Well said. Hanania has some head-scratching takes lately. It appears to me that he 1) likes to be contrarian, 2) is overcompensating for his previous 'avowed racism' as a young man, 3) doesn't like to be associated with low-IQ Trumpists, 4) is true believer in science, technology, freedom and free markets as the highest good. Anatoly Karlin has a similar trajectory.
It's so odd because he clearly embraces a 'realist' view of race and IQ that already amounts to thoughtcrime, as seen in his conversation with Amy Wax and elsewhere
When he dropped his immigration piece, I wrote a fictional article basically arguing that Hanania was just playing politics. A reader then responded with an excerpt from an email sent to Unz during the Floyd riots saying “I was a fool to believe there was anything to American culture other than the sado-masochistic relationship between whites and blacks”. I suspect Hanania wrote the original email to Unz, and has basically concluded that the only hope of a non-masochistic America with livable urban centers emerging - is one with immigrants who can honestly face the Black question.
It's not like black people disappear when Mexicans show up. Even if they move, they move somewhere, and then they are still a problem.
Hispanics probably aren't going to ride to the rescue versus blacks. They will for the most part join the Democratic Party, which is what happened in his home state of California. Even recent inroads amongst Hispanics by the GOP have been due to both:
1) It's anti-immigration stance, which helps rather then hurts it with Hispanics
2) It's Trumpificaiton, becoming the kind of party that mid 90s IQ Hispanic might want to be a part of.
Hanania could rescue himself if he would just give up on immigration. That's what really freaks people out. In a country that is 87% white and 13% black, there is a functional limit to how bad black dysfunction can get. We go through phases and then the silent majority strikes back. Soft realism works imperfectly but enough. There are like ten competent people for everyone one dysfunctional affirmative action hire.
The worry is that in a country that is majority non-white, there is no limit to the dysfunction. That's what happened in Hanania's state of California in a generation. Either you get one party rule by DEMs, or you get a competitive GOP that does so by becoming more Trumpy (more like a Latin Am conservative party).
But Hanania is really committed to immigration on aesthetic grounds (and possibly on "this is how I prove I'm not white surpremecist anymore grounds"). So even though current immigration policy polls 80% disapprove, is unpopular with all races and parties, and anti-immigration is actually helping the right across the political spectrum, Hanania just can't give on this point. HBD is very embarrassing for his immigration stance, which is why he wants people to shut up about it.
HBD doesn't have to be automatically anti-black. The Bantu-majority colonies of Africa, when they were shamed away from being resource-extraction slave states like Leopold II's Congo, were significantly better places to live on average than they are now. An Africa that was friendly and accepting of whites, that imported them and gave them money and citizenship for high-Q positions as opposed to the incompetent, nepotistic kleptocrats of today, would bring about a continental golden age the likes of which has ne'er been seen before, especially since they'd have access to significantly improved technology, including -- God willing -- mRNA HIV vacvines.
It would also do a lot to help with our own problems of surplus elites. The high-Q autists who've given up on life for the sake of porn and videogames would be of great use as civil servants and such, whom actually care about doing their jobs properly as opposed to just stealing everything they can manage. They could even find themselves wives and mistresses and families, whom are much more satisfying than porn and videogames, and whom would further help to raise the average national IQs without needing to resort to genetic engineering, which realistically is still a long ways away from helping to meaningfully raise average intelligence.
We could've done something like this in the decolonization era had we been accepting of HBD from the beginning rather than too ashamed to even acknowledge it at all. The void of meaning was filled by revolutionary-socialism and African chauvinism, which led to the death and enslavement of countless millions.
Interesting idea… Send America's unwanted, high ability white boys to Africa to find their way and make a family.
I actually believe China is doing something similar.
In regard to HBD analysis in Africa; I wish we were allowed to do more research because there is a lot to be gained.
My understanding is that Africa has more genetic diversity than other parts of the world (which would make sense if its the original ancestral homeland). Thus, if you really wanted to make informed and judicious HBD assumptions regarding behavioral genetics of a black skin individual, you would have to understand which of the 6 major ancestral lineages that person comes from.
Black skin is sort of like brown hair...an aesthetic trait that doesnt provide enough information to determine ancestry.
If we did such analysis, I think we would find that each of these black skin lineages has their own behavioral genetic trends. This could really help the lay person understand why, (despite blacks having lower group averaged in cognitive abilities) there are many high ability people with black skin. Those people are the outliers or perhaps the people from one of the African lineages with more g loaded selection history.
Another idea for HBD progress in Africa could be cognitive aptitude tests designed specifically for those populations. An IQ researcher on Aporia (who put it well when he said that there may be something about the African environment that fosters a type of abstraction of reality that just doesn't translate to Western IQ test performance. One could design an aptitude test with problems that DO apply to African cognitive processing.
