Remove that blindfold: a metaphor for “equity”
[Hat tip: commenter “huxley”.]
It strikes me that this is a good metaphor for what’s been happening to the idea of justice at the hands of the campaign for “equity” [emphasis mine]:
For decades leading symphony orchestras have used “blind auditions” to hire musicians. That is, the musicians are not seen at all, only their music is heard. That way, implicit or explicit racial, ethnic, or gender bias cannot enter into the hiring decision, only the quality of the music. It is as close to a pure meritocracy as I can imagine…
But, that pure meritocracy has resulted in fewer Blacks and women on orchestras relative to the population as a whole. That result is not a product of bias, because the race or ethnicity or gender of the musicians were not known…
If the musicians onstage are going to better reflect the diversity of the communities they serve, the audition process has to be altered to take into fuller account artists’ backgrounds and experiences.
Removing the screen is a crucial step.
Blind auditions are based on an appealing premise of pure meritocracy: An orchestra should be built from the very best players, period. But ask anyone in the field, and you’ll learn that over the past century of increasingly professionalized training, there has come to be remarkably little difference between players at the top tier….
But if there really is “remarkably little difference” in the abilities of minority musicians who audition versus the other people who audition, then would one not expect more proportionate representation of minority musicians among those who are accepted in blind auditions (by the way, in the classical music world, “minority” includes women)? If this proportionate representation doesn’t happen as a result of blind auditions, might we not conclude that there actually could be a difference in quality that can be perceived by the ear of those doing the judging? I also wonder what percentage of auditioners are minorities, and whether that does or does not reflect their percentages in the general population. What if there just aren’t that many minority candidates auditioning in classical music? I haven’t seen anything that addresses that possibility, and it would seem to matter.
The original assumption of blind auditions was that prejudice in the judges had been causing the lower number of minorities to be selected, and so a screen would guarantee impartiality and eliminate the influence of bigotry. It seemed to make sense and was well-suited to music, which is an auditory art. But when it failed to sufficiently alter the situation, then another solution was recommended by some: a corrective had to be applied, which would begin with the screen being removed in order to make decisions that were not blind at all but favored the group.
I haven’t been able to locate a follow-up to indicate whether the proposal was instituted. But that’s not relevant to the main point I’m trying to make, which is that the story made me think of the blindfold on so many of the statues of Justice. We’ve taken it off, metaphorically speaking, in order to promote “equity.”
Take a look at the old image while you still can, before they pull it down like so many others:
Some background on the antiquity of the image:
The personification of justice balancing the scales dates back to the goddess Maat, and later Isis, of ancient Egypt. The Hellenic deities Themis and Dike were later goddesses of justice. Themis was the embodiment of divine order, law, and custom, in her aspect as the personification of the divine rightness of law…
Lady Justice is most often depicted with a set of scales typically suspended from one hand, upon which she measures the strengths of a case’s support and opposition…
The scales represent the weighing of evidence, and the scales lack a foundation in order to signify that evidence should stand on its own.
Since the 16th century, Lady Justice has often been depicted wearing a blindfold. The blindfold represents impartiality, the ideal that justice should be applied without regard to wealth, power, or other status. The earliest Roman coins depicted Justitia with the sword in one hand and the scale in the other, but with her eyes uncovered. Justitia was only commonly represented as “blind” since the middle of the 16th century.
The paradox of the “equity” promoters’ arguments is that justice should be applied equally, but if an outcome doesn’t favor a certain group then the blindfold on justice must be removed so that the group is favored. In that way, fairness is reached, because “fairness” has been redefined as a result that exactly reflects the proportion of certain groups in the general population.
But that metric is also differentially applied. No one has ever seriously suggested that the overwhelmingly black proportion of NBA players would need correcting. It is understood that the NBA is a meritocracy and that is allowed to let stand, and that is actually as it should be.
It’s the old equality of opportunity versus equality of outcome argument. Thomas Sowell wrote the definitive work on that quite some time ago, but Sowell’s out of fashion except for among us troglodytes on the right.
Perhaps Symphony Orchestras need Federally-mandated Rhythm Sections?
Vladimir Samoylovich Horowitz: “There are only Jewish, homosexual, and bad pianists.”
I’ve a soft spot for Mitsuko Uchida, myself.
As far as Blacks go, Oscar Peterson was classically trained and could have more than held his own. Truly a great.
I wish the crazies would keep their noses out of things and let tradition, good taste, natural ability, nepotism, prejudice, bitchiness, and all the good old time human virtues prevail. If some one-legged Albanian tympanist with Parkinson’s gets into the Julliard, it should be because he is the best goddam tympanist who crawled over broken glass, practiced all night long, and prostituted his sister to raise the cash to make it to Alice Tully Hall.
John Derbyshire ended his weekly podcast with Kathleen Battle singing Una Voce Poco Fa in honour of this ridiculous Black History Month business. He made the very good point that people of good will are more than happy to respect and honour Blacks who do things worthy of respect and honour. But nobody of any colour or creed should get a prize for just showing up.
Almost everyone is familiar with the truism that “correlation does not imply causation”, but it is equally true, albeit never acknowledged by leftists, that disparity does not imply discrimination. The entire edifice of “woke” ideology, relentlessly promoted by all the acolytes and the epigones of I Kendi, the Grand Wizard of “anti-racism”, rests upon this foundation of unreason and untruth, and all the rational arguments from Sowell and others seem unable to dislodge this pernicious chimerical demand for equality of result from the addled brains of the so-called intelligentsia.
Do Asians count as “minorities” in the world of classical music?
In 1963 Andre Watts, half-black, half-Martian (er…half-Hungarian, I mean) made a stunning appearance as a pianist on national television with Leonard Bernstein at the age of 16. He was a sensation in the 60s and 70s. My mother had some of his records.
He matured and he was no longer the young prodigy, so his coverage settled down, but he seems to have had a decent career. He’s performed as recently as 2016.
Once you declare mathematics to be “racist”, anything goes.
(And everything goes out the window.)
IOW, to follow up from a previous thread, society is defenestrated…along with culture and the individual.
Professor of constitutional law Charles Black (1915-2001) recalls how he, a 16-year-old white boy in Texas in 1931, encountered genius for the first time in the person of Louis Armstrong:
http://moglen.law.columbia.edu/LCS/black-armstrong.pdf
Contains an aside on recording technology and materials of the 1930s (in connection with a discussion on recording technology over the decades in one of the earlier threads).
I love the basketball stories about Larry Bird, the Celtics legend. There were blacks who would doubt Bird because he was white. To be sure Bird had his defenders.
____________________________________________________
A lot of black guys always ask me, “Did Larry Bird really play that good?” I said, “Larry Bird is so good it’s frightening.”
–Magic Johnson
@Barry Meislin:
Category Theory sounds suspiciously Raycisss…
Now stick that that in your hylomorphism and smoke it.
@Hubert:
Had Louis Armstrong been born today, would he become a great performer and bring joy and meaning to millions or would he end up as an affirmative action surgeon nobody is sure they can trust or not?
Progressives cannot accept that there has to be suffering and injustice in the world. Obviously I prefer that the suffering and injustice happens to Other People wherever possible… but a world without these things cannot produce a Louis Armstrong.
@MrsWhatsit:
Everyone knows those East Asians just study and practice too much. Nothing to do with the population mean IQ of ~105.
