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Inconvenient Truths
As George Will points out in his book, The Conservative Sensibility:
America’s poverty problem is not one of material scarcities but of abundant bad behavior. Data demonstrate that there are three simple behavioral rules for avoiding poverty: finish high school, produce no child before marrying or before age twenty. Only 8 percent of families who conform to all three rules are poor; 79 percent of those who do not conform are poor.
None of this is particularly new; we’ve all heard and read the numbers before. Yet, in today’s world, to breathe these empirical truths is “racist”; it’s “blaming the victims.” Victims of what? Of failed progressive policies that dumb down education at the behest of teachers’ unions that send huge donations to progressive politicians? Of failed progressive welfare policies that reward young women for producing babies outside of marriage? Of failed progressive employment policies that penalize companies for hiring low-skilled workers? Of failed progressive housing policies that make low-income housing scarce?
No, of course not. Again, to even suggest such truths is racist. The only politically correct “truth” is that “systemic racism,” not behavior, causes poverty and inequality. The only politically correct solution, then, is to spend scarce resources that have alternative uses to fight systemic racism while continuing to spend scarce resources on progressive policies that create and sustain poverty; that is, on policies that create the inequality progressives claim is the result of systemic racism.
Published in General
” Of failed progressive employment policies that penalize companies for hiring low-skilled workers?”
What progressive employment policy does this? The policies that progressives at least profess to prefer, such as H1-B and lax enforcement of immgration law, REWARD companies for hiring low-skilled and low-trained workers.
Minimum wage laws and employee mandates.
I do believe you’ve got it. They simply want better lives for themselves. The purpose of the welfare state and the caring industrial complex is to elevate those who administer them. Their clients are beside the point, and they’d do without them if they could.
There’s always enough malcontents and losers around to riot, evenly spread across the economic spectrum, and especially now in the age of lopsided globalism. They’ve wasted years of life on grievance studies, substance abuse, easy sex, and self worship, and incurred crushing debt in the process. Now they can’t get jobs on Greta Thunberg’s personal staff, or at the mall for that matter.
The progressive project has always been, since its inception at the end of the 19th century, to transfer wealth, status, and power from those who produce to those who persuade. It has never had any other goal and has never worked to any other end.
Facts don’t support the Progressives’ claim that America is systemically racist. Why, for example, does a systemically racist society allow people of Indian, Taiwanese, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Japanese, Iranian, Lebanese, Sri Lankan, Malaysian, and Indonesian descent to do better economically than does the average majority white American? Why does it allow Asians to be “over-represented” in its elite universities? Why does it allow so many black Americans to become some of the richest and most influential people in the country? Why do people from all over the world desperately try to migrate to a systemically racist society?
Progressives have a convenient answer to such inconvenient questions: Logic and reason must be rejected because they are tools created by a patriarchal, majority, white population to secure its place at the top of the hierarchy. “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house,” in the words of black, lesbian, feminist writer Audre Lorde.
That logic and reason have been the tools used by all people of all races, all cultures, and all times to survive in a hostile world is irrelevant to Progressives who argue that feelings and emotions are valid, and perhaps superior, means of knowing.
That feelings and emotions wouldn’t enable anyone to survive in nature is also irrelevant because Progressives aren’t trying to survive in nature. Rather, they’re trying to live at others’ expense in a highly advanced, information-based society. To do that, they’ve created an underclass and have presented themselves as that underclass’ means for advancement. To convince producers to transfer their wealth to the underclass, they must convince them that their wealth was unfairly gained by exploiting others based on their race, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation.
To carry out their scam, Progressives must convince the underclass – an underclass that Progressives helped create – that they are being oppressed by the producing class and they must convince the producing class that they are the oppressors. In reality, Progressives are oppressing both classes to their own ends.
Christopher Caldwell, writing in National Review, summarizes Ibram X. Kendi’s (Kendi is the author of four books, including the bestselling, How to Be an Antiracist) binary view of race in America:
This OP suggests a third option: Progressive, paternalistic programs have created perverse incentives that resulted in the creation of a multigenerational underclass made up of people of all races.
