Eyre Lines

I was reading with interest a New York Times article about Free Speech today; the basic premise is one with which I agree, and which could be more succinctly captured by a facebook meme, also seen today, which reads something like this:-

Right winger “Let’s do genocide”
Left winger “Let’s not”
Centrist “Come on guys, you have to come to a compromise. How about ‘Let’s do some genocide’?”
Right winger “I suppose I can live with that for the time being”
Left winger “No”
Centrist “That’s what I can’t stand about you Leftists – you won’t compromise. You’re the real extremists!”

I am continually distressed by the fact that some media (and I’m looking, inter alia, at the BBC here) feel obliged to give two sides of stories where one of them is appalling; one result is that it only takes someone to start arguing a really extreme position to skew the whole debate towards that position. This, I hasten to point out, can skew debate either towards the Right or towards the Left; it does the first any time economics is discussed, with the extreme position of neoliberalism having managed to become mainstream, it does the second (in my opinion) where identity politics is involved, though there is a very sound Biblical case for privileging any person or group who are typically underprivileged, and I am open to argument… but not to the extent of closing down any debate which considers that no voice is valid except that of the multiply disadvantaged (intersectionality), which is what I sometimes see happening.

However, one of the examples given involves a long criticism of Charles Murray (author of the notorious “The Bell Curve”) and of Sam Harris for giving him air time on his “Waking Up” podcast, using the term “junk science” of his work. Another article is referenced , from Vox. The NYT writer, in fact, suggests that colleges and universities should not invite Murray to speak, on the basis that his position was as untenable as an individual fired from an Oceanographic Institute because he didn’t believe in evolution.

And I lost all sympathy with the article in the process. The Vox writers make some good points, but say (inter alia) “Murray casually concludes that group differences in IQ are genetically based.” Now, I’ve actually read The Bell Curve (I was asked to do so shortly after it’s publication by a group some members of which were distressed by the conclusions of the book, in the hopes that I could come up with conclusive arguments against its premises), and I can readily state that it is not “junk science”. It may be flawed science – the Vox writers advance arguments as to why this may be the case – but “junk” is just abusive. And Murray does not say that differences in IQ between racial groups are solely genetically based (which is what the Vox writers are suggesting, and which the NYT writer clearly takes on board), he merely suggests that the result of his study show that they are partially genetically based. TBC is quite adamant that a large proportion of IQ is due to nurture rather than nature, but it does come to the conclusion that some of the difference in IQ is genetic.

And there’s the problem which the group who asked me to read TBC were concerned about. It isn’t a question of what the science says, at root, it’s what you do with the conclusions. As the Vox writers say, it’s toxic. TBC has always been a favoured text of racists, because even a little genetic component, to them, justifies profiling the whole of a race, and discriminating against them (I can hear the word “untermensch” in the back of my mind here). I was equally concerned about that result – but, at the time, not to the extent of wanting to deny the science in TBC – and there is science in there, albeit now it’s 23 year old science. For those who are interested, my conclusion was that there was some merit in TBC, but that we should in social and economic policy stipulate that those results should not be taken into account. After all, the USA is founded on the premise that “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” I regard this as a set of fictions, but ones which there are powerful reasons to adopt…

As the Vox authors point out, there have been a lot of studies done since TBC, and some of them call into question some of it’s conclusions, sometimes to a considerable extent. I would personally be very happy to find that virtually all of the difference in IQ between racial groups (which absolutely does exist) is due to nurture, because then I could stand in front of racists and tell them that any of these differences are due to disadvantaged circumstances in the group’s upbringing and berate then for their responsibility for that (whether it be systematic discrimination as in the USA or predatory colonialism – in which I include the virtual ownership of some states by large corporations). At the moment, however, and despite the Vox authors’ arguments, I do not feel I can do that.

The Vox article, in fact, ends with a very balanced and measured conclusion:-

“Our bottom line is that there is a responsible, scientifically informed alternative to Murrayism: a non-essentialist view of intelligence, a non-deterministic view of behavior genetics, and a view of group differences that avoids oversimplified biology.

Liberals make a mistake when they try to prevent scholars from being heard — even those whose methods and logic are as slipshod as Murray’s. That would be true even if there were not scientific views of intelligence and genetics that progressives would likely find acceptable. But given that there is such a view, it is foolish indeed to try to prevent public discussion.”

Would that the NYT writer had taken that to heart before using the Vox article as justification for his claim that TBC was “junk science”.

And this, I think, illustrates the problem in the whole thrust of the NYT article. Who gets to decide when a point of view is so appalling that it should not be allowed to be argued? The crux of the issue about TBC is that if its conclusions were taken to be true, the African-American community would very probably be “paying” for that truth. Is free speech, in this case, too expensive?

I don’t know, but I incline towards the view that even extreme and distasteful positions should be able to be discussed. Though, perhaps, they shouldn’t be given equal air time…