On Not Being White

 

All that really matters in life, they say.

Not long ago, in some casual discussion, another participant casually said, “we white people have to...” I immediately gagged mentally. I am not a white person. I have never thought of myself as a white person. I am offended at being involuntarily enlisted in this imaginary tribe. I am offended at someone assuming affinity with me on this basis. And this is also, I believe, the first time I have ever heard a fellow Canadian speak in such terms. Not “we Canadians,” but “we white people”? This bodes ill.

The notion of “white” and “black” as descriptions for people is obviously imported from the United States, where it has been historically significant. It is a framing imposed illicitly on Canada, as on most of the rest of the world. Growing up in Eastern Canada, there were no blacks, so there were no whites. Nobody thought in such terms; why would they? The tribal fault lines here were whether you were Anglophone or Francophone, Catholic or Protestant, and, in many areas, Irish or English. Making it about race somewhere else is a way to ignore our own history, and perhaps perpetuate our prejudices. Affirmative action for a few pet blacks or First Nations, for example, is a great way to avoid hiring any Irish. 

As one of Irish Catholic heritage, the subtext of assimilating me to some fictitious “white” tribe is to ignore my distinct religious and cultural heritage and assimilate me to the English. My ancestors suffered terribly and fought for half a millennium to preserve their own religion and heritage. Accordingly, the idea that I am “white” is deeply offensive.

Ultimately, though, my tribe is not Irishry. My tribe is Catholicism. Skin colour is the ultimate in superficiality: what matters is the values one holds, and it is for those values that my own ancestors actually suffered and died. Accordingly, I feel more spontaneous affinity with a Filipino or African Catholic than with an Anglican of pale complexion--although I hope I am not prejudiced against Anglicans. I know with a fellow Catholic we have more shared values. There is more of the essential sense of tribalism: I know I do not need to watch my back.

Next to that, my tribe is Canadian. With someone else who has grown up in Canada, I know we too have shared values, many shared cultural memories. Although, again, I hope I am not prejudiced against non-Canadians. But there it is, the tribal glue: a level of mutual trust.

 Yet we are supposed to be preoccupied with skin tone? If that is what you are about, and not the content of your character, you are not much of a person, are you?

A White Elephant?

 

It’s time to address an elephant in the room. Something nobody dares to say.

I have pointed out recently in this space (“Narcissism Is Not Depression”) that people with low self-esteem will compensate by “working hard at whatever they are asked to do, to prove themselves. They will be scrupulously moral, and always want the structure of rules. Rules will reassure them they are doing all right.”

This means that someone with low self-esteem is primed for accomplishment in life. Someone with high self-esteem will avoid what is difficult. They may enjoy life more, but will never accomplish much.

It follows that a culture that fosters low self-esteem, especially in its children, will, over time, develop faster and become more advanced than a culture that fosters high self-esteem. It will also be more orderly and have less crime and violence; and this in turn allows for faster development.

And this can easily explain, in turn, why some cultures “dominate” others. Why Jews are always so successful. Why “whites” do better than “blacks.” Why the British managed to manage one quarter of the world. Why indigenous cultures never invented the wheel, while Europe and Asia had printing and firearms and ocean-going vessels.

In fact, there is no other adequate explanation. The common one, that whites or Jews or Asians are simply racist and violent, while Africans and aboriginals were always peaceful and loving, is not just nonsense on the evidence, but nonsense on the internal logic. Simply being mean does not give you power over others.

Different cultures are simply better than others. And the key is in child-rearing. Child-rearing is really what a culture is all about: culture is what we pass on to our children. Some cultures instill low self-esteem. Their children suffer, but succeed, and the culture succeeds. Other cultures instill high self-esteem. Their children have a great childhood, but accomplish little in life, and the culture does not progress. They will also suffer more in later life; because the culture around them will be less orderly, less developed, and more violent.

The British upper class has long understood this. It was all about “breeding.” For countless generations, they sent their young away to spartan, rigorous boarding schools, where they were commonly bullied, and expected to fend for themselves. This was the key to the continued dominance of that class. 

Do the same with Canadian aboriginal children, and they call it “genocide.”

I tutor many Chinese and Korean students. They barely have a childhood. For them, it is a grind from morning to night. What is their favourite free-time activity? The usual response is “sleep.”

And you wonder why they do so well at academics? It is not discrimination in their favour. They are systematically discriminated against.

“Jewish guilt” is similarly notorious. You are never good enough.

African-Americans, by contrast, freely boast about themselves. They spike the ball in the end zone. They trash talk. A current ad for Hamilton Ontario tourism features a local football player paid to talk up the city. But he also inserts that he is the best football player ever seen—just in case you didn’t know. One cannot picture a ‘white” athlete saying such a thing. One cannot imagine a Chinese athlete saying such a thing. It is perhaps the most obvious cultural difference between the two groups.

