Not long ago, I wrote a post about cultural tension between IQ and masculinity -- and the related issue of IQ and race.

I realize that I barely scratched the surface, which I think I first touched here:

Just as pit bull owners were once invariably shown as antisocial if not psychotic misfits, gun owners are painted as anything but hip. In some ways, this unfair stereotyping is made easier by the fact that owning a gun is now considered a right wing act. Never mind the fact that Rosie O'Donnell, Dianne Feinstein, Sean Penn and other big liberals carry guns; they don't admit it publicly. Instead, they think they are in a different league from everyone else and that their gun ownership is not real gun ownership. (This reminds me of religious mullahs who feel justified in executing homosexuals for admitting to something which they deny doing even as they do it.)

Gun ownership needs to be made at least as cool as owning a pit bull. There are many bloggers who do a great job of doing this in their own way -- Glenn Reynolds, Rachel Lucas, Jeff Soyer, Eugene Volokh, and Kim du Toit (even if he wants me to fuck off and die) are all outstanding examples. (What I would like to know, is how does one get Reynolds, Lucas, and actor James Woods on the board of the NRA? Believe me, I am deadly serious.)

What the hell does the term "hip" connote? Is it like "bright?" I do not refer to "hippies" -- now an anachronistic collection of mostly wannabe types. When I used the term I simply meant people who are smart enough to be cool, and definitely not dumb enough to be easily led. Intelligent non-conformists. You would think this would be a natural group of gun owners. Yet (and here is my thesis) the unstated cultural tension over IQ is what makes them avoid guns -- and avoid especially those they would disparage as "the NRA crowd."

Despite a diligent search, I could find no statistical studies involving a relationship between IQ and gun ownership.

Anyone who knows of such a study please, please contact me. (And I do not mean anything along the lines of "More Guns, More Stupidity!")

The closest thing I found was this fascinating analysis by David Kopel, which contained the following gem:

SCAPEGOAT OBJECTS AND COGNITIVE CONTROL

Given the gun's symbolic and practical role within a culture of individualism and popular sovereignty, gun control in its more extreme formulations may in some respects be out of step with many elements of American culture. In rejecting guns and in admiring the "civilized" foreign nations, some gun control advocates implicitly propose a less American, more European model for the relation of the individual and the state. Bruce-Briggs summarizes it best:

[U]nderlying the gun control struggle is a fundamental division in our nation. The intensity of passion on this issue suggests to me that we are experiencing a sort of low-grade war going on between two alternative views of what America is and ought to be. On the one side are those who take bourgeois Europe as a model of a civilized society: a society just, equitable, and democratic; but well ordered, with the lines of authority clearly drawn, and with decisions made rationally and correctly by intelligent men for the entire nation. To such people, hunting is atavistic, personal violence is shameful, and uncontrolled gun ownership is a blot upon civilization.

On the other side is a group of people who do not tend to be especially articulate or literate, and whose world view is rarely expressed in print. Their model is that of the independent frontiersman who takes care of himself and his family with no interference from the state. They are "conservative" in the sense that they cling to America's unique pre-modern tradition--a non-feudal society with a sort of medieval liberty at large for everyman. To these people, "sociological" is an epithet. Life is tough and competitive. Manhood means responsibility and caring for your own. (1976: 61).

This is a classic conflict of high IQ people battling lower IQ people, and I suspect that the high IQ people are beginning to catch on that they have been had. They should accordingly join forces with their low IQ brothers -- and ASAP.

NOTE: I am not saying that gun owners all have lower IQs, mind you. Only that they are spun that way, and the insecure higher-IQ people buy right into it without understanding the mechanism.

Culturally, this will never be admitted, because IQ is politically incorrect. That fact alone makes it an ideal subterfuge, because everyone knows that there are differences in intelligence between people, and the eggheads who were beaten up in school (or who were no good at sports) all want to get even. So, of course, do many homosexuals.

Could this factor into the more irrational aspects of anti-Bush hatred? That seems somewhat off-subject.

Actually, maybe it isn't. (Is Bush hated by insecure, higher-IQ people for pandering to the lower IQ people? Is this the hate that dares not speak its name? Are the Democrats in turn hated by the lower-IQ Bushies for pandering to even lower IQ people, and for an inability to admit to their patronizing attitudes? What about the insecurity of higher-IQ people who think they're smarter than they really are -- who know they're not geniuses and secretly loathe themselves?)

But I'll stick with guns. I believe strongly that making guns hip is the best way to "permanize" gun ownership. The best way to do that is to remind the lambs that the Second Amendment is their "equalizer" loophole. Why disarm the lions when you can be their equal?

