The Rawness

I was going to put up pt. 3 of Blacks and IQ later this week, but I got a comment on Part 2 of the series that I thought needed addressing.  The response got so long I decided to make it a bonus post rather than a comment.

Basilransom commented:

T,

The topic of racial differences in IQ must be discussed, because it has real consequences. For instance, the differences account for some portion of the disparity in black-white academic performance. If you refuse to discuss race differences, you will have to look elsewhere to explain the gap, and overextend other possible causes to explain the entire gap.

And this has happened - people who refuse to acknowledge IQ and such are prone to blaming the difference on widespread if concealed racism. Or on poor upbringing. And then they try to eliminate the racism, or improve child-rearing, and their success, if any is nothing like they had imagined.

In short, silence causes misplaced blame and inflated expectations.

I just read your first post though, and I share your sentiments to a degree. Charles Murray, when asked “say what you write is all true, what do you propose to do?” He always responded that he would treat people like individuals, eg, assess their IQ and track them accordingly.

I’m sure you could work it to avoid torpedoing kids prospects’ before they start. Eg, say with a kid’s given IQ, there’s a 30% chance that he’ll complete a calculus class, or graduate from college, or what have you. There’s an arbitrary balance to be struck, as to how ‘generous’ or ‘optimistic’ you want to be, a balance that would be decided democratically. What with the frequent demands that every kid go to college, we’re on the generous side of the spectrum.

[Not that the difference accounts for all of the gap]

I still don’t buy that the topic of Race and IQ must be discussed in order to explainthe failings of social policies directed at blacks or to figure out how to proceed with future social policies. A discussion of IQ is irrelevant to why policies for blacks fail. I’ll give you examples to show you why:

• India went through a socialist period where everything was centrally planned and free market principles were abandoned and wealth redistributed and property rihts compromised. The country went into the shitter. People became lazier, no accountability was set, the economy and productivity went down, work ethic went down the tubes. Free-market capitalism was introduced and the country thrived and is now a powerhouse. Same race in both scenarios, same relative IQs.
• China in its early communist days tried collectivization of farms and changing private ownership in favor of communal ownership and central planning and redistribution of property. People became lazier, no accountability existed, the economy and productivity went down, work ethic went down the tubes. Free-market principles were reintroduced into agriculture and other areas, even though the country maintained a communist front and the country thrived and is now a powerhouse. Same race in both scenarios, same relative IQs.
• East Germany and West Germany were once one country with the same culture, genetics, family histories, race, etc. For several decades they were split into a West and an East, with capitalism in the West and communism in the East. Only decades of living apart under different governments and social policies, yet over that time the character and culture of both sides of Germany became radically different. 1 in 5 Germans polled actually wish the Berlin Wall would be rebuilt, and even more surprisingly most of those wishing it would be rebuilt are former East Germans. Only 3% of relationships are between a east and west Germans, showing a strong social divide still remains almost 20 years later. From this article:

The poll by the Forsa institute showed that 73% of those from the east believed that socialism was a good idea in principle, but had been poorly implemented. Over 90% argued that they enjoyed better social protection during the GDR era…

The overwhelming majority of people originating from West Germany who took part in the survey said that if the wall was rebuilt they would prefer to live in West Germany, while around 36% of former East Germans said they would prefer to live in the communist east

These people were once genetically and culturally one and the same before, yet a few decades of central planning and redistribution of wealth on one side versus more free-market principles on the other side has made them severely incompatible to the point they can barely function or form relationships with each other today.

The point is that government social planning and nanny states and redistribution of wealth didn’t fail in the black community because people misjudged their IQs and the policies failed as a result. THOSE POLICIES FAIL IN JUST ABOUT EVERY CULTURE, REGARDLESS OF RACE AND IQ. Whites, Asians and Indians, despite their superior average IQs, did not thrive under a nanny state either. This is just human nature, if you give people something for less effort, reduce competition, shield people from the full consequences of their actions and hold them to lower standards, they will underperform, regardless of the IQ involved.

In each of my examples, the nanny state scenario and the free market scenario all happened in the same groups of people with the same common culture, genetics and average IQ. No IQ and racial differentials to point to. By pointing to the history of failure of handouts, wealth redistribution and radical egalitarianism, you can make a strong case against the current welfare states without ever even getting into race and IQ at all.

