Comment On racism (Score 1) 593
I believe all humans are equally valuable and respectable regardless of race and sex. I do not, however, believe that humans are all created equal in terms of predisposition of physical skills and intelligence.
Differences in physical skills between race and gender is not much of a taboo. It is generally accepted that men are stronger than women, and in sports we don't let men compete with women because that would be unfair and pointless. The 100m sprint is dominated by blacks. Should we think of women as less than men because of this? Or whites to be inferior to blacks? Obviously not.
Differences in "intelligence" between race and gender is a huge taboo. It is not accepted that men are generally predisposed to be more able to abstract and plan ahead than women, and that whites and asians are predisposed to have better abilities to abstract and plan ahead than blacks. Perhaps the difference may be caused by poverty, less opportunity, cultural differences or racism. Or perhaps its the other way around: less ability to plan and abstract causes poverty and cultural differences.
This would be a racist and highly controversial, politically incorrect position to take. In my view, this is exactly where the problem starts. Apparently, intelligence is the one measure by which we must judge a human being. It seems that against all evidence we want to continue to pretend we are predisposed to be all equally smart, implying that people that would be predisposed to be less smart are somehow inferior. This is infuriating and obviously not the case. Intelligence is an arbitrary measure just as physical skills or beauty is. There are many traits to a human being, and it would be better if we'd accept that there are differences in terms of predisposition between gender and race. It would mean conceding that some races are predisposed to be physically superior and others to be predisposed in terms of ability to plan ahead and abstract. Then we can accept that, yes, no surprise, we see a lot of white men in doing things that demand math-like skills such as finance, programming and research. A great many of these jobs that require abstraction and planning are the higher paying ones.
Differences in physical skills between race and gender is not much of a taboo. It is generally accepted that men are stronger than women, and in sports we don't let men compete with women because that would be unfair and pointless. The 100m sprint is dominated by blacks. Should we think of women as less than men because of this? Or whites to be inferior to blacks? Obviously not.
Differences in "intelligence" between race and gender is a huge taboo. It is not accepted that men are generally predisposed to be more able to abstract and plan ahead than women, and that whites and asians are predisposed to have better abilities to abstract and plan ahead than blacks. Perhaps the difference may be caused by poverty, less opportunity, cultural differences or racism. Or perhaps its the other way around: less ability to plan and abstract causes poverty and cultural differences.
This would be a racist and highly controversial, politically incorrect position to take. In my view, this is exactly where the problem starts. Apparently, intelligence is the one measure by which we must judge a human being. It seems that against all evidence we want to continue to pretend we are predisposed to be all equally smart, implying that people that would be predisposed to be less smart are somehow inferior. This is infuriating and obviously not the case. Intelligence is an arbitrary measure just as physical skills or beauty is. There are many traits to a human being, and it would be better if we'd accept that there are differences in terms of predisposition between gender and race. It would mean conceding that some races are predisposed to be physically superior and others to be predisposed in terms of ability to plan ahead and abstract. Then we can accept that, yes, no surprise, we see a lot of white men in doing things that demand math-like skills such as finance, programming and research. A great many of these jobs that require abstraction and planning are the higher paying ones.