Plus they wear glasses. Glasses make you intelligent. Now where did I put mine?
Social Justice and SWJs obsession with measuring all by equal outcomes or “equity” – This obsession stems from the teaching of Rawls Theory of Justice as true. From school to uni, it is taught as TRUE.
I was in Breckenridge, Colorado. And I met a 22 year old poli sci from Auburn University, about to graduate.
I mentioned that I’d heard (via Campus Reform?) that a majority of poli sci grads hold it as true! She ducked and changed the question….
Historian Thomas Woods spends an hour on it in a podcast from a few years back, referencing my old prof Anthony Flew’s critiques.
“The Politics of Procrustes” by Flew argues that Rawls spends 526 pages (or 426) and still cannot come up with a theory of Justice! Then, he segues into effectively claiming “but we know what we want”, rationalising — ie, a basis to redistribute the wealth.
This is what Rawls does for socialists and SWJs.
https://tomwoods.com/ep-495-theres-no-such-thing-as-social-justice/
Then, Rawls provides a reason to fit humanity on a bed yielding the equalitarianism preferences of the mythical Procrustes.
What’s fascinating is that Ayn Rand saw through this without reading Rawls, circa 1973 in her column, “An Untitled Letter.” But then correctly explained how he would later be rehabilitated as a hero who’s correct!
The point she emphasises that Rawls opposes any advantage that is metaphysical or natural as unearned and to remedy that by redistributing this wealth gained.
Rand calls this hatred and parasitic (see the middle of this page):
https://courses.aynrand.org/works/an-untitled-letter/
huxley,
Regarding child prodigies, I think I mentioned before that since cutting the cable my wife and I have discovered Pluto TV. It’s quite fun. It’s like stepping into a time capsule, except the commercials are for modern products*. A few nights a week we’ll end up bouncing back and forth between old episodes of “The Carol Burnett Show” and old episodes of “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.” We recently saw a child prodigy violinist on Johnny (the had also made sure Jack Benny was on the same show) and my wife wondered if she ended up doing well after that. So, thanks to the Internet I looked her up. Dylana Jenson. To our pleasure she continued to do well and had (still has) a long career.
*If any of you miss “The O’Reilly Factor” Bill is doing new, daily programs on Pluto TV at 7:00pm and 10:00pm, central.
Zaphod:
Although he was Asian too, Pol Pot got rid of the people with glasses.
huxley,
I was fairly decent at Track in High School and my district was well integrated. I am white, by the way. I knew I had an advantage in races with black runners because they almost always assumed they would just, naturally be faster and better runners. This gave me an edge because it was often too late to make up for lost ground by the time they realized I was a capable runner. Even though many of our meets were integrated, most of the schools were not well integrated. So they grew up with little exposure to white athletes.
@neo:
Pol Pot was schooled in France. It’s the French, I tell you! This time 😀
Rufus, what distances?
Regarding the topic of blind music auditions. I read about this year’s ago when it had become the accepted standard, and there was one complaint that I thought had some merits. Male musicians often have a little more force, especially with brass, reeds and woodwinds. Even judges sometimes grade “loud” a little higher than “nuanced.” Now, obviously, these are all great musicians and men and women both are doing nuanced performances, with great dynamic variation, but because the men often sounded a bit more “forceful” they would get judged higher. When the judges could see the artists, and his or her performance, they often thought the woman was, in actuality, the better musician.
I see the point of blindfolds, but it is a performance, after all. Presentation matters.
I recently saw Donald Fagen touring as “Steely Dan” (this was after Walter Becker’s death). It was an incredible performance, and, true to Steely Dan tradition, Fagen had amazing musicians and vocalists backing the group. Most (all?) were talented session musicians. Funny thing was, most of the band did not bother to make their performances look difficult. They were doing incredibly difficult things, but someone who did not understand what they were doing might not have been as entertained by the show, and that is part of the show. If the audience were all blindfolded, most everyone would have been impressed with the sound, but for those who also wanted something to look at, that aspect was not there.
FOAF,
I assume you ran/run? Jack of all trades. I’ve simply loved to run my entire life. I was a decent sprinter (fairly successful running back on the football team), but I could also stomach distances longer than the 200 (or 220, when I started). We didn’t have a lot of kids come out for most sports at my school, especially track (drugs and dropping out were more popular) and we had a few good sprinters, so coach would spread me around where we needed points; 400(440), 800(880), 4 X 220, 4 X 440, even the mile. I even managed a sub 18 minute 5k at one meet. Although I was a huge, Edwin Moses fan I never got to try the 400 hurdles because it usually came right before the 4 X 400, where I had to run anchor. I also wanted to try pole vault, but coach wouldn’t let me; “Firefly, you get too many points for me on the track to risk getting injured pole vaulting!” Terrible at the jumps; high, broad, triple, but I always envied the high jumpers. They got multiple tries and could skip heights they didn’t feel like bothering with.
Zaphod,
Unless you intend to dramatically alter his childhood, I don’t think there is any risk of Louis Armstrong becoming a surgeon!
Just googled the Vienna Philharmonic to find out if the Woke had been trying to get women in the door. They have already succeeded. Nothing is sacred. Age of Rust.
In the part of the world where I came from pitying and patronising is considered the worst form of bigotry and discrimination, why does the African American community enjoys such humiliation from white democrats so much?
The same thing happened with AI… how could a machine be that way? easy… its picking up on the same patterns humans do.. its just the left pretends it doesn’t like these patterns, the people who end up on the downside of them dont like them, and the people who get to fix things get the power…
why does the African American community enjoys such humiliation from white democrats so much?
because to them its not humiliation to be told your more than what the world thinks of you, and ignore why the world thinks that way, being allowed to blame something else and so not have to change or act on this as the problem is also externalized.
Merit, as well as logic and reason are impediments for the Marxist left.
As I currently see it, there are three major factions on the left.
Wealthy oligarchs and their corporate apparatchiks; who desiring to be on the side of the winners are funding the purchasing of the ‘ropes’ with which, when their usefulness is no longer needed…they’ll be hanged.
Only a few of the wealthy see that appeasement is eventually suicidal.
True believer idealistic fools; who imagine that first world nations can be forced to evolve into “socially just” societies. Their arrested psychological development prevents them from recognizing that nature’s “unequal sharing of blessings” is an absolutely necessary component of civilizational progress.
Demagogues; who on a gut level, understand that all collectivist ideologies ultimately devolve into tyranny.
Once their usefulness is at an end, the capitalists will be shot. Then, the true believers ‘purged’.
Every communist society has followed that path.
Societies in which (secular) collectivist ideologies dominate, require direction and the most ruthless rise to rule in them.
Zaphod at 6:05pm,
I certainly don’t catch every post and comment at neo’s, so maybe this has come up before, but I have been expecting this out of you, based on past comments you have made.
Race and IQ scores is a silly, tiresome argument.
First; what is race? Where do we find it? On what chromosome? Do we find it via phrenology? Maybe we draw blood and examine it for humours, or traces of phlogiston?
Second, yes, the tradition in many Asian households of pushing academics matters. My wife is the daughter of immigrants. Her parents had little before they came here and risked even more to establish a foothold here. They expected her to do well in school and pushed her hard (and she did very well). And many Asians self-segregate in communities where they help one another, and each others’ children; tuition, getting established in a career…
Third, how do you explain the mean, stellar performances of Africans whose families immigrate here? Their performance is consistent with other first generation immigrant groups; better than some.
