.
The question should always be 'which Left are you talking about?
Which Right are you talking about?
By definition, culture comes from the cult--that is, religion. Without it, there is no culture. Without culture, there is no civilization. If you ditch the religion that was the foundation of the culture, you can simply kiss the culture bye-bye. This is why Auster focuses on the religion as the first principle. I'm all for deploying any and every weapon at hand, but why beat on Auster for focusing on a first principle, one that so many among us neglect or even despise? When you do that, you signal that the first principle of a culture doesn't matter. That is EPIC FAIL.
If you ditch the religion that was the foundation of the culture, you can simply kiss the culture bye-bye.
I don't think most HBDers would want to ditch Christianity even if it were within our power to do so.
TUJ, I sure hope you're correct, but I hear a lot of anti-Christian haranguing on the right these days. Most of those are HBD types, but that isn't to say they make up a majority. Maybe it's that the emptiest barrel makes the loudest noise?
You seem to shift from the social conservatism vs HBD division to the beginning of a discussion of the much bigger topic of values and beliefs in general.
It's the same discussion. The social conservatism vs HBD division is a division between those "much bigger topics" and science. I see people here complaining that conservatism is not as scientific as HBD. That's like saying that ethics is not as scientfic as physics. It's literaly true, and completely besides the point. HBD has nothing to say on those much bigger topics.
Subotai
The social conservatism which OneSTDV is beating up on is a caricature. He seeks to extract everything from social conservatism but religion, and then make the shocking discovery that religion alone cannot do x,y, and z.
The reality is that social conservatism has opposed large scale immigration into the US, even that of other Christian peoples. This is inexplicable from the point of view of OneSTDV's vision of social conservatism and pefectly understandable to those who realize that social conservatism is not, the NYT to the contrary, a synonym for fundamentalist Christianity.
As I wrote to Mangan:
Good to see you scientific racists fighting amongst yourselves.
The subspecies of 'race realists' - racist theocons, atheist biocons, Game Darwinists, Jew-hating white nationalists, NAM (i.e. Asian and Jewish) HBDers - just don't play well together, do they? Figures.
How is the race realist vanguard supposed to defeat the Boasian antiracist establishment when you're busy clobbering each other? All I can say is: keep at it.
-----------------
"an old school, prewar, WASPy, Margaret Sanger-style progressivism."
Keep dreaming. That left of center brand of eugenicist scientific racism died after the Holocaust.
I wonder: are you people closeted in your respective departments or are you loud and proud about your scientific racism?
On second thought, Jewish and Asian HBDers should be designated NBMs (Non-Black Minorities). But NAM also fits because they cherish the concept; it lets them join in the scientific racist fun despite their nonwhite minority status.
@ Johann:
In considering if HBDers are racist, you might want to look at this post:
Is HBD racist?
I understand your argument about why HBD is not racist. I am a former member of HBES and I have published on human biology. I've read Coon, Rushton, Cochran etc.
However, if alleles involved in IQ, self-restraint, cooperativeness etc. are more important (even if they are unequally racially distributed) than race, then surely HBDers should favor selective mating according to these traits rather than by race. High IQ SWPLs and biocons with black physicists and mathematicians; white proles with black proles. Since we are so knowledgable about heredity, development, and selection, then race should no longer be a conflating factor and superior whites can embrace (figuratively and literally) their black peers. Race-blind mating practices informed by the genetics of IQ and other desirable traits would be more effective in preventing and reversing dysgenic deterioration than one handicapped by racial preference. (Would you rather your daugher married a 1 SD high IQ white or a 2 SD high IQ black?)
But this transracial eugenicist scenario would repel most HBDers at a visceral level. (It is foolish in any case, because HBD also misunderstands the relationship between class, IQ, and heredity.)
My point is that of course HBD (HBD 'science' - that is, HBD ideology - is simple the beliefs of the HBD community) is racist; these apologetics about the nonracist nature of HBD by handwaving about distribution of traits by race do protest too much. The fact that there are genius blacks and idiot whites is known by even the dumbest Nazi or Klansman.
You refer to a stilted dictionary definition of racism yet you prattle about a white ethnostate. Why not be proud of what you are? You have already sloughed off one taboo after another in your championing of HBD. Why not come all the way out of the closet and proudly announce your racism? Unless you are ashamed of something.
That left of center brand of eugenicist scientific racism died after the Holocaust.
It's still alive and well. it has merely shifted its targets from non-whites to whites. That's a stance which makes it very appealing to todays Democratic party core groups - blacks, Jews, and other anti-white non-whites.
