Reflections on the Custodial State
A storm, methinks, is just over the horizon: The genetics of
intelligence, perhaps of behavior. Geneticists know that intelligence is
largely genetic. They know better than to say so. But research advances
rapidly. Laboratories close in on the responsible genes. Things like
genomic-sequence correlation proceed apace. Within ten or fifteen years, I will
guess, the genetics of IQ will be firmly established. If the results turn out
as seems likely…then what? What does a pseudo-democracy do when clearly
stratified by intellectual capacity?
The mainstream media seem to sense the danger. We see descriptions of
genetics as “pseudoscience,” hear muttering about ”scientific racism” and
eugenics and just like Hitler. This is the bleating of child minds. Genetics is
absolutely mainstream science. Following the field requires some knowledge of
biochemistry which requires some knowledge of organic chemistry which requires
some knowledge of general chemistry and some knowledge of eighth-grade algebra.
Since few, even among the bright, wield these credentials, the public can still
be told that genetics is racism. This won’t last.
The growing panic surfaced in
the recent stripping of
honors from James Watson, co-discoverer of the DNA helix. His sin? He said that
the measured gap in intelligence between blacks and whites is genetic. For this
he was silenced. It is science by fiat, Lysenkoism.
The hostility to genetics
springs entirely from the fear that Mr. Watson will be proved right–that it
will show blacks to be less intelligent than whites. Of course the politically
correct don’t really believe in the intellectual equality of the races. If they
did, they would welcome genetic research as a way of establishing the equality.
You do not fear investigation unless you suspect it will give the wrong answer.
A similar though smaller gap is
suspected between whites and Latinos. For this there is evidence,and
counter-evidence. A gap seems to exist between whites and various Asians. We
shall see. But the black-white gap is the bombshell. Here the evidence is
overwhelming, and there is no counter-evidence. Thus the furious repression.
That intelligence is genetic
should be obvious regardless of technical knowledge. Any dog breeder will tell
you that Border Collies are brighter than beagles, that if you mate smarter
dogs to smarter dogs, within a few generations you will have a strain of
smarter dogs. If intelligence were cultural as we are obliged to say, almost on
pain of death, all the children who grew up in Isaac Newton’s neighborhood
would have been towering mathematical geniuses. Were they?
A dread question: Is it not now obvious, has it not been obvious for a
very long time, that blacks cannot function in a technological society? A few,
yes. Most, no. This is the case worldwide. Low intelligence, perhaps
accompanied by poor impulse control, explains well the urban chaos, the crime,
the poverty.
We are accustomed now to the
intractable gap between blacks and whites. The gap appears on all tests of
cognitive capacity and academic achievement: all of the IQ tests, the SATs,
GREs, MCATs, LSATs, ACT, National Merit, AFQT, and others. This is so
predictable as to make the value of pi seem capricious . The politically
correct attribute the disparity to racism, institutional racism, unconscious
racism, structural racism, poor self-esteem, white privilege, slavery,
colonialism, culture, environment, and different learning styles. Do we really
believe this?
Yearly the horrible news pours
from the schools. The
results of Maryland’s state test of academic achievement are typical. In 2017 in Baltimore there
were thirteen high schools in which not a single student tested proficient in
math. Customarily this is blamed on poor schools, but every aspect of the
Baltimore system, from the mayor to the students is controlled by blacks, and
the per-student expenditure is high. Similar results from other cities–Detroit,
Chicago–are common, normal, expected.
A question no one asks, at least not out loud: To what extent are
blacks dependent on the charity of whites? What would happen if all public assistance, all programs
specifically or de facto for blacks were withdrawn?
Without affirmative action,
racial quotas formal and informal, blacks would almost disappear from
universities and the white-collar world. I think we all know this, but most
recoil from the implications. I don’t blame them.
I am not sure that we all
understand the extent of the affirmative programs and the distortions they
cause for society. For example, on exams for promotion in police departments,
by a large margin the top scorers are white so that, if departments advanced
the most qualified, blacks would almost disappear. The same pattern exists for
any job requiring intelligence. This can easily be confirmed.
