Matthew knows that for years my least favorite writer at National Review Online has been John Derbyshire. He was my least favorite not just because of his outspoken atheism, but because of his smug utilitarianism. What I and many others found in his writing was that he often spoke of people as things or in terms of statistics. In a world without God, that is what we are reduced to, statistics. I have always been frustrated by Derb because I found his worldview to be completely un-Conservative and out of place at a magazine founded by William F. Buckley.
So it was that Matthew called me and told me that Derb had just gotten the boot at NRO. Why? You have to see for your self. And boy did I.
Rich Lowry in his post announcing the canning referring to a piece Derb had written at another site said “Derb has long danced around the line on these issues, but this column is so outlandish it constitutes a kind of letter of resignation. It’s a free country, and Derb can write whatever he wants, wherever he wants. Just not in the pages of NR or NRO, or as someone associated with NR any longer.”
What issues? At first you will say to yourself “He got fired for this?” but keep reading. You’ll know. For those of you without the time, a few snippets.
(10) Thus, while always attentive to the particular qualities of individuals, on the many occasions where you have nothing to guide you but knowledge of those mean differences, use statistical common sense:
(10a) Avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally.
(10b) Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods.
(10c) If planning a trip to a beach or amusement park at some date, find out whether it is likely to be swamped with blacks on that date (neglect of that one got me the closest I have ever gotten to death by gunshot).
(10d) Do not attend events likely to draw a lot of blacks.
(10e) If you are at some public event at which the number of blacks suddenly swells, leave as quickly as possible.
(10f) Do not settle in a district or municipality run by black politicians.
(10g) Before voting for a black politician, scrutinize his/her character much more carefully than you would a white.
(10h) Do not act the Good Samaritan to blacks in apparent distress, e.g., on the highway.
(10i) If accosted by a strange black in the street, smile and say something polite but keep moving.
…
(11) The mean intelligence of blacks is much lower than for whites. The least intelligent ten percent of whites have IQs below 81; forty percent of blacks have IQs that low. Only one black in six is more intelligent than the average white; five whites out of six are more intelligent than the average black. These differences show in every test of general cognitive ability that anyone, of any race or nationality, has yet been able to devise. They are reflected in countless everyday situations. “Life is an IQ test.”
In reading it, I could not help but think that this is exactly what I never liked about Derb’s writing. The tendency to reduce people to statistics. In my view this is the direct result of a Godless world view. If people have no intrinsic value as individual persons endowed by their creator with certain unalienables, then they are merely statistics or worse.
While I am sure that Derb reviles the work of Stalin, Hitler, Mao et al, but it is this same line of thinking that leads to their solutions to these statistical problems.
It is noteworthy that Derb took so much time to link up “supporting” evidence for his, I don’t know even what to call it. I would say screed, but the detailed links show that this was no Mel Gibson like screed, but something much more deeply held, more cold and calculating. And it is so much the worse for it.
I am glad Derb got fired for it. But I can’t help wonder if he even understands what is wrong.
April 9, 2012 at 5:55 pm
Wow… I had never read him, but treating people in accordance with statistics seems… sort of creepy.
I hope he learns to treat human beings as unique human beings.
April 9, 2012 at 6:21 pm
Sentimentalism voiced in Multicult Indignation! It's bad enough to hear it from the left!
Above and beyond the moral assistance due to any distressed motorist on the side of the road (in an age of Highway Patrols, no less!) is our duty to discourage our own children from involving themselves in DEMONSTRABLY perilous scenarios.
April 9, 2012 at 6:31 pm
Sd, the natives in those colonies wanted the Europeans to get out. They wanted their 'freedom'. They wanted to be Africans with an African culture. They didn't want the 'white mans ways', they wanted 'negritude'. Well SD, how is that getting the white out working for them now?
As for the converison of a few Africans here and there, unless the Catholic missionaries make a great effort to upoot the practise of juju (also called voodoo) among the converts, their evangelization will be in vain in the long run. Juju practisioners are known to falsely convert to Christianity to hide their real religion. Both the Protestant and Catholic missionaries seem to be blissfully unaware of this, so I don't think it's any wonder why the freed colonies reverted to savagery so quickly after the Europeans left.
