Commenter Brigid alerted me to this study claiming that Religious belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide. On the other hand, Jack Strocchi points to Niall Ferguson claiming that A faith vacuum haunts Europe.
A striking feature of these completing claims is that the alleged effects are the opposite of what might be expected. According to the Journal of Religion and Society study, religion is supposed to cause things condemned by Christianity, and most other major religions. On the other hand, Ferguson appears concerned (as usual) with the decline of martial ‘virtues’ that are antithetical to Christianity as preached by Jesus. At least that’s the only sense I can make of the leap in his final sentence where he asks
how far has their own loss of religious faith turned Britain into a soft target — not so much for the superstition Chesterton feared, but for the fanaticism of others?
What’s even more striking is how little difference the presence or absence of religious belief seems to make. Americans and Europeans, not to mention Red-staters and Blue-staters, don’t seem to behave in radically different ways[1], and the differences that can be observed don’t have any obvious relationship to the inferences you might make if you supposed that one group believed in the Bible and the other did not. Neither the Ten Commandments nor the teachings of Jesus seem to command any more practical adherence in America than in Europe, while it’s hard to see how free-market economics and military unilateralism have any particular basis in Christianity.
The (apparent) unimportance of religious belief for social outcomes was one the great surprises of the 20th century, although, like most negative discoveries, its significance is not fully appreciated. In the 18th and 19th centuries, nearly everyone thought that religious belief made a big difference, for good or ill. Enlightenment figures like Diderot believed that man would never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. On the other side of the fence, Nietzsche’s philosophy was built on the observation that “God is dead” and the assumption that some transcendent replacement was required if we were not to collapse in nihilistic despair. Most in the 19th century agreed with Voltaire that if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him, since social order could never be maintained without the availability of Heaven and Hell to supplement earthly rewards and punishments.
So far at least, it seems that neither side is right. As Fergusson points out, the collapse of religious belief in Britain has not produced an Age of Reason – superstitions of all kinds flourish. And Parliamentary politics goes on much as it has for the past two centuries or so, despite the greatly diminished influence of kings and priests. On the other side of the coin, there is no sign of social collapse. Most obviously, crime rates are far lower than they were in the days of Victorian values, let alone in the medieval era when virtually everyone was a believer.
This is, I think a good thing. The more that religion is a purely private matter, with no particular social implications, the less likely we are to fight about it.
fn1. Ferguson briefly concedes this point in relation to sexual behaviour, but ploughs on regardless.
John Quiggin 
The central fallacy in this religion-crime study is its complete failure to make apples to apples comparisons between, say, American whites and European whites, or American blacks and British blacks. As Dr. Quiggin rightly says, the effects of religion are more marginal than other factors. With crime in America, two huge factors, for whatever causes, appear to be gender and race/ethnicity.
Unfortunately, this study’s weaknesses are hardly a rare shortcoming. Generally speaking, discussions of crime in America are intellectually hamstrung by the discomfort most intellectuals feel in speaking frankly about race and ethnicity. But you can’t understand anything about crime in America without thinking honestly about race/ethnicity, for the simple reason that the 27% of the population that is Hispanic or black accounts for about two-thirds of all prisoners.
Here are the incarceration rates among the four major groups in America expressed as ratios of the non-Hispanic white rate:
Poor groups:
Blacks 7.2 to 1
Hispanics 2.9 to 1
Affluent groups:
Whites 1 to 1 (by definition)
East and South Asians 0.22 to 1
So, even between groups of similar levels of income, the incarceration rates differ radically: blacks are about 2.4 times more likely to be imprisioned than Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites are about 4.5 times more likely to be locked up than Asians.
The best analyst of crime in America over the last three decades has been James Q. Wilson, precisely because he’s honest about race and ethnicity. For a 2002 essay by him on race and crime, see http://isteve.blogspot.com/2005/10/words-of-wisdom-from-james-q-wilson-on.html
“A central problem—perhaps the central problem—in improving the relationship between white and black Americans is the difference in racial crime rates. No matter how innocent or guilty a stranger may be, he carries with him in public the burdens or benefits of his group identity…
“Estimating the crime rates of racial groups is, of course, difficult because we only know the arrest rate. If police are more (or less) likely to arrest a criminal of a given race, the arrest rate will overstate (or understate) the true crime rate. To examine this problem, researchers have compared the rate at which criminal victims report (in the National Crime Victimization Survey, or NCVS) the racial identity of whoever robbed or assaulted them with the rate at which the police arrest robbers or assaulters of different races. Regardless of whether the victim is black or white, there are no significant differences between victim reports and police arrests. This suggests that, though racism may exist in policing (as in all other aspects of American life), racism cannot explain the overall black arrest rate. The arrest rate, thus, is a reasonably good proxy for the crime rate.