My suspicion is this: to a certain degree, it strokes white people’s egos to believe that they are magically and inherently smarter than many other races. A lot of the supposed social good they claim will come from acknowledging race and IQ to me is a backwards rationalization that comes later. Much like there are ego reasons that make many blacks from wanting to discuss race and IQ, there are many ego reasons that make whites want the issue to reach the forefront.

And to me, further proof of this comes from the reactions I get from people when I propose that the higher average IQ of whites comes from a natural cause and effect positive reinforcing loop caused by history, environmental conditions, populations density, constant warfare and better livestock. Many of the “race and IQ” crowd have a knee-jerk resistance to these ideas of how the higher white average IQ came to be, and it makes me realize that even though I’m acknowledging they have a higher average IQ, it’s not enough for them. They don’t just want to be ackowledged as having higher IQs, they also want to believe that this higher IQ is magically innate and a fundamental, immutable characteristic of their race.

It’s like the student who not only wants to do the best, he also wants people to know that he did the best without even trying hard, that he’s a natural genius. If he did it by working the hardest, it kind of cheapens the victory because he’s not gifted, he’s just a hard worker. I think much of the race and IQ crowd treats race and IQ the same way, they want people to believe the IQ of their race is a product of natural inherent genius and not just a result of hard work, natural selection and historical circumstances.  Just like many blacks are hostile towards race and IQ discussions because they secretly fear the conclusion that blacks have a natural, innate mental deficiency, many whites seem to be hostile to Jared Diamond’s theories about the causes of race and IQ for fear it may disprove that the higher IQ of whites throughout history stems from natural, inherent mental gifts.

As for the kid with the lower IQ and the 30% chance of passing Calculus?  There’s an easy way to determine his chances of college success without touching upon IQ.  The same way we judge it for white and Asian kids: his high school grades.

[Note that I'm not calling the "Race and IQ" crowd racists, just pointing out how they are often as motivated by ego and shortsightedness as the people who have a knee-jerk opposition to "Race and IQ" discussions.]

Part 1 can be found here, where I discussed reasons why to me the focus on Black IQ versus IQ is very much a waste of time.  Here in Part 2 I’d like to discuss what I consider average IQ of a racial group to be indicative of.

Average IQ of a racial group is simply an indication of how hospitable that racial group’s history has been to unintelligent people.  That’s it.  It’s all just a matter of how easy it has traditionally been for unintelligent members of that race to survive and reproduce.

I read a book in the 90s called Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond, and although it’s been a while since I’ve read it, I recall it gave some convincing theories regarding the causes of Eurasian innovation and world domination throughout history.  A good summary of the book can be found here:

[T]he book is not merely an account of the past; it attempts to explain why Eurasian civilizations, as a whole, have survived and conquered others, while attempting to refute the belief that Eurasian hegemony is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual, moral, or inherent genetic superiority. Diamond argues that: the gaps in power and technology between human societies originate in environmental differences amplified by various positive feedback loops; and that, if cultural or genetic differences have favored Eurasians (for example Chinese centralized government, or improved disease resistance among Eurasians), it is only so because of the influence of geography.

For a real dumbed-down, oversimplified example, since I’m unable to track down the book (it’s somewhere in my parents’ attic in Long Island buried inside some dusty boxes), consider the following.  In a civilization that is developing in a continent like Africa where its warm and sunny, it’s easier for people who are not too bright to survive since it doesn’t take much innovation and resourcefulness to figure out a way to survive in an environment like that.  In a place with harsh climates with radical environmental changes accompanying the changes in seasons, and prolonged periods of bitter cold, it is much harder for a stupid person to survive.  Thus significantly more stupid people will be weeded out of the gene pool in the latter example in comparison to the former example, which would probably raise the average IQ in the latter society more.  This is just one example of how the environment a civilization develops in can affect its average IQ.

Level of concentration of different organizations such as city-states in a given space can affect average IQ too.  For example say two continents have areas of equal size.  In one continent, the given area is occupied by one society, a monolithic empire of shared language and culture with very little warfare and fear of invasion and few natural barriers.  In the other continent, the given area is filled with numerous city-states formed by the separations caused by natural boundaries like mountain ranges, and the competition and warfare among all these groups forced Europeans to encourage innovation.  More conditions to weed the less innovative out of the gene pool.

