Name: Intellectuals and Race
ISBN: 9780465058723

Intellectuals and Race

"Intellectuals and Race is a radical book in the original sense of one that goes to the root of the problem. The role of intellectuals in racial strife is explored in an international context that puts the American experience in a wholly new light. The views of individual intellectuals have spanned the spectrum, but the views of intellectuals as a whole have tended to cluster. Indeed, these views have clustered at one end of the spectrum in the early twentieth century and then clustered at the opposite end of the spectrum in the late twentieth century. Moreover, these radically different views of race in these two eras were held by intellectuals whose views on other issues were very similar in both eras. Intellectuals and Race is not, however, a book about history, even though it has much historical evidence, as well as demographic, geographic, economic and statistical evidence-- all of it directed toward testing the underlying assumptions about race that have prevailed at times among intellectuals in general, and especially intellectuals at the highest levels. Nor is this simply a theoretical exercise. The impact of intellectuals' ideas and crusades on the larger society, both past and present, is the ultimate concern. These ideas and crusades have ranged widely from racial theories of intelligence to eugenics to "social justice" and multiculturalism.

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PathOfEclipseOct 2022

> Take a big bag of fair dice, and split them randomly into two groups.

If you think human outcomes follow a simple normal distribution in a just world, then you are making the exact prime mistake I already pointed out; which is dramatically, and I mean dramatically, over-simplifying the world. Seriously: read some Thomas Sowell. Nothing about this world or this universe is normally distributed.

> Are you asserting that history has been just? Think hard before you answer this one.

What is "just"? Think hard before you answer that one. Actually, read "The Quest for Cosmic Justice" and the "Intellectuals and Society" by Sowell. You'll find that the social justice version of justice is vastly different from what people have historically thought of as justice. It is also, in my estimation, far more unjust, unfair, harmful, and evil than the traditional view. It is an arrogant ideology based on a belief that one has the power to shape the world, and all of society within it, according to one's whims, rather than a proper respect for the fact that we are brief sojourners in a vast, complex, and powerful universe, and a planet filled with billions of complex individuals.

> Sure, like my dice example. Except the problem is, for my dice example to be wrong, you need to specify a reason why some dice roll differently than others,

You should read "Discrimination and Disparities" By Thomas Sowell, where he quickly crushes the normal distribution hypothesis for economic outcome. He shows through very simple examples, which are still dramatically over-simplifying the world, where there are multiple preconditions for success, and where missing even one precondition results in the same failure as missing all of them. This model alone completely disproves a normal distribution hypothesis, even in a world where the preconditions are distributed randomly. And, not to sound like a broken record, the preconditions are not distributed randomly or evenly in any way, not by nature or time themselves.

> I assert that these two groups would have roughly the same outcome in almost any measure.

Nice assertion, but do you even have any scientific data to back it up? And, even if it you did, and I actually can't find any by searching, it would simply provide evidence that your birthday modulo 2 likely doesn't impact economic outcomes. But we can, of course, find economic disparity everywhere for a thousand different reasons. Firstborns on average have higher IQs and better economic outcomes than all other-borns. There is not random economic outcome distribution even within the same household and within the same genetic pool: http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/53/1/123.short.

In a world of universal economic disparity, the burden of proof is on you to show why things she be different and how. But, like your leftist forebears, you have no proof, only words and religious beliefs packaged into an ideology.

> Can we explain it by intrinsic differences?

You can explain it a billion different ways. The question is: who is right, and how do you prove it? Read "Black Rednecks and White Liberals" by Sowell, and "Intellectuals and Race" while you're at it. You'll find plenty of explanations that have nothing to do with either racism or of innate genetic differences. It is proponents of CRT who need to prove themselves, but because they are in vogue culturally, they get away with their evidence-less assertions without any pushback.

> Slavery, the Greenwood bombing, segregation, Jim Crow, police slayings -- those are not hypothetical events dreamed up by "leftists" to account for racial disparity we observe.