“Black men commit murders at a rate about eight times greater than that for white men. This disparity is not new; it has existed for well over a century. When historian Roger Lane studied murder rates in Philadelphia, he found that since 1839 the black rate has been much higher than the white rate. This gap existed long before the invention of television, the wide distribution of hand guns, or access to dangerous drugs (except for alcohol).
“America is a violent nation. The estimated homicide rate in this country, excluding all those committed by blacks, is over three times higher than the homicide rate for the other six major industrial nations. But whatever causes white Americans to kill other people, it causes black Americans to kill others at a much higher rate.
“Of course the average African American male is not likely to kill anybody. During the 1980s and early 1990s, fewer than one out of every 2,000 black men would kill a person in any year, and most of their victims were other blacks. Though for young black men homicide is the leading cause of death, the chances of the average white person’s being killed by a black are very small. But the chances of being hit by lightning are also very small, and yet we leave high ground during a thunderstorm. However low the absolute risk, the relative risk—relative, that is, to the chances of being killed by a white—is high, and this fact changes everything.
“When whites walk down the street, they are more nervous when they encounter a black man than when they encounter a white one. When blacks walk down the street, they are more likely than whites to be stopped and questioned by a police officer…
“The differences in the racial rates for property crimes, though smaller than those for violent offenses, are still substantial. The estimated rate at which black men commit burglary is three times higher than it is for white men; for rape, it is five times higher. The difference between blacks and whites with respect to crime, and especially violent crime, has, I think, done more to impede racial amity than any other factor. Pure racism—that is, a visceral dislike of another person because of his skin color—has always existed. It is less common today than it once was, but it persists and no doubt explains part of our racial standoff. But pure racism once stigmatized other racial minorities who have today largely overcome that burden. When I grew up in California, the Chinese and Japanese were not only physically distinctive, but they were also viewed with deep suspicion by whites. For many decades, Chinese testimony was not accepted in California courts, an Alien Land Law discouraged Asian land purchases, the Chinese Exclusion Act (not repealed until 1943) prevented Chinese immigration, and a Gentlemen’s Agreement, signed in 1907, required Japan to cut back sharply on passports issued to Japanese who wished to emigrate to California. When World War II began, the Japanese were sent to relocation camps at great personal cost to them. Yet today Californians of Asian ancestry are viewed by Caucasians with comfort and even pride. In spite of their distinctive physical features, no one crosses the street to avoid a Chinese or Japanese youth. One obvious reason is that they have remarkably low crime rates.”
No one can doubt the correlation between race and crime in the United States.
There are two broad motives for social policy makers to act upon these observable facts:
1. recognise that race is a potent marker of the causes of criminality: marginalisation, a history of discrimination, generations of blighted expectations, a culture of poverty. Out of that recognition might arise programs designed to mitigate these deeper causes.
2. assert that race itself is the cause of criminality. Out of that prejudice might arise a return to Jim Crow and apartheid. On the face of it, this seems to be the drift of Sailer’s comments.
If that is the case, then Sailer seems to be flirting with the notion of raiding the linen closet for an old sheet and a ruler to measure the distance between his eyes.
Katz,
Considering that steve approvingly quotes statements such as:
“America is a violent nation. The estimated homicide rate in this country, excluding all those committed by blacks, is over three times higher than the homicide rate for the other six major industrial nations. But whatever causes white Americans to kill other people, it causes black Americans to kill others at a much higher rate.
“Of course the average African American male is not likely to kill anybody. During the 1980s and early 1990s, fewer than one out of every 2,000 black men would kill a person in any year…”
I don’t think it is fair to accuse him of racism.
Nowhere does he suggest that the difference in crime rates is due to genetic differences between the races.
Steve S,
You win the “cut two words from a quote and change it’s meaning” award for this thread. I said poverty and demographics . As for rising crime in the US in the 1960s – have you ever heard of the baby boom?
