The NYT, the Soft Sciences, and the Slow, Stupid Return to Reason
All of this is wonderful news, a sign that the Marxist stranglehold on higher education may be unraveling.
Unfortunately, there is a catch, a kink in the unraveling which may slow university culture’s return to reason, and which does not inspire confidence in the development of a full-blown post-Moron movement. The kink is that the concept is being investigated via soft-sciencey methods, by which I mean that an experiment used to study the issue was performed by a Harvard professor and was very stupid.
From the Times article:
As part of a large research project in Chicago, Professor Sampson walked through different neighborhoods this summer, dropping stamped, addressed envelopes to see how many people would pick up an apparently lost letter and mail it, a sign that looking out for others is part of the community’s culture.
In some neighborhoods, like Grand Boulevard, where the notorious Robert Taylor public housing projects once stood, almost no envelopes were mailed; in others researchers received more than half of the letters back. Income levels did not necessarily explain the difference, Professor Sampson said, but rather the community’s cultural norms, the levels of moral cynicism and disorder.
I can think of several ways to better measure a community’s or culture’s tendency to “look out for others,” and all of them involve statistical analysis, and none of them could be thwarted by a stiff wind or dog poo.
I have not read Professor Sampson’s study, but my hope — stemming from my altruistic interest in the advancement of science — is that he was aware of the experiment’s potential pitfalls, and thus recruited a Harvard AGW expert to write some “smoothing” software:
Accounting for the neighborhood’s Sidewalk Powerwashing Frequency Score of 3, plus the Rabies Incidence of 1.2 infections per million residents, we could have expected 3.4 more oppressed minority members per block willing to touch the envelope. Weezer rocks!
There is fine news here, though, for which we should be thrilled, and not just for the wonderful mocking opportunities: the university is jettisoning multiculturalism. And as fast as they can, though this is tremendously slow. More tuition dollars will be wasted, more science fair-level experiments will be funded, and more weekend forums featuring moderator Ira Glass will be held.
But we are on the correct path again: leftism can’t prove it’s case for remaining in the university, it is not sustainable, and so the market has begun to filter it out.
A commitment to Reason — an actual oppressed culture — is returning.
Does this mean we can end “victimhood?” I mean, as John Wayne once famously said, “Life is tough; and it’s tougher if you are stupid.” What the Left really wants is to make one immune from the results of poor decision making. No responsibility for one’s actions.
“Does this mean we can end ‘victimhood?’”
Well, yes, but only if by “we” you mean the select few who can be trusted with such views.
Decades of immoral depravity has enabled the cultural relativists of our time the ability to let loose their poison on an unsuspecting and vulnerable public.
Tragically, many are ravaging the US landscape through various pressure points with little or no push back.
Not only are they twisting young vulnerable minds, but they are ravaging the economy from the halls of power in Washington.
It is not for nothing, that Indiana U, a public institution supported by tax payer funds, still ! funds the Kinsey Institute, despite reams of information about its depravity, and the criminality of its namesake.
This is an example of multiculturalism run amok, where NOTHING is deemed offensive-pedophilia or beheading, as long as leftists/progressives approve, or third world cultures are involved. United in their hatred of ALL things civilized, they march us off the cliff of western civilization.
lol, i forgot all about Mumia over the last few years. Hopefully, they’ll remarket the old classic shirt: “Fry Mumia.” Alas, i have many of the same leftist family members and friends as do you David.
A glimmer of hope that “…And grace and good common sense will be found in the eyes of G-d and man” (from the Grace After Meals)
Expanding on Spinoneone -
We simply *must* allow people to make mistakes and hold them accountable. We make better decisions only after fully appreciating the effects of a poor one. Those of us who make good decisions cannot “fix” the consequences of poor decisions fast enough, because the perpetrator continues to make poor decisions.
Lest anyone think we are without compassion, we should also allow grace and charity. Everyone makes mistakes. However, grace and charity should not be institutionalized. It must not be guaranteed. Otherwise, we get the Welfare State, and people depending on (and taking advantage of) others’ compassion.
I occasionally fantasize when I see the person in front of me in the checkout line paying with Food Stamps that she will turn to me and say “Thank you for paying for my groceries.” LOL
The entire edifice of victimism is founded on the evocation of undeserved guilt from persons who’ve attained prosperity and some degree of security. The race-hustlers and “cultural relativists” have had great success in decades past…but in the most recent years, they’ve pressed their case too far, and a reaction has begun. The pieties of yore are being challenged, and persons formerly too timid to voice rational objections to the bludgeoning they’ve received are finding their tongues.
The important thing is not to allow the shamans of political correctness to silence us again.
Taxpayer-supported NPR just fired Juan Williams for 2 comments. One, a fact, that the Times Square bomber meant to kill people. Two, that his personal feeling when seeing people in “Muslim garb” getting on an airplane with him, was one of disquiet. The comments were made on Fox, not on NPR. For this he was fired from NPR. The taxpayer is supporting political correctness via his/her taxes. I agree with Francis that we need to oppose political correctness. Send an email to NPR (Google “contact NPR”) and tell them what you think. Then send Juan an e-note of support (Google “contact Fox.” Then, we need to write letters to our representatives saying that eliminating taxpayer support for NPR would be an especially good thing in this time of fiscal austerity!
