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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 1, 2024

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Far Right HBD Civil War

Bronze Age Pervert recently xeeted on what he believes in the current infeasibility of HBD politically:

While for the sake of truth I think facts about racial disparities should be discussed, it’s not good at all politically. In fact it’s impossible in the present circumstances. Only a myth of race blindness is workable. You won’t convince some populations that they are inferior by birth and deserve their station in life. You won’t even convince “decent people” from high achieving populations of this. On the other hand discrimination to offset perceived past discrimination or natural inequalities is also felt to be wrong (although I think it would be relatively easy to convince modern populations to accept affirmative action to offset natural inequalities, which is another reason pushing this with a political intention is a big mistake). The only solution in short run is race blindness, stopping and reversing all racialization of politics and society. This isn’t my own preference by the way but a statement on fact. The “HBD position” is an impossibility politically and culturally today. Public hypocrisy is the only way out that will be accepted unless you are ready to go the Nietzsche and Gobineau route (and you are not).

This was controversial with numerous pundits amongst the different spheres of the Right: with Woods, Winegard, and Fuentes having opposing views.

I think the question of politically feasibility of HBD is a point of discussion, in addition to—perhaps more interestingly—the timing of the xeet by Bronze Age Pervert—wat means? Is HBD the path forward? In the chaos of the Isreal-Hamas war and the current anti-woke backlash, is the vitalist Right looking to make themselves more palatable?

BAP's point is that some people on the right imagine that "if HBD awareness goes 'mainstream', racial spoils systems will end", when in reality racial spoils and denial of HBD are only tangentially connected.

It would be quite easy to have both widespread awareness of HBD and racial spoils systems like affirmative action, because the primary point of these systems is to distribute resources (like well-paid sinecures, social status, political influence) between groups. It's actually a very classically liberal viewpoint to believe that meritocracy must be absolute and that everything should be distributed based solely on talent.

EDIT: As @Ioper says below, this misunderstands the central progressive impulse, which is the drive toward equality. "From each according to ability, to each according to need" is a direct rejection of the idea that talent should be rewarded with a superior quality of life.

And the global viewpoint suggests this, because many nations far beyond the WEIRD bubble practice affirmative action widely even though DEI politics isn't dominant there. Hindu nationalists practice it, the CCP practices it, the Brazilians and Nigerians practice it. Sure, global homogenization is a thing, but in many cases these policies exist for much more mundane reasons than high-minded progressive equality politics, like reducing the chance of explosive civil conflicts.

There's a delusional fantasy among some rightists that if only the (white) public "knew" about HBD, the wool would fall from their eyes and they'd instantly adopt conservative positions on a wide range of policies. In reality, leftist ideas are much more resilient than that. They can justify affirmative action, reparations and so on in countless other ways, and in some cases already have.

There's a delusional fantasy among some rightists that if only the (white) public "knew" about HBD, the wool would fall from their eyes and they'd instantly adopt conservative positions on a wide range of policies.

Well yes, common knowledge of HBD would make the case for affirmative action stronger- lots of institutions are firmly committed to blacks having equal outcomes, regardless of abilities.

And it’s not unreasonable that a multiracial democracy is very concerned about this- you know and I know that the black-white gap isn’t going away. I know that if alien space bats come and raise the black average IQ to 100 the gap won’t go away. But this is a democracy with equal rights; 13% of the population, in some cases a local majority, being consistently very upset is a bad thing.

Why would it do that?

HBD's big revelation is that the problem with black people IS black people...

Why would it result in stronger affirmative action instead of a return to Pre-Civil Rights segregation like every single liberal insists it would, and pre-civil rights Americans concluded was necessary back when they believed in a folk-version of HBD?

Most likely outcome of HBD being widely believed by white americans would be a hot ethnic conflict which whites would win followed by the same solution they settled upon after reconstruction... if not something more punitive for making them fight the ethnic conflict.

White america no longer has the assabiyah to do that, of course. Technically it never did; southern whites had the assabiyah and there weren’t big enough black communities elsewhere.

They’ll pay the tribute for peace.

What is your age?

anyone over 35 doesn't get this.

All I hear from young white men is that they 100% WANT things to go hot mixed with fedposting that if it doesn't kick off they'll make it happen... AI Researchers, Corporate figures, Military Officers, 7 figure Engineering wunderkinds... the last repositories of talent in America... they're just waiting for the very last of the aging leadership to leave and things to start really failing

Every white boy who went through DEI and feminist consent lectures as a child... all the exceptional ones who landed on their feet... they swore bloody vengeance.

All the talented white kids who experienced wokeness in high school or university ( lived through the struggle sessions complete with threats to destroy their lives when they objected) now feels their ethnicity as keenly as the most apocalyptic nationalists in the early 20th century.

The moderates i speak to don't worry there won't be an explosion... they're terrified of how far it will go.

I’m 27 and a Texan homeowner in a working class, mixed white-Hispanic neighborhood in an r+25 suburb of Fort Worth. I’ve never been screamed at for being white and yes, I have sat through diversity/social justice awareness lectures. Casual racism is common in young white men but fedposting is rare, and this is Texas where the red tribe hates the blue tribe(and Vice versa) and would rather deal with Hispanics than HR cat ladies.

All I hear from young white men is that they 100% WANT things to go hot mixed with fedposting that if it doesn't kick off they'll make it happen... AI Researchers, Corporate figures, Military Officers, 7 figure Engineering wunderkinds... the last repositories of talent in America... they're just waiting for the very last of the aging leadership to leave and things to start really failing.

