The Sniper's Tower
A compelling story about abortion corrupting everything it touches.
The flurry of talk prompted by my entry into the discussion of race, etc. has confirmed the wisdom of my reticence in the first place. The fact that I jumped in anyway is likely good cause to dismiss my claims to prudence and wisdom below, but those chips will fall where they may.
I am trying to decide whether it is worthwhile to post a longer defense of my arguments and some answers to critics, but in the mean time, there is one interesting dynamic that ought to be pointed out. Much of the knee-jerk reaction to my “noble fiction” argument, from bloggers and commenters both, has been to assume that I must be in the grips of egalitarian ideology and politically correct dogma. Nothing could be further from the truth, as anyone familiar with my past writing can attest.
In fact, Paul Gottfried was closer to the truth when he accused me, early on, of totalitarianism (a charge I likewise deny). Those who charge me with egalitarianism just aren’t paying close attention to my actual argument, which is staunchly elitist and assumes—without needing to shout about it—that all men are not equally adept at ruling. I have argued, in essence, that what is needed is an honest conversation driven by a humble elite who understand civilization, society, mores, and the human heart. This honesty includes acknowledging the noble fictions where necessary. The necessary noble fiction is always a balancing act, a resolution of social tension through the moral character and spiritual strength of a ruling elite capable of bearing that tension without breaking.
My respondents who claim that I am trying to “censor” science are ignorant to my argument and in fact are the ones in the grips of a latent egalitarianism which says that all men are equally entitled to all knowledge in the marketplace of ideas.
My point about the ghetto and minority crime, etc., is that of course it’s bad--just like any of the many current and past examples of societies composed of incestuous and violent little tribes. My ancestors came from Scottish clans up to the 18thC who were into extreme violence, grudge killings, incest, rape and probably worse things. In Appalachia, one can find that ethos still. Any functioning good and noble elite will always have to “look down” on people in this category as an underclass that is not fully “equal”—but this presents obvious problems and tensions of its own which can be negotiated by official moralities which create healthy motivations and don’t poison human relationships. That is what being a ruling elite is all about, and that is what I see painfully lacking from those who pretend to that role here in this discussion.
In the context of a ruling elite which has lost its spiritual substance and has believed the fiction or ceased to believe that it functions as a social tension reliever, failure is achieved by abdication and a loss of nerve. These days egalitarianism also goes along with not just the denial of difference but a hatred of such concepts as “norms,” “standards,” and “ruling class,” most of all by members of the ruling classes.
The following from Voegelin’s commentary on The Republic is very relevant:
Cephalus represents the ‘older generation’ in a time of crisis, the men who still impress by their character and conduct that has been formed in a better age. The force of tradition and habit keeps them on the narrow path, but they are not righteous by ‘love of wisdom,’ and in a crisis they have nothing to offer to the younger generation which is already exposed to more corruptive influences. The venerable elder who arouses our sympathy will not lose it on closer inspection, but the sympathy will be tempered by a touch of condescension, if not contempt, for his weakness. For the men of his type are the cause of the sudden vacuum that appears in a critical period with the break of generations. All of a sudden it appears that the older generation has neglected to build the substance of order in the younger men, and an amiable lukewarmness and confusion shifts within a few years into the horrors of social catastrophe. In the next generation, with Polemarchus, the understanding of justice is already reduced to a businessman’s honesty. And it comes almost as a relief when in the sophist Thrasymachus there appears a real man who pleads the cause of injustice with luciferic passion. He at least is articulate, he argues and one can argue with him, and Socrates can come to grips with a problem that remains evasive when represented by a respectability and venerable tradition without substance.
So I am caught between two generations, the elder egalitarians on the one hand and the sophist Roaches who plead the cause of injustice with luciferic passion on the other. But I give Roach the same credit Voegelin gives Thrasymachus—at least one can argue with him in hopes of clarifying and coming to grips with a very evasive problem.
Roach wrote:
I believe this [raw data on IQ and ethnic differences] should make us more charitable and more willing to find ways through charity and the laws of softening the rough edges of a free society for those dull and irresponsible individuals that are, in certain important respects, permanent children. ... There are a lot of whites on the left half of the Bell Curve too .... and I don’t lose sleep over the integrity of elections, for example, when they can’t figure out a butterfly ballot, nor do I particularly mind that state social workers check in sometimes to sure their kids are getting three hots and a cot. Not everyone is capable of living independently, but they do not necessarily have to be institutionalized either. As for the racial dimension, let’s just say concern for the tender feelings of the black race is why teenaged girls were gangraped in the New Orleans Superdome for a few days after Katrina. It would have been racist to recognize what was bound to happen in the case of a bad storm in a very violent, mismanaged black-majority city.
Roach illustrates the biting corrosiveness of IQ studies in the wrong hands. Throughout his posting there is a subtle but very clear connection drawn between IQ results and moral character. For example, the “raw data on IQ and ethnic differences” translates into “irresponsible individuals” who can’t raise kids. They are “permanent children"---a moral distinction, not an intellectual one---how could someone at all well read in the cognative sciences or acting in a good faith effort to simply understand “the truth” make such a gross error? Morally reprehensible acts such as teenage rape are “bound to happen” in times of chaos in a “black-majority city.” Again, we have a confusion between moral character and intelligence aided and abbetted by a sloppy factual recitation---the reports of teenage rape were never substantiated or witnessed and other reports of crime in the Superdome were greatly exaggerated. (I would think that in these racially charged waters Roach would want to excersize the uttmost prudence with regard to the facts he relies upon, but that would also be an issue of moral character and should in no way be used to undermine Roach’s intelligence.)
Even leaving aside Roach’s ludicrous endorsement of the nanny state and its sociological underpinnings (fie on any social worker treading on my stoop), we are left with some pretty raw racism that has nothing to do with IQ studies or bell curve hypotheses and which pretty clearly vindicates my earlier argument about the way this talk will undermine the legitimacy of not only our social contract, but now of the moral order that underlies that contract. If I were Roach I would beware the self-fulfilling nature of false prophecy. Again I ask, which way will that sword point?
For the sake of the publication (though it is not my place to say it) this kind of idiocy ought to be squelched fast and hard.
Richard genuflects to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I tend to think that by and large, the “whole truth” is for suckers and saints. And while I’m sure I’m not the latter, I strive not to be the former either.
In the comments below I wrote that the “truth” of racially determined intelligence will tend to undermine all of the bourgeois institutions of the American middle class, from economics of thrift and hard work to civicly engaged volluntary associations to notions of fair play, etc., that are vital to healthy institutions across the board, from families to courts. What possible good can come of labeling some group “dumb”? (Truth for truth’s sake is not an acceptable answer from those who desire to function as a political elite.) To de-incentivize assimilation and acquiescence to the terms of the social contract? There’s enough of that going around already if you ask me.
I have little desire to wade into the dispute between Justin and others over IQ averages and “racialism.” But it is worth at least pointing out that, whatever the merits of the argument (and I am not in the least qualified to weigh in there), there is a strong conservative rationale for simply not raising the issue of IQ averages. Namely, per Bramwell’s recent definition, that it tends to undermine the legitimacy of American institutions. While I do not accept that undermining legitimacy is always to be avoided, in the context of American race relations, to do so strikes me as a very bad thing. In more general terms, there are certain truths that any political regime must suppress. It may be worth discussing this issue in such terms, or at least adding this consideration.
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