Fourth, Africa is an incredibly diverse spot on the globe. The most diverse, DNA-wise. Egyptians, Ethiopians, Algerians, Madagascarians (Madagascarites? Madagasconians?), Angolans, Tanzanians… They are all genetically inferior, intelligence-wise?
Fifth, intermarrying. Even if there was some spot or spots on African DNA (or DNA from some areas of Africa), few “blacks” who are U.S. citizens have pure blood going back generations (and, as noted above, recent immigrants who are more likely to share common ancestors over generations typically do well). Who is to predict how any of that DNA mixing will spawn.
Six, it’s all nonsense. My Grammar School and High School almost certainly had mean IQ’s below the national averages. I’m glad my teachers didn’t assume I was incapable of learning based on my environment and parents’ lack of educational advancement.
related
Mediocrity’s Envy of Genius: The Dirty Secret of Cancel Culture
https://pjmedia.com/spengler/2021/02/16/mediocritys-envy-of-genius-the-dirty-secret-of-cancel-culture-n1426112
The Cultural Revolutionaries at the New York Times this week reviewed the witch hunt against classical musicians [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/14/arts/musicology-journal-race-free-speech.html], who stand accused of racism simply because the great Western composers happened to be white.
It’s all about envy.
[envy is worse than jealousy.. jealousy wished it had what another has, but envy says if they cant have it, no one should… ]
The grudge that mediocrity bears against genius is the purest form of evil. Thomas Mann’s postwar reworking of the Faust legend tells of the failed composer Adrian Leverkuhn who, in the final phase of syphilitic dementia, has written a cacaphonous cantata “to take back Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.” Leverkuhn had made a deal with the Devil and suffers the consequences. If the Devil has any taste in music, he won’t be in the market for Ewell’s soul.
Black Americans have a splendid history in classical music. The great Marian Anderson, who sang the national anthem at both the second Eisenhower inauguration and the Kennedy inauguration, had the voice of the century according to Toscanini, as well as sublime musicianship. Hear her in this arrangement of Brahms’ song “Of Eternal Love.” The soprano Kathleen Battle is the best coloratura of my generation, a far cannier interpreter than, say, Joan Sutherland. Battle used high intelligence and unerring musicianship to turn a rather small natural voice into a virtuoso instrument. Anderson became an icon of the civil rights movement by showing that a black contralto could produce authoritative interpretations of the Western classics. Ewell’s envy-ridden rampage is a disgrace to her legacy.
Dave,
“…why does the African American community enjoy such humiliation from white democrats so much?”
I see this changing. A lot of blacks are waking up to the con. I think seeing white, suburban girls and young women taking it upon themselves to advocate for them is pissing a lot of them off. I hear a fair amount saying things like; “We’re not like a stray puppy you’re going to take home from the pound.” “‘Fixing’ the ‘black community’ isn’t going to be some, altruistic, volunteer project, like when you went to El Salvador for a week in High School to give kids soccer balls.”
I’ve even heard accounts of drag performers throwing them out of their shows; “Just because you and your friends watched Ru Paul on TV when you were 12, doesn’t mean our lifestyle is a fun outing for your sorority so you can feel that you are saving us by coming to our shows once a semester!”
@Rufus:
While I like nothing more than a good argument, let’s agree to differ here.
Let me just say as a parting shot that populations are normally distributed with mean and standard deviation, and that every racial group population has a Smart Fraction, but every population has a different-sized smart fraction. Naturally the West attracts and hoovers up a significant chunk of the sub-Saharan African smart fraction.
I have lived a good chunk of my life amongst East Asians. It’s hard to explain, but when I head back to the West, one of the first things that strikes me is that the natives taken in the broad +/- 1 standard deviation smear are *slower*. That’s my people. I try to go where data and sense perceptions take me, not where I should go to be a Good Citizen. I could be wrong, of course. Pax Out.
@Rufus T Firefly:First; what is race? Where do we find it?
On your family tree. You, me, Xi Jingping, Barack Obama, and nearly everyone else in the world has Genghis Khan in their family tree.
But Xi Jingping has him appearing in hundreds of thousands of slots or millions of slots. Barack Obama has him there in maybe tens of thousands.
50% of the people in Barack Obama’s family tree over the last 100 generations are found nowhere in Xi Jingping’s.
In other words, race is found in correlated ancestry.
Artfldgr,
I used to wonder why G*d would list “though shall not covet” as one of the ten commandments. I could see if he listed a few hundred an anti-coveting commandment might turn up, but the top ten?!
The older I get the more I understand, as you point out, that it is one of the most harmful behaviors a human can traffic in. That G*d, He’s no dummy.
Actually, who this is going to hurt the most, is, of course, “Asians”, who I’m betting represent more than “their share” of the population…
Bastards!! I mean, HOW DARE THEY work hard to get ahead, and expect to actually GET AHEAD!!
Again Re Kathleen Battle:
I once heard her interviewed by a particularly annoying Bluestocking Karen Head Tilter on the Australian equivalent of NPR. She went up massively in my estimation for utterly demolishing BKHT’s attempts to get into ‘I was hard done by by Whitey an’ nobody knows de trouble I’ve seen’ territory. BKHT was going through a Nina Simone fetish period on her show at the time. Anyway Ms Battle basically heaped scorn and contempt on BKHT and effortlessly displayed superior intellect. It was pure poetry. I don’t think she does small talk with fools well at all.
}}} j e : “disparity does not imply discrimination”
Nicely put. Gotta remember that one. “Stolen” 😉
First; what is race? Where do we find it? On what chromosome? Do we find it via phrenology? Maybe we draw blood and examine it for humours, or traces of phlogiston?
The genetic differences between ethnic groups result from differences in the distribution of polymorphisms that are related to the enzymes responsible for drug metabolism. Even a single difference in a nucleotide of a candidate gene can have a profound impact on pharmacological response to asthma therapeutics.
actually medically speaking… you can list all kinds of things that are different… the earwax of asians is like powder, western Caucasians more oily… medicines do not work the same, some cause sun sensitivity for African descent..
the question really is what level of genetic differences and homogeneity make up what would loosely be called race?
This article reviews the genetic factors that underlie varying responses to medicines observed among different ethnic and racial groups. Pharmacogenetic research in the past few decades has uncovered significant differences among racial and ethnic groups in the metabolism, clinical effectiveness, and side-effect profiles of many clinically important drugs. These differences must be taken into account in the design of cost management policies such as formulary implementation, therapeutic substitution and step-care protocols. These programs should be broad and flexible enough to enable rational choices and individualized treatment for all patients, regardless of race or ethnic origin. (J Natl Med Assoc. 2002)
and
Available information suggests that patients in particular racial and ethnic groups may be subject to greater risks than those in other groups if they are prescribed or switched to an “equivalent” drug because: (1) the agent may not be as effective; or (2) substantial dosage adjustments may be necessary to avoid overdosing or underdosing. The factors determining racial variations in response to medications are complex and interdependent. Environmental factors (climate, smoking, alcohol consumption, etc.) may have a profound effect on drug metabolism and disposition.
