In my last blog I cited Charles Murray’s 1994 book “The Bell Curve” which provided statistical evidence that the species’ various races are genetically programmed somewhat differently. In the broadest terms, Whites and Asians are on average slightly more intelligent and slightly less temperamentally prone to criminality than Blacks and Hispanics. This thesis, of course, was bound to garner outrage from the “inclusive” Left. A 2017 article in Scientific American by Eric Siegel is typical of the “woke” silliness that has come to dominate our culture.
The article is entitled: The Real Problem with Charles Murray and “The Bell Curve.” Its basic criticism is summarized in the following: “The Bell Curve” endorses prejudice by virtue of what it does not say. Nowhere does the book address why it investigates racial differences in IQ.
Siegel’s ad hominem attack is hardly a surprise. Murray is obviously a racist! Appalled that in 2017, in spite of leftist efforts to discredit his book, it continued to garner a good deal of positive attention, Siegel laments that “most critics go after its reasoning or its sources.” This absurd statement implies that a Rational interpretation of the Empirical Facts is of little significance to Siegel, indeed that when the Facts collide with his world-view, they must simply be ignored! It is the presumably intentional effect of “The Bell Curve” that appalls him, that effect being “to tacitly condone the prejudgment of individuals based on race.”
Yes, there are xenophobes out there of every complexion who might unfairly use such statistical generalities against any individual of a different race. But Reason suggests that while Murray’s findings may be true, they say absolutely nothing about any given member of the species. Believe me, I know White people who are incredibly dumb and Blacks who are unequivocally brilliant. The gist of Siegel’s article, however, is that there could be no other motivation behind Murray’s book than the incitement of hatred! Yet a glance at his various other works suggests the utterly rational motivation behind his “conservatism.”
In 2021’s “Facing Reality: Two Truths About Race In America,” Murray inveighs against Identity Politics and its bastard offspring Critical Race Theory which insists that all socio-economic differences in the U.S. are the result of “systemic racism,” this being the definitive feature of America’s so-called Democracy. While in no way denying that Racism has been an aspect of his country’s past, he suggests the contemporary Left’s definition of Social Justice is “based upon the premise that all groups are equal in the ways that shape economic, social, and political outcomes for groups, and that therefore all differences in group outcomes are artificial and indefensible.” This premise, he insists, is factually wrong, indeed entails a repudiation of the real Diversity of the Species. Among the abominations spawned by it are Affirmative Action programs which, for example, might deny the admission of fully deserving White or Asian students to various educational institutions simply because they are White or Asian, simply because the Powers That Be have determined that, whatever their qualifications, a certain number of Blacks must be admitted to redress the injustices of the past. Murray’s rational, “conservative” response, as is my own, is that two Wrongs don’t make a Right! The widespread practice of arbitrarily rewarding individuals based on their Race or Gender rather than their accomplishments, represents a serious threat to the basic Humanist assumption that true Human Progress entails celebrating the very best among us. As I have stated often throughout these blogs, “conservatives” judge people not on the basis of their Race or Gender, but on the basis of their Intellectual and Moral integrity. That he is in every sense a true “conservative” is suggested by the title of Murray’s 2003 book “Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950.” While I have not read the work, I would assume it poses the thesis that the multi-faceted philosophical enquiries of the Ancient Greeks 2500 years ago are evidence of a Culture infinitely more civilized than those of most of the peoples of Africa and the Americas. Knowing that this assertion is bound to be denounced as just so much White Supremacism, I would suggest this indictment to be a product of the superficiality of the Leftist world-view, of its utter indifference to genuine human accomplishment in the arts, sciences or indeed any other realm of human endeavor. Siegel’s article declares “The Bell Curve’s” preoccupation with human IQs to be a veiled expression of Racism because his devotion to Inclusiveness precludes him from even considering the very real, palpably obvious disparities in the achievements of the world’s various Races. Inclusiveness demands its devotees abandon their Rational Critical Faculty, an adjustment which many of today’s “intellectuals” have managed only too well!