After all, you don't even have to lose your IQ!

(Unless, of course, it's written in granite somewhere that a gun purchase automatically lops 20 points off your IQ score.....)

UPDATE: Here's an interesting exploration of the idea that Republicans are dumber than Democrats:

The numbers are stunning -- with 60% of the least educated Americans supporting the President and only 40% of highly educated Americans backing his policies.

Just because it's the day after Thanksgiving doesn't mean it's not still Friday -- and Friday is Online Testing Day at Classical Values so I dare not disappoint!

I'll start with a test from the esteemed Test Giver, Ghost of a flea, designed to determine my "WEIRDNESS QUOTIENT."

OUTRAGEOUS! Mine was 106 -- exactly the same as the Flea. Not only is this yet another amazing, too-impossible-to-believe, coincidence, but I am a bit disappointed that neither one of us received a higher score. 106 just sounds rather square to me. Never saw the bell curve for weirdness, though.

Still pondering the limitations of my weirdness, I just had to determine exactly what kind of evil bitch I am, and this test did not disappoint:

You are a witch! You use your magical gift to do
harm to those that get in your way. You may
even be married to a King Queen, which will come in
handy when you need some loyal helpers. Cast
away!


What Kind Of Evil Bitch Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

I must take issue, though, with the notion of my marrying a king, so I took some slight liberties with the technical description above.

(Via a: frustrated: artist -- and you'll have to scroll down, because the archives are not working right now.)

Last but not least, a: frustrated: artist also supplied a test from an old acquaintance, Bishop (at least he used to be called that) Issac Bonewits, a highly respected pagan I met years ago. I had no idea he was in the online test business, and I'm delighted to see that he's well. First student to graduate from UC Berkeley with a degree in magic; his book, Real Magic is a classic.

Well, so much for a nice introduction. The test -- What kind of Druid are you? -- left me feeling rejected and insulted!

You are the enemy, and most definently not a Druid!
What are you doing even taking this quiz, you
dirty roman scum?


What kind of Druid are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Hey folks this is modern America! Druids and Romans ought to stick together and cut all this Romophobic crap! I mean, now that I have been called "The Enemy" what am I supposed to do in retaliation? Write a test to determine "What Kind Of A Romophobe Are You?"

Where does all this divisiveness end?

Even on Thanksgiving, no less, some Eurocentric turkeys tried to accuse me of not liking Kraftwerk! (I couldn't have gotten through the 70s without it.)

Don't they realize we share similar classical values?

Gone all day -- poor little orphan me, visiting some wonderful people who were nice enough to include me in their Thanksgiving festivities. Children all over the place, and I played Scrabble for the first time since I was a kid. And I won! In fairness I should say that they beat me at a game called "Taboo" -- which really hurts, because I have never met a taboo I didn't somehow attempt to break, thwart, or at least question!

I am amazed that so many people are blogging today. Wish I had posted earlier, but I just got home.

To anyone crazy enough to be visiting here today, thank you for coming! I am lucky to have every last one of you as readers, and I don't really mean to call you crazy, because I am crazier and lonelier than most people, and this blog is my attempt to make sense out of a troubling world -- in many ways a substitute for therapy. So I really am grateful for every single reader.

And yes, in keeping with the tradition of the season, and this blog, I did find a classical thanksgiving message:

Reckon the days in which you have not been angry. I used to be angry every day; now every other day; then every third and fourth day; and if you miss it so long as thirty days, offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God. How the Semblances of Things are to be combated. -- Epictetus Chap. xviii.

Speaking of which, Don has a great post today about doing the hardest thing he ever had to do. He's thankful to be alive. All of us should be thankful to be alive.

When things are going well, it's too easy to forget.....

"When I use a word, it means exactly what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less." -- Humptius Dumptius

If so, which book? Who wrote these books? It is one thing to believe in God, but it strikes me as the height of arrogance to demand adherence to words written by men claiming to be speaking for God (or acting as scriveners for God). It is in my opinion a cruel game to assert that God is a book, and if (for the sake of argument) it turns out that "God" happens to favor a particular book, that would make God even crueler than the men who wrote it.

God, being spiritual and infinite, must be felt. Not all men are able to feel God. (And feelings are not readily provable.)

Books consist of words written by men, and must submit to (and be judged by) the rules of logic. To assert that words of men are the words of God is to assert something without logical foundation. How many men might say they believe these words come from God is logically irrelevant.

A related issue is who decides what the words mean.