Obviously, you wouldnt be able to translate those scores into Western rankings....but at least you would have an aptitude ranking within that group and you could begin to understand more about cognitive differences both inside and outside the population. (maybe his would apply to other lineages around the world too). You could make a test for each ancestral lineage that works for them, then worry later about cross comparing the different groups. This would preclude the whole “we have get rid of the SAT because its Euro biased)
So...I wanted to agree with you that I think Africa could be well served by HBD research. (... I actually think we WILL see it happen, but it will come from Asian researchers, not Western researchers due to Asians not having the shackles of white guilt and modern identity politics.
I would love to hear some of your ideas on the matter.
Most people are incapable of taking facts (whether actual or believed) to their logical conclusions. See the many Christians who’ve convinced themselves that the unambiguously anti-gay God of the Bible, is actually entirely fine with gay marriage. A Hananist analysis would conclude that, as such, the Bible’s position on gays is irrelevant to gay acceptance.
Of course, what actually happened is that the small percentage of people who are capable of hearing facts and acting on them, were convinced by Darwinian evolution etc, that the Christianity was fake. These then dropped the corresponding taboo on homosexuality and moved society along with them; whether it wanted to or not. To the extent that such a taboo might return, it’ll be because of specific facts on rates on hiv transmission or gay support for transgender ideology, that might remove sympathy for gays (not, whatever paul said).
The point of speaking about race differences is to unleash a similar energy. Social conformity and propaganda will do the rest once the power of truth has fueled the small percentage of the population that’s capable of taking it seriously.
"the small percentage of people who are capable of hearing facts and acting on them"....You could almost say that a higher education in the humanities and social sciences has become a case of learning how to articulate the most currently fashionable beliefs whilst insulating your natural faculties from the intrusion of any common sensical refutation of their inherent absurdities. "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep." (Saul Bellow)
By the way, what is a "Hananist"? Is it some kind of groupie?
> Of course, what actually happened is that the small percentage of people who are capable of hearing facts and acting on them, were convinced by Darwinian evolution etc, that the Christianity was fake. These then dropped the corresponding taboo on homosexuality and moved society along with them; whether it wanted to or not.
Of course, taking Darwinian evolution seriously also leads to an anti-gay stance, as well as an anti-egalitarian stance more generally, which did happen during the first half of the 20th century.
It only became unfashionable again as part of the anti-Nazi backlash.
There are many possible roads to travel while accepting evolution and HBD. Not everyone has to live their lives in the most scientifically-optimized manner. Man does not live purely on material terms.
I wouldn't exactly call him mediocre. He seems to alternate important takes, with absolutely stupid ones. I have no idea by what principle he does this, but that's not quite the same thing as being mediocre.
I find it best to accept that there are no high-Q cobtrarians you're ever gonna agree with 100% of the time. Richard is nonetheless a thoughful and important modern pundit who's committed to actually helping make the world a better place even if that means supporting genuinely unpopular positions, and is mostly fighting on the right side, as opposed to a hack like Peterson or Vance or Ahmari, whom have long since abandoned any such principles they may have had out of greed, cowardice, resentment, and a desperate desire to maintain popularity among chuds and retards.
There's always the chance he'll disappoint, but I'm happy to be on his side as long as he shows he's still got a set. Even if I don't always agree with his takes.
He got lucky his plagiarization of "Crisis of the Two Constitutions" got viral before people noticed the plagiarization itself. Since then, its momentum.
"Despite diligent efforts to equalize races in the West, stubborn disparities remain. The best explanation for the apparent intransigence of these disparities is that they are caused by underlying differences in traits, e.g., cognitive ability, whose origin is partially and possibly substantially genetic. Therefore, racial inequality is inevitable in any tolerably free society."
Those are great opening points. However, racial differences in human traits involve much more than cognitive ability.
"And it's hard to imagine that race and IQ is unimportant here.
To this point, it’s notable that progressives are terrified of race realism, which they condemn with the moral fury of a Savonarola denouncing Satan. Race realism is the enemy that must be defeated. And the reason it must be defeated is not because it is a false scientific hypothesis, but because it is an existential threat to racial egalitarianism."
Indeed, their dogmatism is destroyed.
"Affirmative action has eroded meritocratic norms, rewarding undeserving blacks and Hispanics with coveted college positions and degrees, leading ultimately to enormous disparities in talent and ability in a variety of professions, including those entrusted with life and death decisions (e.g., medicine)."
Equality will destroy our civilization, meritocracy will drive the ascent of humanity.
The reason Hanania thinks that people who speak about race and IQ are motivated by hatred of other races is probably introspection. Not that long ago he himself spoke a lot about race and IQ , and he’s clearly someone with mental issues .
