10 ms·

I realize this is getting off topic, but can you explain why you think that, "All available evidence strongly suggests that Charles Murray is in fact a racist"?

by ggreer 9y ago

I realize this is getting off topic, but can you explain why you think that, "All available evidence strongly suggests that Charles Murray is in fact a racist"? I've read The Bell Curve and listened to a debate where Murray argued in favor of universal basic income. I came away from both thinking that he's been totally misrepresented. I just reviewed my notes for The Bell Curve to make sure I hadn't mis-remembered the content. Out of 22 chapters, two are on race. One begins with, "The first thing to remember is that the differences among individuals are far greater than the differences between groups." In other words: knowing someone's race tells you nothing about their intelligence. The chapters on race contain no expression of racial superiority or inferiority, nor any policies favoring discrimination. The only definition of racism that could apply is the view that there are some statistical differences between races, though the book doesn't weigh-in on how much is caused by genes vs environment. It also reiterates that these statistical differences cannot be used to infer anything about individuals. Supporting racism (in the sense of advocating for racial superiority or discrimination) is deeply unethical, so I'd very much like to know if Murray holds such views.

ebfd 9y ago
>"The first thing to remember is that the differences among individuals are far greater than the differences between groups." All this means is that there is some degree of overlap between the two curves; that not every member of group A is more intelligent than every member of group B. Which is trivially true; even the most virulent racists would agree without hesitation that Clarence Thomas is more intelligent than a mentally disabled white person. The height differences among Filipinos is greater than the difference in average height between Filipinos and the Dutch. Yet we can still say that on average Dutch people are taller than Filipinos, and understand that the underrepresentation of Filipinos in fields that select for height is not the result of societal oppression.
- tptacek 9y ago
  If you want to reduce white supremacy to basic statistics, you can do that, but as intellectual three-card Monte games go, this isn't a very good one: it's pretty easy to see the trick. If you believe that, in the aggregate, "white" people are intellectually superior to any other race of people, you're a white supremacist. That's not a value judgement; it's literally what it means to be a white supremacist. I guess you could be a mild, benevolent white supremacist? I can grant you that all white supremacists do not wear hoods and burn crosses?
  - brandonhsiao 9y ago
    This is unfair. You want to call people white supremacists based on the literal, objective content of their views, i.e. using the phrase in a narrow, technical sense, while knowing full well that calling someone a white supremacist will rally behind you a whole train of people who are happy to free-associate all sorts of horrible things with the phrase.
    - tptacek 9y ago
      You think it's unfair for me to call people who believe in the objective supremacy of one race over another "supremacists", simply because people have very dim opinions of racial supremacists?
      - brandonhsiao 9y ago
        It's weird to claim you're simply using a technical term to categorize someone's views, but then choose such a charged phrase. Edit: rethought comment
        tptacek 9y ago
        The term is charged for a reason. If a white supremacist feels bad that they're being compared to Richard Spencer, I think they should do some soul searching. There's a solid argument to be made that the quiet white supremacists do far more damage than the cartoon characters do.
      - dionidium 9y ago
        I just want to make the syllogism you're operating with clear here: 1. If two groups have statistical differences in IQ across the population, then the group with the higher average is superior to the other 2. Person A believes that Group 1 has a higher average IQ than Group 2 3. Therefore, Person A is a Group 1 supremecist I would want to very strongly and categorically denounce point #1 in this list. Point #2 is just a matter of scientific observation. I don't have strong opinions on it one way or the other. But point #2 only implies #3 if you believe #1.
tptacek 9y ago
The SPLC is not a reliable source, but I think what they have to say about Charles Murray checks out.
- mzw_mzw 9y ago
  If, as you've just admitted, the SPLC is not reliable, why do you think it checks out?
  - tptacek 9y ago
    What's hard about this for you to understand?
- ggreer 9y ago
  I found https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/charles-murray https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/indi... but: - It reads like a hit piece, in that it states facts that are technically true but designed to mislead. For example: It says "Murray advocates the total elimination of the welfare state" but neglects to mention that he wants to replace it with universal basic income. - The SPLC accuses Murray of using "tainted sources" in The Bell Curve, but the vast majority of the data was from early cohorts of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The "tainted source" is apparently Richard Lynn, discoverer of the Flynn effect. Anyone doing any intelligence research is going to depend on Lynn's research, and anyone doing such research in the early 90's is going to use his data. This accusation can be made even if Murray had come to opposite conclusions in The Bell Curve. Sadly, Lynn seems to have gone batty since his days as a researcher. Still, that shouldn't affect the truth value of the data he collected before his decline. - Many of the accusations are guilt by association, such as condemning Murray for taking money from the Pioneer Fund. Apparently, the fund was started by a proponent of 1930's-era eugenics. As Murray has pointed out, the Pioneer Fund of today is nothing like its original incarnation. - The SPLC piece never mentions The Bell Curve's conclusion that east asians tend to have higher IQs than whites. It's hard to label Murray a white supremacist when he thinks whites are not supreme. All-in-all, I have difficulty believing the SPLC's piece on Murray. I don't have the time to vet every accusation, but the ones I have looked into seem without merit. Moreover: Every time I've given the SPLC the benefit of the doubt, they've let me down. Their hatchet jobs of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Maajid Nawaz have completely destroyed my trust in them.