-==-=-=-=
as a red head i need a lot more than average levels of anesthetic and pain killer…
the idea we are all the same will do profound harm in the years to come… how can you prescribe the right medicine for someone if your not allowed to recognize the difference? and if you dont, then what happens to that person?
-==-=-=-=
The ‘Out of Africa’ theory of human evolution is based on the distribution of genetic
polymorphisms,§ the archeological record, and (for the most recent events) linguistics. In bare outline, it reads as follows:
This has happened to every part of the body, including brain structure…
which is why different polymorphism in different groups lead to different outcomes in abilities
This is what we call race…. sufficient differences in polymorphisms.. epicanthic folds, attention ability, skin colors… all are such things… the term race is just a loose generality of the more medically specificity of these changes.. blue eyes, vs black eyes… red hair… etc..
Hypertension is disproportionately prevalent in the Black population and is associated
with higher incidences of cerebrovascular and renal complications and left ventricular hypertrophy. However, the overall risk of coronary artery disease in the Black male population is lower than in White males, particularly in Europe and the Caribbean, and to a lesser extent
in the United States
but lets give them all the same meds and the same treatments… some will be helped, others harmed… but who cares? right? we just cant say we are not going to give X the same thing as Y cause of a marker of polymorphism like skin color, hair color, etc?
My wife and half her family can;t drink alcohol… why? because asians often are missing the genetic ability to process it and so their face turns red, they get massive headaches, and dont drink… is this a weakness or a plus? you decide
Clinical and pharmacokinetic studies have evaluated ethnic variations in dose response to clomipramine, desipramine, and nortriptyline. In a study of clomipramine, the blood concentration (AUC) was greater in Asians than in Whites after an equivalent dose, and Asians had a higher incidence and severity of drug-related side effects
to say there are no races is to accept the teachings of the left and socialists…
who want a cog, a singular one size fits all new soviet man or woman
this is much better for central planners..
if we are all equal, planners no longer have to care about talent or different abilities! you can move people around like leggo blocks… you can prescribe the same medicines… have the same school classes… eat the same foods without individual allergies… and on and on it goes… like watching an army out of pyongyang…
as with most things it isnt bad these things exist… its bad what we do or dont do with them
the power to homogenize by force what will not bend will do a world of harm and split us more than if we accepted and adapted to our individual differences…
but if we are no longer to be individuals, can we be allowed differences?
@Frederick:
I’ve no doubt you’ve seen some principle component analyses of genomic data. Eigenvectors are racist too.
Nassim Taleb is quite funny. He really really doesn’t like psychometrics, but will work day and night to prove that Levantines (e.g. Nassim Taleb) are not Arabs.
Oh well… it’s complicated. I’m off to hunt rabbits with my Pekingese.
Zaphod,
I’ve heard the “facts” from those who agree with you many times and in intricate detail. I did not expect to change your mind with the few sentences I wrote, but I wanted to get it out in the open.
I too have traveled a fair amount. I’ve worked in (18?) foreign countries, as well as most every region of the U.S. I notice prevalent patterns often. I have come to think there are many reasons for these; local climate, density of population, heritage of groups living in the region, religion(s) practiced or not practiced in the area, economic success, local industry(ies)…
It is a lazy argument to claim that percentages of the pigment melanin is of any significance in predicting academic success. Thomas Sowell’s, “Wealth, Poverty and Politics” is a great read that covers this subject.
And I enjoy many of your posts. I think you are correct that we best drop this topic, but every time race and IQ is brought up I will speak out against it. It is an insidious and dangerous claim.
}}} What’s fascinating is that Ayn Rand saw through this without reading Rawls, circa 1973 in her column, “An Untitled Letter.” But then correctly explained how he would later be rehabilitated as a hero who’s correct!
Reading this, two words: “Harrison Bergeron”. 😛
@Rufus:
I’m glad you did not remain silent when faced with something I said with which you do not agree.
Henceforth I will try to keep my already well-known opinions on Racial Differences out of these very pleasant open threads and will instead work assiduously to subvert normal threads as I did in days of yore 😛
Frederick,
Regarding where we “find” race, I was intentionally obtuse to make a point. I specifically meant this term, “black” we bandy about all too casually. Although many scientists have strived mightily to find it (usually for nefarious purposes), and politicians have sought to define it (including measures of “drops of blood”), it remains elusive. Many Indians are “blacker” than many Africans. Are dusky Italians or Romanians “black?”
It’s all rather silly.
Zaphod at 8:29pm,
Have you ever seen white, culturally Jewish Dave Rubin’s interview with Larry Elder where he attempts to explain “systemic racism” and its deleterious impact on Larry’s life to Larry? It became rather famous on YouTube and is well worth a watch.
To his credit, Dave was very embarrassed by the intellectual beat down Larry put on him, and Dave went on to re-examine a lot of his (Dave’s) beliefs and is now an outspoken voice against the idea of systemic racism in modern day America.
Arfldgr @ 8:33pm,
I know all that, and it matters. But unless one lives in remote areas of the planet that have seen very little trade in the past millennia, it’s dangerous to make assumptions based on the country name on the front of one’s Passport. I have a pretty good idea where most of my ancestors lived prior to the early 20th century on my mother’s side; and most probably lived and bred within that are of Europe for centuries. But my father’s side? We have no idea. And I’m not that unusual. And even my mother’s side; I don’t know if some trader passed through town in the 1750s and knocked one of my great grandmother’s up. It’s a lot quicker to take a blood test and find out if I have markers for certain diseases and ailments than trying to guess from my surname or skin color.
Zaphod @ 8:41pm,
I have to admit. You got an audible chuckle from me with that comment. Have you read the book, “River Town” by Peter Hessler? Your experience as an expat in China far outstrips mine, but I thought he really nailed what it is like to try to make it in China as an American.
I should also add that I am jealous that you have attended a horse race(s?) in Hong Kong. That’s way up on my bucket list.
I’m a pianist, and my husband is a member of a major US orchestra. The blind audition was thought to be a great breakthrough in eliminating prejudice in the audition process. Orchestras even go to the length of putting a strip of carpeting onstage during preliminary auditions so high heels can’t be detected! I believe, however, in most orchestras, the final round is not behind a screen. You need to see people play so you don’t hire some idiot violinist (or other instrumentalist) who sways and gyrates like a lunatic. Do you really think this hurts minorities? Orchestra committees bend over backwards to NOT appear racist. Anyone who thinks removing the screen entirely will make a difference is naive.
@Rufus:
Have not, but have added it to the queue. Thanks.
Rubin is the kind of ‘Conservative’ (I mean, really!) that gives a bad name to Conservatives. I get that on random days he puts on a Libertarian Hat — that’s more like it — Clowns need Politics Too. But anyway, I’m a Reactionary, so I guess if the Conservatives want him they can have him. I’m looking forward to watching this smack down.
In case I wasn’t clear, the reason for underrepresentation of some minorities in orchestras is underrepresentation in applicants.
@Lindybell:
Great to get it straight from the Horse’s Mouth!
Re performers gyrating like lunatics: Ian Bostridge.
https://youtu.be/mqk8INXCfOg
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau did pass the mantle to him. The question is whether sight unseen or not? 😀
He *is* very good. I just think they should superglue one hand to the piano and make him wear a corset.
https://youtu.be/tnuvs2w7ges
@Rufus T Firefly:It is a lazy argument to claim that percentages of the pigment melanin is of any significance
If anyone around here makes that argument I will be sure to tell them. So far no one has. If you construct a straw man you will have many rhetorical victories.