Two other points:
The example you give above comparing Afro-americans to Hispanic americans is not the same as controlling for income when assessing crime statistics. Until you do this, your claims about afro-americans being the cause of violent crime in the US are empty.
Wilson makes a good point – the chances of, as white person, being murdered by an afro-american are very slim. Wilson’s follow up anaolgy about lightening is (and sorry John if this violates your comments policy) just plain stupid. ‘Very few people are killed by lightning, yet we avoid high ground during lightning storms’. Ummm…that might be because quite a few people who hang around hill-tops in lightning storms are killed by lightning. The analogy to crossing the streat to avoid a black man doesn’t hold. A more apt analogy (lightning storms and gunshot deaths) would be crossing the street to avoid two men (of any colour) shooting at each other.
All of which brings me to my final point:
White American’s phobia of afro-americans, most probably, has a lot more to do with media constucted images than any rational choice about preserving their lives. (After all, if people made such choices they would avoid freeways like the plague and run screaming when ever they came across food high in saturated fat).
Arrggghhhhhhh……the ice-cream is after me….the ice-cream is after me…………………
John,
The reason I objected to your interpretation is that one of Nietzsche’s clear notions is the rejection of transcendence There is no sense in which the Ubermensch would be transcendent. It’s as bad a mistake as saying that Plato thought we should concentrate on the phenomenal world, or that Sartre thought we were all determined to be what we are.
Thank you for your extrapolation of Sailer’s racial attitudes IG. You may be correct.
However, I’d prefer to hear it from the horse’s mouth.
Racism these days is much more, as the common buzzword puts it, “nuanced”.
“The Bell Curve” is a nuanced exegesis on inherent racial differences.
Likewise, Sailer’s observation that the United States is a violent society, but that Afro-Americans seem to be more susceptible to the impulse to pursue violent solutions to their problems may well be interpreted as an, (ahem) nuanced appeal to purported inherent racial differences.
I’d like to be made to stand corrected by Sailer himself.
Tim Lambert Says: October 11th, 2005 at 12:46 am
Tim Lambert is largely correct for saying this, although I do not think this point is much in dispute. Way back on October 10th, 2005 at 10:06 am Jack Strocchi said:
The trend for crime in the UK is not quite so clear. In the UK over the past generation crime rates rose dramaticly, starting from the mid-sixties and peaking in the mid-nineties.
Crime rates in the UK have fallen quite significantly in the past ten years. It has been on a secular aging trend over the past ten years, and has also put alot more cops on the beat (“The Bill”). The British Crime Survey, which uses realistic reporting standards, concludes that:
But yobbish and loutish public behaviour is on the increase.
The evidence, both anecdotal and statistical, suggests that over the past decade or so a large section of British youth have turned into foul-mouthed drunken yobs, so called “lager louts” or “lads”.
This has certainly reduced the civility and amenity of the UK. And this ugly tendency is undoubtedly, in part, due to the collapse in the traditional British ideal of a Christian gentleman.
OK, I take your point Neil, but I think we are disagreeing about semantics. The Ubermensch may not be transcendent in a metaphysical sense but he transcends the traditional constraints of ethics and fills the void left by a transcendent God. From where I stand, he looks, walks and smells like a transcendent replacement for God.
Interesting that incarceration rates are used here as a shorthand for criminality by race. But isn’t it true that US incarceration policies are compounding a problem? Increased penalties for petty larceny and misdemeanours are increasingly likely to send you to the big house, and become an institutionalised criminal. There’s a vicious circle at play in african american societies.
Jack Strocchi writes:
“It looks like UK crime peaked in the mid-nineties and has now fallen back to mid-eighties levels, possibly due to economic growth and tougher penalties.”
It’s important to distinguish between different types of crime. Property crime can be cut way down by “target-hardening” without any decline in the overall “criminality” of a population. For example, property crime began falling around 1975 in the U.S., largely due to more locks and alarms the like. For example, when I was very small, people in LA left their keys in the ignition of their cars. Then, up through about 1970 or so, they left their doors unlocked. Whenever my father saw a parked car with its headlights on, he’d open the door and turn out the lights to save the battery. After about 1972 or so, everytime we tried that, the doors would be locked.
About then new cars came out with the device that locked the steering wheel. Then lots of people in the 1980s got car alarms, which proved extremely irritating. In the 1990s, The Club came along.
