Or how the dialogue of viewpoint diversity can lead to ideas which are better framed and more cogent. This extract is from a discussion I’ve been having with a fairly moderate Left-leaning liberal in the comments section of Quillette. As a heterodox, I’ve had similar disagreements with conservatives- but I won’t quote them here, because they tend to be a little more paranoid about Cancel Culture.
I apologise in advance if this exchange is rough hewn and poorly edited. On the latter point, I am still struggling to get to grips with some of the implications of copying and pasting into new editing formats. Anyway, I wanted to show it as an example of everything we’ve lost with the dissolution of good faith disagreement, across political divides.
I should give some context- this was my original comment:
“The problem with empiricism is that stands in direct contradiction to the cultish zealotry of the Left. One only has to look at the data to correct any number of Leftist talking points, from the fact that disparities in incarceration have more to do with disparities in the levels of violence within disparate communities to the now clearly evidenced truism that most societal violence has its roots in the breakdown of the traditional family at a community level, more than any other cause, including poverty or inequality.
As such, empiricism is to be distrusted on the Left. It also goes without saying that most in the activist fields lacked either the aptitude or the work ethic to perform well in the sciences, and they are deeply resentful of those who produce greater value for society than themselves. As soon as one strips away the patina of respectability and wealth conferred on the Grievance Studies by corporate wokeism employing them in useless bureaucracies, it rapidly becomes clear that even relatively minor and obscure scientific fields produce greater value for society than the efforts of entire generations of activists.
And tomorrow it will become clear just how harmful their naive efforts have been. ‘Reimagining’ Policing has already led to a massive surge in violent crime in America, against a backdrop of less serious crimes against property falling in America. No other Western or advanced economy has experienced this violent crime surge, which was roughly three times higher than the highest annual rate of violent crime increase, since records began.
The problem is the activists cannot conceive of the possibility that it was always the politicians, the media types, and the prosecutors elected by people who were just like them who created the fiasco laughably referred to as the American Criminal Justice system, not the police who could best be described as the crime scene clean-up crew for the failed social policies of the American Left.
They need the police as a scapegoat, because otherwise they would have to begin to address the notion that in actuality it is some of their most cherished heroes who are to blame for the urban rot and decay, as well as the legacy of mass incarceration. It’s not the Enlightenment project of scientific enquiry and the empirical method which should be called into question, but rather the advisability of setting young and idealistic college graduates loose in government with ill-advised and poorly conceived social policies- like amateur would-be surgeons unleashed upon an emergency room with butchers knives, bandages and a prescription pad.”
To which his response was:
“You’re painting with far too broad a brush. Most scientists are on “the left,” as are anti-Woke liberals who defend Enlightenment values. Please be more specific: when you’re referring to the progressive left, say so. I don’t tar “the right” with the anti-science attitudes of young-Earth creationists, who constitute a subset of conservatives. Likewise, progressive leftists constitute a subset of “the left.” So does the center-left, where I would place myself.
Geary_Johansen2020:
it rapidly becomes clear that even relatively minor and obscure scientific fields produce greater value for society than the efforts of entire generations of activists.
Really? You’re casually dismissing the work of all left-of-center activists?
Geary_Johansen2020:
‘Reimagining’ Policing has already led to a massive surge in violent crime in America
Do you have evidence that police reform is the primary cause of the increase in violent crime? Has the crime rate only increased in cities that have changed policing practices? If so, which specific reforms are to blame? And how has this cause-and-effect relationship been proven?
Geary_Johansen2020:
the now clearly evidenced truism that most societal violence has its roots in the breakdown of the traditional family at a community level, more than any other cause, including poverty or inequality.
By all means, please provide some of that clear evidence. Also, please explain how family breakdown can be understood in isolation from the deleterious effects of concentrated poverty. In my view, those factors are very difficult to disentangle:
[W]hen it comes to the structure and quality of marriage and family life, America is increasingly divided by class. Middle- and upper-class Americans are more likely to benefit from strong and stable marriages; by comparison, working-class and poor Americans increasingly face more fragile families. This family divide, in turn, often leaves poor and working-class men, women, and their children doubly disadvantaged: They have more fragile families and fewer socioeconomic resources.
(a quote from me) it rapidly becomes clear that even relatively minor and obscure scientific fields produce greater value for society than the efforts of entire generations of activists.
Really? You’re casually dismissing the work of all left-of-center activists?
I was speaking purely in the modern context here, when all the major battles for equality of opportunity and equality under the law have been won. You may feel in practical terms this is not the case, and I certainly agree that the Civil Rights cause has yet to deliver fully on its promise, but we have to confine ourselves to easily enacted changes to Law for those social changes which government is actually able to enforce.
Anyway, the evidence from Northern Ireland is quite clear. If one were to go back to the 1980s then you would find that Northern Irish Catholics had a clear case for Civil Rights. They were excluded from many areas of full participation in the economy, whether public or private. They lived, to a large extent, in Council Estates and dilapidated tenement buildings whilst their Northern Irish Protestant counterparts lived in leafy wealthy middle class suburbs. But by almost every metric, this situation has reversed, with Northern Irish Catholics now in general better educated, wealthier and with higher incomes.
