This Is

November 30, 2011

Ha, Andrew Sullivan is still saying stupid things about race and IQ (stupid meaning racist). He’s sparked a very serious, thoughtful discussion which makes me glad I’m not a pundit. I dunno, there are some debates which demean everyone who participates in them (example: whether or not to torture detainees). So I won’t bother! But I did want to mention that, after reading a few of these racist scientists and the writers who quote them, it is interesting/creepy to see the language of science used to say awful things. Just on an aesthetic level it is cool, although very upsetting of course.

To be more specific, Sullivan et al. talk about how black people are inferior to white people in this no-nonsense, just the facts way. The language is quite dry because there is nothing but pure rationality at work here. They use lots of numbers and percentages and jargon. Heritability, standard deviations, my goodness these people sound like they know a lot about this. They use the framework of utilitarianism — we need to know that black people are dumber because otherwise we might allocate resources in an inefficient manner by giving them jobs! They make grand references to experts in the field and the scientific consensus. They just want to know the truth, even if it happens to confirm their pre-existing biases, but all of these soft-headed liberals are letting sentiment get in the way of SCIENCE. It’s very sad.

I do like how this is an interesting reversal, with conservatives playing the role of the technocrats as opposed to the usual vice versa. I also like how the self-consciously objective language used by Sullivan and friends is just as obscuring as a more polemical style. References to the literature and to years of research make an argument sound very impressive, no matter how disreputable that research is. Mainly, though, it’s cool to see technical writing, which I associate with journal articles that are dull and cautious in their conclusions and have lots of data that have been acquired through months of rigorous testing, repurposed to say kind of evil things. I mean, I know that eugenicists and what not did the same thing. But I’ve never read any of those old articles (god, why would I have?) so I haven’t seen it done before. Using a form or genre to mask the intent behind the writing in this way has a nice, sinister effect. The dissonance increases the impact in an interesting way — I think because it’s a shock once you notice what’s going on — and I’d very much like to replicate the effect one day.

So carry on, racist scientists and your supporters! You’re contributing to the ecology of the internet in a fascinating, almost beautiful way.

1:51pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZF6tayCdqBQz
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(Notes: 10)