A further irony is that those with low self-esteem are unlikely to complain. They will feel they do not deserve more than they have; and if they are genuinely discriminated against, they will fear drawing attention to themselves. It is likely to cause them trouble.

Those with high self-esteem, and those accustomed to getting what they want, on the other hand, will complain loudly if they do not get it. 

So if some group is complaining loudly of discrimination and injustice, they are almost certainly already privileged. 

This includes women. Boys are traditionally treated roughly and held to account as children. Little girls are traditionally treated as “princesses.” Young women are fawned over. And so they grow bitter when privilege is not acknowledged.

This includes African-Americans. If not privileged by the wider society until recently, they almost always grow up privileged. African-American mothers are famously indulgent. African-American fathers are often absent. And they currently have systematic privilege, and complain the louder for it.

This includes Canadian “First Nations.” Contrary to the myth, they have always been given every consideration by the government and the wider culture, as advised by the best experts of the day. As a result, they remain mired in poverty and a sense of grievance. Again, fathers are often absent; and mothers are indulgent. 

The current popular push for “self-esteem” is increasingly making a disastrous mistake. Our growing lack of interest in child-rearing is making a disastrous mistake.  A civilization-ending mistake, unless we correct it at this late date.

Whoopi Goldberg and Holocaust Denial

 

Whoopi Goldberg’s comments on the Holocaust are kind of dumb, but not scandalous. There is an old scientific classification of mankind into three or four distinct races: Mongoloid, Caucasoid, Negroid, and Australoid. If Whoopi learned this definition in some science class, it would be right for her to say that Jews were not a different race from the Aryan Germans, and so the Holocaust was not about race, but ethnicity.

It’s a little weird, because the Nazis certainly did consider Semites a separate race from Aryans, so their motivations, even if scientifically mistaken, were racist. But that argument is semantic, and it seems foolish to assume Goldberg was saying something shocking or offensive. Perhaps she intended to, but it cannot be assumed from this.

Racism and Tribalism

 

Those on the left are these days portraying what they call “racism” as something permeating all our institutions. Most recently, the Salvation Army has endorsed this concept. It warns of “systemic racism,” “the well-institutionalized pattern of discrimination that cuts across major political, economic and social organizations in a society,” leading to “inequity.”

Historically speaking, “racism” is only a recent problem. The concept of race in the human context is more or less a product of Social Darwinism, from the scientism of the 19th century. Before that, people were aware of breeding, heredity, and culture—that is, social class—but not race. Nor, before that time, did the average person in most parts of in the world have any experience of people of races other than their own.

That’s too recent for anything like an original sin. Any structures that pre-exist Darwin, like the US Constitution, or the English common law, or liberal democracy, are necessarily innocent of the charge.

Tribalism—seeing only members of your own culture or social group as fully human—is an older problem. It is a universal and instinctive tendency, but obviously more thoroughly indulged in tribal societies, and less with a social philosophy or culture that claims to apply to all mankind. Accordingly, the best means to reduce the tendency to tribalism is to insist on the doctrine of universal human rights and support the major universalist religions like Christianity.

Yet this is exactly what the modern left want to tear down. They are quite openly pushing for a return to tribalism and group conflict.

The Devil commonly uses words to mean their opposite.

"Race Science" and IQ

This recent article from The Guardian bemoans the idea that IQ varies with race, and calls it “bogus” and “debunked.”

I am no biologist, but I was under the impression this was actually generally accepted as fact by biologists; just not often talked about, because it is a political minefield.

So let’s see if we can grasp and accept the argument of the article.

To begin with, we have to read it halfway trough before we get to any actual factual statements on the issue. The first half of the article is all ad hominem, branding anyone who believes in a link between race and IQ as racist and “alt-right.” This does not inspire confidence in the political neutrality or scientific objectivity of the piece. But at last, we come to this:

“The first claim is that when white Europeans’ Cro-Magnon ancestors arrived on the continent 45,000 years ago, they faced more trying conditions than in Africa. Greater environmental challenges led to the evolution of higher intelligence. Faced with the icy climate of the north, Richard Lynn wrote in 2006, ‘less intelligent individuals and tribes would have died out, leaving as survivors the more intelligent.’”

The piece then argues that this is not a plausible explanation for the difference in IQ; on the grounds that agriculture, writing, and cities first appeared in Mesopotamia, which is not a cold country. And on the grounds that some prehistoric paint, fish hooks, and arrows have been found in Africa.

There are several non sequitors here. First, this or that particular theory as to why there is a racial difference in IQ does not really bear on the issue of whether there is a racial difference in IQ. Second, while Mesopotamia is not cold in winter, it is dry, and suffers periodic drought. This is an environmental challenge at least equivalent to that of a cold winter. Third, it is meaningless that there were fishhooks and arrows in prehistoric Africa. There is necessarily going to be some level of technology wherever humans are found. Or wicker birds, for that matter. What developed in Africa must be measured against what developed in other areas of comparable population over a comparable span of time.