What explains this almost complete reversal in fortunes? Well, to be sure, there were some broader societal changes in relation to discrimination, as well as a few plush government jobs distributed more evenly by community. But for the most part, they changed their stars through their own actions. If anything, the original impetus for their relative success came by actually ignoring some of the worst advice and edicts of government in the form of the progressive teaching methodology, which its erroneous belief that for children, knowledge is better discovered, than taught by a teacher, for children as young as six.
But overall it was stronger communities, strong families, parents invested in the educational project and the core function of a faith community with its role in solidifying community cohesion which were responsible for their unfettered ascendency- not government, but its beneficial absence. There are parallels to Irish Americans here. They achieved political power quite quickly in America, but if anything said political power hindered their ascendency to parity with other white cultural groups. It was only when they looked to themselves for their own self-improvement that they began to shake off the most lethargic track record in terms of entering the middle class, of any white immigrant group to America.
Schopenhauer:
Geary_Johansen2020:
the now clearly evidenced truism that most societal violence has its roots in the breakdown of the traditional family at a community level, more than any other cause, including poverty or inequality.
By all means, please provide some of that clear evidence. Also, please explain how family breakdown can be understood in isolation from the deleterious effects of concentrated poverty. In my view, those factors are very difficult to disentangle
I won’t bother with the sources, because I’m sure you’ve already looked up the research on social mobility by Dr Raj Chetty which I am fond of citing by now. It shows that even quality of education comes second to the proportion of fathers in the community which a child grows up, as causation for upward social mobility. You’ve also probably looked up Richard Tremblay’s work on chronic physical aggression, and realised that most males are born aggressive, that aggression is not caused by our environments, we are at our most aggressive at age two, and the differences in aggression are caused by differential rates of some children to learn the ability to control their aggression.
EDIT: Oops, I was confusing this with another thread.
This graph shows the way in which most learn to control the aggression they are born with, and is at its most unmitigated at age two. The high chronic physical aggression group is 5% of the population and mostly male. The low aggression groups are mainly female.
To be fair, its not just single motherhood, but also the self-selection of aggressive and possessive males as temporary mates which probably explains the epigenetic nature of this social phenomenon. I’m not saying that poverty doesn’t play a role, but it’s a self-selecting correlation rather than the causation which an absence of fathers in the community represents.
Poverty is social feedback for the underlying root cause, not causation itself. Studies which suggest otherwise are simply picking up on the statistical economic difference between two income households and single income households. Dr Raj Chetty’s research proves this for the simple reason that the future inequality doesn’t stem from issues at the household level, but at a community level.
Poverty is a factor, but only through hypergamy. All the literature points to the fact that whilst women might breed with men who are relatively attractive and well thought of within their peer group, they will not settle down with them unless they have reliable jobs and are providers. Ideally, they prefer men with at least slightly higher socio-economic status.
African American women enjoy rates of social mobility slightly higher than white women, but they still earn on average 11 or 12% less than white women. Why is this? Because they pay a penalty in terms of partner selection and their chances of stable family formation. It leads to an intergenerational reset, which is rendered mainly under the auspices of having to raise their kids in communities with fewer fathers.
Their daughters tend to do well regardless, but the effects of a lack of fathers are felt disproportionately for their sons. Men regulate teenage peer groups, are a source of mentoring, and represent an iterative map of potential future life paths. An African American boy from a household with an income of $120K, performs as though his parents household income is $38K. That is unless, they grow up in the lucky 1% of households who live in communities which have high rates of fathers, generally show high levels of integration and low levels of implicit bias. Then their social mobility tracks at exactly the same rate, at statistical level, as comparable white boys. A profound difference, wouldn’t you say?
Dr Raj Chetty has made a fair case for potential racial bias as an explanation for this discrepancy. But it’s an anomaly which bears thinking about. Because, in the main, where are the only two places where you will likely find high rates of fatherhood, high levels of integration, and low levels of implicit bias- which still provide accommodation for poorer single parent families into communities with high rates of productive fathers? Only two places… Military bases and university campuses.
In the UK, the poorest 20% of Chinese British perform at exactly the same level as the richest 20%. Both have high rates of fathers. The rate of fatherhood in Afro Caribbean British communities is 43%. They are four to five times as likely to be excluded from school, perform less well at GCSE than their white counterparts in our national exams at 16, are catastrophically 24 times more likely to end up either the victim or offender in a knife crime incident (if they are between the ages of 16 and 25) and more likely to end up in prison.
The rate of fatherhood for the African British demographic is 63%. They have none of the discipline or aggression problems of Afro Caribbean boys. They outperform white British schoolchildren at obtaining 5 or more GCSE’s- and for Nigerian British the effect is a staggering 23% higher. The economic performance of African British compared to whites is the main reason why statistically if you are Black British in Britain your income, if you are between 18 and 30, is on average identical to whites.