Many of the people who speak about race and IQ --are-- motivated by hatred of other races. Building a broader coalition of HBD advocates of whom chuds are an insignificant minority will be a generational project, at least as much work as building up the gay-rights movement was during the AIDS crisis.
I have been teaching foreigners English for the past 30 years, working in Macedonia, Poland, Spain and Japan and I don't find foreigners at all ikky. Despite this I think mass immigration is a terrible idea, especially from low IQ countries. It's a disaster from a social-cultural perspective and I'm not even convinced it's good for the economy, despite what Bryan Caplan says.
I think Hanania’s arguments can be summarized as (1) values (not facts) drive beliefs and political engagement and (2) if conservatives want to fight against political trends they don’t like (eg wokeness), they won’t succeed by talking about facts but rather by reframing the discussion and proposing alternative narratives. In other words his message is targeted at political operatives, not intellectuals.
Correct, but Hanania has a weird love/hate relationship with the power of elites.
His ideal would be a state in which only the elites had political power and those elites shared his ideals.
But there really isn't any kind of plan for getting there. And many of the things that Hanania advocates, like Open Borders, tend to select for bad elites and give them fewer positive options for governance.
I have known about the disparity for years and mention it as little as possible, mostly from politeness. However, whenever some action is proposed on the basis of the belief that the disparities "must be the result of schools/neighborhoods/hidden racism of bosses/books in the home/stereotype threat/vocabulary addressed to children/whatever" I feel it is appropriate to speak up and say "No don't throw my money after such programs. It won't work and it will slowly make things worse." Reality is what is still there after you have wished something else were true.
So much of this is the disinterest/refusal of mostly intelligent people to look at the work that has been done for decades, often by people who desperately wanted something else to be true. The average news follower who uses their political beliefs for social signalling will claim, after the discussion has proceeded for a few minutes and they don't want to hear any more, that all those researchers must not have just looked under the sofa cushions or something. Because these facts just can't be true. It's racist to say they are true, because they can't be true.
Until I was 50 I was completely unaware of racial differences and it took me several months to process this new information. I think if you wait until 'some action is proposed on the basis of the belief that the disparities' are due to racism before stating your opposing belief it is often too late. Laying the groundwork first strikes me as a better, if less polite, way forward.
Most people --are-- unaware. None of the books in the HBD canon are popular reads. Hillbilly Elegy and A Troublesome Inheritance were released in the same year, and the former is orders of magnitude more popular than the latter even though Vance has spent most of the subsequent decades embarrassing himself for the sake of gaining as much popularity among the Retardlicans as possible. It worked so well, he's now a senator.
Amusing to see Hanania accuse others of aesthetic-based preferences when his most recent takes are so transparently motivated by a desire to distance himself from what he sees as lumpenproletariat right wingers.
I recently told someone that I changed my views on race after reading John Derbyshire's 'The Talk' article in 2012. I said that until then I hadn't known anything about the prevalence of black crime or of low black IQ. But his piece and the studies he linked to looked persuasive and so I was persuaded. The lady immediately asked me, 'But what was the REAL reason for changing your mind? I'm mean, what was the internal, emotional motivation for you wanting to believe this new information?' which I took to mean, 'You probably always were a damned racist and went looking for a reason to justify your racism'.
I may be fooling myself but that really isn't how it looks to me. That are many things I'd like to believe: that God exists and has a plan for us all and punishes the sinful in hell while the virtuous go to heaven; that white people are the highest IQ group on earth; that tall people aren't on average slightly more intelligent than short people (I'm short). Unfortunately I can't believe any of these things and when the lady talks about how people have emotional needs that they seek to satisfy by taking on an appropriate belief system, I can't help thinking she is talking about herself and people like her.
Showing that individual success (as measured by income, wealth, education, etc) is heritable completely undermines the egalitarian argument. By ignoring race, you are actually increasing the power of the claim and giving no "But you are a racist" out for the Left to avoid discussion.
This article is a far more powerful means to undermine the equalitarian fantasy:
They do so because they know that it is to their advantage to do so.
Never let your ideological opponent define the terms of debate. Once you start talking about groups, you are on the defensive. That is why you need to focus on individuals. Then their entire worldview collapses because they have few counter-arguments.
Wish I could stop reading about the midwit Hanania as some sort of intellectual heavy weight.
The marketplace of ideas is myth, so is the notion of free markets. Rather than being terrified of ad hominem accusations, one ought to embrace it. Attack the man and his benefactors. Hanania didn't appear out if nowhere.
Hanania could rescue himself if he would just give up on immigration. That's what really freaks people out. In a country that is 87% white and 13% black, there is a functional limit to how bad black dysfunction can get. We go through phases and then the silent majority strikes back. Soft realism works imperfectly but enough. There are like ten competent people for everyone one dysfunctional affirmative action hire.