April 9, 2012 at 6:36 pm
I guess this fellow didn't get the Talk
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/video-of-white-man-being-stripped-and-beaten-outside-baltimore-courthouse-sparks-outrage-on-the-internet/
April 9, 2012 at 7:30 pm
Wow. As a resident of a major urban area, I have to agree with all of Derb's advice. But I know it is not inherently a black issue, but one where families are destroyed, few resident fathers, few married couples. Happened in two generations, too. My parents could drive through and even drink in neighborhood I wouldn't last ten minutes in, because the stable black population (or mixed population) is gone.
Most of what he said is true about American Indian areas, too, and the same reasons contribute to the way those populations have imploded.
Remove morality, and remove stability.
April 9, 2012 at 7:36 pm
The stats on IQ are not a right/wrong question, but a true/false question. If they are false, let's hear what makes them false. The rightness or the wrongness is in what you do with that information. If you started out with an assumption that human intellegence is the main measure of any human's worth, you are wrong. If you conclude that we shouldn't bother educating blacks at all, you are wrong. If you however say that we should fund public education available to everyone but stop funding when a person reaches the level they can't pass without nice-guy grade inflation…well…that's not wrong in and of itself. The consequences of adopting such a policy will be hard to face if the stats are indeed correct, but it beats charitable lying to ouselves, which isn't charity at all.
And I say all this as a fan of Cardinal Arinze, who I would love as a pope if I wasn't an ageist. 🙂
Scott W.
April 9, 2012 at 8:01 pm
Steve "scotju" Dalton:
"the natives in those colonies wanted the Europeans to get out. They wanted their 'freedom'. They wanted to be Africans with an African culture."
Yes, people don't tend to enjoy being governed by foreign occupying powers. c.f. the eastern seaboard of North America, circa 1776. But I digress.
"As for the converison of a few Africans here and there,"
By "a few" "here and there" you're presumably referring to the fact that Christianity is currently the single largest religious affiliation in sub-Saharan Africa, and that Christians account for somewhere between 40-50% of the population of Africa as a whole (with Muslims accounting for another ~45% and traditional native religions accounting for a tiny and dwindling proportion of the overall population)? Indeed, in many African countries the proportion of the population that is Christian is higher than it is in Europe overall. And as recent developments in the Anglican Communion demonstrate, the predominant theological mindset in African Anglican Christianity is much more aligned with the historic orthodox Christian faith than the predominant theological mindset in European and North American Anglican Christianity is. "Bishop" Gene Robinson after all has genes that look a lot like John Henry Newman's but ideas that well, don't.
"unless the Catholic missionaries make a great effort to upoot the practise of juju (also called voodoo) among the converts, their evangelization will be in vain in the long run."
The widespread growth of Christianity in Africa is less than 100 years old. How many years was it between the time that England and Ireland were evangelized and the time that the folk superstitions of the native pagan population were completely purged from day to day life in those particular locales?
"Juju practisioners are known to falsely convert to Christianity to hide their real religion. Both the Protestant and Catholic missionaries seem to be blissfully unaware of this"
Ah yes, the folks who live and work in Africa to spread the Faith are less aware of the realities of African religious life than Steve Dalton of Americaville, USA.
In any event, white missionaries from Europe and North America now account for a negligible proportion of the total efforts to propagate the Faith in Africa. Africans whose families have been orthodox Christians for multiple generations are doing a fine job of doing so themselves.
April 9, 2012 at 8:01 pm
Steve "scotju" Dalton:
"so I don't think it's any wonder why the freed colonies reverted to savagery so quickly after the Europeans left."
Most countries "revert to savagery" when an existing governmental structure is removed. When the Roman empire fell most of Europe (filled to the brim with all those "high IQ" white man genes) fell into lawlessness, famine, warfare, and illiteracy for hundreds of years.
Indeed, its been less than "four score and seven years" since European colonialism in Africa was dismantled. Yet precisely "four score and seven" years after British colonialism in North America was dismantled the "restless natives" of that particular savage backwater still practiced chattel slavery and were engaged in a brutal, blood-drenched civil war that left half a million people dead.
