Race is Real?

[iceaura]

Curious conversation with Charles Murray

Bill Kristol has never been right about anything in his entire career. As long as you allow shitheads like Bill Kristol to waste your time, you will never have a clue about anything.

Outside of some of the automation stuff, everything of realistic import Murray says - which isn't much - is rehashed lefty and liberal commonplaces from fifty, a hundred years ago. So now it's news?

The rest of it - the bulk of it - is idiotic hippy punching, and some of the most thoughtless bs about economics and "status" you will ever hear. The poor, picked on lower class white male betrayed by - guess who - the Democrats. They dissed, condescended, and that's how everything went wrong. Yah, you betcha Charles.

And the problem is not only what he says. It's what he leaves out. Listen to him and the entire corporate class, Republican Party, and rightwing media - that entire category of person and organization and everything it did between 1965 and 2015 - never happened. It simply isn't there, in this video. No tax cuts for the rich, no growing income inequality, no Crash, no bad wars (except Vietnam, which is mentioned because all the veterans got spit on when they wore their uniforms and for no other reason), no union-busting, none of it. The bad stuff the liberals clearly didn't do - such as import millions of low wage illegals to drive down wages, or trash the functioning of Congress - just sort of happened. Like the weather.

So when did the country go wrong, according to this genius? 1937, when the Supreme Court rewrote the Constitution to allow the New Deal.

And that's what kills his basic income idea - nothing in there about taxing rich people. Nothing about what happened to Congress or the news media. Nothing in there about the actual political environment, how any of this good stuff (that liberals and lefties have been arguing for fifty years) is going to happen. This guy loved the Tea Party? (never existed) He hadn't a clue about Trump's appeal? (the Republican voting base since 1980) He thinks Trump's rise was a hostile takeover of the Republican Party? By 63 million voters, the entire voting base of the Republican Party, doing exactly what they did when they voted for Reagan and W.

The funniest part was when he and Bloody Bill commiserated with each other over the Very Bad Thing that had suddenly happened to the Republican Party in 2016 - and how there wasn't a place for guys like them in it now. Meaning there was, up until 2016. Which is all you need to know about Charles Murray.

Amnesiac fool, is what he is.

 

[parmalee]

The recommendation stands: start with Guns, Germs, and Steel - it deals with that question directly, in the material aspects.
http://www.jareddiamond.org/Jared_Diamond/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel.html

Then a decent, even-handed history of the continent - or failing that, any region of the continent, even any major city of any region of the continent.

I would add Stephen Jay Gould's Mismeasure of Man (1996 edition) to your recommendations, as well.

 

[David Mendlesohn]

And right about here the audience starts to lose patience.

What the fuck is wrong with the racial bigots of the US? Where does this butt ugly moronic bs even come from in the goddam 21st century in a Western society boasting basic literacy as a norm?
OK, short version:
1} Read Guns, Germs, and Steel. Then read a standard history of the colonization of Africa, beginning with the removal of tens of millions of its population, disproportionately from the healthiest and most productive of the young adults, to be sold as slaves.
Tens of millions from a fairly lightly populated continent, with agricultural and pastoral food supplies almost totally dependent on human labor.
Followed by violent, extreme colonial oppression and exploitation of pressed labor, at gunpoint, in Africa itself.

Really rude opening. Often gets a pass for one side. Moving past that, if GGaS is correct, why do we see the same pattern of Black failure after being exposed to Western technology? You know that Blacks captured the slaves and sold them right? They sold their best people? Evidence?

And wasn't the Ottoman slave trade more extensive and brutal? Are they to blame for Black failure also? Or is it just White people?

 

[David Mendlesohn]

I would add Stephen Jay Gould's Mismeasure of Man (1996 edition) to your recommendations, as well.

It's a bit dishonest to only mention Gould and Diamond. What about Rushton, Sesardic, Gottfredson, Jensen, Lynn etc.