You refer to a stilted dictionary definition of racism yet you prattle about a white ethnostate.
If we were to believe your own prattling we'd be forced to think that almost every country on Earth is racist. After all, China defines itself in terms of being Chinese, just as Israel defines itself in terms of being Jewish, France in terms of being French, etc. Tell me what you find repulsive about all these other ethnostates and then we can discuss your views of America.
The fact is that believing in the desirability of ethically based states is not "racist" other then by the definition of the Marxists. Even the classical liberals believed in ethnostates. Only the modern radical left, joined by Americas obnoxious and pampered "minorites", thinks differently.
The fact that there are genius blacks and idiot whites is known by even the dumbest Nazi or Klansman.
You being either obtuse or dishonest. This is a discussion of public policy. It is concerned with what is best for a country and a people on the macro level. And what is bad for a country, even for individuals, is for a country to be populated by blacks. Look at the countries of Africa. No doubt some of the blacks living there are genius level, but what matters is the average across the entire population.
By the same token their are undountedly some stupid white people living in England. But the quality of the respective places, the quality of the respective population groups, can be seen from the fact that the flow of people is all out of Africa and into the white countries of the world.
"The fact is that believing in the desirability of ethically based states is not "racist" other then by the definition of the Marxists."
Yet another HBDer with thin-skinned political correctness about the term "racism." What are you so afraid of? Why is "racist" such a stigma? Is it not a plain and accurate descriptor? Hell, gays have reclaimed "queer" from the haters. I guess they have more pride in themselves than you HBDers.
I made no claim about Han supremacism being nonracist, so your point is irrelevant. As for the classical liberals: many of them also supported slavery. We have built on their accomplishments and progressed beyond them.
"No doubt some of the blacks living there are genius level, but what matters is the average across the entire population."
Does an "entire population" reproduce wholesale all at once? No; pairs of individuals reproduce. Hence my point about race-blind assortative mating. Would you rather that your lineage merged with white mediocrities or with black geniuses?
Which will it be, HBDers, the individual or the race? Are you more concerned about neural crest-derived correlates of IQ (facial features, skin color) or with IQ itself? Do you care more about the genetics of quality or with group loyalty? If you really understand biology you understand hybrid zones and the spread of beneficial alleles rather than gushing about the inbred purity of culturally essentialized races. If a novel gene related to high intelligence appeared in an aboriginal Australian gene pool would you try to protect your progeny from it? Very well then; selection will eventually render its verdict on your lineage.
If some of you perceive a contradiction between Game and conservatism or between biocons and theocons, that's nothing compared with the contradiction between eugenic improvement of an individual's lineage and tribalistic racial loyalty.
That is the lethal internal contradiction at the heart of HBD: the marriage of pre-Synthesis (even pre-Darwinian) blood and soil racialism with modern population biology. Only one principle - atavistic racial loyalty or eugenics informed by modern biology - can prevail even within the HBD worldview. The Marxists and Boasians are not your worst enemy; you are.
Yet another HBDer with thin-skinned political correctness about the term "racism."
If your skill at rhetoric matched you skill at name calling, I'd be in trouble here.
Why is "racist" such a stigma? Is it not a plain and accurate descriptor?
No, it is not an accurate descriptor. It as an attempt on your part to link us to the Nazis.
I made no claim about Han supremacism being nonracist, so your point is irrelevant.
It is entirely relevant. You either believe that ethnic states are morally wrong and "racist", or you do not. Which is it? And why do you dodge the question?
As for the classical liberals: many of them also supported slavery. We have built on their accomplishments and progressed beyond them.
As I said before, I already know that you are a cultural Marxist. No need to keep repeating it. The concept of an ethic state has no bearing whatsoever on slavery.
Would you rather that your lineage merged with white mediocrities or with black geniuses?
You contine to be obtuse or dishonest. My lineage is not important here, the lineage of the country is important. Importing millions of blacks into America guarantees that the country will be poorer, regardless of whether I marry a brilliant black astro-physicist or not.
Does an "entire population" reproduce wholesale all at once?
Of course it does.
Which will it be, HBDers, the individual or the race?
The two are not separable. The interests of the two are not separable. If they were separable it would be a matter of indifference to your children whether you chose to live in Angola or America.
Do you care more about the genetics of quality or with group loyalty?
Genetics are tied to the group. That's the very definition of a population group - a collection of people with shared genetic material.
the contradiction between eugenic improvement of an individual's lineage and tribalistic racial loyalty.