The worry is that in a country that is majority non-white, there is no limit to the dysfunction. That's what happened in Hanania's state of California in a generation. Either you get one party rule by DEMs, or you get a competitive GOP that does so by becoming more Trumpy (more like a Latin Am conservative party).
But Hanania is really committed to immigration on aesthetic grounds (and possibly on "this is how I prove I'm not white surpremecist anymore grounds"). So even though current immigration policy polls 80% disapprove, is unpopular with all races and parties, and anti-immigration is actually helping the right across the political spectrum, Hanania just can't give on this point. HBD is very embarrassing for his immigration stance, which is why he wants people to shut up about it.
Imagine what that means for colleges and employers.
What we are seeing is simple discrimination against the new ethnic minority (whites) and any narrative that favors whites (like heritability of IQ) will be shot down and any narrative that favors the new, accendant POC majority will be celebrated.
I challenge you to take any current social issues that is discussed in this world and explain how it's NOT simply a vessel of wealth redistribution from the new minority to the new majority.
The average person doesn't care about critical race theory or behavioral genetics...they just intuit which side is stronger and follow them.
The census is heavily flawed. Most Hispanics are either white or mestizo, and black in the US is a hopelessly broad category that mixes in people who are mostly of European ancestry, like Slash and Tyler Austin Harper, with full-blooded Bantus, and they're only getting whiter with each subsequent generation with the decline in taboos on interracial marriage. America will still be a majority-white country by objective, scientific standards.
The broader concern is that anti-white racism, while it won't lead to an outright genocide of whites in the US, absolutely has led to fanatical anti-intellectualism, an inculcared self-hatred in the majority of our population, and will inculcate a long-term societal corrosion that, left unchecked, will lead to the collapse of the Republic.
Hmm...I agree the census is flawed. Yes, the categories are overly broad...and in a discussion about demographic trends and thier effect on the zietgiest shouuld use more phylogenetic categories like "ancestral lineage"
But I disagree that the country will continue be majority "European ancestral lineages" and their behavioral genetics.
Some people have said more mixed people will mean more people choosing to identify as white...but I actually think that effect will be reversed...and mixed folks will not want to identify as white (because whites will be the politically weaker group)
Considering that people will likely reduce into two groups (white and non-white)...I think the country is already majority non-white...because the under age 25 cohort is majority non white and they are the voters and consumers of the future. This explains the woke phenomenon...it's the new majorities narrative taking precedent.
But...we agree that the danger is anti-white racism...it's just that I see this as racism against the new minority (which is much more consistent with humans historixal treatment of minorities
<…I would replace the polemical language “just think foreigners and other races are icky” with something less tendentious such as “have a preference for homogeneity and slow cultural change.”>
People do generally prefer their own kind. Yes, sometimes that means they find other races “icky”, just like we sometimes find others within our own race “icky” and avoid them. Hanania is just being PC in this regard. As someone who says he leans in a libertarian direction, it’s ironic that he appears to think that the entire world owns the streets, roads, etc. of the US and may enter as they please. The libertarian view is that the natives have de jure ownership over these state-owned properties, which would be completely privately owned in a libertarian society. In a libertarian society, immigrants would need to be invited in. Therefore, if the natives prefer a homogeneous society, they can vote to signal this preference to their leaders, who hold their property in trust.
I think that we'll find all these problems have been confronted and addressed by our ancestors. Tradition represents the best solution to these problems that a society faces.
In addition to have been empirically tested, Tradition have the advantage of obfuscating the overall agenda so that people can participate without full understanding of what they are doing.
The more I learn about sociobiology...the more I am convinced that return to Tradition living (that somehow incorporates modern technology) is the answer.
Well said. Hanania has some head-scratching takes lately. It appears to me that he 1) likes to be contrarian, 2) is overcompensating for his previous 'avowed racism' as a young man, 3) doesn't like to be associated with low-IQ Trumpists, 4) is true believer in science, technology, freedom and free markets as the highest good. Anatoly Karlin has a similar trajectory.
It's so odd because he clearly embraces a 'realist' view of race and IQ that already amounts to thoughtcrime, as seen in his conversation with Amy Wax and elsewhere
https://www.richardhanania.com/p/amy-wax-versus-the-midwit-gynocrats
What exactly is his strategy for countering the "disparate outcomes prove racism" dogma?? I can't really tell.
When he dropped his immigration piece, I wrote a fictional article basically arguing that Hanania was just playing politics. A reader then responded with an excerpt from an email sent to Unz during the Floyd riots saying “I was a fool to believe there was anything to American culture other than the sado-masochistic relationship between whites and blacks”. I suspect Hanania wrote the original email to Unz, and has basically concluded that the only hope of a non-masochistic America with livable urban centers emerging - is one with immigrants who can honestly face the Black question.
