by See Steven Pinker’s remarks here:[embedded content]Pinker is right. Our society has become so insanely politically correct that asserting basic empirical truths is now hate crime, and many people do not even know these facts at all, and when confronted with them are shocked.Take the issue of biological differences between men and women, especially differences in the distribution of female versus male IQ, as I have discussed here. These facts about IQ and the biologically-determined physical, cognitive and personality differences between men and women explain why women do not have much interest in the hard sciences, or any great presence in that field. Instead, the field is dominated by men, just as men dominate sectors of the economy where hard physical labour is required, and this is
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Lord Keynes considers the following as important: Steven Pinker on the Alt Right
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Pinker is right. Our society has become so insanely politically correct that asserting basic empirical truths is now hate crime, and many people do not even know these facts at all, and when confronted with them are shocked.
Take the issue of biological differences between men and women, especially differences in the distribution of female versus male IQ, as I have discussed here. These facts about IQ and the biologically-determined physical, cognitive and personality differences between men and women explain why women do not have much interest in the hard sciences, or any great presence in that field. Instead, the field is dominated by men, just as men dominate sectors of the economy where hard physical labour is required, and this is almost entirely explained by biological differences.
As Pinker says, the explosion of the popularity of the Alt Right is in part explained by the outrageous suppression of such basic empirical truths like these. But Pinker doesn’t go far enough. The rise of the identitarian right is also explained by the obvious catastrophe of mass Third World immigration and in particular mass Muslim immigration.
Pinker, however, seems to get the Alt Right wrong on economics. Perhaps the anarcho-capitalists had much greater influence in the past, but the Alt Right these days seems dominated by people who are comfortable with aspects of left-wing economics, or even supportive of a Bernie Sanders-style socialism, but for white people in a white ethno-state.
“the biologically-determined physical, cognitive and personality differences between men and women explain why women do not have much interest in the hard sciences,”
that’s far from accurate. the implication that we can cut through biology and culture that easily is absurd and runs contra most of current biological thought.
there are equally as plausible (if not more plausible) hypotheses about the cultural origins of those cognitive and personality differences.
of course I will agree with the part that political correctness silences the biological origins hypotheses and they should all be evaluated and contrasted with empirical evidence.
but saying with such certainty that it is one way or the other, based on current empirical and theoretical findings, is really fallacious
also pinker doesn’t go that far to explain the rise of the alt-right because it contradicts his politics. it’s very well established in radicalization research that the economic conditions of people are to a large extend to blame. to put it differently, the neo-liberal economic policies that pinker supports.
a bunch of failsons that see no improvement to their lives, get more and more sympathetic to the alt-right after all.