Steve Sailer criicizes this post by Matthew Yglesias that refers favorably to this Rick Perlstein article in the New Republic that relies on this article by two political scientists who conclude that Republicans (or at least Southern white Republicans) are racists based on their answers to the following survey questions:
1. Irish, Italians, Jewish, and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the same without any special favors. (White Southerners generally agree.)
2. Over the past few years blacks have gotten less than they deserve. (Southerners disagree)
3. It’s really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if blacks would only try harder they could be just as well off as whites. (Southerners agree.)
4. Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for blacks to work their way out of the lower class. (Southerners disagree).
Even more entertaining are the comments on Yglesias’s post. Some believe the data don’t support the conclusion of racism, suggesting instead merely “conservative views on race.” Others think there is no difference between racism and conservative views on race issues and still others thing that conservative views on race issues are so highly correlated with racism that any difference that might exist is not relevant to anything important.
I don’t think the data support conclusions of racism, even though I’m willing to accept the claim that southerners (as a group) are more racist than non-southerners. (If anything, they suggest callousness, not racism.)
A side note: It’s interesting that you should cite Steve Sailer. I’m assuming you’re familiar with his body of work. Tell me, John, do you believe the intelligence gap between whites and blacks is tractable? Or do you believe, as Sailer and many others do, that it isn’t? I’m very eager to hear your views on the topic. (Note that I’m not accusing you of anything here. Nor am I suggesting that believing that blacks are genetically intellectually inferior to whites makes one a racist. I’d really like to hear your views, if you have the time.)
Great question, Chauncey. I would love to hear the answers as well, the “genetic inferiority” is one that I, personally, wouldn’t give a pass on.
It’s an extremely thin line between “intellectually inferior races” and “inferior races”, IMHO, and if you look at who bankrolls these modern day eugenicists…well, you get the picture.
–Cobra
“… and if you look at who bankrolls these modern day eugenicists…well, you get the picture.”
I’m laughing my ass off, because you can be sure that Cobra is not referring to the actual racial eugenicist, Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood. That would be a long step off the Democratic plantation.
I’m not a fan of Steve Sailer, in fact I’ve had a few online slug fests with his few supporters. I think that he spends way too much time trying to locate a group genetic component that does not exist, instead of cultural which seems more likely.
With that said, he sure makes the “blacks cannot compete with other races” crowd uncomfortable with their own justifications for racial preferences. I put him in the same category as Nation of Islam types, just a different race.
Cobra,
The reserve question is: Do you believe that all of the difference in academic performance between Asians and blacks is due to racial discrimination and racism in the US? Or is there another explanation.
That has been your mantra since I have been readings your posts here.
Personally, I believe that most of the difference is due to culture differences between groups like African-Americans and Chinese Americans.
Chauney – I appreciate the question, or at least the spirit in which you ask it.
I confess (and it is a confession, since I’m no proud of it) that I’ve studiously avoided delving into the debate over genetics, etc., since it is not really relevant to my concerns and I don’t have enough time even for what I am really concerned about. I think it would take more of an effort that I’m willing to make to have an informed opinion in that area, and so, since nothing that I regard as important turns on those answers, I am content to remain armed only with my opinions and general biases, which run heavily toward “cultural” explanations of what differences do exist.
I will, however, add one point that I’ve mentioned before (here and here, for example), sort of an idiosyncratic, counter-intuitive notion that in some respects it is a mistake to assume that the “nurture” (cultural) interpretation is liberal because it holds out the promise of malleability and change and the “nature” (genetic) is conservative in that it pessimistically assumes differences are fixed and unchangeable. In real life, as I noted, it seems to me that culture is often much harder to change than nature.
By “intelligence gap”, I think Chauncey means “IQ gap”. It is not altogether obvious that IQ measures intelligence.
And if one believes that IQ (or even intelligence) is genetic, then one should be able to find the gene itself, instead of just playing games with tests. They’ve found a gene for baldness, leukemia, heart disease. That no one has found an “intelligence gene” means that it doesn’t exist, or no one really knows what intelligence is anyway.
Looking for an “intelligence gene” would be about like looking for a “height gene” or a “gracefulness gene”. Most likely the genetic component of the various intelligences is a dispersed cluster of hundreds of interacting genes. They have already identified several of them related to the interactions/connections between neurons.
Of course (straw man argument) anyone who thinks genetics has no effect on intelligence should spend more time discussing the subject with his dog.