It's not like black people disappear when Mexicans show up. Even if they move, they move somewhere, and then they are still a problem.
Hispanics probably aren't going to ride to the rescue versus blacks. They will for the most part join the Democratic Party, which is what happened in his home state of California. Even recent inroads amongst Hispanics by the GOP have been due to both:
1) It's anti-immigration stance, which helps rather then hurts it with Hispanics
2) It's Trumpificaiton, becoming the kind of party that mid 90s IQ Hispanic might want to be a part of.
> It's not like black people disappear when Mexicans show up. Even if they move, they move somewhere, and then they are still a problem.
That problem has historically been handled in various ways resulting in rather different outcomes.
Hanania could rescue himself if he would just give up on immigration. That's what really freaks people out. In a country that is 87% white and 13% black, there is a functional limit to how bad black dysfunction can get. We go through phases and then the silent majority strikes back. Soft realism works imperfectly but enough. There are like ten competent people for everyone one dysfunctional affirmative action hire.
The worry is that in a country that is majority non-white, there is no limit to the dysfunction. That's what happened in Hanania's state of California in a generation. Either you get one party rule by DEMs, or you get a competitive GOP that does so by becoming more Trumpy (more like a Latin Am conservative party).
But Hanania is really committed to immigration on aesthetic grounds (and possibly on "this is how I prove I'm not white surpremecist anymore grounds"). So even though current immigration policy polls 80% disapprove, is unpopular with all races and parties, and anti-immigration is actually helping the right across the political spectrum, Hanania just can't give on this point. HBD is very embarrassing for his immigration stance, which is why he wants people to shut up about it.
HBD doesn't have to be automatically anti-black. The Bantu-majority colonies of Africa, when they were shamed away from being resource-extraction slave states like Leopold II's Congo, were significantly better places to live on average than they are now. An Africa that was friendly and accepting of whites, that imported them and gave them money and citizenship for high-Q positions as opposed to the incompetent, nepotistic kleptocrats of today, would bring about a continental golden age the likes of which has ne'er been seen before, especially since they'd have access to significantly improved technology, including -- God willing -- mRNA HIV vacvines.
It would also do a lot to help with our own problems of surplus elites. The high-Q autists who've given up on life for the sake of porn and videogames would be of great use as civil servants and such, whom actually care about doing their jobs properly as opposed to just stealing everything they can manage. They could even find themselves wives and mistresses and families, whom are much more satisfying than porn and videogames, and whom would further help to raise the average national IQs without needing to resort to genetic engineering, which realistically is still a long ways away from helping to meaningfully raise average intelligence.
We could've done something like this in the decolonization era had we been accepting of HBD from the beginning rather than too ashamed to even acknowledge it at all. The void of meaning was filled by revolutionary-socialism and African chauvinism, which led to the death and enslavement of countless millions.
Interesting idea… Send America's unwanted, high ability white boys to Africa to find their way and make a family.
I actually believe China is doing something similar.
In regard to HBD analysis in Africa; I wish we were allowed to do more research because there is a lot to be gained.
My understanding is that Africa has more genetic diversity than other parts of the world (which would make sense if its the original ancestral homeland). Thus, if you really wanted to make informed and judicious HBD assumptions regarding behavioral genetics of a black skin individual, you would have to understand which of the 6 major ancestral lineages that person comes from.
Black skin is sort of like brown hair...an aesthetic trait that doesnt provide enough information to determine ancestry.
If we did such analysis, I think we would find that each of these black skin lineages has their own behavioral genetic trends. This could really help the lay person understand why, (despite blacks having lower group averaged in cognitive abilities) there are many high ability people with black skin. Those people are the outliers or perhaps the people from one of the African lineages with more g loaded selection history.
Another idea for HBD progress in Africa could be cognitive aptitude tests designed specifically for those populations. An IQ researcher on Aporia (who put it well when he said that there may be something about the African environment that fosters a type of abstraction of reality that just doesn't translate to Western IQ test performance. One could design an aptitude test with problems that DO apply to African cognitive processing.
Obviously, you wouldnt be able to translate those scores into Western rankings....but at least you would have an aptitude ranking within that group and you could begin to understand more about cognitive differences both inside and outside the population. (maybe his would apply to other lineages around the world too). You could make a test for each ancestral lineage that works for them, then worry later about cross comparing the different groups. This would preclude the whole “we have get rid of the SAT because its Euro biased)
So...I wanted to agree with you that I think Africa could be well served by HBD research. (... I actually think we WILL see it happen, but it will come from Asian researchers, not Western researchers due to Asians not having the shackles of white guilt and modern identity politics.