Not surprisingly, car theft dropped due to all this target-hardening, but nobody believed this was due to a lowering of criminality, just due to a lot of expensive and inconvenient precautions. In fact, it became so hard to steal parked cars, that car-jacking took off in the U.S. in the early 1990s. This crime horrified the public and was stomped out fairly fast.
The big crime drop over the last dozen years in the U.S. seems to be of a different nature, a decline of criminality, at least among the reduced % of the population outside of jail.
I don’t know enough about other countries to say whether that is happening there too, or whether they are just in the target-hardening phase that the US was in from, say, 1975-1993. But the recent UN statistics on victims reports of assault, with non-US English speaking countries like Scotland at the top of the list, suggests one should be skeptical about assuming a true decline in criminality as we’ve seen in the U.S.
According to this new UN survey of people in dozens of countries, people in Scotland are now about 50% more likely to be victims of assault than people in the U.S.. Since the population of Scotland is still highly white, while the population of the U.S. is only about 69% white and nonwhites make up at least half of the victims of violent crime in the US, this suggests the violent crime rate, excluding Americans’ penchant for handgun murders, is significantly higher among white Scots than among white Americans today. — Steve Sailer
From the Times of London, September 2005
Scotland tops world league for violent crime
Camillo Fracassini
SCOTLAND is the most violent country in the developed world, according to a United Nations report.
Excluding murder, Scots are almost three times more likely to be victims of assault than Americans. England and Wales have proportionately the second highest number of assaults.
Many experts believe Britain’s heavy-drinking culture is to blame for the frequency with which fights break out.
The study, based on phone interviews with victims of crime in 21 countries, found that more than 2,000 Scots are attacked every week — almost 10 times police figures. The crimes covered by the study include assaults, but exclude street muggings, sexual violence and murder.
Violent crime has doubled in Scotland over the past 20 years to a level comparable with crime-ridden cities such as Rio de Janeiro. [Although the murder rate in gun-controlled Scotland is not terribly high.]
The attacks have been fuelled by a “booze and bladesâ€? culture in the west of Scotland, with the worst offenders being males aged between 15 and 25…
Senior police have little doubt that alcohol-related thuggery is the main factor in violence on British streets.
Chris Allison, lead officer on licensing at the Association of Chief Police Officers and a commander in the Metropolitan police, has said that drunkenness is “all we are ever dealing with.�
According to the UN study, 3% of Scots had been victims of assault. The second highest figure was recorded in England and Wales at 2.8%, compared with 2% in America and 0.1% in Japan.
“Our survey is more accurate than the official figures because there is a huge proportion of crimes that go unreported,� said Jan Van Dijk, head of analysis at the UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute.
“We have seen a trend in Scotland and the proportion has almost doubled since 1989 and risen from 1.9% in 1996. This is very significant and is a clear upward trend.�
Whenever I bring up some politically incorrect statistics, I’m always struck by the number of persons who want to discuss whether or not I’m a bad person for mentioning them, rather than whether or not the statistics are true.
The topic of this thread is comparing the social behavior of post-Christian European and Antipodean countries to fairly Christian America. The study that has been getting a lot of favorable publicity made the common error of comparing the crime rates of the overall American population to those of the mostly white post-Christian countries, which is misleading due to the radically higher violent crime rates among 13% of the American population that is African-American and, to a lesser extent, the 14% that is Hispanic American (although the 4% of the American population that is East Asian typically improves the overall behavioral statistics).
For example, the federal Burea of Justice statistics reports that “Blacks were 7 times more likely than whites to commit homicide in 2002”. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm
And that’s actually a slight understatement of the racial/ethnic ratio in American homicides because the U.S. government, which normally is fanatical about breaking out Hispanics as a separate group in government statistics, here lumps most Hispanics into white, which lowers the ratio. (On the other hand, the serious crime rate among Asian-Americans, some of whom are poor immigrants, is very, very low.)
Why there are these large ethnic differences in crime rates — nature? nurture? the interaction of nature and nurture? — could be a fascinating topic for a future thread, but it’s not terribly relevant to the issue of how to analyze the validity of this cited paper on religion and behavior. It’s enough to know that there are large and fairly stable differences in behavioral statistics among different groups in the U.S. (as in most other countries), so lumping them all together leads to apples to oranges comparisons.
However, lots of people would rather worry about whether or not I’m committing crimethink inside my own head than how to think more clearly about this study.