If you really want to be partisan you could list Franz Boas, Jared Diamond, Alan Goodman, Steven Gould, Melville Herskovits, Max Horkheimer, Leon Kamin, Otto Klineberg, Richard Lewontin, Leonard Lieberman, Jonathan Marks, Barry Mehler, Ashley Montagu, Steven Rose, Edward Sapir, Robert Sussman, and Gene Weltfish. Any idea what they all have in common?

 

[David Mendlesohn]

Sure. Like in phrenology, palmistry, etc.

Or morphological taxonomy and phylogenetics. I'm sorry I assumed that because you called yourself "sciforums" it would be a science board. It appears to be a Marxist sophistry board, cunningly calling itself "scientific".

 

[parmalee]

If you really want to be partisan you could list Franz Boas, Jared Diamond, Alan Goodman, Steven Gould, Melville Herskovits, Max Horkheimer, Leon Kamin, Otto Klineberg, Richard Lewontin, Leonard Lieberman, Jonathan Marks, Barry Mehler, Ashley Montagu, Steven Rose, Edward Sapir, Robert Sussman, and Gene Weltfish. Any idea what they all have in common?

Near universal respect amongst their academic peers--anthropologists, sociologists, biologists, geneticists and the like?

 

[David Mendlesohn]

Near universal respect amongst their academic peers--anthropologists, sociologists, biologists, geneticists and the like?

Universal respect among each other perhaps.

 

[exchemist]

It's a bit dishonest to only mention Gould and Diamond. What about Rushton, Sesardic, Gottfredson, Jensen, Lynn etc.

If you really want to be partisan you could list Franz Boas, Jared Diamond, Alan Goodman, Steven Gould, Melville Herskovits, Max Horkheimer, Leon Kamin, Otto Klineberg, Richard Lewontin, Leonard Lieberman, Jonathan Marks, Barry Mehler, Ashley Montagu, Steven Rose, Edward Sapir, Robert Sussman, and Gene Weltfish. Any idea what they all have in common?

Something in common with yourself, perhaps - or at least with your on-line persona?

 

[David Mendlesohn]

Something in common with yourself, perhaps - or at least with your on-line persona?

Nothwithstanding the fact that I've no idea what you're talking about, this is just a brazen personal response. So much for science.

 

[exchemist]

Nothwithstanding the fact that I've no idea what you're talking about, this is just a brazen personal response. So much for science.

Look mate, you asked a question, right? And I have tried to guess the answer. If you don't want people to try answering your questions, then don't ask them!

 

[iceaura]

Really rude opening.

We can smell you coming around a corner. Think of it as "hello".

Moving past that, if GGaS is correct, why do we see the same pattern of Black failure after being exposed to Western technology?

Is that what you call it - "exposed to Western technology"?
I've heard euphemistic phrases before, but that one's maybe the most beautifully turned I've ever read.

Just out of curiosity: in what exactly did black failure consist before being "exposed to Western technology"? Was it failure to colonize Antarctica, alone among the continents and major islands and thousand mile ocean expanses of the planet?

You know that Blacks captured the slaves and sold them right? They sold their best people? Evidence?

Who is this "they" whereof you speak? The "they" of "their best people"? It's not adding up.

But let's assume against all odds you are making sense somehow, and (say) the slave catchers were selling their families and fellow tribesmen and so forth. Then no one would be surprised to find that the kinds of people who become slave catchers for money were not the best people of their tribes or their families, and the slaves they were selling were - better price for the good stuff, get rid of the elites, win win no?

Look at that kind of action today - whenever the scum and dregs get together and revamp their culture, they target their best people (and keep their possessions, no small incentive). Take for example maybe Poland, Germany, etc, in WWII. Their only loss was that - with the international slave trade closed for the time being - they couldn't sell them.

Any idea what they all have in common?

Right or wrong, the ones I'm familiar with in that list know what they're talking about.

Which anyone who thinks anything in this thread is Marxist, or sophistry - either one - does not.

And wasn't the Ottoman slave trade more extensive and brutal?

Nope.

 

[parmalee]

Something in common with yourself, perhaps - or at least with your on-line persona?