I would love to hear some of your ideas on the matter.
Facts unleash victors
Most people are incapable of taking facts (whether actual or believed) to their logical conclusions. See the many Christians who’ve convinced themselves that the unambiguously anti-gay God of the Bible, is actually entirely fine with gay marriage. A Hananist analysis would conclude that, as such, the Bible’s position on gays is irrelevant to gay acceptance.
Of course, what actually happened is that the small percentage of people who are capable of hearing facts and acting on them, were convinced by Darwinian evolution etc, that the Christianity was fake. These then dropped the corresponding taboo on homosexuality and moved society along with them; whether it wanted to or not. To the extent that such a taboo might return, it’ll be because of specific facts on rates on hiv transmission or gay support for transgender ideology, that might remove sympathy for gays (not, whatever paul said).
The point of speaking about race differences is to unleash a similar energy. Social conformity and propaganda will do the rest once the power of truth has fueled the small percentage of the population that’s capable of taking it seriously.
"the small percentage of people who are capable of hearing facts and acting on them"....You could almost say that a higher education in the humanities and social sciences has become a case of learning how to articulate the most currently fashionable beliefs whilst insulating your natural faculties from the intrusion of any common sensical refutation of their inherent absurdities. "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep." (Saul Bellow)
By the way, what is a "Hananist"? Is it some kind of groupie?
No, the groupies call themselves Hananiacs.
> Of course, what actually happened is that the small percentage of people who are capable of hearing facts and acting on them, were convinced by Darwinian evolution etc, that the Christianity was fake. These then dropped the corresponding taboo on homosexuality and moved society along with them; whether it wanted to or not.
Of course, taking Darwinian evolution seriously also leads to an anti-gay stance, as well as an anti-egalitarian stance more generally, which did happen during the first half of the 20th century.
It only became unfashionable again as part of the anti-Nazi backlash.
There are many possible roads to travel while accepting evolution and HBD. Not everyone has to live their lives in the most scientifically-optimized manner. Man does not live purely on material terms.
Dope writing.
Why can't I get away from Richard Hanania?....he seems a mediocre thinker but his takes are constantly showing up in my Twitter feed
I wouldn't exactly call him mediocre. He seems to alternate important takes, with absolutely stupid ones. I have no idea by what principle he does this, but that's not quite the same thing as being mediocre.
Yeah...I agree that he seems to be trolling and flip floppy sometimes.
I think some of these people are gaming the algorithm and posting stuff they know will get interaction
I find it best to accept that there are no high-Q cobtrarians you're ever gonna agree with 100% of the time. Richard is nonetheless a thoughful and important modern pundit who's committed to actually helping make the world a better place even if that means supporting genuinely unpopular positions, and is mostly fighting on the right side, as opposed to a hack like Peterson or Vance or Ahmari, whom have long since abandoned any such principles they may have had out of greed, cowardice, resentment, and a desperate desire to maintain popularity among chuds and retards.
There's always the chance he'll disappoint, but I'm happy to be on his side as long as he shows he's still got a set. Even if I don't always agree with his takes.
Hanania's writings are distasteful to me. I am not a fan.
Hanania blocked me from commenting on his blog. Apparently, he doesn't like being called out on his stupid positions. LOL
It's a loss to him, not me.
He got lucky his plagiarization of "Crisis of the Two Constitutions" got viral before people noticed the plagiarization itself. Since then, its momentum.
This is his primary source of income and getting ratioed drives clicks and subs.
"Despite diligent efforts to equalize races in the West, stubborn disparities remain. The best explanation for the apparent intransigence of these disparities is that they are caused by underlying differences in traits, e.g., cognitive ability, whose origin is partially and possibly substantially genetic. Therefore, racial inequality is inevitable in any tolerably free society."
Those are great opening points. However, racial differences in human traits involve much more than cognitive ability.
"And it's hard to imagine that race and IQ is unimportant here.
To this point, it’s notable that progressives are terrified of race realism, which they condemn with the moral fury of a Savonarola denouncing Satan. Race realism is the enemy that must be defeated. And the reason it must be defeated is not because it is a false scientific hypothesis, but because it is an existential threat to racial egalitarianism."
Indeed, their dogmatism is destroyed.
"Affirmative action has eroded meritocratic norms, rewarding undeserving blacks and Hispanics with coveted college positions and degrees, leading ultimately to enormous disparities in talent and ability in a variety of professions, including those entrusted with life and death decisions (e.g., medicine)."
Equality will destroy our civilization, meritocracy will drive the ascent of humanity.
Bo, thanks for another excellent article.
The reason Hanania thinks that people who speak about race and IQ are motivated by hatred of other races is probably introspection. Not that long ago he himself spoke a lot about race and IQ , and he’s clearly someone with mental issues .
