Apr 14, 2010

By 1

Ethnic Hegemonies in American History, Part 1

Political Philosophy and Human Genetic DiversityWestern Political philosophy tends toward moral and political universalism: the idea that norms are valid for all human beings. This presupposes either that human beings are biologically pretty much the same, or that human biodiversity is irrelevant to moral and political issues. Nevertheless, Western political philosophers initially...

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Mar 14, 2010

By 5

Fred Reed on American Renaissance

“American Renaissance: Racists or Diagnosticians?”by Fred ReedFred on Everything, March 13, 2010Racism is in bad odor among the virtuous. I wonder why. At least, I wonder why any discussion of race is thought to be racism. The United States faces grave racial problems—more accurately, has them but doesn’t face them. Refusal to acknowledge their existence is not...

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Mar 2, 2010

By 5

Why an Alternative Right Is Necessary

In 2009, Human Events named its “Conservative of the Year.” Their choice hadn’t passed an important piece of legislation. He didn’t write a philosophical treatise on conservative principles. His selection had nothing to do with his position on healthcare, the economy, gun rights, immigration, or affirmative action. Dick Cheney became America’s most...

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Jan 4, 2010

By 6

Against Right Wing Culturalism

“The Trappings of Right-Wing Culturalism”In his book We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism, John Derbyshire lists three ways of looking at the world, making clear his preferences are with the third: religion, culturalism, and biologism.The religious viewpoint posits that mankind and what happens to it are the product of divine will. Culturalism proposes that...

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Dec 17, 2009

By 9

Good Hair

Even the most oppressive tyrannies have their jesters. Comedians, particularly Black ones, are about the only people free to draw attention to what the rest of us are obliged to ignore. A White man would barely be allowed by law to explain the difference between Black people and “niggas” in public, yet Chris Rock can do it on HBO. Dave Chappelle was making tens of millions of...

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Nov 20, 2009

By 8

Jane Elliott and Diversity Training

Commissar Elliott’s ExperimentOn the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in April 1968, Jane Elliott’s third graders from the small, all-white town of Riceville, Iowa, came to class confused and upset. They recently had made King their “Hero of the Month,” and they couldn’t understand why someone would kill him. So Elliott decided to teach...

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Nov 18, 2009

By 2

Shockley Vindicated

A highly revealing review of a recent biography of William Shockley includes many nuggets worth mining, such as this choice one:What transformed the giant of the semiconductor revolution into an aging crank who insisted on taping every phone call to his home?The reviewer poses his question rhetorically under the belief (unfortunately correct) that most readers — being their...

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Oct 8, 2009

By 2

Potemkin Equality

In 1787 the Russian count Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin organized a tour for Catherine the Great of recently annexed territories in the Crimea. Everywhere Catherine went, she saw villages filled with happy, prosperous peasants and concluded that all was well. Potemkin’s enemies, however, accused him of fooling the Empress by constructing fake villages, islands of prosperity in...

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Aug 10, 2009

By 5

The Case for Group Selection: Its Deniers

I’m not one to be suspicious of an intellectual just because he happens to be Jewish. But Emory University’s Melvin Konner seems to be a character straight out of The Culture of Critique. His 2003 book The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit is an enlightening look at what we know about the biochemical/genetic basis of human nature. Konner writes...

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Aug 3, 2009

By 0

How Two Presidents Faced Race Science

Earlier this decade, Skeptic magazine editor Frank Miele published a book entitled Intelligence, Race, And Genetics: Conversations With Arthur R. Jensen based on a series of exchanges he had with the famous Berkley psychologist.  As Jensen is best known for his belief that the root of the black/white gap in intelligence is largely genetic, one of the most interesting topics...

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