“It’s enough to know that there are large and fairly stable differences in behavioral statistics among different groups in the U.S. (as in most other countries), so lumping them all together leads to apples to oranges comparisons.
“However, lots of people would rather worry about whether or not I’m committing crimethink inside my own head than how to think more clearly about this study.”
Nice nuance Steve.
However, I’d like to exonerate myself of the charge of accusing you of crimethink.
As Marx observed, either correctly or incorrectly, it’s all very well to understand the world, the point is to change it.
Do you see yourself as simply a collector of fascinating but useless arcana?
OR
Do your interesting statistics point a way forward (however vaguely at present given the difficulties you acknowledge in the collection and transmission of this information) in changing the world?
Absolutely. I believe that the truth is better for humanity than ignorance, lies, and wishful thinking.
As the three mottos on my http://www.iSteve.com website read:
Live not by lies. – Solzhenitsyn
To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle. – Orwell
Knowledge is good. – Animal House
That satisfies me.
Katz, sorry I misread your original statement.
Once I read it at normal speed it is perfectly consistent.
Is there a quantification of how white european coutnries are? While they may still be less ethnically diverse than the US, there has been quite a wave of migration in recent years. The UK is about as multi-ethnic as the US, Australia I believe is moreso than the US.
I gues the ultimate point is that statistics are always too easy to manipulate, and figures are basically impossible to extract meaningfully. One thing does still stick out though – what about the atheistic, non-violent Japan?
The decline in crime in the UK has occured in both violent and property crime. The ICVS numbers that you quoted don’t tell you anything about trends.
>Interesting that incarceration rates are used here as a shorthand for criminality by race.
Wilful you raise a valid point and, if anything, it is moee serious than your comments imply.
In addition to the question of sentencing relativities for different classes of offence there are a whole range of other factors affecting arrest and incarceration rates.
The poor, regardless of their race, are less likely to have good legal representation. They are more likely to be held on remand (because they often lack the means to make bail, can’t provide a suitable address and are less likely to have relatives or others (such as clergy) to vouch for them). They are less likely to be offered alternatives to custodial sentences (such as good behaviour bonds or community service) and have more difficult in meeting the conditions of such arrangements.
For similar reasons, they have more difficulty getting parole and are more likely to be returned to prison for parole violation. (For example, if you can’t make rent and get evicted there’s a good chance you’re in breach of your parole.)
I don’t have statistics to support this but it would seem logical that the more time you spend in prison the greater risk of recidivism on release. (up to a certain limit anyway, I doubt many 90 year old parolees re-offend.)
Time in prison would seem to correlate with your risk of losing contact with your social networks, relationship break-down and difficulty in gaining employment. Also, in most prisons, unfortunately, the longer you’re in the chances are the greater your risk probably is of being victimised by other prisoners, becoming drug dependant or developing psychiatric problems.
>the serious crime rate among Asian-Americans, some of whom are poor immigrants, is very, very low.
The REPORTED crime rate is very low.
Spend much time around East Asian communities and get to know poeple and you’ll find that a lot of criminal behaviour is handled informally within the community.
This can range from the relatively benign (ostracism) to the local snakeheads putting a bullet through someone’s head.
Katz Says: October 11th, 2005 at 8:28 am
This is a silly and nasty aside. It is diagnostic of the Wets lazy attitude towards the empirical evidence gathered on the effects of liberal policy on minorities. Jerry Pournelle summed up the perversity of the Wets social policies:
No wonder the Wets keep getting beaten like a drum.
Tim Lambert Says: October 11th, 2005 at 1:45 pm
I have been reading stats off the British Crime Survey, which contributes to the ICVS but is not identical to it, due to the lack of international standardisation in collecting crime statistics.
The story on UK violent crime is not quite that cut and dried. Crimes of violence are off their mid-nineties peak, owing to stricter border control, more police and tougher sentencing. But over the past couple of years the British Crime Survey shows that there has been a bit of an uptick in recorded incidence of violent crime.
Some of this may be due to improved reportage by authorities and increased victim sensitivity. Part of it also appears to be due to the upsurge in public drunkeness that has recently come back to plague the British, especially those inhabitants of the “dark and beastly” provinces to the North. Some increase in temperance is indicated.
Most observers of the scene have concluded that there is plenty of room for improvement in the behaviour of British youth. Whether this should come from without (profane penal sanctions) or within (sacred moral ordinances) is a something that is worthy of another thread.