What, for example, is a conservative?

According to Jonah Goldberg, "conservative" and "gay" are mutually exclusive:

[Jonathan Rauch is] brilliant and well-respected, and he has some very conservative views. But he is also gay.

Interesting. I guess considering the source (the Corner being the last word on conservatism and sexual matters) it is now official. Political preference shall henceforth be determined by sexual preference! The left has been saying that for years, and now the right has finally agreed.

Does this mean the word "homocon" has been officially abolished?

Are homocons oxymoronic? Many liberals would agree with Mr. Goldberg that they are.

Maybe the homocons were all molested by liberal fathers! Clayton Cramer has cited a mess of a person, Michael Jackson, for the fascinating proposition that homosexuality arises from childhood sexual abuse.

Without getting into the post hoc ergo propter hoc issues, how about childhood abuse and heterosexuality? Bisexuality? Whose judgments are these? Whose words? I don't like the word "bisexual" any more than I like the words "heterosexual" or "homosexual", but because of the tyranny of sexual identity politics I have to deal with words laid down by others.

What makes it even tougher is when people allege words come from God. There is no real way to rebut such an assertion, because logic is not involved. If I say that an assertion -- that God said something (backed only by the words of men) -- is simply an unsupported assertion, that will not persuade people who want to believe that God said it. Nothing will persuade such people. And, like ideologues, the more they "know," the more hopeless any arguments become.

I have noticed an across-the-board pattern involving the tyranny of superior "knowledge." Whether liberal, conservative, atheist, fundamentalist, Communist, Arabist -- when people commit themselves himself to a particular ideology, the true believers often so immerse themselves in a study of it that they become steeped in the material. They believe that the more they "know," the more "right" they are -- and the more "wrong" their opponents.

An extreme example would be a Muslim who has memorized the entire Koran verbatim. Such a person is very likely to believe that his "superior knowledge" -- or "scholarship" (or whatever you want to call it), not only makes him right, but gives him a sort of duty to argue at length (and often in circles) with all who don't see it his way.

"I know more about the Koran than you do; therefore I am right and you are wrong!"

The logical error, of course, is that superior knowledge of that which is incorrect or illogical does not render it correct or logical.

I have all thirteen volumes of the Works of Stalin, which I consider a marvelous sleeping aid. Even if I commited them to memory, and I wrote a long Ph.D. thesis, no amount of scholarship could possibly make Stalin's thoughts correct. I say this because I get in long arguments with a friend working toward his Masters in International Relations. An accomplished Arabist scholar, he knows much more than I do, and can site every detail of every single Mideast war, treaty, battle, skirmish, election -- ad nauseam. He thinks this makes him right, and anyone who doesn't know the details "wrong."

You don't know what you're talking about and I do!

"You don't know wheat from rice!" they shrieked.

And off to the fields it was for that poor ophthalmologist. She learned about Maoism while she harvested rice on her hands and knees. The mob knew more than she did, after all.

I admire people who have the courage to dissent from conventional wisdom -- or what their particular "herds" might tell them to do -- and I therefore especially admire Justice Martha B. Sosman, of the Massachusetts Supreme Court -- even though she might be wrong. (Whether wrong in the legal sense or in the moral sense seems largely lost, though.)

This is from a Fox News story:

....[O]ne of the judges is a lesbian. She voted against gay marriage, saying the court didn't have the right to make such a law.

As a matter of social history, today's opinion may represent a great turning point that many will hail as a tremendous step toward a more just society. As a matter of constitutional jurisprudence, however, the case stands as an aberration. To reach the result it does, the court has tortured the rational basis test beyond recognition. I fully appreciate the strength of the temptation to find this particular law unconstitutional--there is much to be said for the argument that excluding gay and lesbian couples from the benefits of civil marriage is cruelly unfair and hopelessly outdated; the inability to marry has a profound impact on the personal lives of committed gay and lesbian couples (and their children) to whom we are personally close (our friends, neighbors, family members, classmates, and co-workers); and our resolution of this issue takes place under the intense glare of national and international publicity. Speaking metaphorically, these factors have combined to turn the case before us into a "perfect storm" of a constitutional question. In my view, however, such factors make it all the more imperative that we adhere precisely and scrupulously to the established guideposts of our constitutional jurisprudence, a jurisprudence that makes the rational basis test an extremely deferential one that focuses on the rationality, not the persuasiveness, of the potential justifications for the classifications in the legislative scheme. I trust that, once this particular "storm" clears, we will return to the rational basis test as it has always been understood and applied. Applying that deferential test in the manner it is customarily applied, the exclusion of gay and lesbian couples from the institution of civil marriage passes constitutional muster. I respectfully dissent.