“A second plank of the race science [sic] case goes like this: human bodies continued to evolve, at least until recently – with different groups developing different skin colours, predispositions to certain diseases, and things such as lactose tolerance. So why wouldn’t human brains continue evolving, too?”

The argument of the piece is that this is not good evidence, because the genetics underlying brain structure is far more complex than that underlying physical traits. So there may not have been enough time for the structure of the brain to diverge similarly.

This is certainly not disproof. It does nothing to show that there are NOT mental differences, only that we need not assume there are, based on this evidence.

And even at that, it does not seem to be right. Surely everyone can think, offhand, of at least one single mutation, not uncommon, that dramatically affects mental functioning: Down’s syndrome. And there are others. If then, just one mutation can affect mental functioning, it seems to follow that such differences would not have needed any greater length of time than skin colour, and so forth, to evolve.

The piece’s next argument is the familiar one that IQ tests do not reliably measure anything. This has some merit. Nothing in the social sciences is reliable. But, having said that, IQ seems to be about the most substantial thing we have in that field, in that it correlates so well with so many other factors. It makes no sense to go after IQ on these grounds, and not everything else in the social sciences.

Next the piece cites a Swiss study in which students were able to improve their IQ through swotting to the test. This would be interesting only if the improvements were great enough to account for the observed racial differences. But the present piece gives no figures. As a matter of course, those who develop IQ tests always do their level best to make the tests resistant to this.

The article does give two figures for a Minneapolis-based study of identical twins separated at birth, and the spread does indeed look very significant: 20 to 29 points. Since identical twins are identical genetically, any such variation must be accounted for by some other factor. But what the article does not note is that its own conclusion is the opposite of the conclusion of the study it is citing. The study found IQ to be 70% inherited (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2218526). The present article seems to be cherry-picking from the data to find individual cases that go furthest against the statistical norm. That does no more than to confirm the bare possibility that IQ differences of this magnitude are not genetic. And if you check Wikipedia on twin studies and IQ, it suggests the weight of evidence from twin studies remains that intelligence is mostly hereditary. Wikipedia, because of its open editing system, can presumably be taken as a neutral source fairly reflecting the consensus in a field. If anyone inserted anything controversial, someone else who was a specialist would be bound to be upset enough to soon edit it out.

The article’s net objection seems more substantial: the Flynn effect. Flynn found that in a variety of advanced countries, IQs have been rising steadily over the past 100 years, maybe thirty points on average over that century. Three points a decade. Cumulatively, that is certainly enough to account for any interracial difference in IQ, and it cannot be genetic. Nobody has a clear explanation for why it is happening, but the data seem clear.

Still, this is not a clincher. It is another negative argument: it shows that race and genetics are not a necessary, but still a sufficient, explanation for racial IQ differences.

Next, the piece tackles the common claim that Ashkenazi Jews have a higher average IQ than the general population. “Tests conducted in the first two decades of the 20th century routinely showed Ashkenazi Jewish Americans scoring below average.” Aha—so this difference cannot be genetic. It must be--????

On this one, the Guardian piece seems to be plain wrong. Apparently this is a common misrepresentation of what one early 20th century study was about. It was of people of all races pre-screened as having below average intelligence, and it only remarked, with surprise, that there were Askhenazi Jews among this number, Despite the common perception, even then, that they were unusually intelligent. The piece goes on to quote psychologist Carl Brigham saying Jews are no brighter than the rest of us back in 1923. Without noting that Brigham himself recanted his position and his paper by 1930. He said it “collapsed entirely” due to methodological errors.

So there we are. It seems it is not proven that IQ differs among races genetically. This is, on the other hand, both a perfectly reasonable, and, more than that, the most likely hypothesis.

Surely the reader has noticed how disproportionately often South American women win the big international beauty pageants. Why would that be? There are a lot more women in China and India.

Latin cultures put an unusually high premium on beauty. Doubt it, anyone who has not visited a Romance country. As a result, unusually beautiful women will have better marriage prospects there than elsewhere, will tend to marry more prosperous and more faithful husbands and so have more children. And so, over time, the culture naturally selects for feminine beauty. Why would this not be so?

Chinese culture distrusts beauty. So Chinese women are less likely to be beautiful.

If a culture values X, it will breed for X. It might be athleticism (Africa), musical ability (Ireland, Africa), ability with language (Ireland), martial valour (Greece), calm disposition (England), kindness (Philippines), or something else.

Deal with it: racial differences.

And so, as well, with intelligence and scholarship. If you want a good wife in China or among Eastern European Jews, you demonstrate your scholarship. Women will swoon, as will their parents. These cultures have for a couple of millennia been breeding for intelligence.

