Pat’s Polemics

In his attempt to establish tests scores as definitive indicators of comparative cognitive status among groups, Charles Murray in The Bell Curve states that Asians come out cognitively superior to Whites while Whites are cognitively superior to Blacks. Professor Murray’s purpose is not detracted from by this hierarchy of what most people call intelligence but reinforced; that purpose to reassert the American hierarchy of White over Black.
Like so many intellectual acrobatics (and Murray must be credited with doing a helluva job on this; it took any number of experts in the fields of genetics, cognitive science, biology, sociology, history, anthropology, and psychological testng to debunk Murray’s Magnum Opus. That effort is important because a very large number of people without expertise in those fields were impressed by all the figures and charts.
But I would add one more “field” Murray is very, very inexpert in: living with Black people; I will merely imply that he is full of shit. I won’t go to his slipperyness e.g. a few Blacks are as intelligent as some Whites so we must always give any particular Black “the benefit of the doubt;” after all, he just might, unlikely as it is, be one of the ‘exceptions.’. Even Joe Biden got caught up in that when he referred to Obama as ‘clean and articulate.’ you know, one of the good ones.
No, Murray achieved his purpose; White students could still strut around campus with The Bell Curve under their arms to reinforce the hierarchy and ignore the Asian students. Well, times have changed in the 30 years since Murray and Herrenstein wrote the book and it’s a little harder now to avoid those superior Asians; even the Asians, according to Murray, have to look out for those Ashkenazic Jews (I guess the Sephardic Jews didn’t make the cut).
Gosh, I wonder if there is just a little room left even above the Jews for….. me.