I am sure she will face kneejerk condemnation by gay and lesbian activists for this and I wish more people thought for themselves.

It does not matter whether I agree with Justice Sosman, so I won't cheapen my praise of her courage by getting into that. Anyway, it's the business of Massacusetts, and I don't live there.

But I guess the result is of more interest than the legal reasoning -- or the meaning of the "rational basis test." When I took Con Law it seemed they spent a lot of time on that and left me more confused than ever about its definition.

Maybe that's why they call it "Con Law." In order to understand it, you have to be a Con Law scholar -- or a homocon. (All of which are oxymoronic.)

UPDATE (7-19-04): A reader emails that the quote from O'Reilly above is commentary and should not be called a "story." Fair enough, I guess (but the URL uses the word "story.") Either way, O'Reilly made the remark, and it speaks for itself.

Be sure to check out my blogfather's special Thanksgiving Media Gun Bias report this week! Definitely one of those pictures worth a thousand words....

Very clever of Jeff, as it shows us what we'll become if the gun grabbers get their way.

It's really hard to keep up to date with irritating anti-gun developments, and we should all be grateful to those like Jeff who wade through the muck and keep us posted.

In a recent atrocity, the anti-gun psychos in New Jersey have declared that this dinky .22 rifle is an "assault weapon!"(via Spoons.)

Hey! Wanna spy on these turkeys?

Visit this site!

As Frank J. would say, Know Thy Enemy!

Hey, when I was still fairly new to blogging, I thought I was a bit over the top (if in line with the ancients) when I called for crucifixion of spammers.

Well, this guy's spam-fighting program makes me look like a total wuss:

Booher threatened to send a "package full of Anthrax spores" to the company, to "disable" an employee with a bullet and torture him with a power drill and ice pick; and to hunt down and castrate the employees unless they removed him from their e-mail list, prosecutors said.

In a telephone interview with Reuters, Booher acknowledged that he had behaved badly but said his computer had been rendered almost unusable for about two months by a barrage of pop-up advertising and e-mail.

(via Eugene Volokh.)

What must I do to keep up with the Joneses?

Maybe I should up the ante, Marcus Aurelius style:

[T]he flesh of the martyrs of Christ, by many scourgings and stripes, was lacerated and torn loose even to the inmost veins and deepest sinews, so that their entrails and the most secret parts could be seen moving; and that the torturers then strewed potsherds, sea-shells, and even caltrops on the ground, over which they rolled, dragged; and on which they pressed the Christians thus. tormented, with their naked bodies; and that at last, when they, on account of the previous torments, could scarcely live or draw breath any longer, they cast them before the wild beasts, to be devoured by them...

Will Spammers become martyrs evocative of sympathy? I know the idea sounds silly, but believe it or not, someone has already written Haiku poetry about it:

Sad sow seeks meaning
Religion found, she gives all
Now proud SPAM martyr
--Gladta B. Spam

Make 'em proud!

If Howard Dean is the Democratic candidate for the presidency, will he cause his party to seemingly abandon the precious "Southern Strategy"?

I can't think of a more counter-intuitive idea, for it completely violates all conventional wisdom, the South being of course a political sacred cow, as well as a sort of political Maginot Line.

But Dean strikes me as already chafing at the bit, what with his "guns, God, and gays" remark and the (supposedly) "reckless" Confederate flag reference. I don't think he is a follower of the conventional wisdom. Frankly, I think the man can't wait to bash a few more sacred cows.

Howard Dean strikes me an astute politician who knows not only the importance of an appeal to the large, disgruntled, politically incorrect American middle, but who knows how to do it.

Right now, his national appeal is seen as hobbled by two, somewhat related things:

A "strategic retreat" (abandonment, really) of both the South and his gay base -- at the proper time -- would go a long way towards "cleaning him up" and it would not really cost him much in terms of support.

By abandonment, I am not saying that he should attack the South or disavow a commitment to civil rights for homosexuals. I refer more to a carefully engineered, well-timed "Sister Souljah" type of event.

Note: one blogger has already called the Confederate flag remarks Howard Dean's "Sister Souljah moment."

Political price? Sure, such a move will always cost you with the activists or ideologues you attack (here is Sister Souljah's statement), but bear in mind that the ostensible targets are not the intended audience -- the real audience being the ordinary middle Americans who will remember the courage it took to stand up to the ideologues. The kind of people who might have otherwise stayed home but who voted for Schwarzenegger because of (and not in spite of) the attacks against him.