“‘Sailer seems to be flirting with the notion of raiding the linen closet for an old sheet and a ruler to measure the distance between his eyes.’
This is a silly and nasty aside. It is diagnostic of the Wets lazy attitude towards the empirical evidence gathered on the effects of liberal policy on minorities.”
1. Perhaps Jack didn’t read Sailer’s equivocating answer to my direct question on this point.
2. If Jack did read this answer, perhaps we are seeing yet more evidence of Jack’s often endearing monomaniac tendencies in this intemperate verbal spray. Regular readers of this blog will know what I’m talking about.
3. One more time: I’m not a Wet. Even Razor recognises this.
Katz Says: October 11th, 2005 at 6:10 pm
I did. Katz’s “direct questions” were actually leading questions that the shonkiest barrister would have been ashamed to put to the most evasive witness. They took the form:
– when are you going to realise that wife beating is wrong?
or
– when are you going to stop beating your wife?
These type of questions are idiotic in themselves, impertinent coming from an intellectual lightweight and ideological posturer like Katz and deserve nothing but withering scorn. Sailers’ response – which gently mocked Katz’s warped priorities – only seemed “equivocating” because he was being polite to a fault.
Rubbish, Katz is a Howard-hating liberal Leftist. He talks like a Wet, consorts with Wets and apologises for Wets. Katz is a Wet in everything but name.
The definition of a fanatic is “one who having lost sight of his goals, redoubles his efforts.” The Wets and their fellow travelling apologists, as Pournelle’s Klan analogy beautifully details, fit this description to a T. Otherwise they would be doing something useful to help minorities.
Instead they have, until Howard put a bomb under them, pushed policies that consolidate minority misery to the profit of self-appointed spokesmen and elite agents. So I think that Katz is projecting here.
Steve Sailer Says:
October 11th, 2005 at 10:46 am
Whenever I bring up some politically incorrect statistics, I’m always struck by the number of persons who want to discuss whether or not I’m a bad person for mentioning them, rather than whether or not the statistics are true.
(Note, JQ, I specifically reject in the following diagnosis of the intellectual infirmity displayed by Jack Strocchi, any personal defect on his part.)
Once again, Savonarola Strocchi, using more fonts than a ransom note, takes the world hostage with his latest outburst of emotional immaturity that might serve as a classic diagnostic for asberger’s syndrome, if it were not well known that he is one of the more embarrassing disciples of that funny old Fat Controller, Frank Knoffelmacher. That, rather than any developmental deficiency explains everything.
Strocchi’s stultiloquent diatribes suffer from the intellectual defect of vulgar Hempelianism. This is a very sad intellectual condition, because sophisticated Hempelianism is sad enough in itself.
Now, let it be noted, for all readers who perhaps have not heard of him, he is now justly obscure, so don’t feel too bad about it.
Onto substantive matters: this blog isn’t a court of law. Sailer can’t incriminate himself in the narrow sense of the word. He had nothing to lose from saying outright: “I do (don’t) believe that Africans genetic differences from other races are (aren’t) sufficient causes for inherent and irremediable deficiencies in intellectual capacity, among whose consequences is a greater propensity for violent crime.”
I note that since our last exchange Sailer hasn’t made further comment. Coincidence or not?
Jack comes from that binary universe wherein hating Howard equates to being a Wet. You ought to get out more Jack.
Katz Says: October 12th, 2005 at 8:38 am
Thats rich. Katz has a cheek fling this accusation at me since he is the one conducting a flying Inquisition into intellectual morality. He is turning it into a star chamber.
Katz forgot to cue ominous theme music.
Exactly who died and made Katz Pope of Steve Sailer’s “ideological soundness”? Five minutes with google could have answered Katz’s impertinent question. Sailer is not a racist, he is a nationalistic “citizenist”. If we had more of the latter we would have less of the former.
As to the average intellectual potential and moral propensities of different groups – this is a matter for empirical investigation not ideological inquisition. Perhaps Katz would consider trying a bit of the former instead of boring us to tears with the latter.
Secondary School clear thinking:
My questions of Sailer:
Do you see yourself as simply a collector of fascinating but useless arcana?
OR
Do your interesting statistics point a way forward (however vaguely at present given the difficulties you acknowledge in the collection and transmission of this information) in changing the world?