The three diagnoses suggest three, very different, prescriptions:
Regarding Kendi above.
First, I usually don’t do the upfront prophylaxis thing, but some cases call for it: I’m referring to Caldwell’s summary as placed in context by Richard. That’s all I know about Kendi.
That said, Kendi’s problem is that his background assumption is the “system” was designed. He doesn’t understand that it emerges.
This is why Truthful is so powerful and why Jordan Peterson places so much emphasis on Truthful speech. All the evidence in the world can back you up, (and in terms of the connection between poverty and behavior it does) but it isn’t enough if you don’t speak up about it.
The interesting thing about George Will’s observation and the implications of the subsequent rhetorical questions, quoted above, is that they implicitly assume the Blank Slate. If only we had better schools, better social policies, everything would be as right as rain. It’s interesting because it is normally the Left that adheres to Blank Slate religious beliefs: people can be entirely molded by their environment; it’s all nurture, no nature.
Has it occurred to George Will or to the author of the OP that they might have the causality backwards? Perhaps the reason some individuals exhibit those anti-social behaviors is they were born that way. This is not to say that their behavior is entirely predetermined; don’t be a binary thinker (another leftist habit). Instead, it’s possible that some individuals have a strong propensity towards certain behaviors and it’s difficult to change that trajectory with government policy. Given that a host of attitudes and behaviors (including political orientation) are significantly heritable, it’s foolish to assume otherwise.
In short, this post is an example of “wet streets cause rain” reasoning. True, high rates of illegitimacy and and early marriage are correlated with poor outcomes. That doesn’t imply that government policy is capable of changing those outcomes much. A good example of this is the Head Start program, which aims to improve educational outcomes. As has been extensively documented, this program is of no long-term benefit to its participants.
No, people aren’t blank slates, but they do respond to incentives.
From Thomas Sowell, Affirmative Action Around the World, p. 117
What changed in the 1960s? Certainly not African American DNA. Why were marriage and employment rates significantly higher at a time when many state and federal laws required discrimination against black people than they are now when many state and federal laws require discrimination in favor of black people?
Economists often cite the partition of North and South Korea as a “natural experiment” because, when the two nations were created, the people, customs, and per capita wealth were essentially the same. They are the same no longer. North Korea has successfully created a “new soviet man” who is, on average, shorter, less intelligent, and far less independent than are people to the south. Generations of malnutrition, mind-numbing propaganda, and oppression have done their work.
From George Will, The Conservative Sensibility, pp. 318-321:
Neither North Koreans nor the children of exhausted and stressed single mothers are blank slates. But the environments in which they grow up make a big difference.
While Dr Sowell is an excellent economist, he knows nothing of biology. Since he’s also a blank-slate coreligionist, it’s not surprising you can find a supportive quote. Charles Murray should sit down with him and have a heart-to-heart. As for you, I recommend you read some of Murray’s work yourself for better understanding.
Of course people respond to incentives, which is why I cautioned you to avoid binary thinking. No one is claiming otherwise. However, there are limits to what incentives and other government interventions can accomplish. I cited Head Start as such an example in my previous comment. After decades of well-meaning, yet misguided, intervention, the results are zero. You can only do so much with the raw material given.
It’s been over 50 years since the 1960s. In half a century, about two generations, it’s quite possible to change the genetic composition of a population by suppressing the fertility of one segment while encouraging another. Mutations are not the only way the distribution of genes in a population can be changed. For instance, if you kill all the smart people, subsequent generations will be more stupid.
This little vignette illustrates why social scientists are poor at population genetics.
Please cease arguing against straw men. For the third time, no one denies that environment plays a role. The most obvious example is malnutrition. Consider the case of physical stature (height). Everyone understands that stature is highly heritable. If a child of tall parents is deprived of adequate nutrition, he will not reach his potential height, which under normal conditions he would. However, giving a child of short parents extra food will not make him any taller than he would be with merely adequate nutrition.
