Evans: the Unwelcome Revival of “Race Science”.

This post is about an oldie but goodie, of which I only learned last week.

“The Unwelcome Revival of ‘Race Science’”, by Gavin Evans appeared last March. Unfortunately, he published it in The Guardian. To recognise his article forces me to acknowledge something positive in that filthy rag, traditionally considered “the foul prostitute and dirty parasite of the worst portion of the mill-owners”.

I’m no expert in evolutionary biology or psychology, but I think those in similar position would benefit from reading Evans’ piece. It deals with the biggest names associated to “race science” and their arguments. The article seems well researched and thoughtful.

It’s because I think highly of that article that I must point to its weaknesses, which subtract from its virtues. Charitably, one can say Evans was dealing only with “race science” and that’s why similar attitudes, which many in the centre-right and centre-left (of the anti-Marxist variety) entertain go unmentioned: they aren’t founded on “race science”.

That omission, however, leaves readers with the erroneous impression that bigotry is a preserve of the alt-right.

Take this passage from Evans’ piece:

“In the past, race science has shaped not only political discourse, but also public policy. The year after The Bell Curve was published, in the lead-up to a Republican congress slashing benefits for poorer Americans [often but not only black and female, Charles] Murray gave expert testimony before a Senate committee on welfare reform”.

The idea is that welfare benefits only encourage improvident behaviour, irresponsibility and laziness.

Now compare that with political scientist and Georgetown University professor Jason Brennan’s “epistocracy” proposal, where less educated voters (largely poor blacks and whites, males and females) would have their voting rights reduced:

“It’s true (at least right now) that certain demographic groups (such as rich white men) are more likely to pass a basic political knowledge test than others (such as poor black women). Hence the worry that epistocracies will favour the interests of some groups over others. But this worry might be overstated. Political scientists routinely find that so long as individual voters have a low chance of being decisive, they vote for what they perceive to be the common good rather than their self-interest. Further, it might well be that excluding or reducing the power of the least knowledgeable 75 per cent of white people produces better results for poor black women than democracy does.”

Brennan wasn’t demonising poor blacks or whites, men or women. Quite to the contrary. He was careful to explain that “voters tend to mean well, but voting well takes more than a kind heart”. Writing in 2016 he was worried about a Trump triumph.

Check that link. Nowhere Brennan mentions “race science”. In his argument, is not that those demographics are genetically inferior; it’s just they are “ignorant, biased and misinformed”,  “incompetent” to vote rationally. That’s why he would have their voting rights reduced.

Brennan’s a bleeding-heart libertarian, a liberal in the Manchesterian sense of the word, maybe even a left-leaning one. At any rate, he most certainly isn’t a “scientific racist”, alt-righter or 1488er. Does that make his proposal better than Murray’s?

Think carefully before casting the first stone, for the decidedly “progressive” in Britain and the US (at the very least) aren’t immune to that. I trust I will not be forced to substantiate that claim with links beyond this one. Although they haven’t been shy about it, I’d hate to do that. Call it vicarious shame.

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To refer readers to anything Marx and Engels wrote is frowned upon in polite society. One must limit oneself to links like those I quoted. Otherwise one may be labelled “dogmatic” (God forbid!).

Therefore, I apologise to respectable readers, because referring them to Marx and Engels is precisely what I intend to do. Try their 1879 Circular Letter to August Bebel, Wilhelm Liebknecht, Wilhelm Bracke and Others. Skip the first two sections and go straight to section III.