While Africa has indeed been plagued by strife and disfunction since the decades-long military occupation by Europeans ended, it appears to be turning the corner on almost every significant variable. The percentage of the population defined as "middle class" is 34%, up from 27% in 2000. Deaths in civil wars are less than 10K per year now, down from nearly 60K per year in 1990. There are about 3 million refugees in Africa now, down from about 6 million in 1990. Monetary inflation and gross government debt are down significantly in most African nations over the last few years. What warfare there is now is almost exclusively in the border regions between heavily Christian and heavily Muslim areas. Well – the border regions in Europe between Christianity and Islam weren't exactly peaceful and prosperous in the centuries between the first incursion of Islam into the continent and WWI when the Ottoman Empire finally fell.
April 9, 2012 at 8:26 pm
SD, about Juju: Isiash Oke, a former Juju priest, said in his book, "Blood Secrets", that the Juju practisioners have infiltrated all of the Muslim and Christian communities to a shocking degree in Africa. That's were I got my information about it. Also,our crrent pope allowed a Juju priest to give some heathenish incantation at Assai III. Do you really think we're winning with crap like that going on?
April 9, 2012 at 8:52 pm
I find this discussion of genetics and intelligence maddening. It is the same idea that we are a sum of our genes that started the eugenics movement. It is just not that simple. Environment has a huge impact on what genes are expressed and how they are expressed.
A recent study of identical twins showed that genetic testing is not very predictive when it comes to disease. It is likely the same with personality traits and intelligence as well.
The Atlantic just did a story on the non-predictive aspect of genetic testing for disease and concluded:
"Remember gene expression the next time someone mentions an "innate musical talent," or a "natural-born swimmer," or "the math gene." As a general rule, traits and diseases are developmental, not gene-determined."
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/04/as-a-predictor-of-disease-genes-are-almost-completely-useless/255416/
April 9, 2012 at 8:59 pm
Derbyshire's rant about black intelligence really sticks in my craw, I really don't see why it was necessary to include it.
But based on personal experience I'd say everything else he wrote is sound advice. Didn't Jesse Jackson himself once say when he sees a crowd of young men walking towards him at night he's relieved if they're white and not black?
April 9, 2012 at 9:23 pm
"Are you guys saying you support this statement?"
It's not a question of what I support; the question is, is it true? Is the mean IQ of African Americans (not Africans in Africa, but African-descended Americans) not notably lower than the mean IQ of white Americans? Do you have a source that tells you that? Even the CCC?
"So when Derb says you should not help a black person in distress on the side of the road because of 'statistics,' that doesn't seem wrong to you?"
A friend of mine did exactly that, barely escaped with his life, and was weeks recovering from his wounds. I'm sure it would comfort my children to know that their father died doing his Christian duty, but I suspect they (especially my 7-month-old) would prefer to keep me around for awhile.
Which points of Derbyshire's advice would you disregard, Pat?
If you found a riot developing around you, as at the Wisconsin State Fair, would you stay, for fear of being a racist?
If three young black men tried to flag you down on a roadside, would you stop and get out, and then drive them somewhere more secluded, as my friend did?
Do you make it a point to visit black neighborhoods?
Do you keep your seat when black gang-bangers start gathering in the mall food-court, or do you collect your kids and head for the nearest exit?
Pope John Paul II taught us that true science and true religion can never conflict. Clearly, our Catholic faith, not shared by Derbyshire, calls us to some sort of response to the plight of these people. But I don't find in the Catechism any admonition to ignore reality, place my wife, children or myself in jeopardy, and seek out large gatherings of angry black strangers merely to prove that I am not racist.
Derbyshire's wife is oriental, and his children are mixed-race. You may think him a racist, but I see him as a person who wants to teach his children how to keep themselves safe.
And I see that as the first duty of a father.
April 9, 2012 at 10:04 pm
I believe Charles Murray put forth the statistics about IQ by race some years ago, in the Bell Curve. This refers to IQ as tested by current tests in this country. It is not impossible that this is genetic; it is not impossible that it is all cultural. Genetic or cultural, these are the facts on the ground. It should not be wrong to refer to them.