Many of the people who speak about race and IQ --are-- motivated by hatred of other races. Building a broader coalition of HBD advocates of whom chuds are an insignificant minority will be a generational project, at least as much work as building up the gay-rights movement was during the AIDS crisis.
I have been teaching foreigners English for the past 30 years, working in Macedonia, Poland, Spain and Japan and I don't find foreigners at all ikky. Despite this I think mass immigration is a terrible idea, especially from low IQ countries. It's a disaster from a social-cultural perspective and I'm not even convinced it's good for the economy, despite what Bryan Caplan says.
I think Hanania’s arguments can be summarized as (1) values (not facts) drive beliefs and political engagement and (2) if conservatives want to fight against political trends they don’t like (eg wokeness), they won’t succeed by talking about facts but rather by reframing the discussion and proposing alternative narratives. In other words his message is targeted at political operatives, not intellectuals.
Correct, but Hanania has a weird love/hate relationship with the power of elites.
His ideal would be a state in which only the elites had political power and those elites shared his ideals.
But there really isn't any kind of plan for getting there. And many of the things that Hanania advocates, like Open Borders, tend to select for bad elites and give them fewer positive options for governance.
I have known about the disparity for years and mention it as little as possible, mostly from politeness. However, whenever some action is proposed on the basis of the belief that the disparities "must be the result of schools/neighborhoods/hidden racism of bosses/books in the home/stereotype threat/vocabulary addressed to children/whatever" I feel it is appropriate to speak up and say "No don't throw my money after such programs. It won't work and it will slowly make things worse." Reality is what is still there after you have wished something else were true.
So much of this is the disinterest/refusal of mostly intelligent people to look at the work that has been done for decades, often by people who desperately wanted something else to be true. The average news follower who uses their political beliefs for social signalling will claim, after the discussion has proceeded for a few minutes and they don't want to hear any more, that all those researchers must not have just looked under the sofa cushions or something. Because these facts just can't be true. It's racist to say they are true, because they can't be true.
Until I was 50 I was completely unaware of racial differences and it took me several months to process this new information. I think if you wait until 'some action is proposed on the basis of the belief that the disparities' are due to racism before stating your opposing belief it is often too late. Laying the groundwork first strikes me as a better, if less polite, way forward.
Most people --are-- unaware. None of the books in the HBD canon are popular reads. Hillbilly Elegy and A Troublesome Inheritance were released in the same year, and the former is orders of magnitude more popular than the latter even though Vance has spent most of the subsequent decades embarrassing himself for the sake of gaining as much popularity among the Retardlicans as possible. It worked so well, he's now a senator.
Amusing to see Hanania accuse others of aesthetic-based preferences when his most recent takes are so transparently motivated by a desire to distance himself from what he sees as lumpenproletariat right wingers.
Great post.
I recently told someone that I changed my views on race after reading John Derbyshire's 'The Talk' article in 2012. I said that until then I hadn't known anything about the prevalence of black crime or of low black IQ. But his piece and the studies he linked to looked persuasive and so I was persuaded. The lady immediately asked me, 'But what was the REAL reason for changing your mind? I'm mean, what was the internal, emotional motivation for you wanting to believe this new information?' which I took to mean, 'You probably always were a damned racist and went looking for a reason to justify your racism'.
I may be fooling myself but that really isn't how it looks to me. That are many things I'd like to believe: that God exists and has a plan for us all and punishes the sinful in hell while the virtuous go to heaven; that white people are the highest IQ group on earth; that tall people aren't on average slightly more intelligent than short people (I'm short). Unfortunately I can't believe any of these things and when the lady talks about how people have emotional needs that they seek to satisfy by taking on an appropriate belief system, I can't help thinking she is talking about herself and people like her.
But why focus on race at all?
Showing that individual success (as measured by income, wealth, education, etc) is heritable completely undermines the egalitarian argument. By ignoring race, you are actually increasing the power of the claim and giving no "But you are a racist" out for the Left to avoid discussion.
This article is a far more powerful means to undermine the equalitarian fantasy:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/why-achieving-equality-is-an-impossible
And it is fully compatible with not being racist:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/why-race-cannot-explain-human-history
Because the left insists on constantly focusing on it.
They do so because they know that it is to their advantage to do so.
Never let your ideological opponent define the terms of debate. Once you start talking about groups, you are on the defensive. That is why you need to focus on individuals. Then their entire worldview collapses because they have few counter-arguments.
We tried ignoring it for decades, turns out failing to respond to one's opponents' attacks works even worse.
I am not saying to ignore it. I am saying that it makes no sense to focus on it if the goal is either to:
1) Understand human history and our current state of affairs (which is my goal)
2) Undermine the egalitarian argument (which is not my goal, but I think that it is necessary to achieve #1).
