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This stuff seems to me to most likely be an attempt to avoid the fate of people like Charles Murray. If people can find anything to call one of the dreaded -is
by gotoeleven 3y ago
This stuff seems to me to most likely be an attempt to avoid the fate of people like Charles Murray. If people can find anything to call one of the dreaded -ists or -isms in your book then the signal goes out to all the good thinking NPCs that this book is ismist and everything in it can be ignored. So if you want people to engage with your arguments, you've got to lard your book up this kind of stuff as a prophylactic.
- boringuser2 3y agoThe thing is, I don't even think you need a Murray-esque argument to make a good case here. It's pretty clear that smarter doesn't necessarily perfectly correlate to civilizational ascendance. All you need to do is make an argument that doesn't literally hinge on the hereditarian hypothesis being incorrect, i.e. an incredibly fragile idea. They just can't help themselves. Also, the infamous "Murray gambit" of being obsequiously philosemitic to the point of raising eyebrows (which just offended all parties) would definitely have a different tenor coming from Jared Diamond.