zimpenfish 9y ago
> "All available evidence strongly suggests that Charles Murray is in fact a racist"? https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/07/why-is-charles-murray-odious https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/07/why-is-charles-murray... > A far more illuminating piece of evidence about the Murray racial worldview is found in his little-read 2003 book Human Accomplishment, the text that substantiates point 2 on the above List Of Racist Charles Murray Beliefs: Black cultural achievements are almost negligible. > Human Accomplishment shows that Murray has a long obsession with racial difference, and with using statistics to prove the lesser intellectual gifts of black people. > How, in a book that is literally about people’s greater and lesser reasoning capacities, and that literally claims black people are less endowed with such capacities, can you harken back to Jefferson, leaving his racial views unmentioned, and then act shocked when people think you’re a racist? How can you not be a racist? How is there any way? etc. etc.
- ggreer 9y ago
  First of all, are Murray's claims true? That's the important question. That article gets some things right, but it seems to imply that Murray is racist even if his beliefs are true. Second, if you're going to use that article's definition of racism (the belief that there are statistical differences in IQ between races) then most researchers on cognition are racist. If you survey experts anonymously, the majority will say that there is an IQ gap and that genes are a significant contributor.[1] Critics keep smuggling in the assumption that intelligence is proportional to moral worth. Murray explicitly denies this, and claims that all humans should be given equal moral worth (and equal moral agency). 1. http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/2013-survey-of-expert-opinion-on-intelligence.pdf http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/2013-survey-o...
  - zimpenfish 9y ago
    You seem to have missed the thrust of the article which isn't that The Bell Curve proves Murray to be a racist (although it certainly has him winking strongly in that direction) but that his other book, "Human Accomplishment" is flagrantly and defiantly racist. > A far more illuminating piece of evidence about the Murray racial worldview is found in his little-read 2003 book Human Accomplishment, the text that substantiates point 2 on the above List Of Racist Charles Murray Beliefs: Black cultural achievements are almost negligible. > And what do you know, shockingly enough, out of hundreds of significant figures in Western music, there are almost no black people on the list. (Duke Ellington makes it.) Now, remember, this is a list of the objectively highest human accomplishments in music, and it doesn’t cut off until 1950. > Do I have to explain why Murray’s framework is racist? Because Charles Murray thinks classical English composers were rooted in human experience and had intellectual depth (which we know, because they showed up more in the encyclopedias he picked), while black American composers (for that is what they are) were not. etc.etc.

Dylan16807 9y ago

>If you believe that, in the aggregate, "white" people are intellectually superior to any other race of people, you're a white supremacist. That's not a value judgement; it's literally what it means to be a white supremacist. Is this 'any' as in 'a single group' or 'all other groups'? Either way it's not true. You can think a race has better average X without thinking it's superior. A dedicated white supremacist will take a list of advantages that are supposedly inherent to non-white people and make a just-so argument about how that actually makes them inferior. Edit: If you downvoted, please tell me where you disagree, I'm very curious.

dionidium 9y ago
"You can think a race has better average X without thinking it's superior." Ironically, what this argument tends to reveal is the degree to which the upper crust fetishizes intelligence and believes in the primacy of IQ as the measure of the person. Google practically invented the big, scary interview process that proves you're smart enough to belong. Is it any surprise that the winners of that genetic lottery believe in the supremacy of that measure? And once accepted as an organizing principle, you really, really need to believe that there are no statistical differences between groups, because to discover them would, by the original logic, entail grotesque conclusions. I can only imagine the dissonance this must generate.
- tptacek 9y ago
  This is more or less the response Curtis Yarvin gives when his racism, which seems (if you can hack your way through his prose) virulent, is challenged. To paraphrase: "I'm not saying black people are worse than white people. I'm saying that white people are smarter than black people, and that our society is biased against those who aren't as smart as white people. Oh, the unfairness of it all". I have no idea who you are or of this is what you mean; you're just an abstraction to me, a nick on this site I have no association with whatsoever and will presumably soon forget about. But if you're interested (you responded to me upthread), it might be useful to you to know how this kind of logic comes across to me.