My students back in Korea, given the choice between becoming a professor or the president of a large corporation, thought it was a no-brainer. Be (or marry) a professor.

There seems nothing surprising about this.

People panic, because they feel it violates the sacred principle of human equality.

He do not understand the sacred principle of human equality.

No sane person ever, until recently, surely thought that everyone was equal in their abilities. How could that possibly be, any more than that all people must have red hair?

Human equality is equality in moral worth. We are all of equal moral value, and so have the right to be treated equally by one another and by government.

United Colours of Ryerson

The offense

Signs have appeared over the last few days all over Toronto, and are just as quickly being torn down. They say very little: “White Students Union!” and a web link. This, apparently, is “offensive” (U of T). “We don't condone this sort of thing,” (Ryerson).

Isn’t there something wrong with this picture? A visitor from another planet might easily suppose that “white students” are an oppressed group, not permitted to organize in their own defense.

And they would be right.

After all, student groups based on other ethnicities, real or imagined, are a common feature on campuses. Ryerson has an Albanian students’ association, a Muslim students’ association, an African students’ association, an Afghan students’ association, an Armenian students’ association, an Assyrian students’ association—and so far we are not even out of the “A”’s. U of T and York, being larger, have all these and more. Most Canadian colleges have not just courses, but entire majors, in fields such as “Aboriginal Studies,” “Black Studies,” “Women’s Studies,” and so forth. In most of these, white males might well feel rather uncomfortable. So why can it be so wrong, even unspeakable, to seek to form a “White Students Union?” Equality seems to demand it.

“Ah,” the opponents will say, “but white people are different. They are privileged. Therefore, they must be discriminated against to level the field.”

No doubt some people have an advantage over others because of their background. However, the logic of this argument, at best, is that two wrongs make a right. They do not. Moreover, while discrimination in favour of people with white skin in Canada is a theory, and debatable, the formal and institutional discrimination against them is, as in this instance, an indisputable fact.

And is anyone at all aware that the most severe cases of discrimination in history tend to be against groups which, like “white students,” are held to be privileged? It stands to reason, after all: first, since everyone knows in their conscience that discrimination is wrong, you need to have a rationalization such as this: you have to have a reason to claim they deserve it. Second, envy is a powerful emotion, more powerful than contempt. It is a stronger motivator to do harm to another. Third, there is a lot more money and stuff to be confiscated in discriminating against the rich and successful than against the poor and destitute.

The model case is the Jews. In most times and places, they have been discriminated against. And in most times and places, they have been better educated and wealthier than their neighbours. This was certainly true in Germany and Central and Eastern Europe just before the Nazi Holocaust. The claim was that the Jews were unfairly in control of everything. Just like “white males” today.

Privileged bourgeois skulls, Cambodia.

But there are lots of other cases, if you go through the list of the worst persecutions known to history. There are the class persecutions of the Communist realms: on the theoretical claim that the middle classes have historically persecuted the workers, millions of members of the “bourgeoisie” and “intelligentsia” were rounded up, stripped of all their possessions, and often shot, in the elimination of the kulaks, the Cultural Revolution, the killing fields of Cambodia, and so forth.

Privileged Tutsi skulls, Rwanda.

Often, as with the Jews or the “white students,” this envy of material success or educational attainment intersects with race. This does not make it morally better or worse; it just makes it easier to identify and isolate the victims. In Rwanda, the middle class was primarily Tutsis, and the poorer classes primarily Hutus. Was oppression involved? Perhaps; perhaps not. But the Hutus massacred the Tutsis. Just as the Russians massacred the Circassians, the Zanzibarian blacks massacred the Zanzibarian Arabs, the Sinhalese repressed the Tamils, the Equatorial Guineans massacred the Bubi, the Nigerians repressed the Ibo, the Cantonese and just about everyone else in Southeast Asia repressed the Hakka, and the Haitians, Tupacs, Yucatanese, and Boxers massacred the Europeans—the “whites.”

Yes, this usually happens when the group targeted for discrimination or destruction is a minority of the population. This is for obvious practical reasons. But “straight white males” are indeed a minority of the Canadian population, and that is what the target group has been whittled down to so far. It’s getting pretty close to being bite-sized.

We are left with two choices here: either we must allow “White student unions” on the same basis as everyone else, or we must ban all ethnic-based organizations. Of the two choices, the former is obviously preferable. First, it is far less intrusive, and, second, there is this little detail called the right to freedom of association, It is a basic human right, which means that no government may legitimately interfere with it. Unfortunately, it has been all but trampled in the mud for the past fifty years or so.

It means everyone has the God-given right to hang with whomever they want to hang with, given mutual consent.

Without it, democracy itself is not possible over the long term.