If the only thing you knew about a school was that that the student population was mostly black, would you want to send your kids there?
The answer if honest is no and that leads to why such an answer would be given.
A racist would attribute it to genetics i.e. blacks are inherently prone to violence, blacks can’t run things etc.
This explanation is not just wrong but damnably so.
The correct answer is culture.
A few generations ago the meanest, most backward students in this nation were white kids from the rural south.
A concerted effort was made to improve their outlook and to a large degree it was successful. Redneck jokes aside, white southern kids are literate and do not have a reputation for being particularly violent.
If white southern rural culture can change, black urban culture can change as well. An effort has to be made to do so, however.
Excellent book related to this topic is “Intelligence and How to Get It; Why Schools and Cultures Count” http://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-How-Get-Schools-Cultures/dp/0393065057. It is basically a review of contemporary research on this topic. It is laudably balanced. The book is well written and easy to read. Actually, I couldn’t put it down and have been recommending it to all my friends.
How many lives were ruined so these horses’ asses could feel enlightened? Their “acknowledgments” that they were wrong should at least come least an offer to relinquish whatever academic degrees they obtained which were based on complete bull@#$%.
Yes. It is an extension of the deaths of hundreds of millions who died under the tender nurture of Communism. Communism/Socialism/political correctness all have one thing in common. It is necessary to close one’s eyes to reality. Trying to regulate society based on counterfactuals is a recipe for huge disaster. But as Sam points out, the disaster often leaves the fantasist untouched, at least, at first.
So a culture that values wealth will tend to have more wealth. How is this racist?
Well duh!
*Sigh* – right wingers and science….
Granted that the Times article was not that well worded, but if you rummage through some of the links in it, you might come across this better written book review of “More Than Just Race” by William Julius Wilson, whom Patricia Cohen refers to.
A very good bit from the review is this passage:
And, as Wilson argued in an earlier book, “The Declining Significance of Race,” the success of the civil rights movement inadvertently made things worse for the most disadvantaged. After federal law prohibited housing discrimination, successful blacks began to leave the inner city for many of the same reasons whites did: in search of better schools, less crime, lower taxes and a leafier landscape. This left the least well off behind in ghettos that were both more socially isolated and more economically depressed than ever.
Today many ghetto residents have almost no contact with mainstream American society or the normal job market. As a result, they have developed distinctive and often dysfunctional social norms. The work ethic, investment in the future and deferred gratification make no sense in an environment in which legitimate employment at a living wage is impossible to find and crime is an everyday hazard (and temptation). Men, unable to support their families, abandon them; women become resigned to single motherhood; children suffer from broken homes and from the bad examples set by both peers and adults. And this dysfunctional behavior reinforces negative racial stereotypes, making it all the harder for poor blacks to find decent jobs.
*Sigh* – progressive sheep and Chris Mooney….
Yes, and whose programs enabled, encouraged and protected those “distinctive and often dysfunctional social norms”? The liberal programs. A conservative program would have stepped in and said, sorry, that behavior is unacceptable and you can behave properly or your support is taken away or you go to jail. Alternatively, most religions would have taken the same tack. Only the liberals insist on giving these people money without demanding they change their behavior.
It’s no different than raising children who contribute to society – you sent beneficial norms and insist that they be met or there will be punishment.
A somewhat recent (last 4 years) study of Detroit inner city residents (don’t recall my point of exposure to this, probably Time or Newsweek) suggested much the same thing but was using IQ as a measure. Apparently the argument is that everyone capable of outsmarting inanimate objects figured out how to get out of the area and those left behind tended to be functionally illiterate, unable to do even mundane things like balance a checkbook.
Many of the poor are doomed to poverty due to lack of ability in figuring out how to not be poor.
I tend to think that many of the social science types ought to listen to Charles Murray and finally grasp the notion that American equality doesn’t mean we’re equally smart. I also reckon that the far right wing needs to grasp this same notion and realise that there are in fact people who need welfare or otherwise help in daily life and that it’s a legitimate concern of government (i.e. we more fortunate taxpayers) to address this.
BC: Let me fix that for you:
Today many ghetto residents have have developed peculiar and most often dysfunctional social norms. As a result they have almost no contact with mainstream American society or the normal job market. It is too alienating for decent nprmal people, particularly those who are employers. This is mostly the own fault. When it is not, it is the fault of either the PC, Liberal sub-culture or the Democrat Party, or both. Decent Americans are only to blame for not taking casting the whole lot out decades ago.
There.
Really BC, that condescending “sighing” of your because the rest of us are not the useful idiot that you are is the height on narcissism. It also make you look the complete imbecile.
Try getting out of you echo chamber (or mommy’s basement) once in a while.
Good book from quite a few years ago on the issues of welfare/single parent families affect on society – Men and Marriage by George Gilder.