You keep beating this strawman to death. Again, there is no such thing as "individuals lineage". Individuals produce nothing, indeed can produce nothing, individuals who are members of groups are the source of everything worthwhile man has ever accomplished.
Only one principle - atavistic racial loyalty or eugenics informed by modern biology - can prevail
There is no contradiction between modern biology and racal loyalty. In fact modern biology is under cutting the "we are all identical and equal" arguments the left used to destrucive effect for the last hundred years.
Modern biology does not say, as you in your Sangeresge dreams seem to think, that those with high IQ should copulate with one another and that the proles should be sterilized.
Modern HBD strongly supports the proposition, which nerver needed scientific support before, that different peoples are in fact different. Peoples, not just people. It goes a long way towards explaining why Africa is s very different from Europe, something not possible if we bought into your "there are smart people in every race" evasions.
If a novel gene related to high intelligence appeared in an aboriginal Australian gene pool would you try to protect your progeny from it?
You continue to miss the point. Genes for low IQ have already, right now, appeared among aboriginal Australians and among Africans as shown by their median IQ. And we are protecting our progeny from it by trying to limit the chance that these low IQ groups will intermarry with us.
"trying to limit the chance that these low IQ groups will intermarry with us."
And just who is this "us"? Does it include light-skinned Iranians, Lebanese, and Afghans? Upper caste Indians? Jews? White Bosnian Muslims? Is having 1/16 Native American blood OK, even a bit glamorous?
It's no longer fashionable to exclude Slavs (unless they are too Mongol-looking, I suppose), but there are still a lot of white and off-white groups under debate in the WN/HBD community.
Until you sort that out there is no viable white nationalism nor consistent white racial loyalty. Which means that your project is doomed to failure.
And just who is this "us"?
In our case it is Americans. Or white Americans, if you prefer. The people who make up the majority in this country. "We, the people of these United States ..."
You either believe that ethnic states are morally wrong and "racist", or you do not. Which is it? And why do you dodge the question?
I'm repeating this question due to your strange reluctance to address it.
Let me guess, anonymous, you are a MacDonaldite HBDer.
There are different degrees of wrongness of ethnostates, depending on how rigorous and brutal they are in enforcing their ethnic nature. Nazi Germany is worse than contemporary China (even for Uighurs) which is worse than contemporary Germany (which still has a remnant blood notion of German identity). Then there are the more justifiable 'defensive ethnostates,' either actual or conceptual, created for the protection of persecuted minorities: Kurds, Roma, and yes, Jews. Within Israel there are different degrees of ethnocentrism; for example, there are racist Haredim who wish to exclude Ethiopian Jews.
America should be better - more enlightened - than all of these countries.
I don't think HBDers, with few exeptions, really give a damn about evolutionary biology or population genetics. You're just old fashioned paleocon racists using bits and pieces of half-understood trendy biology. You would be just as happy refering to the Bible or the Koran or Wotanism if you thought that had more cultural resonance in professional class white circles.
Let me guess, anonymous, you are a MacDonaldite HBDer.
I don't know what that is supposed to mean, other than that you have run out of arguments and of answers.
America should be better - more enlightened - than all of these countries.
In other words, you want one set of rules for your fellow Jews and one set for other people. Yes, I understand you perfectly. I just see no reason why I should agree with you.
That aside, I thank you for demonstrating that people who accept HBD can be also unreconstructed totalitarian lefties. Our host seems to be unclear on that point.
Whether it is "better" or more "enlightened" for America to be different from Israel is not a matter which science can pass judgement on. If you want to take a stab at making the case that a vehemently anti-racial America is somehow "better" and more "enlightened", then knock yourself out. So far you have not bothered to try to make such a case.
You're just old fashioned paleocon racists
And you're just an old-fashioned Jewish bigot who hates white Europeans and tries to use biology as a cover. Really, why should your own "racism" be given a pass when it is so identical in kind to that which you hate in us?
You would be just as happy refering to the Bible or the Koran or Wotanism if you thought that had more cultural resonance in professional class white circles.
Heh, I guess we can't all be as "scientific" as you.
"an old-fashioned Jewish bigot who hates white Europeans and tries to use biology as a cover."
I'm a half-Jew/half-white. I don't hate whites; just racists and eugenicists. No, I don't actually advocate a 'Sangeresque' transracialist eugenics program (which should have been clear in context); that was Devil's advocacy to show how self-contradictory HBD is.