If you’re bored with straw men, surely you would agree that people with large numbers of ancestors in common doubt have many inherited traits also correlated, would you not? One of which certainly could be pigmentation, could it not? It alone would not tell you much about one’s ancestry, but when combined with other inherited traits that are highly correlated it would be a simple matter to draw conclusions about ancestry that are more accurate than not, wouldn’t you agree?
I have come to think there are many reasons for these; local climate, density of population, heritage of groups living in the region, religion(s) practiced or not practiced in the area, economic success, local industry(ies)
And surely the traits inherited by people in an area would interact with these environmental effects? For example the sickle-cell mutation is good for any population living around tsetse flies but is purely a liability in places where there is not a problem, and so people descended from those living around tsetse flies would show this mutation much more often then those who did not? And you might find these same folks have other correlated inherited traits, wouldn’t you expect?
So maybe leave this here, because it may be that you don’t in fact accept any of these possibilities. I don’t want to make a straw man of your argument.
Lindybell,
I am continually amazed by the level of sophistication of neo’s readership. Thanks for adding your personal insights on the subject!
I posted this on the wrong post, but I’ll post here too:
Ugh, if the left wants true equity, why don’t they just turn America into the society from “Harrison Bergeron” and be done with it? I mean, that’s the end game of equity right there. Literally. Anything short of that world, and someone else will always have some sort of “privilege.”
Frederick,
One can certainly administer IQ tests to people on different parts of the globe and graph the results. And one can administer those tests to folks in the U.S. and graph results by categories, both rational and arbitrary; gender, age, race, ethnicity, household income, education level attained, type of breakfast cereals consumed, favorite baseball team, % of melanin, eye color, hair color…
No matter what category one designs, as long as the group has enough members bell curves will result.
What of it? What does any of it prove? If the median IQ of the group of female redheads with green eyes who prefer corn flakes to wheat chex is 95, does that tell us anything about any individual, corn flake eating female redhead with green eyes we may meet? Maybe this particular corn flake consuming ginger falls way on the right or left asymptote. What do we do with the information? Since most of her contingent score 5 points below the world average do we spend less on text books for her? Do we expect less of her academically?
And even if we can pinpoint groups; is there any factor more important than having loving parents who desire a good education for their offspring and have a high enough economic standard to give them some free time to participate in their children’s education?
Again, why do the children of African immigrants do better in school than the native born population? Might parenting and attitudes at home be more important than melanin levels?
And I would love for someone to define what, exactly “black” is? Is it having at least one grandparent of African decent? A great grandparent? A great, great grandparent? What if the great, great, great grandparent’s mother’s folks were both African, but that great, great, great grandparent’s father’s mom was African and dad was Brazilian?
Angels dancing on pinheads.
Having a mother and father who are engaged with their children’s upbringing is so much more significant in any categorical predictor of a child’s success that all the rest is noise.
Natalie S.,
Vonnegut was a proud liberal, but his short story is one of the best science fiction works exhibiting the faulty logic of equality of outcome. He undoubtedly would not have appreciated someone like Barry Goldwater referencing it, but I wonder if the absurdity of today’s Leftists would have made Vonnegut a political changer, like David Mamet?
I believe he had a degree in Chemical Engineering, so maybe that practical training would affect his view of current affairs.
If i failed a test, i would like to study twice as hard to retake the test and Ace it the second time, the last thing i’d want to hear is “Hey, don’t worry, this test is too hard for you, I’ll give you an A as long as you are 30% correct” or “Hey, this test is too hard for you, I’ll give you a much easier one” I would see that as an insult and i would be ashamed of myself to accept those patronizing offers, but no, those types of patronizing is considered to be a virtue in America and anyone speaks against those type of unhelpful fake assistance that would stunt the academic growth of the student as racist. I hate this world we are living in, bad is hailed as good and good is condemned as bad.
Frederick,
I hope I’m not coming across as belligerent. I’m just trying to elaborate on my point. If I came across as pinning a straw man on you, or anyone, that’s not my intention, but I’m not the one who brought up the topic of race and IQ scores.
My point, if I haven’t made it clear enough, is I find the topic abominable and of no use.
IQ is an ephemeral enough thing to gauge and quantify as it is; let alone associating it with one, two or five thousand alleles.
“Race” (especially in a melting pot like America in a world with high speed, inexpensive travel and fairly open borders and many societies where marrying outside of one’s ethnicity is not taboo) is a very imprecise term.
Trying to associate “race” with intelligence as measured by an IQ test seems like a fool’s errand that, even when done, has no predictive bearing on any one individual. Would you expect a 12 year old “white” boy from a broken home in a small town in West Virginia where his mother earns minimum wage at the Walmart to support him and his 5, fatherless siblings to score higher on an IQ test than the son of Ayaan Hirsi Ali? Neither would I. But, I’m glad J.D. Vance didn’t let that stop him from pursuing an education.
Any society that tries to enforce the unavoidable mediocrity of absolute equality will self-extinguish itself. But before that can happen, tyranny will step in and ‘rescue’ it from that fate.
Dave, Geoffrey Britain,
Or, as Glenn Reynolds writes: “bad luck.” Venezuela has had a lot of bad luck the past decade. New York under DeBlasio seems to have a lot more bad luck than New York under Giuliani.
The Texas power grid suffered some bad luck last week.
@Rufus:
Thanks for the Peter Hessler River Town recommendation. It goes on the reading list. It will be an interesting historical document as published 1996 and even small towns in China have changed so much in the intervening years.
John Derbyshire’s memoirs on his website about his courtship of his wife on a campus in rural northern China in the early or mid 80s are another good snapshot of a lost world.
I think the first travel book I ever read about China was Riding the Iron Rooster by Paul Theroux. Iron Rooster being the steam locomotives hauling the trains on his journeys. Being the kind of person he is, Theroux peppered the book with quotations from the most famous smutty Chinese Novel (Jing Ping Mei — @Huxley that ‘Mei’ bit is ‘Plum’ — lots of double-entendres around the Plum in Chinese. Just don’t tell Gwyneth Paltrow anyone, please) of all. I should re-read it.
I kick myself a lot for not traveling more in China during the 90s.
But to have seen Bali in 1930: Dr Faustus ain’t in it!
Dave,
It’d been going on for a while.
‘Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil…’
Isaiah 5:20
Rufus T Firefly states, “Race and IQ scores is a silly, tiresome argument.” Then asks:
“First; what is race? Where do we find it? On what chromosome? Do we find it via phrenology? Maybe we draw blood and examine it for humours, or traces of phlogiston?”
Perhaps you ought to read the paper that answers this question: “if race does not exist, then “why do forensic anthropologists” determine race 80% of the time. (As seen in footnotes to “A Troublesome Inheritance” by Nickolas Wade.)
I know there is a solid technical answer, besides disease patterns and genetic diseases.
What is this for: i.e., “G*d “?
A lot of that is seen here.
I mean, I know that the word is supposed to be “god” capitalized out of respect for the ultimate reference, but what is the purpose of writing the word that refers to Yahweh, with an asterisk in it?