Strocchi’s parody of my questions:
– when are you going to realise that wife beating is wrong?
or
– when are you going to stop beating your wife?
Strocchi’s parody (well-worn old chestnuts both) suffer from the logical defect of the excluded middle.
Whereas my questions do not.
My questions were open-ended, providing an opportunity for Sailer to clear up a matter of fact, not a matter of ideological purity.
I hope that I won’t offend Sailer too much by confessing that I’d never heard of him beofre his serial visits to this site. I don’t believe he is important enough for me to go off in search of his thoughts on any issue.
I’m happy to accept his assurance that he isn’t a racist and wish him every happiness in the obscurity to which he returns.
Katz Says: October 12th, 2005 at 12:26 pm
When Katz has made some kind of amazing scientific contribution to this debate then perhaps he can indulge in snooty looking down his nose at the honest toilers in the intellectual vineyard. Until then he should show some common courtesy.
Rubbish. Katz has slyly changed the question series but the hyperlinking can unmask his little ruse.
This does not sound like an “open-ended [question], providing an opportunity for Sailer to clear up a matter of fact, not a matter of ideological purity.” [Sound of muffled guffaw.]
Katz was not interested in finding out any facts on the matter about Steve Sailer or the social science of ethnic issues. He was trying to parade his ideological credentials by posturing in front of the moral vanity mirror.
The easiest way to do this is to post a “Buckley’s or None” brace of questions to ones opponent:
Do you agree with my, axiomaticly true and oh-so-worthy Wet, way of framing the problem of integrating different ethnics?
or
If you disagree with me then can you notfy us of your membersip number in the Klu Klux Klan?
Talk about “suffer[ing] from the logical defect of the excluded middle”. In Katz’s moral and intellectual universe these are the only two options. He needs to get out more.
Heavens, who would have thought “honest toilers in the intellectual vinyard” could be so sensitive?
Perhaps they should apply for some mental health days.
I believe that this is still possible in the United States.
Do we need a clearer indication of intellectual defect than this? Strocchi wishes to claim that these two pairs of questions are logically identical.
“Do you see yourself as simply a collector of fascinating but useless arcana?
OR
“Do your interesting statistics point a way forward (however vaguely at present given the difficulties you acknowledge in the collection and transmission of this information) in changing the world?”
VERSUS
“Do you agree with my, axiomaticly true and oh-so-worthy Wet, way of framing the problem of integrating different ethnics?
or
If you disagree with me then can you notfy us of your membersip number in the Klu Klux Klan?”
Note especially the gentle wording of the non-parodic question (my own). Any fair-minded reader would recognise that this question was phrased with almost an access of gentleness.
Contrast with the Strocchi travesty. As Strocchi so rightly observes, that question admits of only one answer. How unlike that is from my own!
(But credit where credit is due. I must admit that Strocchi excels in the construction of loaded questions. Evidently this skill comes with assiduous practice.)
What’s a ‘wet’? That’s a term that went the way of ‘whig’, I thought, now a complete archaicism.
As a (moderate, market believing, small government) Howard hater, I just want to know whetherr I should start calling myself that.
Or is this an example of ‘framing’?
Wets, according to Jack, are the source of all evil in the world.
Specifically, if you don’t support the proposition that immigration and ethnic affairs policy in Australia in the past thirty years has been an act of treason and folly which will result in us all being murdered in our beds by Al Qaeda, you’re a wet.
Mentally substitute “terrorist”; “pedophile” or “Nazi” for “wet” in most of Jack’s screeds and you don’t lose much.
Ian Gould Says: October 13th, 2005 at 8:40 am
Can Ian Gould actually quote me as saying this or anything on a par to this? I didnt think so. Failure to quote or link when making a criticism is a self-issued licence to fabricate.
I am a critic of multiculturalism, not multiracialism. That is, I am fine with the multiracial policy of selecting immigrants instututed by the Old Left, eg Whitlam. However I am strongly opposed to the multicultural policy of settling immigrants instituted by the New Left eg Theophanous.
The Wets (“small l liberals” incl. New Left and New Right) have been conspicuous supporters of the Enlightenment tradition of political liberalism and professional rationalism. These are great principles and I am with them on that. That is why I am a conservative: I want to conserve the Enlightenment tradition.