The South is not going to be easily fooled by platitudes from Mr. Northern Big Super Liberal anyway, so if he acknowledges problems there (which he already has, really, with the "god, guns, gays" remark), they might not feel quite as condescended to. Then, if he deliberately creates distance between himself and the more radical fringes of the gay movement, he will be seen as an honest, fearless man who dares to be politically incorrect, and this will ultimately redound to his favor in the South.

His advisors, if they have any sense (or Dean himself if they don't), probably have something like this in mind:

1. "Dump" the South!

2. "Dump" the Gays!

3. Then, once liberated from the baggage of these warring sacred cows (the desecration of which could be spun by the Machiavellian Dean as "a call for peace"), be "your own man" and go after Bush.

Bear in mind that this approach is tactical, and is not based on my personal considerations of right and wrong.

I am not at all sure that right and wrong have much to do with politics.

Hey, while he's at it, he could disavow Ted Rall. (Or at least make it a point to note that Rall criticized Dean for "supporting our troops!")

Almost forgot something, which shouldn't matter at all to any rational person (which is why I nearly forgot it). That is Dean's lack of a Southern drawl. He has a clear, ringing, Northern, almost Rooseveltian accent. Americans dislike judging people by their accents, of course, so they would never, ever, admit even the possibility of being fatigued by something like a dozen years of listening to presidents with Southern drawls.

Forget I brought it up.

Dean should not say one word about his failure to have a Southern drawl!

PLEASE NOTE: The above scenario is not the same thing as the abrupt right turn people are predicting! (Link via Say Uncle.) The South is seen as "right" and gays are seen as "left." Without debating the merits of such thinking, defying both would have a yin/yang, counterbalancing effect -- and would make Dean appear not an unprincipled schemer who switches sides at will, but a true "centrist" -- a statesman who knows that his time has come to represent "all the people."

Despite the title of this blog and my tendency to carry on about the ancients, I sure am glad I am not really an ancient Roman brought back to life in modern America. I mean, how the hell would I make sense out of the omens and portents I regularly encounter?

I was running this morning, and part of my route is alongside a busy commute strip. All kinds of things fall from cars. (Maybe they're dropped; I don't know.) And when I am running, I don't like to stop and pick things up unless they're really "good." Or unless they cry out for intervention. (One time I found a wallet belonging to a physician, who was an inch away from cancelling all the credit cards and was spared that nuisance.)

But what the hell would an ancient Roman make of these four items? (Ruler included to indicate dimensions.)

A little pink diving fin?

Three brand new address books labeled "Seasons Greetings from Jane"?

Were I a superstitious person, or a Roman, I might be very puzzled. Or maybe very troubled. Or possibly very happy. The little pink diving fin is something I just couldn't leave there. It just seemed to "belong" in my blog. What to do with it now, I don't know. Why only one? Is it a left fin or a right fin? It's really tiny, too. Some parent is really starting that child young. And it's pink. That means it must have belonged to a tiny girl, right?

The address book/calendars, I don't know. Why three? Surely that number means something. And why Jane? Might that be the owner of the little pink diving fin? I don't think so. The fin is so tiny that I think it is highly questionable whether the girl is old enough even to be in school, much less organize her life with address books and calendars.

Let's look at the larger, real world implications of this morning's find. Considering that the blogosphere is the only real world of anyone's legitimate concern, this must be a sign, an omen, a portent, directly from the gods, about my blog.

That is not an arrogant assumption, is it?

And this blog is, after all, called "Classical Values." Clearly, the gods are trying to tell me something.

Might they be telling me that yes, while I am swimming in the blogosphere, I am still at a very childish level compared to what they expect of me?

And I have many address books to fill, and many dates to enter in my calendar?

Three years of daily blogging? Is that what the gods demand?

If anyone has a better interpretation, I'd like to hear it.

I am beginning to see why Karl Rove was pulling for Howard Dean....

I refer to Ted Rall's endorsement, of course.

Rall strikes an eerily conciliatory tone right now, even appearing to countenance (gulp) centrism:

Brilliant, aggressive and moneyed (that's Dean Witter to you, pal), Dr. Dean has a corner on the single most important issue to Americans: health care. His politics are surprisingly centrist, in both the refreshing sense (he's pro-Second Amendment and he came out for class-, rather than race-based affirmative action) and in the disappointing, Clintonian sense (he opposed invading Iraq, but not Afghanistan). He's got traditional Democratic constituents (he just stole the biggest AFL-CIO union's endorsement away from Gephardt) and fresh new ones (twentysomething bloggers have mailed him $25 million in crisp twenties).