It's good leftists didn't make them up, since leftists, namely, the democrat party, were primarily responsible for all of those things over the past 200 years. They didn't make it up because they mostly caused it! And again, correlation does not imply causation, such a basic statistical truism that CRT theorists love to ignore. Just because there was racism, even just because there still is racism, doesn't mean that racism is the primary cause of economic disparity, or, even a major cause at all! Sowell has written about multiple minority groups in different countries, who, despite being oppressed by real racism, and not the made up CRT kind, managed to prosper economically far above and beyond the majority population.

> Your train of pseudo-reasoning, like that of so many other racism-apologists, only works if you conveniently ignore the actual multi-hundred year history of actual racism that actually happened.

Go read "The real history of slavery" and "Conquest and Cultures" by Sowell. In fact, we are probably more educated on slavery than you are, judging from your performance in this debate. The only racists are people like you who think that the appropriate reaction to disparity is real, explicit racism against those with "privileged" skin color. But, really, you're just following a long tradition of the political left being racist.

I realize this conversation is a waste of time, but maybe one day you'll listen, educate yourself on reality, and develop a better-functioning moral compass.

Edit: I just want to take a moment to point out how unscientific you are with your statements, like: "Sure, like my dice example. Except the problem is, for my dice example to be wrong, you need to provide a reason why...."

I don't know what leftist education you paid for or in what university, but in a just world you deserve that loan forgiveness Biden is offering. Science is about making a hypothesis, and then, you yourself objectively gathering evidence that could either support or refute that hypothesis, and only then making a conclusion that is backed by your data. You, of course, did the opposite. You made a hypothesis, that economic outcomes between humans "should" be normally distributed, concluded it must be true, and, finally you put it on other people to disprove it. That's, anti-science! And, no, comparing human beings to six-sided dice is not scientific evidence. You might have missed that in your education as well.

Similarly, you assert that birthday modulo 2 has no impact on economic outcome, yet fail to provide any scientific evidence. Yours is a world of cult-like ideology and secular religion, where evidence is irrelevant, or an afterthought.

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classicsnootJun 2018

Without taking any sides in this particular case, i highly recommend everyone read Intellectuals and Race[1] by Thomas Sowell. It is a concise, well researched, and largely damning look at how the same intellectual class that is leading the charge of globalized western morality (particularly in regards to enforced diversity, ethnic erasure, race based policies, and identity/victimhood politics) is cut from the very same cloth of their predecessors in the early 20th century (the Progressives) who championed Social Darwinism, racial segregation, and eugenics. He draws many parallels between the two groups, including but not limited to the perceived unanimity of thought amongst the "greatest, leading minds," the utter incomprehensibility by the status quo to even consider dissenting ideas, the ostensible moral superiority, and the faith based reliance upon unproven assertions. It is a brief and powerful read. Regardless of one's politics, Sowell forces the reader to honestly confront preconceived notions not with emotional exhortation, but rather hard facts and verifiable data.

[1]https://www.amazon.com/Intellectuals-Race-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0...

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hodwik2Jun 2016

I was inspired heavily by some chapters in the book "Intellectuals and Race" by Libertarian theorist Thomas Sowell.

You can hear him talk about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6ImP-gJvas

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dgs_sgdSep 2020

The first book of his I read was Intellectuals and Race. Economic Facts and Fallacies is similar in terms of how the arguments are framed (though it touches on different subjects). I'm not sure if this is true of all his books but I would recommend looking through his complete works (there's a lot) and picking one on a topic you're particularly interested in :).

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AlexCoventryAug 2020

I recently started to read his book Intellectuals and Race, but stopped because his putative citations did not support his claim that whites in America are at a disadvantage relative to Asian Americans w.r.t. mortgage applications and keeping their jobs during downturns.

I think he has interesting things to say, and is certainly a great interview subject, but I would approach his claims with caution.

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cdoxseyApr 2013

Thomas Sowell recently released a new book on this subject:

http://www.amazon.com/Intellectuals-and-Race-ebook/dp/B00BAH...

Clearly discrimination against Asians was one of the unforeseen consequences of affirmative action. What's particularly sad is it doesn't even help the people it was supposed to. For example:

"Despite dire predictions that there would be a drastic reduction in the number of minority students in the University of California system after racial preferences in admission were banned, an empirical study showed that there were 'modest declines in black and Hispanic enrollment but an increase in black and Hispanic degrees.'"

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