As Amadan said, most young white men don’t remotely have the hatred for minorities that would be true for that to be the case.

And the reason men under 35 are hotheaded isn’t issue specific but general, since almost all men mellow with age.

Every white boy who went through DEI and feminist consent lectures as a child... all the exceptional ones who landed on their feet... they swore bloody vengeance.

That's quite a claim. All of them, really?

I know this is what you hope and dream of, but no, most "white men under 35" in America are not slobbering for a race war with the eagerness of Palestinian martyr brigades. (A comparison I use intentionally - places like Palestine are where you'll find the closest thing to the mentality you speak of, and even they aren't that unified in their bloodlust.)

I know that if alien space bats come and raise the black average IQ to 100 the gap won’t go away.

What do you mean by this?

Black outcomes are driven mostly by their own bad decisions, with some generational effects. There’s a tendency to fetishize the IQ gap, but the reality is there’s cultural reasons for much of it. And ‘making blacks smarter’ won’t fix the bad culture.

It was demonstrated even in the Bell Curve, that controlliing for IQ, most outcome gaps between blacks and whites go away.

Would the alien space bats which increase black IQ by 15 points also change their personality traits? Given that US blacks speak same language and have same religion as whites, culture would start to converge pretty fast.

At the same time, some of the motivation is because they think that affirmative action makes it more meritocratic, or that they think it is needed to remedy past oppression (and once disparities disappear, we can drop it). Either, it is supposed to reflect how past systemic racism has hurt underperforming groups, or it is to break the system and stop it from hurting those groups in the future, making it even.

If this were more well known, it would become harder to do either of those. Disparities would no longer be thought to be due to systemic racism (well, except that this view would be painted as a variety of racism by many), and there would no longer be the hope of changing it merely by rewarding the underperforming to push them into a different socioeconomic status.

But this is a democracy with equal rights; 13% of the population, in some cases a local majority, being consistently very upset is a bad thing.

Equal rights or equal outcomes, pick only one.

Demonizing the largest demographic and screwing them over doesn't seem to be an obstacle in a democracy. If black Americans weren't told to be upset and if society didn't care that much if they were or weren't upset, it would matter less. And they would be less upset.

They are plenty of upset now, even though they are beneficiaries of systematic discrimination and propaganda in their favor. Tolerating this level of entitlement is and inciting anger is in fact what is especially bad in a democracy. And as the goal of the democracy ought to be the common good, it is also a bad idea to promote as you do the legitimacy of said entitlement of various specific groups. It should be considered a failure state of a democracy if a coalition or alliance of identities mistreat the rest. Especially the majority.

The reality there are a lot of cyclical arguements that their source and bottom is that coalition of progressive and ethnic activists captured power and promoted their ideas in favor of their favorite groups. The pervasiveness of these arguments has to do with movements that pushed them, and before they pushed them, there was less black entitlement and in fact you even had once white Americans rioting for films having black actors in them and things like that. If society could transform from that direction, to the current one which in your mind having such prejudices is a way to keep the peace, then it can be changed again but in a more reasonable end.

So, either one agrees with their perspective and will always find an excuse to not make such groups unhappy. Or they actually reject treating blacks and other demographics as utility monsters. The right should promote not only HBD but also the idea that there should be no special treatment and entitlement for blacks, and try to use power to bring that into fruition.

However, I do think that certain black problems deserve special attention in a manner that is de facto redistributive. Well, to the extend you do have race blind welfare that isn't excesive, they would be beneficiaries as they are now, even without any AA type of policies in societies. And to the extend the police should have to deal more with black criminality, they also would disproportionately be beneficiaries as greater % victims of black crime. Obviously there would be less spending if there was less criminality by blacks. I think it is fair for them to benefit in these ways, but also to acknowledge that they are a community that is beneficiaries of society, and ought not be upset. Which would be more the case if things are framed in the right way and they aren't told they are owed what they in fact are not owed. We would find that punishing criminals, and discouraging entitlement works actually to stop the problems of black anger.

And the police should focus on high crime areas of course. But what about disproportionately black criminals? I care about victims of crime, not the deserving punishment of criminals. And the entitled mentality of a black community to the extend they make unreasonable demands and have a false view of the world and the left wing activists who played some role in inluencing them shouldn't be respected. The goal is as elites have done in democracy towards the left, to actually enforce what you want and change the attitudes as well. Just as the laws were in that direction and Black community leaders were more pro tough on crime in the 90s.

A necessary part of that should be liberals losing influence, and conservatives and tough on crime types taking power and promoting their views and agenda outright, while promoting as black community leaders those who go along. So there is no choice but to play the game of power and promote your own different narrative. You aren't really in opposition to the left wing project if you can't do that and instead favor preferential treatment for groups like blacks, so they aren't upset.

Does this mean that HBD is insufficient? Well yes, and no. Most of the people promoting HBD also want to counter the left's narrative on race and oppose discrimination in favor of left wing groups. The reality is those who want to be liked by the left and share with it their way of viewing the world are unlikely to promote HBD, although some might promote only HBD for Jews and talk about how they are high IQ. This combination of HBD and opposing the left's ideology is a narrative more intellectually successful in opposing the left than if you removed HBD from it.

While theoretically, you could have people who talk about HBD and support AA, in practice it is a rare combo. You do have some who support HBD and align with the left in other ways though.