Having lived on the edge of a poor black neighborhood in Baltimore in the late 70's early 80's (and just across Broadway from Harlem in the late 60's) I understand exactly what the writer means. I have the feeling that even the person who fired the writer, and even the blogger deploring what he wrote, generally acts the same way.
In some circumstances one has the luxury of relating to people as individuals. I had a black boyfriend in college, where there were so few blacks that there was no black culture, just the culture of the school. My black brother in law is a sweet, good man who is also very bright, and his daughter, my neice is a real cutie. It is prejudice and racism when one cannot relate to people as individuals rather than as members of a race, in those situations where that is possible.
But in group situations like the ones described, Mr. Derbyshire has only laid out reasonable rules. Those who would deny this, I suspect, have a lack of experience. The difference between those children of mine raised in a black slum neighborhood and those raised in an almost totally white rural setting was immense, the latter easily repeating platitudes about everyone being the same, the former trying to explain what they had experienced when they were young.
The United States has a history, and the history of how black people first got here and how they were treated, for which none of us alive today are responsible, still has an effect on social realities. It can be argued that some of the actions taken with the best of intentions to try to ameliorate those social realities, had the opposite effect. (Welfare leading to more fatherless families, for instance. In my Baltimore neighborhood almost no black child had a father in the picture. There were grandmothers. )
I applaud Mr. Derbyshire for having the courage to put on paper what is not supposed to be said. I suspect that he will suffer for it. I think we have a feeling that if we don't say certain things, they might stop being true, and if we say them, they might get worse. One doesn't want to freeze these realities into eternal verities, or inflame hatred rather than mere prudence. There is a value to moderating how we express things. If there is any justice behind his firing, it lies there.
As for stopping to help a black person by the side of the road, I would say that it is generally dangerous to stop and help any stranger, yet we are enjoined to do so by Our Lord. One has to make a snap judgment of the safety of any particular situation for oneself in particular,(ex marine? little old lady? attractive young woman?) and it also matters how much one is needed by others. One can always call 911 and say that there is a stranded motorist who needs help. Of course if there has clearly been a crash and someone is in immediate danger, one would help, and I don't think anyone would worry about race at such a time.
Susan Peterson
April 9, 2012 at 10:11 pm
I just read the whole article and makes all the balancing points that I tried to make. I understand the need to exerpt, but in this case, the exerpting process was distorting of the whole.
Susan Peterson
April 9, 2012 at 11:10 pm
As for the stopping on the road to help a stranger: it depends, pretty much like Susan said above. Would I, alone, stop to help three young black men flagging me down? No. Three young white men? I'd still probably not. While it's not necessarily likely that they'll do me harm, my responsibility to my family trumps my responsibility to a stranger. Little old lady, alone? Every time, regardless of race. People injured in a wreck? Of course, regardless of race.
I agree also with the commentator above who pointed out that intelligence is not proven entirely dependent on genetics, nor is it proven completely independent of genetics. But the stats are there that they vary by race. It is what it is. But I do not equate a person's worth with their intelligence, so I fail to see the "racism" in seeing these facts.
The relative economic status of former African colonies and Haiti is too complicated to attribute to race. Colonization, amalgamation into countries ignoring the tribal groups, etc.. are all a factor. I don't know of any comparable situation with a predominately European-descended population. The North American colonies were run differently, etc.
Yes, the CCC condemns treating people unfairly because of race or many other factors. But I didn't notice where Derbyshire advocated that black Americans be treated differently, but recommends that others alter their own behavior in certain pragmatic ways to avoid problems. How does it harm anyone else if I avoid public events likely to draw a large crowd of blacks? How are blacks harmed if I leave if a large number of them start congregating?
Everyone notices race, but whites aren't allowed to say so out loud, it seems.
April 9, 2012 at 11:55 pm
What was conservative about Buckley?? We now know his magazine was a CIA front, his politics were NEO-conservative…big gov't warfare state, leftism masquerading as conservatism. His treatment of Joe Sobran reveals his allegiances.
As far as Derbyshires article, it is good advice. IQ statistics can be skewed, however, with questions out of the realm of the experience of some demographics. I used to have a much more "liberal" viewpoint of the poor put upon blacks. Then I got jobs in the real world working with them and learned that human nature is the same for all of us…and racism is not simply a white attribute.