Would you write “He” as “H*”, or Deus” as “D*us”?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_(word)
I’ll look in tomorrow to see if there is an answer.
In the meantime …
Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum;
Si þin nama gehalgod
to becume þin rice
gewurþe ðin willa
on eorðan swa swa on heofonum.
urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg
and forgyf us ure gyltas
swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum
and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge
ac alys us of yfele soþlice
But release us of evil, sooth
https://www.oldenglishtranslator.co.uk/
DNW:
I’s a religion thing. You wouldn’t understand.
The Venerable Bede may have been a bit fuzzy on the finer points regarding the care and handling of the Tetragrammaton.
I’m the kind of Autistic Crazy who upon learning about the Cairo Geniza and what a Geniza is, had to go to Chabad’s Ask the Rabbi service to get a ruling on why it’s OK to delete files on a PC containing the Word In Question. That fact that it’s none of my business simply irrelevant hehe. Anyway apparently it’s permissible for reasons above my pay grade.
This translator thing looks fun! It’s a shame Google Translate doesn’t do Old and Middle English. Perhaps not enough corpus text for the AI to crunch on.
They find too hard to simply say:
“We need to remove the blindfold so that we can practice racial discrimination.
Tradition!
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-name-of-god#:~:text=Judaism%20does%20not%20prohibit%20writing%20the%20Name%20of,or%20by%20one%20who%20does%20not%20know%20better.
https://youtu.be/kDtabTufxao
Rufus T Firefly,
“The Texas power grid suffered some bad luck last week.”
Actually, bad luck had nothing to do with it. Responsibility for the outages, misery and deaths can be laid firmly at the feet of the EPA.
Turns out that when electrical production began to decline, Texas Gov. Abbot asked the EPA for a temporary exclusion from Federal regulations, so as to raise coal and gas electrical generation from the regulated 60% to their full 100% generation capacity.
The EPA refused to allow any increase in those plants electrical generation. Once wind generation collapsed, restricting Texas’ electrical generation to 60% led directly to the grid shutting down.
Wind generation accounts for 20% of Texas electrical production. Raising coal and natural gas powered electrical generation to full capability could have easily kept the Texas grid up and running.
The EPA’s enviromental fanaticism condemned the deceased to their deaths.
I’ve seen one report on this and not one word from the MSM.
Geoffrey Britain:
I had heard it was the DOE (Dept of Energy). EPA makes more sense, they can’t risk theoretical future injury from air pollution or green house gasses when people were freezing to death or asphyxiating from CO!
Earth justice!
@Rufus T. Firefly:I hope I’m not coming across as belligerent.
You come across as someone who isn’t willing to engage the arguments actually being made. Instead you engage cartoonish caricatures, such as the equation of race with melanin, which almost nobody does in real life and no one on this thread was doing. I’m not sure if you are doing it on purpose as a tactic, or if you really don’t understand what is actually being said, but I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, provided you stop the behavior.
I find the topic abominable and of no use.
This could explain why you are not engaging the actual argument. Perhaps you could put aside your prejudgments about what you think people are saying and why they are saying it before deploying the adjectives.
What of it? What does any of it prove?…
I can answer all of these questions. From some of what you’ve said, you grasp the fundamental facts well enough that you would understand the answers, and it would be interesting to see your replies.
But before putting in that work I’d have to know that you would engage what I actually say, and not a caricature you’ve invented or maybe even seen before in real life. That person is not me and I am not saying the things you are condemning, and I do not have invidious motives for saying them.
Rufus,
Yes.
Zaphod,
Well, singers. I do cut them more slack in the gesticulating and facial expression departments. For me, the worst are bobbing and weaving string players. And don’t get me started on what a lot of the young women wear these days!
Anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon got in a lot of trouble for his work among the Yanomamo in Venezuela, positing that they were a particularly violent people because violence led to reproductive success. IOW, violent tendencies were heritable and favored by natural selection.
His work has been contested, as many anthropological theories are, but this one has a lot of sociopolitical baggage riding on it.
That said, the question of whether a culture’s characteristics can function as natural selection is valid. Yes. No. Maybe. Isolation would likely have to be a factor.
Back in the day when I used to run, I competed in the Crim Festival of Races in Flint, MI. There was always the Kenyan National Team in the ten-mile race, pounding away as if they’d gotten mixed up with the 440. In order to prevent the rest of us–usually a couple of thousand, iirc–from getting run over, the Kenyans were lined up in front to start.
East Africans were herders, spending their days trotting after cattle and fending off predators. Nairobi’s elevation is almost exactly a mile, a couple of hundred feet short of Colorado Springs. Distance event athletes frequently go to elevated sites to train, including Colorado Springs, so that their bodies can get used to low-oxygen environments which gives them an advantage in lower elevations. And if one is actually evolved for altitude, it’s even more of an advantage.
The West African phenotype, which was predominant source of slaves for he Western Hemisphere, is from the lower elevations. Those folks made their livings in agriculture, gardening style, as they usually lacked draft animals. This did not select for distance running but for peak strength.
Hence, we see few distance running champions from West Africa, or descendants of those from West Africa, but from East Africa or their descendants.
If you follow natural selection, this makes sense.
Is there any reason to think that the requirements of survival differ to the extent that various areas of cognition are favored or not? Or various propensities to one or another kind of behavior?
The school of evolutionary psychology seems to make some sense, if you don’t mind the lack of longitudinal studies of the Cro Magnon Hunting Band. But it does not address the differences in ways of surviving as differing selective forces.
If you look for work on “spatial orientation” or “visual memory” or other terms for the same thing, you’ll find that Australian aborigines (traditional peoples) far outdo whites (non traditional peoples) in Australia. Obviously, forty thousand years of trying to remember where the last waterhole was is going to have an effect on natural ability.
What is also interesting is the efforts to assign this to culture. As if a traditional family likes nothing better on a Saturday than a few hours’ orienteering out in the country. I suspect this is because if visual memory is heritable, so would be the dismal IQ performance compared to non-traditional peoples.
Bill Bryson, writing on Australia, speaks briefly of the place of traditional peoples and ends his description by saying they exist in Australian society as if on a slightly different physical plane. Bryson’s not a scientist, but an observer and writer, which might provide a useful description without suggesting a cause.
As it happens, Ashkenazic Jews are terrible at visual memory. They flourish in areas with lots of street signs. A couple of them plunked into the Outback in the late middle of the Dreaming Time wouldn’t have been much use, having gotten fatally lost on the way back from the latrine.
Some years ago, UMich did a study with an odd result but, given the existence of the study in the first place, they probably presumed the result. Young men, students, recruited for the study would show up at the appointed time, be given a hard time (scripted but the subjects did not know it) culminating in a shove and an insult. Turns out that guys from the South spiked testosterone and adrenalin higher than their northern colleagues and the spikes lasted longer.
I believe I recall that this was true of guys who were born and raised in the north but whose parents were from the South.
See Webb’s “Born Fighting”. Scots-Irish settling the South.
But see Sowell, “Conquests and Cultures”. Among other things, the influence of culture seems to last, in his reading, over generations after people migrate to different societies. But not forever. This might be explained by dilution of heritable behavioral traits and cognitive specialties by intermarriage.
I suppose we should fervently hope this is not so.