tptacek 9y ago
I'm sorry, you'll have to forgive me, but I'm still in the dark as to what it is you actually believe. Help me understand the difference you see between observations about population aggregates in studies versus observations about "races".
- dionidium 9y ago
  I'm sorry, but if you're still in the dark about what I believe, then I think you're willfully so. I have to be honest: I didn't really think you were arguing in good faith in the beginning, but I was hopeful that you might be brought into a reasonable back-and-forth. I no longer believe that's possible. Edit: Just to make this explicit: I don't have any eccentric or unorthodox views about the differences between "races." I haven't advanced any such views here, nor do I hold them privately. tptacek's implication, of course -- and this happens in every single one of these conversations -- is that I'm concealing some detestable opinion about race. That's why there's always this persistent pleading to clarify what you actually believe. I've stated quite clearly what it is that I believe. No more or less. If I haven't been clear, then we'll just have to attribute that to my failings as a communicator and call it a day.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    That is a strange response to a straightforward question, but I can't say I'm unhappy to see this weird little thread die here.
    - Dylan16807 9y ago
      What do you want? How is '''the differences are probably explained by a complicated mix of factors, but that genetics likely play some role''' '''a genetic explanation, should one exist, says absolutely nada about policy, "supremacy," how we should treat each other, or really anything else. I also strongly believe that a good faith inquiry into this question (and acceptance of whatever the science reveals) is a pursuit orthogonal to "white supremacy"''' unclear? Fact: IQ results differ by race, even though 'races' are a badly-defined concept. Fact: Socioeconomic factors are a lot of this. Postulation: There might maybe be a genetic factor somewhere. Assertion: This doesn't justify treating people differently by race. What is unclear? What do you object to? You seem to find the idea that there might be any, miniscule genetic factor to intelligence that is more or less common in a specific 'race' as equal to white supremacy. Am I misreading you? (And note I didn't say anything about which way genetic factors might go. If they exist they might be opposite the socioeconomic factors, who knows.)
      - nzp 9y ago
        How can there be a genetic difference between genetically invalid (badly defined as you say) concepts? I.e. the concept of race is completely social, there is nothing genetic about it (a person commenting on HN is well withing education threshold to be expected to know this). Yet you allow that someone who believes there might still be genetic factors "somewhere" in these differences is not a (closet) racist ... because they don't call for mass murder and insist the supposedly slightly inferior group should "not be discriminated" (just calling them genetically dumber is enough)?
        Dylan16807 9y ago
        > How can there be a genetic difference between genetically invalid (badly defined as you say) concepts? I.e. the concept of race is completely social, there is nothing genetic about it Are you denying that there are differences in the genes controlling hair color between different racial groups? Or the frequency of something like lactose intolerance? "Races" are badly defined, with shifting definitions and fuzzy borders and many different ways of grouping the same people. The idea of categorizing people into a handful of "races" rather than looking at hundreds of intersecting ancestries mixing together is dumb. But there is still a correlation between the two concepts. If you can find a gene that correlates with an ancestry (which you can do), then you've also found a gene that has a weaker correlation with "race". And because there are thousands of genes that will correlate slightly with race, it's possible that one affects intelligence in some manner. It's not my problem if that's true. I'm confident there are no practically significant differences there. But that doesn't mean there isn't some .002% difference in median intelligence between groups that's caused by genes. It's bullheaded to ignore the possibility just because some awful racist will use it as "evidence" of their superiority. If they can't find out-of-context factoids to abuse they'll make things up anyway.
- brandonhsiao 9y ago
  You want to lump (a) people who simply think, as a technical opinion, that there are population statistical differences with (b) people who desperately want an excuse to cleanse society of black people. They are not the same thing, and to pretend they are is to oversimplify truth in order to make a virtuous statement. Some people argue that this is a good thing to do, but if you do this you can't complain about the phrase "virtue signaling," as someone prioritizing virtue over accuracy.