April 10, 2012 at 12:04 am
I recall about eight years ago when I was stuck in a snow drift. The only people who stopped to help me was a black woman and her three sons who tried to dig me out. People who judge by the group and not the individual are nitwits.
April 10, 2012 at 4:17 am
While Mr McCleary is trying to be idealistic, ideaism is not reality. In the real world, for our own safety, we must make judgements based on the group a person belongs to. That may seem unfair or bigoted to many people, but if the ethnic, racial, or national group has a reputation for certain types behaviour, especially dangerous ones, it's only wise to do so.
April 10, 2012 at 5:41 am
Donald,
I enjoy your posts over at the American Catholic.
I must challenge you on your statement:
"People who judge by the group and not the individual are nitwits."
If that is true, then you and everyone you have ever met are nitwits. Everyone judges (to some extent or another) other people by the group or groups they belong to. Everyone, and I really mean everyone, engages in stereotyping. It is a basic human necessity. We have no choice but to make judgment calls about the people we encounter everyday and to make those calls based on limited information. The most basic judgment is whether that person poses a threat of imminent physical harm to me or those I care about. There are a myriad of other judgments we must make as well – is that person going to helpful to me or can I be helpful to him, etc. We also want to determine whether that person is a member of some group that we are part of, for example, do we share the same religion, interests, positions in life, etc. Since we cannot know everything about every person, we are forced to make judgments about them with limited information, relying on clues. With the exception of a few of our closest family members and friends we never get the opportunity to really know somebody as an individual. With everyone else, we wind up making educated guesses, playing the odds as best we can. And, yes, do to that we must often rely on cold, hard, cruel, dehumanizing statistics.
Most of this is obvious. An employer is interviewing two kids out of college for a job. One kid is from the group of graduates from Harvard and the other is from the group of graduates from Podunk Community College. In spite of all those trick interview questions they teach to HR personnel that supposedly ferret out the true character of the applicant, at the end of the day the employer will have to rely on hints and clues, including what groups the applicants belong to.
When it comes to groupings by race, i.e., by a limited set of certain genetic characteristics, the best evidence that I am aware of tells me that it is, in and of itself, trivial. Race is often, however, a strong clue as to the culture a person belongs to – and cultures matter. Cultures carry with them strong tendencies to habits of thought and action, to standards, values, virtues and vices. The dominant culture among a large percentage of African Americans in this country is in serious breakdown. In those situations where one has to make a quick decision based on limited information, it is prudent to take this into account and foolish not to.
April 10, 2012 at 5:44 am
Continued:
In summary, stereotyping is not only morally allowable, it is impossible to avoid. Our moral obligation is to stereotype rationally and prudently, to make our judgments about people as individually tailored as possible as the situation allows – and, at times, to prudently take certain risks against the odds when charity demands. To avoid all stereotyping would be an immoral abdication of reason. To avoid stereotyping to the extent of placing ourselves and those in our care in unnecessary danger would likewise be immoral.
Donald, I am pretty sure you would agree with what I just wrote. The problem, and it is a big problem, is in making the kind of generalized platitude you made in your comment. It is part of the same problem with Patrick’s whole post. There are things to criticize about Derbyshire’s article. But Patrick’s failure to make that criticism thoughtful and specific, beyond a mere bemoaning of statistics, and your trafficking in platitudes, winds up, by default, making the clear statement that anyone who says anything not nice about black people (no matter how accurate) is, per se, a racist and deserving to have his career destroyed. Patrick and you, unwittingly perhaps, have joined the thought police force that is active in suppressing any kind of open and frank discussion on the issue of race. As long as this suppression is in full force, we will never effectively address racial issues in this country.
Patrick Archbold, I am calling you on this one. I say your post is much more harmful to dealing with the issue of race than Derbyshire’s article. It is also more unjust. It is patently wrong to celebrate Derbyshire’s firing as you do. Most of his article is spot-on accurate. His failures, by and large, are failures of omission. Your omissions are greater. He would have his children avoid black people in certain situations. You would have the career destroyed of anyone who spoke openly but not perfectly about race. Shouldn’t you be the one getting fired?