Here’s another example of how environments can influence cultural and genetic development: Sparta and Athens.  Both countries probably started out with similar genetic stock (if anyone knows otherwise, please feel free to correct me).  Why did one city turn into such an intellectual center of innovative knowledge while the other became a master of physical combat and warfare?  Are Athenians simply inherently smarter than Spartans through genetics?  No, the reason is this: Sparta was situated on fertile soil, very good for farming.  This made it very attractive to invaders.  Invaders would frequently attack Sparta over and over again to get some of that good soil.  Spartans had to adapt, and survival favored those who were physically stronger and were better fighters and tacticians over those who engaged in purely intellectual pursuits like philosophy.  An uberintellectual philosopher probably had little value in Spartan society while great warriors and leaders probably enjoyed the most status.  Also, they weeded out weakness from birth:

Everything was now dedicated to making each Spartiati a superb and unquestioningly loyal soldier. The Process started at birth. Newly-born babies were inspected by a committee of elders, and, if considered too weak , they were left to die by exposure on the sloped of Mount Taygetos. Those who survived were carefully brought up as Plutarch describes:

‘The women did not bathe the babies with water, but with wine, making it a sort of test of their strength. For they say that the epileptic and sickly ones lose control and go into convulsions, but the healthy ones are rather toughened like steel and strengthened in their physique.

So as you can see, the environment influenced the culture in terms of what traits were valued, how they chose to improve themselves, how they raised their children and how they structured their society. These cultural factors in turn influenced who survived to pass on genes and who didn’t, as weak children were allowed to die even. Genetics influence behavior as well (for example, societies with lots of tall men with high testosterone will probably be more hostile and have more competitive values). Which in turn influences culture, and the cycle goes on. These are called positive reinforcing loops.

Meanwhile, Athens was situated on land that was too shitty to grow anything. Because of its poor soil, it was less desirable and therefore less prone to invasions. Being relatively unmolested and left alone allowed Athens to prosper intellectually and devote more time to intellectual and athletic pursuits. Being intellectual requires a lot of free time to read and ponder deep thoughts. One simply cannot become intellectual without having free time, and since Athens didn’t have to constantly fight and depend itself, it had the time to dedicate to creating centers of learning, pondering deep topics and pursuing knowledge for its own sake.

Spending time obsessing over the IQs of Spartans versus Athenians in an effort to shape policy would be pointless, because as shown above the relationship between environment, culture and genetics is very complicated and intertwined. Sure one society may have ended up with a higher IQ than another, but all that shows you are the traits that society historically needed for survival, not what that society is forever capable of. If somehow conditions got reversed and Athens suddenly was attacked incessantly while Sparta entered an era of unbroken peace, within a few generations the situations could end up reversed with Sparta becoming a society that favors intellectual pursuits and Athens focusing on developing military prowess and battle toughness.

This is why I have a problem with the idea many conservatives push that society is shortchanging itself by not paying more attention to the race and IQ issues put forth in The Bell Curve. Even if blacks do have a lower IQ, all that shows us is that the history of blacks is one that left more unintelligent people in the gene pool. If you subjected blacks to environment and cultural conditions that rewarded high intellect, competition and technical innovation first and foremost and made it hard to survive and thrive without these traits, you’d see a positive change in average IQ, much like if you devalued intellect, competiton and innovation in the culture and environment of whites and made it easy for them to survive and thrive without these traits, their average IQ would drop in time as well.

Average IQ of a racial group is simply an indicator of that racial group’s historical tolerance for the survival of unintelligent people, not an indicator of that racial group’s future potential for the rest of its existence.

In part 3, I’ll discuss why I think the history of Africans, and black Americans in particular, has produced environments that allow more unintelligent people to prosper, thereby lowering the average IQ for the whole group. And social policy solutions that can get great results for blacks without even having to address average IQ by race.

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A major difference between liberals and conservatives is that liberals care first about whether a concept sounds reassuring and nice and politically correct, then care about whether or not it’s true or useful second.  Conservatives on the other hand care more about what’s true and useful, whether or not it’s reassuring, nice or politically correct.  The problem that conservatives often run into though is that they sometimes get so used to having the concept that is true and politically incorrect be the most useful solution that they start believing every concept that is true and politically incorrect must also be useful.  Hence the obsession among some conservatives in pointing out race and IQ findings.

I personally don’t care about race and IQ findings, but not because I myself am black.  I am uncomfortable dealing with unpleasant truths about black people all the time.  Sometimes I even wonder if I’m too comfortable with that actually.  And it’s not because it hurts my self-esteem and I want to sweep it under the table and not deal with it.  And it’s not because I think the concept of blacks having lower average IQs is untrue; on the contrary there is much compelling evidence to show that blacks do on average have lower IQs.  

