The Logic of Bell Curve Leftism #2

Again I will put excerpts from Andrew Sullivan’s article in all italics followed by my comments.

Freddie [DeBoer, author of The Cult of Smart] notes that “if the average white student sits at 50 percent of all students at a given academic task, the average black student lies somewhere between 15 and 30 percent,” which is not a minor difference. DeBoer doesn’t explain it as a factor of class — he notes the IQ racial gap persists even when removing socio-economic status from the equation. Nor does he ascribe it to differences in family structure — because parenting is not that important. He cites rather exposure to lead, greater disciplinary punishment for black kids, the higher likelihood of being arrested, the stress of living in a crime-dominated environment, the deep and deadening psychological toll of pervasive racism, and so on: “white supremacy touches on so many aspects of American life that it’s irresponsible to believe we have adequately controlled for it in our investigations of the racial achievement gap.”

DeBoer’s collectivist, victimhood, and oppressor/oppressed mindset is patently clear. He makes culture and individual character, attitude, and effort irrelevant, too.

Sullivan: I suspect that many smart people have mistaken their own unearned gift for some kind of moral virtue, which is why they are so reluctant to note that others may not be so smart, and if they do so, think less of them. Remove the elites’ vanity, and self-love, and you can see their irrationality for what it is.

Heh. What about the elites at the vanguard of leftism, critical race theory, and people like Sullivan? Are none of them irrational or smart?

My big brain, I realized, was as much an impediment to living well as it was an advantage. It was a bane and a blessing. It simply never occurred to me that higher intelligence was in any way connected to moral worth or happiness.

In fact, I saw the opposite. I still do. I don’t believe that a communist revolution will bring forward the day when someone like my grandmother could be valued in society and rewarded as deeply as she should have been.

A high IQ doesn’t guarantee its being used well or wisdom, either. Sullivan seems like a good example. Value to whom for what? There must be plenty of other uneducated grandmothers as good or better than his. Does he value any of them as much as his own? He seems to want a communist revolution, but is too cynical to believe that people in general are good enough for it.