Even if the main goal is #2, focusing on race is an inherently weak method of doing so.
There are still huge amounts of inequality within races.
There's always gonna be inequality among everybody! You can't have liberty, fraternity, and equality all at once. You can only pick two.
I'm not clear how one can even have two.
Bit Coin
Wish I could stop reading about the midwit Hanania as some sort of intellectual heavy weight.
The marketplace of ideas is myth, so is the notion of free markets. Rather than being terrified of ad hominem accusations, one ought to embrace it. Attack the man and his benefactors. Hanania didn't appear out if nowhere.
Hanania could rescue himself if he would just give up on immigration. That's what really freaks people out. In a country that is 87% white and 13% black, there is a functional limit to how bad black dysfunction can get. We go through phases and then the silent majority strikes back. Soft realism works imperfectly but enough. There are like ten competent people for everyone one dysfunctional affirmative action hire.
The worry is that in a country that is majority non-white, there is no limit to the dysfunction. That's what happened in Hanania's state of California in a generation. Either you get one party rule by DEMs, or you get a competitive GOP that does so by becoming more Trumpy (more like a Latin Am conservative party).
But Hanania is really committed to immigration on aesthetic grounds (and possibly on "this is how I prove I'm not white surpremecist anymore grounds"). So even though current immigration policy polls 80% disapprove, is unpopular with all races and parties, and anti-immigration is actually helping the right across the political spectrum, Hanania just can't give on this point. HBD is very embarrassing for his immigration stance, which is why he wants people to shut up about it.
I think you can understand the phenomenon Bo is addressing in much simpler terms.
Did you know that US Census data clearly states that the US population under the age of 25 is majority non-white?
http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2020/demo/p25-1144.pdf
Imagine what that means for colleges and employers.
What we are seeing is simple discrimination against the new ethnic minority (whites) and any narrative that favors whites (like heritability of IQ) will be shot down and any narrative that favors the new, accendant POC majority will be celebrated.
I challenge you to take any current social issues that is discussed in this world and explain how it's NOT simply a vessel of wealth redistribution from the new minority to the new majority.
The average person doesn't care about critical race theory or behavioral genetics...they just intuit which side is stronger and follow them.
The census is heavily flawed. Most Hispanics are either white or mestizo, and black in the US is a hopelessly broad category that mixes in people who are mostly of European ancestry, like Slash and Tyler Austin Harper, with full-blooded Bantus, and they're only getting whiter with each subsequent generation with the decline in taboos on interracial marriage. America will still be a majority-white country by objective, scientific standards.
The broader concern is that anti-white racism, while it won't lead to an outright genocide of whites in the US, absolutely has led to fanatical anti-intellectualism, an inculcared self-hatred in the majority of our population, and will inculcate a long-term societal corrosion that, left unchecked, will lead to the collapse of the Republic.
Hmm...I agree the census is flawed. Yes, the categories are overly broad...and in a discussion about demographic trends and thier effect on the zietgiest shouuld use more phylogenetic categories like "ancestral lineage"
But I disagree that the country will continue be majority "European ancestral lineages" and their behavioral genetics.
Some people have said more mixed people will mean more people choosing to identify as white...but I actually think that effect will be reversed...and mixed folks will not want to identify as white (because whites will be the politically weaker group)
Considering that people will likely reduce into two groups (white and non-white)...I think the country is already majority non-white...because the under age 25 cohort is majority non white and they are the voters and consumers of the future. This explains the woke phenomenon...it's the new majorities narrative taking precedent.
But...we agree that the danger is anti-white racism...it's just that I see this as racism against the new minority (which is much more consistent with humans historixal treatment of minorities
<…I would replace the polemical language “just think foreigners and other races are icky” with something less tendentious such as “have a preference for homogeneity and slow cultural change.”>
People do generally prefer their own kind. Yes, sometimes that means they find other races “icky”, just like we sometimes find others within our own race “icky” and avoid them. Hanania is just being PC in this regard. As someone who says he leans in a libertarian direction, it’s ironic that he appears to think that the entire world owns the streets, roads, etc. of the US and may enter as they please. The libertarian view is that the natives have de jure ownership over these state-owned properties, which would be completely privately owned in a libertarian society. In a libertarian society, immigrants would need to be invited in. Therefore, if the natives prefer a homogeneous society, they can vote to signal this preference to their leaders, who hold their property in trust.
I think that we'll find all these problems have been confronted and addressed by our ancestors. Tradition represents the best solution to these problems that a society faces.
In addition to have been empirically tested, Tradition have the advantage of obfuscating the overall agenda so that people can participate without full understanding of what they are doing.
The more I learn about sociobiology...the more I am convinced that return to Tradition living (that somehow incorporates modern technology) is the answer.