Richard Aubrey and Frederick,
I’ve gotten about 2/3 of the way through two different attempts at a reply and both times computer mistakes erased the entire comment. I’ll take the hint and drop the subject. Sometimes asynchronous, written communication is not an effective way to discuss or debate a subject. If I misinterpreted what anyone is saying, I apologize. It doesn’t appear what I was trying to convey got across, and that fault must certainly lie with me, since I was the author. The topic of IQ can get very personal with me as I witnessed some very close friends endure years of persecution in school because they were not good at standardized tests. People who went on to be very successful once they aged out of the confines of the educational system.
What’s the old saying? The A students all work for the C students?
https://www.lifehack.org/288168/10-reasons-why-students-are-more-successful-after-graduation
What I have been dancing around, and if you are not aware, some people use median IQ scores by “race” as an explanation for why people that look a certain way succeed or fail in life. (I was replying to a comment by Zaphod where he did precisely that.) I think that is a very harmful way to look at the world. Aren’t we, the folks commenting here, the ones complaining about this new, Critical Race doctrine that assumes whites are destined to behave certain ways solely on characteristics of melanin? If it’s wrong to do with “whites” it’s wrong to do with “non-whites.” People are individuals. DNA, chromosomes, alleles, genes… are all complex structures with billions of possible combinations. I prefer to look at people as unique individuals. I imagine you all do also.
Rufus T Firefly:
Well stated, even this non-PhD can follow what you’re saying.
@Rufus: I’ll respect your wish to let the matter drop, but if it comes up again, please respect my wish that you engage in good faith with the actual argument laid before you by the person you are engaging with, instead of assuming that what they are saying is the same as what completely different people are saying elsewhere.
Even in your last ostensibly conciliatory comment, you dropped the “race = melanin” caricature one more time. This “new, Critical Race doctrine” coming out of the Left (not new, seen it in academia 30 years ago) is not based “solely on characteristics of melanin”.
I find it hard to temperately express how much I disagree with those people, but I would not misstate their argument that way if I did.
If the world were perfectly homogenous, and balanced in every way, so the curve for all 8 billion folks would be a single giant column in the middle of the graph (where the top of the bell curve normally is), then yes, there would be the exact same percentage of whatever demographic in the general population and the sub-group (orchestra players, basketball stars, congresscritters, PhDs, etc.).
However, we live in a world where people are individuals, and talent/ambition/circumstances are not evenly distributed. And people are NOT equal in every way. So we get “inequities” – some fields are dominated by blacks, or asians, or hispanics, or women, or whatever.
But Progressivism can’t handle that. It violates its “scientific” view of humanity, where we’re all just widgets who are interchangeable (and infinitely malleable to be “improved”).
As to the blind auditions, they weren’t implemented specifically for anti-racist purposes at first. They were really to prevent nepotism (for lack of a better term). They were instituted in competitions so judges couldn’t favor their student, or be put off by tics or poor clothing or whatnot (including race or gender). They were judging solely on the basis of the music. Our band in school instituted it for chair challenges, to prevent bias for or against the incumbent.
Distinction without difference unless one is being pedantic? CRT hustlers and melanin. How about the subtleties of “whiteness” and all its malignancies?
And why for that matter should Rufus respect your “wishes” in what he says or how he presents his views? Rufus is quite civil and cogent IMHO.
Rufus. Problem is not individuals of talent. Problem is group numbers. As Charles Murray said, let people achieve what they can and will, get out of their way and don’t screw around with group numbers.
Much of politics in the issues we’re discussing has to do with group numbers, beginning with auditions for symphonies. Or Griggs. Not enough blacks. So what do we do about not enough blacks?
Too many Chinese….. Raise the requirements for admission.
My wife used to teach high school. The saddest cases were the kids who just didn’t have the horsepower. Then there were those in a category which was almost at the point of earning proper noun status; Intentional Non Learners. May have the caps by now.
Their results out in the world may be similar or different. But society’s response to the difficulties faced by the first should be different from those faced by the second. One kid in my daughter’s class cheerfully got zeros for no work whatsoever. He didn’t need this stuff. He was going to go to Hollywood and be a celebrity manager. So when he’s down and out…?
The point about the Aussies is that, should the issue be heritable, what to do about lack of traditional peoples in positions of influence in the country. But, and here’s another issue, if the difference is due instead to culture….what do we do differently?
If group numbers are the issue, trouble will not end.
I knew people not good at standardized tests, but since I graduated high school going on sixty years ago, we didn’t do many. From time to time, we’d be in the cafeteria filling bubbles to what point nobody told us. Some people, bright enough in other ways, just slapped the #2 pencil around and….looked as if they should be institutionalized. Some couldn’t make up their minds in the allotted time. Their paths in life would likely differ. The first might have been salesmen or entrepreneurs, the brighter among them, because they knew what was important TO THEM. Although a student and not likely to see much of the inner workings of the school, I noted no “persecution”.
You are, within certain bounds, probably right. I once thought I did have a kind of interest in “religion”; until I was exposed to its study in school, and realized that the study of religion per se [practices, “spiritual” beliefs, ritual systems of social binding], was not metaphysics, but instead rather like the study of cultural anthropology: and more appealing to emotionally intense, psychologically questionable, agenda driven females and similar kinds obsessed with ideological notions of “appreciation” , than it was to anyone interested in anything … well, intrinsically interesting.
I mean, knowing your competitors and what makes them tick, is one thing. But let’s not take that business too far.
You are probably right about the quantity of available text. And that is not in the same dialects. Compare the Northern and Southern versions of the Gospel of John.
Nonetheless, there is more than I recalled. I would have said that poetry, the Chronicle, psalters, Gospels, and maybe writs and charters made the most of it. I had forgptten that Alfred’s Orosius translation, for example, still existed.
https://archive.org/details/kingalfredsoros01orosgoog
That is the amazing thing about the Internet. What we had to dive deep in the stacks for, and found only in, or partly in, one copy of a hundred year old 1885 monograph that you could not even check out, can now be had at the snap of a finger.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781405165303.ch1
The poems,
https://sacred-texts.com/neu/ascp/
One other thing here as I refer to shed blindfolds of another type.
We have accumulated for our casual access,,and have available online, resources that seriously interested students could at one time not long ago, only wish for.
For example: John Morris’s sometimes derided “Age of Arthur”, was in its time a truly estimable acheivement for a quasi popular but serious historical work. This, if merely insofar as concerned the marshalling and sweeping investigation of the then little known primary sources from and regarding dark age Britain: Welsh poetry, the lives of insular and continental saints, late Roman administrative records, letters of late continental authors, regional chronicles, unpublished or narrowly circulated specialist archeological research… all the things which no undergrad student could have ever hoped to conveniently get his hands on using local university or even statewide resources; and which would have taxed a post grad student to access in his dedicated researches. There was nothing like it commonly published.
A well equipped university library may have had two copies of Gildas in translation, and one or two works on Pelagius from a much needed strictly historical perspective, but other than old and specialist monographs you would not find much more ready to hand in order to build up a coherent picture of the era.
I think that my school’s library probably only had two or three sets of Pollock and Maitland, and one of those was reserved for the professors, as I recall. You could not just walk in to the library and be sure of checking out Volume 1 of the Histoty of English Law. So you got Plucknett’s work instead. What use was that for anything but a survey course?
https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/plucknett-a-concise-history-of-the-common-law
We take a great deal for granted. Ironic, that at the moment this information becomes in theory most readily available to all, that ideological interests are rising which would seek to send it back into obscurity.