My main criticism of the Wets takes the simple form: in theory they nominally support freedom and reason but in practice they actually thwart it. Their hypocrisy was strikingly apparent in the Fraser case where they acted to shut down a scientific debate carried on against an ideological opponent. That is, they curtailed the free pursuit of knowledge within the academy.
It is on the issue of cultural policy that the Wets have struck the most grievous blows against freedom and reason. They have, following a multicultural program, selected and settled immigrants nominally to promote diversity and equity but actually to create ethnic enclaves.
They enclaves also have a much greater rate of social pathology, acting as breeding grounds for sectarianism, racism and sexism. Not exactly what JS Mill was on about. And then there is the issue of ethnic crime. And, yes, possibly centres of civil strife and terrorism (Londonistan bombings).
These enclaves have, and were to, serve as recruiting grounds for welfare agencies and moribund political apparats. This “rotten borough” policy dilutes citizenship, corrupts parties and has the potential to break up the nation state. Fortunately Howard and some of the saner members of the ALP have curbed this headlong plunge towards national suicide.
If Ian Gould thinks this is hyperbole then he can go to the EU and US and see how things go once a state decides to trifle with citizenship. People think that I am “mad”, “demented” “obsessed” to focus so strongly on this issue. I happen to believe what kind of citizens a nation state selects and how it settles them is an order of magnitude more important than fussing about the latest tick in interest rates.
The Wets seem to be completely oblivious of the problem, or actively making it worse. And no amount of theoretical principle or empirical practice can budge them from their dogmas.
“Failure to quote or link when making a criticism is a self-issued licence to fabricate.”
Or proof that I don’t take you nearly as seriously as you take yourself.
On second reading that comment does make me sound like a pompous, hectoring bore with a maddening bee stuck in his bonnet. This is so totally out of character. Sorry.
A nice window of opportunity has opened.
When disagreement is acknowledged to be genuine and sincere and not a mark of mental deficiency or moral corruption, civilised conversation is possible.
One guideline could be: isolate and define the points of disagreement rather than flame.
Another guideline could be: challenge evidence rather than motives.
Jack,
My comment was somewhat over the top, too.
As you know, we disagree on this topic, that shouldn’t prevent us from being civil to each other.
Katz Says: October 13th, 2005 at 5:18 pm
I like “mental deficiency or moral corruption”. Thats a brace of insults that has a nice ring to it, better than my “intellectual confusion and ideological contradiction”. Can I use it next time I want to really wound someone?
Ian Gould Says: October 13th, 2005 at 8:26 pm
Actually on the way home from my “shopping, dropping and swimming” routine I recalled that insult with a mixture of envy and awe. Such withering scorn expressed with such poetic pithyness.
I wished I had said it and was experimenting with a proper riposte until Katz went all soppy on us.
Is “soppy” code for “wet”?
They have, following a multicultural program, selected and settled immigrants nominally to promote diversity and equity but actually to create ethnic enclaves.
Have you ever visited Footscray? This suburb is bursting at the seams with multiculturalism, and, despite its poverty, is also bursting with vitality. It would have to be one of the most multicultural places on earth. Most of the crime is drug related and committed by a white minority.
wilful Says: October 14th, 2005 at 9:54 am
I have been to Footscray and it seems nice enough. I dont have a problem with multiracialism. I am happy that Footscray can manage diversity with vitality.
Although I am always suspicious of words like “vibrancy” and “vitality” as these tend to be code words for gangs of ethnic youths charging about in doof-doof cars. As a half-Italian I speak with feeling on this matter.
Multiculturalism is a scourge on civil society because it tends to foster the cration of ethnic lobbies and interest groups that brings out worst in ethnic culture. This is essentially the problem of reconciling kin ship cronyism in the context of Open Society.
We see this in the propensity for some ethnic groups to engage in political party branch stacking and criminal gang networking. I know little of Footscray’s ethnic relations. But 2 mins on google brought up major stories on Footscrays…ethnic crime
and
ethnic branch-stacking.
So my model of “actual and existing” multiculturalism is “progressive” ie predicts facts that I was unaware of. Its a better model than boilerplate boosterism about “vitality”.
I hope that the ethnic enclave problem will sort itself out over time as the children of ethnics integrate into broader civil society. But we should not make it worse by pursuing a silly and dangerous idea.
*puts toe in the water*
Hmmm.
Nope.
Couldn’t really make a Pol Pot of strifeless religion.