Rall knows whereof he speaks, and Rove's dirty tricksters know no bounds! Already, they are circulating Rall's own cartoon ridiculing 9/11 widows. Brutal tactics indeed!

For Rove, it must be like shooting fish in a barrel.

I agree that this is the kind of remark Republican leaders should heed:

As a single man that has not found the right girl even at this late date, I am one of those that has been pulverising all that is private and delicate blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blaaaaaaaaah.

The problem with those that need to point out my failings is of course that they can't stop themselves. First it was gays, then single sinners and of course eventually, married people that are corrupt enough to venture beyond the missionary position.

The republicans would do well to recognize that this way of thinking is what most of us think of as "fringe".

Given a choice, I'll hang with the sodomites thank you.

It should be forgotten that a similar backlash saved Bill Clinton's ass from impeachment. The legal issue was perjury, but the wily Bill Clinton and his supporters spun the whole thing as sex -- because they knew moral conservatives were drooling over the prospect of indicting and convicting sexual immorality itself.

And so it came to pass that the impeachment pageant was about sex. Forced to "choose" between sex and its fringe opponents, middle America chose to hang with Bill Clinton. Not because there was broad public support for unlimited fornication, but because, as the nameless reader above makes clear, if they must choose between an accused fornicator and those who would condemn him, Americans will go with the fornicator.

It may sound "anti-Christian," but it's the American way.

(By the way, those who call it anti-Christian may be making a theological error, but Christian theology just ain't my job!)

UPDATE: David Horowitz (prominent conservative and ex-Marxist) understands this mechanism, and has been thinking along similar lines.

Kim du Toit's pussification post has opened a can of worms much larger than manhood. One of the reasons it touched a raw nerve was because -- rightly or wrongly -- the man dared to speak about something not generally allowed to be addressed. Whether and to what extent controversial topics may be discussed is more important than the subject of manhood. And it is light years more important than the merits of du Toit's argument.

My question: are there some ideas too controversial for the blogosphere?

Let's stay with pussification for now (because I think it is less inflammatory than what's coming up).

Readers may remember that even the controversial du Toit was very careful to stick to conventional, mainstream manhood, of the World War II, Gary Cooper type. By no means did he want his readers to think in terms of what passes for manhood in urban ghettos:

...[N]or am I suggesting we support that perversion of being a Real Man, gangsta rap artists (those fucking pussies -- they wouldn't last thirty seconds against a couple of genuine tough guys that I know).

Speaking of rap music, do you want to know why more White boys buy that crap than Black boys do? You know why rape is such a problem on college campuses? Why binge drinking is a problem among college freshmen?

It's a reaction: a reaction against being pussified. And I understand it, completely. Young males are aggressive, they do fight amongst themselves, they are destructive, and all this does happen for a purpose.

Because only the strong men propagate.

And because I cannot argue with it (and indeed, what a waste of time it is arguing with nature; you might as well argue against gravity!), I would like to consider some related material I stumbled upon recently. It certainly strikes me as relevant, but whether in a good or a bad way I just don't know; it might supplement du Toit's argument, it might work synergistically with it, or it might furnish a cultural warning sign pointing in a direction those who would lead us might not want to go. (Not being a "leader" and having no such aspirations, I get to pass the buck! To my bigoted and narrow-minded way of thinking, leaders suck almost as much as followers.....)

This is from David Adesnik's (HT Lincoln Cat) hard-hitting review of The Code of the Street, by Elijah Anderson:

I have been profoundly shocked by what I have read. What Anderson describes is nothing short of a culture that glorifies uncontrolled violence and conspicuous consumption while forcefully disparaging the virtues of responsibility, modesty, and compromise.

Anderson says time and again that it is not wrong to fear a young black man walking towards you with a North Face jacket, Timberland boots and an unwelcoming expression. And it is not just white America that fears him. Decent black America fears him. Other young black men may fear him. And perhaps most disturbing of all, this is exactly the reaction that the young man in question wants to provoke.

Frankly, if this book didn't have endorsements given by West, Edelman and Wilson, I would not believe a word it says. How, in the absence of first-hand knowledge, could I possibly conclude that so many black men (and women) subscribe to a set of principles that I (and most black Americans) believe to be nothing short of perverse? How, in the absence of first-hand knowledge, could I accept a version of reality that seems designed to validate an extreme political agenda?