My problem is, I don’t think it’s as important as many people think it is.  If blacks have lower IQ averages than other races, now what?  Say we all accept that fact, where do we go from here?  How do we change our policies?  Do we create low-IQ alternatives for all black people?  Schools geared toward lower IQs?  Vocations we funnel black people into due to their perceived lower mental capacity?  Replace our current Ivy League-obsessed meritocracy with an IQ-based meritocracy where IQ tests become the norm for entry into all types of preferred endeavors?  Good luck selling voters on those concepts.  Not only would such initiatives never pass, they’d be political suicide for any mainstream politician that attached his or her name to them.

The other solution is to create a separate “slow track” for blacks to compensate for their lower IQs, similar to Special Education.  The problem there is that if you create a separate set of standards and expectations for blacks, this will just end up reinforcing the IQ and achievement gap, which will just keep widening generation after generation.  If some people out there think blacks are in danger of becoming a permanent, entrenched underclass in this country for all time, measures like this will really speed the process along.  Not to mention that selling black mental inferiority as inescapable and genetically unavoidable will do much to preemptively sap motivation among blacks who do have the capacity to achieve much intellectually.  For example, I think I’m damn bright, if I may toot my own horn, but if I was sold a bill of goods that I was destined to mental inferiority before I even got out of the gate, how much motivation would I even have had to achieve the intelligence I have?  I’ve met people who were diagnosed with learning disabilities as kids who totally regret it as adults.  A friend of mine who is very successful now said that he feels he would have achieved so much more if he was never diagnosed with learning disabilities as a young student, because it created a lowered set of expectations for him that he totally bought into.  It wasn’t until he met a teacher late in high school that refused to accept the learning disabilities excuse and forced him to conform to the same standards as other students that he realized that he was capable of the same results as everyone else, even if it did require him trying a little harder.  Accepting lower IQ in blacks as an unavoidable truth, I think, would have the same problem of causing both the black students who have the potential to intellectually excel and the people in charge of teaching them to achieve their full potential to conform to the lowered expectations and live them out. 

I think of it like our legal system views guilt and innocence.  Our legal system prefers to err on the side of innocence.  Just like our legal system considers it worse to have one innocent man be imprisoned than to have a bunch of guilty people go free, our educational system should consider it much worse evil to have one person squander his potential than to have a bunch of people be ambitious beyond their capabilities.

The other route you can take is eugenics, or genetic cleansing.  It’s not as far fetched or outdated or foreign a concept as you may think.  Sweden, a very egalitarian and Western country had eugenics until as recently as 1976.  This also would be a failure in the long run, even if it was remotely feasible for such a measure to pass politically (it’s totally not).  Much like stock markets do corrections, as we are now realizing with the current state of our economy, I believe human rights in societies do corrections much like stock markets do corrections.  Outrageous speculation in the 20s lead to the Great Depression, a huge correction.  The boom times in the 1980s with leveraged buyouts, hostile takeover cowboys and junk bonds lead to a huge panic.  Same with the internet boom in the 90s and our latest real estate boom in the 2000s.  Societies and human rights work much the same way.  I believe the extent of the welfare state and widespread entitlement system of affirmative action, hiring quotas and diversity initiatives that is currently undermining the initiative of blacks to achieve is a social correction that came about from this country’s former excesses in the suppression of human rights for blacks in the form of slavery and in the accepted discrimination that followed. (The book Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism by James W. Loewen discusses post-slavery racism in alarming depth, as well as any good book on the Reconstruction era of the South).  I believe on some level Sweden and the rest of Europe’s current path to cultural suicide though an obsession with diversity and openness at the expense of their own culture, borders and security is an extreme social correction of former inhumane and discriminatory policies (like eugenics in the case of Sweden or colonialism and perceived exploitation on the part of other European powers).

The pendulum of society always swings back, and the more you move it in a certain direction, the harder the eventual swingback in the opposite direction will be.  If we suspend our disbelief and imagine that the more extreme of the “race realists” who obsess over race and IQ to the point of pushing for eugenics ever get their way and actually get eugenics to become a political reality, all they are doing is paving the way for an eventual social correction in the direction of socialism in a generation or two that would dwarf our current welfare and entitlement system.  If they feel they are currently getting ripped off thanks to paying for the welfare state and losing out on good schools and jobs thanks to affirmative action, that would be nothing compared to what their descendants would have to deal with in a world of post-eugenics entitlements.

Next, Part 2: What Average IQ by Race Really Signifies

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