How HBD Will Make you a Better Person

I like Rod Dreher, but all too often Dreher will happen upon a truth, only to back away from it.  Case in point:  Dreher’s recent post on HBD, where in essence Dreher says (1) human biodiversity is real but (2) it shouldn’t be publicly promoted as it conflicts with the precepts of the Cathedral.  Dreher’s chain of reasoning somehow concludes that public recognition of HBD could result in genocide.  He writes:

I flat-out don’t trust our species to handle the knowledge of human biodiversity without turning it into an ideology of dehumanization, racism, and at worst, genocide. Put another way, I am hostile to this kind of thing not because I believe it’s probably false, but because I believe a lot of it is probably true — and we have shown that we, by our natures, can’t handle this kind of truth….

You start out exploring the science of genetic differences, which is, or ought to be, a neutral thing, and before you know it you have the greatest scientific authorities in the world coming up with eugenic theories supporting the idea of “life unworthy of life,” and then you end with Auschwitz.

I do applaud Dreher for his candor.  He writes what many people probably think in secret.

But there are a number of flaws to this view.  I’ll list  a few.

First, the bogeyman of eugenics.  Eugenics is nothing new.  Plato and Aristotle popularized eugenics.  In fact, at least for Europeans and North Asians, eugenics has probably been around in various forms for the past 10,000 years.  And although the popular imagination conjures up images of gas chambers when thinking of eugenics, in reality eugenics has often been prudent government policy such as encouraging the best and brightest to have more kids.

Second, forbidden knowledge does not result in genocide.  The problem with this view is that genocide has been the norm throughout human history — that is, until very recently.  On a historical timeline, our recent scientific knowledge of racial differences actually negatively correlates with the historic trend of genocide.

Third, HBD in the broad view is not some new, radical way of looking at the world.   A pre-scientific understanding of racial differences has been around since at least the ancient world.  It’s nothing new.  In fact, the hereditarian outlook was the norm in both Ancient and Medieval Europe.  Blank-Slatisim is a fairly recent phenomenon.

Fourth, Dreher fancies himself a Christian evolutionist.  He accepts the obvious truth of Darwinian evolution, but simultaneously holds an ultimate Christian view of the world.  If, extrapolating from Dreher, God set the laws of evolution into motion and evolution brought about HBD, why should one be obliged to ignore this obvious truth of the world?  I don’t get it.

Fifth, Auschwitz?  Yawn.  The Reductio ad Hitlerum is so 20th century.

Now on to some of the benefits of HBD:  How HBD will make you a better person:

– Understanding limits.  You will understand the limits of certain groups and not become frustrated when certain groups cannot attain the same success as other groups.

– Recognition of HBD would lower white liberals’ expectations for blacks and mestizos, which in turn would lower blacks and mestizos’ expectations for themselves.  For instance, part of the black psychosis — high narcissism with poor performance — is that blacks are told the reason they always are below whites in all meaningful indices is because of white racism, not their own abilities, which can result in violent black-on-white crime.  As any wise teacher or parent knows, realistic expectations produce more content children.  A public recognition of HBD, after the initial shock wears off, could actually make blacks happier.

– Although HBD might not be the guiding principle of policy, it could certainly inform it — especially on topics like immigration.

– In the long-term, acknowledging veritas, however bitter that pill might be, will only make one wiser and stronger.  Realism is a good thing, and naively idealistic people like white Americans need more of it.  (Just look at the disasterous American foreign policy, devoid of both truth and realism.)

Updates:

Outsideness: Shorter Rod Dreher: “We’re lying to everyone, and they’re telling the truth, but we’re the good guys (because Hitler).”

Land on Dreher.