What would happen if Section
Eight housing were abandoned, Head Start, AFDC, free lunch and breakfasts in
inner-city schools, food stamps, and all the rest? I do not recommend doing
this–the consequences would be hideous–but do suggest thinking about it. The
conclusion will probably be that blacks are in custodial care. If this is not
true, tell me why it is not.
Look, without averting your gaze, at our many cities in catastrophic and
apparently irremediable racial dysfunction. Look at Boston, Newark, Camden, Trenton,
Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Milwaukee, New Orleans, St. Louis,
Chicago, Detroit, Oakland. These are the center of mass of black America, not
the polished talking heads of the networks. These regions are huge, necrotic,
barely touched by white civilization except through television. In eight hours
of driving through them, you will never see a white face. The culture is not
ours, the language, notions of civility. Another world. It doesn’t change.
Apparently it can’t change.
The costs for America are high. Blacks, unable to compete,
angry, hopeless, demand this, demand that. Streets must be renamed, statues
torn down. . Attacks on whites continue, often brutal, always hidden by the
media. Academic standards must be repudiated for them. Our cities become Haiti.
In Chicago young blacks kill seven hundred of each other, in Baltimore three
hundred. American culture coarsens under the angry grunting of rap. Now blacks
demand the rewriting of our history.
The cultural degradation
imposed to disguise inadequacy beggars belief. In a recent example among
hundreds that could be adduced, American University will
no longer grade the quality of writing. A brief quote will suffice:
“This plenary will argue
against the use of conventional standards in college courses that grade student
writing by single standards. Inoue will discuss the ways that White language
supremacy is perpetuated in college classrooms despite the better intentions of
faculty, particularly through the practices of grading writing.”
Detwaddled, this means that
since literacy cannot be expected of blacks, it cannot be required of whites.
Of course blacks can learn normal English, at least if raised in it. Mexican
blacks speak normal Spanish. Learning a language as adults is cognitively much
more difficult. Demanding it of them would be racism. Recognizing the impossibility
of raising blacks to white (or Japanese, or Chinese, or Indian) levels, AU will
pull whites down.
Since at least the time of
classical Athens, the civilized have known that the ability to write clearly,
speak clearly, and think clearly are the same thing. In Ebonics, how do you
say, “The entropy of a closed system tends to remain the same or to increase”
“Dat be, like, you know, man, know what I’m sayin’?”
What is to be done? The
policies usual in countries of the First World do not work. As a white man my
inclination is to favor color-blindness, equality of opportunity, and
advancement by merit. If East Asian kids outperform white kids academically by
a wide margin, which they do, then they should get into Harvard and the white
kids should not. Neurosurgeons should be chosen by competence and nothing else.
Affirmative action lowers standards for society as a whole, sometimes
dangerously.
All true, but….Realistically, meritocracy
works well only in a monochrome population. If I, white, fail to get into CalTech in astrophysics, I will be
disappointed but will not complain of unfair discrimination. I just wasn’t
smart enough. But it is very different when a race in its entirety fails to
gain entrance. It creates a de facto partitioning of society. In today’s
America, merit isn’t going to work.
More is involved than a lack of black biochemists. Differences in
intelligence cause differences in culture. Bright populations will favor classical music, literature,
history, the sciences, art. Dimmer peoples will not. Look for bookstores in
their neighborhoods. Making things worse is the lack of commonality between
black and white civilizations. We may reasonably ask why blacks should be
interested things we teach in our schools. Our European heritage goes back at least
as far as the Sumeria of the mid-Fourth Millennium BC, through Greece and Rome
and Augustine and Aquinas, through the Renaissance, Magna Carta, all the myriad
of European thinkers and poets through the Industrial Revolution to Mars
landers. None of this is the heritage of blacks. Why would they care, or
understand why we care? We are utterly different peoples.
.What do we do if –when–genetics makes the obvious undeniable? What
then?