In short, genetics can strongly influence outcomes but extreme environments can undermine genetic potential. The reverse doesn’t work: providing an enriched environment will not do much to overcome genetic disadvantage. This is likely why Head Start was a disastrous failure.
Besides creating an extreme environment, the North Korean government likely also applied dysgenic policies, which would also affected the distribution of genes in their population. After all, they’ve had over half a century to work on it.
What are you saying here??
I dig Charles Murray but Thomas Sowell is no blank-slater. He fails to understand the differences between groups and perhaps he doesn’t realize how incredibly important an individual’s genetic heritage is but he in no way subscribes to the belief that everyone is born equally smart.
To lump him in with the science-denying leftists that insist that every individual is born with the same potential is unfair. You can disagree with him without exaggerating his stance.
“Fails to understand the differences between groups and perhaps he doesn’t realize how incredibly important an individual’s genetic heritage” is pretty-much the definition of a blank-slater. Okay, maybe he’s not a pure blank-slater; let’s say mostly a blank-slater. Happy now?
I did not lump him with science-denying leftists. I merely pointed out his blind spot concerning biology. The fact that he has this in common with leftists is a footnote. It turns out quite a few conservatives share this blind spot, including George Will. Many leftists are vegetarians or vegans. Is it impermissible to observe that some conservatives are also vegans? Or would that be I be lumping them in?
I think that some differences of degree are a difference in kind is all. It would indeed be nice if Charles Murray could have a long discussion with Thomas Sowell about heritability.
But more to Richard Fulmer’s point, is it reasonable to think that the 70% out of wedlock births in the black-American population is because of increased breeding via welfare started in the 1960s? The change is so dramatic it doesn’t seem unreasonable to think that culture plays the larger role.
As anonymous put it,
I didn’t realize it was necessary to connect those dots any more than they are already. Take a moment to review the analogy of stature and nutrition in comment #14. That was the “explainer.”
Cliff Notes version: you can’t fix stupid.
A more expansive explanation of the differences in human population are covered quite well by Nicholas D. Wade’s Book, A Troublesome Inheritance. He does a terrific job of explaining everything for non-biologists. anonymous did a great review of the book.
It sounds like you’re saying blacks are intellectually inferior.
Please check out the post I linked to. I gets into why different groups have different tendencies when it comes to I.Q. or behavior based on their environment and what traits were selected for at the time.
Again and for the umpteenth time, it’s not a binary choice. Neither genetics nor environment are solely responsible for an individual’s development. However, the OP implies that environment is the dominant, or even sole, determinant. And that claim is certainly not in evidence. Furthermore, many of the social engineering attempts have not been successful because of the failure to take inherent factors into account, as I’ve already mentioned. Given those spectacular failures, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to think that genetics plays the larger role.
Mr Walker is making a point in support of what I wrote in comment #13, namely that cultural evolution is rapid and causes a change in population genetics. As Dutton & Woodley explain in At Our Wits’ End and other publications, the end of the extensive use of the death penalty in Britain resulted in a significant, secular change in selection for intelligence over a relatively short time.
I imply no such thing. I’m clearly stating that the welfare state created perverse incentives and people responded to those incentives. Look at the numbers:
Why did these things happen in such a sort time? I believe that they were due to progressive policies such as:
One of the most important things that a young person starting out in the world needs is a job. A job provides a new worker with basic skills such as arriving on time, diligence, civility, and the ability to work as a member of a team. Having established a track record, a worker can move up in the organization or more easily find a new job with another company. Work experience is so important that, hundreds of years ago, parents often tried to ensure their children’s future by apprenticing them to craftsmen. The children were given room and board, training, and little else. Even today, hundreds of young adults take jobs as unpaid interns.
Unfortunately, laws that increase the cost of hiring have made it difficult or impossible for poor, unskilled, badly educated (thanks to our public schools), high school graduates to get that all-important first job. At the same time, another paternalistic program, the “War on Drugs,” has created “employment opportunities” in the underground market – a market in which a job all too often leads to death or imprisonment.
Another path open to people unable to find work is government welfare. Unfortunately, such programs often do little other than try to make people more comfortable in their poverty rather than work to get them out of it.