The most heartbreaking section of Prof. Anderson's book concerns inner-city attitudes toward parenting. For the young men Anderson describes, persuading the mother of your child to accept your total abdication of responsibility for its welfare is an achievement, a demonstration of masculine bravado. In contrast, supporting one's child -- either financially or through marriage -- is considered a weakness.

I found this so heartbreaking because it seems to go against the most fundamental source of human compassion, the parental bond. I found it so heartbreaking because the victims of this insanity are innocent children.

While disapproving of it, I understand why many young black women and women denigrate academic achievement, denigrate respect for the law, and denigrate respect for their elders. But to destroy one's own children is more than I can comprehend.

I am still afraid that someone will respond to this post and point out a glaring flaw with Anderson's work that I have missed. A flaw I did not detect because of my own ideological blinders. A flaw exposing a willingness to believe the worst, a willingness that is analytically indistinguishable from racism. But for the moment I am persuaded that this is real.

Who are the pussies, who are the real men, and who will win?

Might it be a mistake to answer this question only by looking at such things as brawn, strength, defiance, and a capacity for violence and brutality? Neither skinny little Japanese soldiers, their scrawny counterparts in Vietnam, nor the much touted Gurkha regiments were noted for brawn or brute strength. But they got the job done. It took an enormous effort to defeat the Japanese in World War II, and while there is no substitute for brawn and strength, the Atom Bomb was the product a team of scientists who could very well have been seen as "pussies" -- not only in their own time, but even today. How many real men would have had to die to acheive the same result as was achieved by these pointy-headed intellectuals who couldn't park a bicycle straight?

Is Bill Gates a real man? How much ass has he kicked?

What the hell is going on?

Is there such a thing as IQ? Am I allowed to ask questions about it, or will I run the risk of being demonized?

Take the common bumpersticker (which I'm sure you've all seen): "MY KID CAN BEAT UP YOUR HONOR STUDENT!" While divisive (perhaps on the level of divide-and-conquer?) that bumpersticker is certainly reflective of popular outrage, perhaps common sense, and supplies a rough, man-in-the-street rhetorical equivalent of du Toit's point (although du Toit himself may well have been one of those honor students lucky enough to have been the exception which proves the rule).

Is it smart or strong to encourage antagonism between the smart and the strong? Who benefits?

And, if it is fair to talk about the beaten down real man (no longer allowed by society to boast that his kid can beat up the honor student) is it really fair to neglect the bright kids? Are we doing them a disservice by pretending that a) there is no such thing as IQ; and b) even if there is such a thing, we will not allow it to matter?

Eric S. Raymond strikes me as one of the courageous few who has at least attempted to strike the same blow on behalf of the intellectual underdog which du Toit has for the masculine underdog.

I know, I know, right there many readers will argue that neither are underdogs! That the smart as well as the strong are "advantaged" and, for that reason, must be put down and kept down. du Toit offers a wake-up call to the masculine; RISE UP, REAL MEN! YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE EXCEPT YOUR APRON STRINGS!

Raymond's argument is similar, but more subtle. He merely warns that it is a mistake to ignore reality. Quite courageously (which I guess makes him a real man) he does not sidestep the racial implications:

[M]ale/female differences are insignificant compared to the real hot potato: differences in the mean IQ of racial and ethnic groups. These differences are real and they are large enough to have severe impact in the real world. In previous blog entries I've mentioned the one-standard-deviation advantage of Ashkenazic Jews over gentile whites; that's roughly fifteen points of IQ. Pacific-rim Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Koreans etc.) are also brighter on average by a comparable margin. So, oddly enough, are ethnic Scots — though not their close kin the Irish. Go figure...

And the part that, if you are a decent human being and not a racist bigot, you have been dreading: American blacks average a standard deviation lower in IQ than American whites at about 85. And it gets worse: the average IQ of African blacks is lower still, not far above what is considered the threshold of mental retardation in the U.S. And yes, it's genetic; g seems to be about 85% heritable, and recent studies of effects like regression towards the mean suggest strongly that most of the heritability is DNA rather than nurturance effects.

For anyone who believe that racial equality is an important goal, this is absolutely horrible news. Which is why a lot of well-intentioned people refuse to look at these facts, and will attempt to shout down anyone who speaks them in public. There have been several occasions on which leading psychometricians have had their books canceled or withdrawn by publishers who found the actual scientific evidence about IQ so appalling that they refused to print it.

Unfortunately, denial of the facts doesn't make them go away. Far from being meaningless, IQ may be the single most important statistic about human beings, in the precise sense that differences in g probably drive individual and social outcomes more than any other single measurable attribute of human beings.

