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At least for me, accepting HBD was the first domino in a much larger chain of insight. At first, the IQ gap seems like the most important aspect of HBD and a lot of HBDers only really beat that dead horse of race and IQ. IQ is obviously relevant in weighing policy decisions like the extent of the Welfare State or understanding income inequality. In my classical liberal days, I became interested in HBD because I considered it to be a solid rebuttal to the argument that Capitalism is unjust because market conditions have led to persistent racial inequality. With the HBD premise, persistent racial inequality in social outcomes is not necessarily a market failure.
The IQ argument also helps the sort of Caplan-esque economic libertarianism. If you advocate for open borders with minimal welfare state, you can argue the former is a positive selection for IQ in the absence of a welfare state, but a negative selection for IQ in the presence of a progressive welfare state. It's a strong argument against the welfare state in the presence of relatively open borders.
I would call this sort of discourse HBD Level 1.
But the next step in the pipeline is to acknowledge what some have referred to as the "Iron law of heritability." It's not a question of whether or not a psychological trait is heritable, it's only a question of how much it's heritable. So well beyond IQ, we are now talking about all aspects of our personality including conscientiousness, conformity, religiosity, political inclinations, aggression, etc. which collectively should be considered vastly more important than the IQ question alone.
It also raises uncomfortable questions and leads to the "demographics is destiny" argument you'll see from the alt-lite or MAGA. Let's say you're a libertarian, and your ideological values are important to you - even more precious than your own children. You support open borders because it's economically efficient and a big step towards the ideal of free association. Well, with HBD we have to contend with the fact that open borders will bring people to your country who may simply not have the sort of personality that cares about your precious values. Are Hispanics, Africans, Indians, and Chinese going to realize the greatness of libertarian ideology with the same propensity as white and Jewish men? Probably not.
I would call this level of discourse HBD Level 2, and frankly I think most of the rationalist-sphere is stuck at this level of understanding of HBD. I say that because when it comes to the question of, if HBD is obviously true, why the hell are we denying it and acting the way we are as a society?, they will be far more likely to say, as you suggest, that this is simply an overcorrection of the moral lessons of the 20th century.
But that's still ultimately a Whig view of history and progress. "We learned the right moral lessons, we just haven't implemented them optimally. Sure, we've lost some knowledge along the way, but we can delicately integrate these rediscovered truths into the moral paradigm that has served us well." This is the mistake theory view.
HBD Level 3, which only a small number of people reach, and basically everyone I have seen at this level of discourse is in the Dissident Right, becomes conscious of the fact that HBD-denial itself, like all the highly regarded moral revelations of the 20th century, are the product of political competition and racial conflict.
The "great lie", as you put it, is not race and IQ; the "great lie" is much more all-encompassing and far-reaching in all corners of society. Looking back at history since the 1960s and before: the Sexual Revolution, Civil Rights, Holocaust Remembrance, the Cold War, War on Terrorism, Psychoanalysis, Anthropology, Diversity & Inclusion - all of it can and should be reinterpreted as contextual to political competition and ethnic conflict. Because tribalism is a coded behavior, and HBD pulls back the curtain on why society believes these particular "great lies" and shows that this tribalism is never going away. Even out greatest overtures towards moving away from tribalism have only been motivated by tribalism on the highest order.
That's not to say -everything- is a lie, but it is to generally move from mistake theory to conflict theory in rationalist parlance, and following the thread of HBD very well may get you there eventually.
Sure. HBD denial was established by and is maintained by the motivations of political actors, not random mistakes made by scientists and anthropologists. Those political motivations that gave rise to HBD denial are derived from ethnic conflict. That ethnic conflict is itself explained by HBD. Accepting HBD uncovers a deeper level of ethnic conflict than is generally understood.
Accepting this exposes other such movements which have presented a veneer of universalist principles, but scratching the surface reveals similar, particularistic motivations.
This could go in a lot of different directions. But it should just be sufficient to acknowledge that accepting HBD is tarred as racist and therefore highly immoral. So the opposition to HBD frames their position in terms of ethnic conflict.
The concern is that accepting HBD will alter the relations between ethnic groups. The greatest concern is that racially conscious whites will mistreat other groups based on this information. But ultimately, the observation that HBD denial is rooted in the concerns of anti-racism is sufficient for my point.
But on a deeper level, it's hard not to notice the history of HBD denial broadly falling along the lines of Protestant Darwinists versus immigrant Jews. Nobody is more responsible for the hegemony of HBD denial than Franz Boas, and his crusade against Madison Grant is understood as an expression of an ethnic conflict. This was not a clash of unbiased scientists who merely had different interpretations of data. They were, both, heavily influenced by their identities and their own inherited proclivities. The Boas academic takeover of anthropology in the Academy was the direct result of this conflict, which continues to this day.
If HBD denial was not a result of this conflict, why do you think HBD denial became hegemonic in academia and public consciousness? Do you think scientists were just trying to find the truth without respect to their own identities and personal proclivities or ethnic interests, and they just happened to get it wrong at the global height of the eugenics movement? Or did they win a conflict underpinned by ethnic motivations?
You've conceded the entire point. That HBD denial is rooted in a concern for the consequences of white race politics (and it always has been, even pre-WWII). That is an ethnic conflict. A scientific issue is transformed into political dogma because of ethnic conflict. Rationalists aspire to approach HBD without regards to the underlying ethnic conflict. Level 3 approach HBD with the appreciation that they are entering the political arena of an ethnic conflict, as they are in the analysis of a large portion of other cultural phenomena that are generally regarded as bottom-up and emergent.
Is it proportionally coming from them?
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