Theodore Dalrymple’s book, Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass, provides a vivid, if horrifying, look at the world created by the welfare state. Dalrymple (whose real name is Anthony Daniels) is a, now retired, medical doctor and psychiatrist from Great Britain. In his book he tells about his experiences over some 15 years of working in a poor area of Birmingham, England. Note that the people with whom he worked were nearly all white – welfare is an equal opportunity destroyer.
The book was painful to read because of the stories of abused women and children; stories of alcoholism and drug addiction; of dependency, violence, and crime.
But I think what disturbed me most was the realization that the doctor eventually lost all sympathy for most of his patients. Before coming to Birmingham, he’d worked for years among the poor in Africa, so he knew what real poverty looked like. And compared to those people – in fact, compared to most of the people in the world – Birmingham’s “poor” were fabulously wealthy. They had roofs over their heads. Their homes had electricity. They had clean running water and didn’t have to watch their children die of cholera, typhoid, or dysentery. There was food on the table, and they didn’t have to watch their children go hungry day after day. They had heat in the winter, free education, free medical care. Most had television, microwaves, and computers.
In fact, Daniels’s patients weren’t suffering from material poverty. Instead, they lived in hells of their own making. The doctor tells about setting the bones and sewing up the lacerations of women who’d been beaten by their boyfriends. He would beg them not to go back, but they always did. He warned people to get off the couch and get some exercise. To start eating right so they wouldn’t die of heart disease. To stop living their lives in front of their TV sets. To get treatment for their addictions. But most didn’t listen. After 15 years of trying, Daniels had given up. He’d treated people’s symptoms, but he couldn’t cure the spiritual disease that caused those symptoms – a disease created by Britain’s dole.
If you read out loud to your kids, they will see you reading. If they see you reading independently, it is reinforced. They’ll want to be able to do it too. I saw both of my parents reading, and both of them read to me. They also used to spell out words when I was in the room and the subject matter was judged to be something they didn’t want me to know. They laugh and tell me that when I was four, I muttered that someday I’d “crack that spelling code.”
I started reading. My mom despaired because I read comic books. My teacher aunts and cousins told her: he’s reading, don’t worry about it. Eventually, I discovered mysteries, then science fiction, then history. I’ve recounted before that the Classics Illustrated edition of Ivanhoe led me to try to negotiate Sir Walter Scott’s original before I was out of elementary school.
Did I inherit a love of reading, or was it inculcated? I don’t know. I have an insufficient data set from which to draw a conclusion.
Correct, you have insufficient data but people who study these questions for a living have better data. One way to disentangle inherited and environmental effects is to do twin and adoption studies, which is precisely why those studies are so illuminating.
It’s wise of you not to attempt to draw conclusions from your experience because you can’t distinguish the two effects and also because a result based on N=1 is almost useless. Sadly, many are inclined to do exactly that while being blissfully unaware of the careful work, over many decades, that others have done. Instead, they rely on gut feeling or simply accept the politically correct narrative. That’s why we find ourselves in the pickle we’re in.
Those who are too afraid or who can’t be bothered to inform themselves of the extensive work in the field are condemned to ignorance and to advocating bad public policy. Try standing on the shoulders of giants; you’ll be amazed how far you can see.
It sounds like you are obsessed with race.
Nowhere did I mention race in this set of comments or in the article about Head Start that I linked. Has it occurred to you that Head Start is not a race-based program? Probably not.
Incentives are part of the environment. Is this point unclear to you or are you simply agreeing with me in an oblique manner?
I understand that incentives are part of the environment. I also understand that the environment – along with innate abilities – affects how people behave. Even though you give lip service to the idea that environment matters, you reject all examples of people responding to changes in their environment. It’s sort of reverse projection. You’re claiming that Thomas Sowell and I are “blank slaters” and all the while your a “closed slater” – children pop out of the womb fully programed and that’s the end of it.
Anyone who has had children understand that babies come prepackaged with a lot of software. But they also understand that those same prewired kids learn and change.