But take a look at this graph:

Again, is common sense being ignored? Put yourself in the position of a boss having to hire a new employee. Given a choice between two qualified applicants, one smarter than the other, who would YOU hire? (I don't think of myself as a bigot, but I have to confess that I would hire the smarter one.)

Eric Raymond's point -- that ignoring reality does not make it go away -- stands in stark defiance against a consensus that things like IQ should be ignored, as should things like masculinity. And more troubling, that somehow both should be made to go away.

A thing which, if possible at all, in my view could only be accomplished by means of the most grotesque methods of B.F. Skinner style social engineering imaginable. (Treatments once used to "cure" homosexuals could be dusted off and used again, you know.....)

Query: IQ stands for "Intelligence Quotient"; should MQ henceforth be measured, and called "Masculinity Quotient"? Or should we just pretend these aren't real things? I am not suggesting that it should be a negative judgment that one guy might not be not as intelligent, or another guy might not be as masculine. But isn't it making just as much of a judgment to stigmatize something as it is to praise it? Hell, I think this calls for the quote of the day:

Moderation, apparently, is inconceivable to some people.

Why should the idea that there is such a thing as intelligence -- and it can be good -- be more inflammatory than similar ideas about masculinity? Why should either subject be inflammatory? Who gets to decide these things?

Is it a good idea to neglect bright kids, put them down, and drug them into submission?

Does sweeping things like IQ and masculinity under the carpet and pretending they don't exist heighten the possibility the bad (the more uncontrolled, dark sides) will rise to the top instead of the good?

How the hell would I know? I would dread being at the top! Being a borderline anarchist, I tend to distrust leaders and the whole concept of leadership. I define "leaders" as people who would tell me and others what to do. I recognize that there are and always will be such people, but allowing them free "reign" is something I consider anathema to a free society. At the same time, I recognize the need for minimal government, and I think the founders of this country offered a compromise with anarchy. Unfortunately, even that compromise has been compromised.

But "leaders" who would tell me how to be a man are about as ridiculous as those who would tell me how to be a homo -- or how to be intelligent. That kind of leadership I do not follow.

Those who do follow are, in my view, nether masculine nor intelligent. Ironically, of course, intelligence and masculinity can no more be eradicated by lame attempts at leadership than they can be created by leadership. Intelligence is innate. Masculinity is innate. Tampering with either, though, may, by hindering individuals who possess the characteristics, make them into monsters. Intelligent monsters, masculine monsters, or both.

I think the best approach might just be to acknowledge reality, and stop messing with people.

How very naive of me!

Bloggers are either: a) foolish amateurs who abandon their blogs, or b) professsional writers who con the former.

So says John Dvorak (link), who, if I remember correctly, once praised blogging as "the next thing."

I did remember correctly. (More or less....) Here's the link.

Well that was then, and this is now:

Writing is tiresome. Why anyone would do it voluntarily on a blog mystifies a lot of professional writers. This is compounded by a lack of feedback, positive or otherwise. Perseus thinks that most blogs have an audience of about 12 readers. Leaflets posted on the corkboard at Albertsons attract a larger readership than many blogs. Some people must feel the futility.

The problem is further compounded by professional writers who promote blogging, with the thought that they are increasing their own readership. It's no coincidence that the most-read blogs are created by professional writers. They have essentially suckered thousands of newbies, mavens, and just plain folk into blogging, solely to get return links in the form of the blogrolls and citations. This is, in fact, a remarkably slick grassroots marketing scheme that is in many ways awesome, albeit insincere.

Unfortunately, at some point, people will realize they've been used. This will happen sooner rather than later, since many mainstream publishers now see the opportunity for exploitation. Thus you find professionally written and edited faux blogs appearing on MSNBC's site, the Washington Post site, and elsewhere. This seems to be where blogging is headed—Big Media. So much for the independent thinking and reporting that are supposed to earmark blog journalism.

That's a pretty tough question, but I'll do my best to answer it.

I am a licensed attorney, but because I dislike litigation and live in a state where I am not licensed, I don't practice much law. I suppose that when I did practice law, because that included lots of writing and because I was paid, I was in that sense a "paid" writer. But I have never been published, and I have never been paid just for writing.

I guess that means I am being used by a bunch of sneaky professional writers out there. I'll be ground up and thrown overboard any time now. Meanwhile, the covert professionals will sign deals with (gulp) "Big Media."

To them, it's some sort of affirmation. In fact, it's a death sentence. The onerous Big Media incursion marks the beginning of the end for blogging. Can you spell co-opted?