I believe there probably are fewer minority applicants for classical symphony orchestras, since so many of them seem to think “rap” is music.
Rufus T. Firefly:
It’s true that some generalizations are false and some are misused. However, that doesn’t mean that all generalizations are false or misused. Furthermore, there are always exceptions to generalizations, so that’s no reason to discard generalizations either.
From what I can tell, by reading and life experience there is something to IQ (and not so much to Critical Race Theory). Some people learn more quickly and deeply and use knowledge more effectively. This shouldn’t be surprising and it isn’t a trivial difference in a society as cognitively demanding as ours.
The painful part of IQ is that it strikes near the heart of our humanity and one’s likely success and status in life, yet there is, so far, nothing to be done about increasing IQ.
IQ tests aren’t perfect at measuring IQ but that doesn’t mean they aren’t useful. The problem, from what I can tell, is that IQ tests are too effective and do result in invidious comparisons between groups of people.
As a consequence, society’s current solution is to make IQ a taboo subject. I don’t find that satisfying, but I understand.
My father was the Dean of his department at a small New Mexico college in the 70’s. A representative of the government in charge of providing funding to educational institutions approached him with the information that the college would lose federal funding if they didn’t hire an African-American professor of geology.
My father responded thusly: “There are 13 African-American PhDs in geology in the country. They are all gainfully employed at other institutions. We’ve asked them, and they’re all happy where they are.”
The insistence on “equity” without regard to actual situations is foolish.
DNW. I liked Morris’ “Age of Arthur”. Seems to me he didn’t find Arthur but he found an Arthur-shaped hole in Brit history.
My fave fictional treatment is Rosemary Sutcliffe’s “Sword at Sunset”. She did mostly YA fiction, seems as if she used Kipling as a template, but Sword is adult fic following YA “Lanternbearers”.
Stan Smith. Heard that from a guy in charge of diversity hires at a midwest urban campus of a top end midwest university. He kept getting outbid.
Clifton Wharton, once president of Mich State went to SUNY and one of his issues was black professors. Found a shortage of prospects. Lots of possibilities were going into industry.
But that metric is also differentially applied. No one has ever seriously suggested that the overwhelmingly black proportion of NBA players would need correcting. It is understood that the NBA is a meritocracy and that is allowed to let stand, and that is actually as it should be.
Blacks who are hired for the orchestra on the basis of impersonal performance metrics are not on the patronage of gentry liberals. Gentry liberals dislike that. Gentry liberals fancy they define strata and distribute patronage. Black chauvinists fancy they’re an aristocratic stratum who merit benefits by breathing in and out, and any suggestion that they do not merit those benefits (e.g. rank-ordering people on impersonal performance metrics in a way that does not give them what they want) is an act of effrontery. Gentry liberals also dislike the result of impersonal performance measures which suggest that previous generations were treating applicants fairly; the self-understanding of gentry liberals is fundamentally self-aggrandizing and suggesting that previous generations knew something they did not is an anathema to them.
As for the dames, recall Glenn Reynolds’ observation that acknowledging aggregate differences between men and women is only permissible when it is to the disadvantage of men (because women have options, while men have obligations). When you cannot reframe the differences (a la Carol Gilligan), the measures themselves are a species of mansplaining.
“There are 13 African-American PhDs in geology in the country. They are all gainfully employed at other institutions. We’ve asked them, and they’re all happy where they are.”
If the conversation actually did take place in 1971, he’d have said ‘black’ or ‘negro’.
I’m much less a fan of Anne Coulter than I once was. But one of her ironic observations has stuck with me, and seems worth repeating regularly.
It was to the effect that it is due in large part to progressives’ jettisioning of all traditional notions of intrinsic moral value and respect for good character, coupled to their self-congratulatory celebration of what they imagine is their own intellectual superiority, that raw intelligence (and the power that it promises to impart), has become virtually the sole measure among them of human worth and dignity.
Of course, it finally reduces to power alone. And should for some reason or set of social conditions, IQ not conduce to acquiring power to dominate others thereby, they would quickly lose much of the esteem they currently grant it.
@Art+Deco:If the conversation actually did take place in 1971
People can lose their jobs for accurately quoting something said in 1971. Or in 2021.
It was to the effect that it is due in large part to progressives’ jettisioning of all traditional notions of intrinsic moral value and respect for good character, coupled to their self-congratulatory celebration of what they imagine is their own intellectual superiority, that raw intelligence (and the power that it promises to impart), has become virtually the sole measure among them of human worth and dignity.
Good point.
My wooly memory recalls a brief critique of The Bell Curve on normative grounds written ca. 1994 by Pat Buchanan. Liberals complained that his argument was a ‘dodge’.
@art+Deco:People can lose their jobs for accurately quoting something said in 1971. Or in 2021.
^^This.
Art+Deco:
One might say that Females are Human Beings and Males are Human Doings. And Heaven help any male who is not busy doing or becomes unable to do.
Not my original wording. Seen it around online.
Ref. Australian aborigines orienting/orienteering skills: I read somewhere they are so invested in this capability that they have different words to describe directions, depending on which way they happen to be facing at the time. Thus the listener also has to “translate” what he hears to his own coordinate system based on the direction he is facing.
DNW, Ref. G*d: based on conversations with a Jewish friend, I understand Jews were forbidden to say or write the name of God, so they used G-d or G*d instead. Yes, a religious thing.
DNW on February 24, 2021 at 12:30 pm: I bought a copy of Plunkett from Liberty Fund because they were offering it on sale. When it arrived it was 2″ thick (800+ pages?), wrapped in clear plastic. I will probably never get around to removing the plastic let alone reading it. Probably a shame, really. I still have Berman’s books to get through, perhaps another lost cause.
Yeah, right. But the problem is that “God” is not the name of God.
It’s His title, or His rank, or his social ID in a somewhat flippant but accurate manner of speaking. All you have to do in order to prove it is to look up the etymology. It’s not His revealed name in Hebrew, it’s not a Latin or Greek transliteration of a Hebrew name. It’s a Germanic word.
I mean we could easily get into some kind of infinite regress. First you cannot speak the name which He has given to identify Himself, then you cannot use the Germanic word which expresses the exalted rank of the creator … So, how far down in a chain of descending euphemisms describing some power or potency do we go?
There is a kind of unfortunate parallel with that comic scene featuring Bill Pullman as the village Elder referring to:
” … those of whom we do not speak …”
Old Lady objecting: “If you talk about those of whom we do not speak, have you not spoken of that about which we do not talk?”
Pullman “Do not speak of that about which we talk of not speaking!”
However as comical as that snippet is, the movie is too gross in most respects for me to speak its name …
And that is another mystery. What’s with Hollywood and the obsession of some of these braying ass producers, writers and directors with potty humor?
It’s an easy read. And I always say to myself “Plunkett” too. I even typed that initially myself and then had to correct it.
If you are really looking to torture yourself by wading through contorted Victorian prose on the History of law, refer to Holdsworth.
Snore … thwack as forehead hits the oak reading table … waking said scholar.
Two completed chapters followed by a sincere Act of Contrition will effect a plenary indulgence under the usual conditions.