And here I was mistaking him for the producer of many of the finests Peanuts animated films of the 60's and 70's; however, that was Lee Mendelson. For whom, incidentally, Peter Blegvad drew backgrounds--the same Peter Blegvad who was ousted from Henry Cow by Tim Hodgkinson for not writing lyrics that were sufficiently Horkheimerian. Blegvad wrotes something along the lines of a woman throwing grapes at a pile of bones. Small world.

 

[David Mendlesohn]

We can smell you coming around a corner. Think of it as "hello".

Is that what you call it - "exposed to Western technology"?
I've heard euphemistic phrases before, but that one's maybe the most beautifully turned I've ever read.

Just out of curiosity: in what exactly did black failure consist before being "exposed to Western technology"? Was it failure to colonize Antarctica, alone among the continents and major islands and thousand mile ocean expanses of the planet?

Who is this "they" whereof you speak? The "they" of "their best people"? It's not adding up.

But let's assume against all odds you are making sense somehow, and (say) the slave catchers were selling their families and fellow tribesmen and so forth. Then no one would be surprised to find that the kinds of people who become slave catchers for money were not the best people of their tribes or their families, and the slaves they were selling were - better price for the good stuff, get rid of the elites, win win no?

Look at that kind of action today - whenever the scum and dregs get together and revamp their culture, they target their best people (and keep their possessions, no small incentive). Take for example maybe Poland, Germany, etc, in WWII. Their only loss was that - with the international slave trade closed for the time being - they couldn't sell them.

Right or wrong, the ones I'm familiar with in that list know what they're talking about.

Which anyone who thinks anything in this thread is Marxist, or sophistry - either one - does not.

Nope.

Could you provide any evidence for any of the speculation you are writing?

 

[iceaura]

Could you provide any evidence for any of the speculation you are writing?

Could you provide a clue as to what in that post was "speculation" ?

- aside from the speculation that you were making sense when you wrote "their own people", which I admit I have no evidence for whatsoever.

 

[David Mendlesohn]

Could you provide a clue as to what in that post was "speculation" ?

- aside from the speculation that you were making sense when you wrote "their own people", which I admit I have no evidence for whatsoever.

You claimed native African slavers sold their elites. On the face of it that sounds absolutely ridiculous. Was it not speculation or do you have any evidence? Also you flatly contradicted the brutality of the Ottoman slave trade. Was that just a knee jerk response or can you back it up somehow?

I don't understand what you are going on about when you fail to understand "they sold their best people?".

 

[billvon]

You claimed native African slavers sold their elites. On the face of it that sounds absolutely ridiculous. Was it not speculation or do you have any evidence?

Your own words - "You know that Blacks captured the slaves and sold them right? They sold their best people?"

 

[David Mendlesohn]

Your own words - "You know that Blacks captured the slaves and sold them right? They sold their best people?"

You don't understand that? How odd. Seems like perfectly clear English to me.

 

[billvon]

You don't understand that? How odd. Seems like perfectly clear English to me,

OK. Then why do you claim it is ridiculous?

 

[David Mendlesohn]

Is that what you call it - "exposed to Western technology"?
I've heard euphemistic phrases before, but that one's maybe the most beautifully turned I've ever read.

Just out of curiosity: in what exactly did black failure consist before being "exposed to Western technology"? Was it failure to colonize Antarctica, alone among the continents and major islands and thousand mile ocean expanses of the planet?

You're missing the point. According to GGaS Africans never developed technology due to geographical factors enabling technology spread. They've now been exposed to this technology. Why do they still fail?

 

[iceaura]

You're missing the point. According to GGaS Africans never developed technology due to geographical factors enabling technology spread. They've now been exposed to this technology. Why do they still fail?

Gotta love that language: "Exposed to this technology".

Same answer as before: read, learn, Diamond is a good place to start.

And still waiting for the answer to this:

Just out of curiosity: in what exactly did black failure consist before being "exposed to Western technology"? Was it failure to colonize Antarctica, alone among the continents and major islands and thousand mile ocean expanses of the planet?