I don't care if in a few generations every Jew on earth is a part-Ethiopian mulatto or if Druze start getting automatic Israeli citizenship. Some Jewish supremacist I am. And I think that a contiguous Roma state should be carved from ex-Axis countries. I can see why groups that others have attempted to exterminate would want the protection of a homeland, but that shouldn't be a universal model - especially for groups under no threat of extermination.
I'll give Anonymous and the increasingly openly white nationalist HBD blogosphere credit; at least they're not trying to present a 'respectable' watered-down face of HBD like some semi-closeted academics are.
Both the liberal-DailyKossite Mr. Gunther and the Stormfronter "Anonymous" are free to take their fight to some other blog where others may care what they think and leave the rest of us in peace.
I don't hate whites
You just don't want America, the country you live in, to be a white country. No real difference there.
No, I don't actually advocate a 'Sangeresque' transracialist eugenics
All that you have clearly advocated so far is that America ought to be a multi-racial paradise run by high IQ people of whatever race. Depending on implementation, that might well end up as some eugenic transracialist vision.
You seem rather put out that I don't extend to you the presumption of good intentions so lacking in your own attitude towards us.
I'll give Anonymous and the increasingly openly white nationalist HBD blogosphere credit
You gave already conceded that you have no particular problem with ethnic nationalism as such when practicd by non-white people. So the manner in which you then turn around and casually use "white nationalist" as some slur indicates a degree of schizophrenia on your part.
Or it may just be good old-fashioned bigotry.
Here's an exercise for you, since you consider yourself to be so much smarter than we mouth-breathing white nationalists. Make the philospical case for how and why a multi-racial state is "better" and more "enlightened" (your words) than a mono-racial state.
Is this your blog, TUJ?
If not I'll thank you to stop whining when reminded of Jewish racial attitudes.
That Jews are outrageous hypocrites on the matter of race is not open to debate. Your fellow half-Jew Mr. Gunther has just demonstrated that once again.
I don't hate whites; just racists and eugenicists.
You are a racist, you imbecile. You're just unclear as to what the word means.
@ Anonymous:
I don't care what you say to Mr. Marxist Johann E.G., but please don't attack TUJ. He's one of the most perceptive and judicial HBD thinkers in the Steveosphere.
Since my last posts on the white ethnostate, I've thought a little bit about white nationalism and Jewish attitudes towards it.
A) There's absolutely nothing immoral about white Americans wanting their own country. If a group of people want to live and be governed by individuals (genetically and culturally) like themselves, then so be it. I don't know hoq anyone could contend it's a bad thing. And as Anon noted, almost every country but America does it and no liberals complain about China or Japan doing it.
B) Jews aren't too fond of white Christians. Here's Larry Auster, an ethnic Jew and convert to Christianity, on this topic:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ArtId=12534
Many Jews also endlessly discuss the continued existence of ethnic Jews and contend that Israel should be an Jewish ethnostate. Any Jew that agrees with these arguments and then excoriates white Christian Americans for opposing miscegnation or supporting white nationalism is LIKELY being a hypocrite.
I mean there are some arguments against white nationalism because America's racial demographics have changed so much (Sailer argues against it using these justifications). So maybe some of them aren't being hypocrites, but most are.
Also @ Anonymous: The problem with your comments is that you come off as angry, bitter, and antagonistic. You just start spewing, "You're a Jew, that's why! Kevin MacDonald told me about people like you." If you'd like to converse in the HBDosphere, it would behoove you to adopt a more civil tone.
Jewish ethnostate.
I'm not sure that Israel is viewed by otehr Jews as an "ethnostate".
Most Jews I know consider Israel to some sort of theocratic state and religious homeland.
It's highly questionable that Judaism was intended for only one ethnic group anyway because Judaism very actively sought converts throughout the Hellenic age.
European Jews (Ashkenazim and Sephardi) may not even be the "original" Jews, we may simply be converts.
You just start spewing, "You're a Jew, that's why! Kevin MacDonald told me about people like you."
And I was only telling both of them to get lost, I didn't want to get into an argument of CofC.
(Are there any internet fans of Kevin MacDonald who do not come across as angry and belligerent?)
Btw, since KMac's magnificent followers keep bringing him up, I want to point out that MacDonald rarely cites any actual peer reviewed psychological research to substantiate his claim that Jews are "hyperethnocentric", which is the central idea of his book.
It is amazing that people take the "ethnocentric" idea seriously when MacDonald hardly attempts to back up his theory with actual psychological data, or some sort of peer reviewed research that analyzes proxies for ethnocentrism such as altruism.
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