I’m not denying social feedback. But poverty is the correlation which comes about from the breakdown of the family at a community, not the causation- for that we have to look at the absence of fatherhood at a community level. Fathers teach their sons to control their more aggressive impulses, and this influence is felt most profoundly in teenage male peer groups at a community level.
First off, as I said earlier, general economic conditions and violent crime are not consistently related.
Example: The Great Depression, in the early 1930s crime soared. After 1934 with the Depression still on and people widely impoverished by it, crime begins to go down, and keeps going down for the remainder of the ’30s decade.
Second example: 1960s, biggest crime boom in our history, and the economy is great. Unemployment is under four percent (4%), there’s no inflation, the economy is fizzing and violent crime soars.
Third example, and this one you know everyone’s going to remember: 2007–2008 the Great Recession. And what happens? Crime continues to fall. So [there is] no consistent relationship between general economic conditions and violent crime.
I would only add that America is experiencing a violent crime surge at a time that the rate of other types of crime, in all categories, have fallen in America. No other Western country is experiencing this violent crime surge. This, at the same time that the current influx of money into people’s bank accounts in America through stimulus checks, enhanced unemployment insurance and by telling landlords to wait to collect their rents, is leading to unprecedented global supply shortages which have their origins purely rooted in the American response to COVID.
You should have implemented a furlough system similar to the UK or Denmark. One has to remember the behavioural economics of such situations. The psychological effect of a perhaps unfounded belief in future economic security is far more beneficial than the alleviation of actual poverty in such circumstances.
Make it personal. Would you mind scrimping and saving, eating beans on toast, or boil in the bag pasta and noodles for a year, if you knew you had a job which you valued to go back to when the economy reopened, or would you prefer money to buy playstations and order your shopping online, not knowing from one day to the next whether when it is all over, whether you will be able to find work or feed your kids?
I know which situation would make me more angry and liable to commit violence. It’s the frustration of the ability to participate in economic opportunity and feel as though you are providing value to others which is at the root of male violence, not the poverty which occurs as a side effect of this dignity stripping process.
The liberal looks at the stripped wallpaper, the empty pizza boxes, the natty hair, unironed clothes, as well as the general look of desperation in bearing and countenance and says we must send you a cheque to help you. The conservative looks at the exact same circumstances, and if they are a compassionate sort, says we must find you a job to restore your dignity and sense of self-worth.
It is only those who are accustomed to relative luxury who fear the loss of material wealth more than the loss of dignity.
The more coercion that is applied, the more force used, the more demands and edicts for you to submit and obey, the more you hassle and incarcerate, the more you limit free choices, the more you force associations people don't want, the more you take their money for other people's purposes, the more division and violence you will see.
Thank you Geary again for your thought provoking article and you ability to go to the emphirical source.
Here in Canada there is another push from the government to do ‘something’ about the ‘Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+’ with the release of the 2021 ‘People National Action Plan: Ending Violence Against Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ People’
There are many similarities with this problem as to the problem in the US which you have nicely laid out. As in Northern Ireland any solution has to come “through their own actions” as you state and the “beneficial absence” of government. Over the past many years in Canada this has been a political football with little I can tell coming to benefit the people it is supposed to help. I see a continuing banter back and forth about details of reports and inaccurate statistics but I can’t find any practical solutions likely because there are no practical solutions that the government can offer. As long as the government is held responsible or feels responsible I can’t see any benefit accruing because any adult has to take responsibility for themselves and then move forward. You can’t move forward by continuing to blame someone else or blame some other entity for your life. Of course there is and will always be racism and bias and you can’t legislate against that. But we can and have enacted laws that have mostly eliminated a system of racism.
By the government continuing to dwell on its manufactured complicity, no growth can happen through its policies.
The more coercion that is applied, the more force used, the more demands and edicts for you to submit and obey, the more you hassle and incarcerate, the more you limit free choices, the more you force associations people don't want, the more you take their money for other people's purposes, the more division and violence you will see.
Thank you Geary again for your thought provoking article and you ability to go to the emphirical source.
Here in Canada there is another push from the government to do ‘something’ about the ‘Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+’ with the release of the 2021 ‘People National Action Plan: Ending Violence Against Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ People’
There are many similarities with this problem as to the problem in the US which you have nicely laid out. As in Northern Ireland any solution has to come “through their own actions” as you state and the “beneficial absence” of government. Over the past many years in Canada this has been a political football with little I can tell coming to benefit the people it is supposed to help. I see a continuing banter back and forth about details of reports and inaccurate statistics but I can’t find any practical solutions likely because there are no practical solutions that the government can offer. As long as the government is held responsible or feels responsible I can’t see any benefit accruing because any adult has to take responsibility for themselves and then move forward. You can’t move forward by continuing to blame someone else or blame some other entity for your life. Of course there is and will always be racism and bias and you can’t legislate against that. But we can and have enacted laws that have mostly eliminated a system of racism.
By the government continuing to dwell on its manufactured complicity, no growth can happen through its policies.