It noted that many of the problems in poor neighborhoods were linked to the rising rate of illegitimate children which was perpetuated/enabled by government support programs.
He also noted this IS NOT A RACE ISSUE. He predicted that as the illegitimate rate rose in any demographic group they would experience the same issues.
Theodore Dalrymple made that same point about what has happened in Britain. The same pathologies exist irrespective of color. His book, “Life At The Bottom, is an absolute must read.
You need to be careful Mr. Steinberg making comments like “the development of a full-blown post-Moron movement.” That “movement” will quickly become a full blown bowel movement and you will find yourself smothered in Liberal stink.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,816146,00.html has played, and continues to play a role in making it okay to challenge Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Dewey, Bertrand Russell, Antonio Gramsci, Jacques Corrida, Sidney Hook, and those who agree with them.
These “scientists” are likely reading the political winds and figure they are more likely to get more funding from conservatives for a while. The “truth” belongs to whomever will pay for it.
This gives me a great idea for a new voting method. Everyone votes by mail, placing the completed ballet in a postage pre-paid and properly addressed envelope. And then just throw them on the ground in your own neighborhood.
Daniel P. Moynihan’s work, like that of Edward Banfield and James Q. Wilson (individually and collectively), was subsumed by the PC theoretical structure of oppression, but all survived in conservative circles. These works weren’t popular and I doubt if they appeared on many reading lists, but a glimmer of sanity and emphasis on culture did persist. Wilson whose view that crime caused poverty and not the other way around was particularly ostracized, as too was University of Chicago’s William Julius Wilson, who raised concerns about the culture of poverty. Because he is black, William Julius Wilson caused both dissonance and outrage among those who held the monolithic view of oppression. That, after forty years, culture is reemerging as a mainstream variable in sociology is welcome news. But I fear this will not be a trajectory that one could put on a straight line. An interesting article.
Sociology has no redeeming features: if economics is the dismal science, sociology is abysmal. This pseudo-intellectual perversion must be obliterated completely in order for common sense to reappear. Just close all the departments and whip the lecturers in public. No “science” is needed for what is patently obvious.
Hallelujah, Brother! Amen!
For the last sixty years there has been discussions of why certain things can be said and discussed and go right over the heads of double PhD’s The science fiction community going back to John W. Campbell has been particularly concerned with this topic. I think it was because the theory of Tectonic Plates was so clearly proven in the first half of the twentieth century but so fiercely resisted by Academia.
The conversations have gone on and the empiricalists have made enormous progress. How it all hides in plain sight is a little time consuming to explain but in short the whole of the human race has had to lift itself out of poverty. 95% of cultures never did.
Certain places and times a critical mass of culture and knowledge came together and mankind overcame what is for what could be. Genetics is too slow to affect this so Benjamin Franklin’s Lending Library has a thousand times the impact of a thousand years of evolution.
Another sustained burst seems to be building The Social Scientist doing their scribbling in their notes aren’t much better than apes observing humans. It really is amazing what they have been and still are missing because this one will be bigger than the first century BC and change our world more in the next twenty years than any two hundred year period. There won’t be a lot of stupie possible in thirty years. .
Interesting perspective but there are some not so trivial errors. The debate over the primacy of culture as a “cause” or an “effect” of social dynamics is roughly 120 years old by now and not likely to be answered in the near future.
My biggest bone to pick here is over the contention that the Lost Letter Experiment is “soft science”. [See here http://books.google.com/books?id=VDPftmVO5lYC&pg=RA1-PA130&lpg=RA1-PA130&dq=#v=onepage&q&f=false, and here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Milgram
If anything it is real science since the use of the technique to measure the cultural value of altruistic behavior is a REPLICATION of earlier work originated by Professor Stanley Milgram, z”l. The fact that the results are not conclusive, or to everybody’s satisfaction, is irrelevant. The hallmark of the scientific endeavor is replication–will a researcher’s results stand the test of another round of experimentation.
In light of the recent 1773 flap, I would suggest that you first examine the literature before making attributions about social science methods. There are precious few true acts of social science methodology these days. The Lost Letter Technique remains a very simple, and low tech, tool to think scientifically about social dynamics. It’s widely used in teaching students scientific method and has a long history of acceptable results.
I appreciate your alternative model as well as your critical assessment of the experiment. The question is, how would you test your assertions and can you specify the conditions under which you are wrong. These two conditions are prerequisite for scientific study.
About three years ago I left 35 years as a successful owner and manager in the targeted market publishing world and started a Bail Bond Surety and Bounty Hunting company (you see paper publishing is going away). We are up to three employees now and things are a peach.
We do a split of about 65% white and 35% black in the bonds we right. Only reason is that in the 20 county area we are in it is mostly small towns and just simply a lot more whitefolk getting into trouble than blacks due to numerical superiorty.
Several cultural issues permeate the common law breaker white and black and I will define for you:
Generally speaking here is what these cultures are about, not every single one of these are an issue with everyone, but this is a pretty good collection of what we see every day ‘ALL THE TIME’.
1. Get up nearly every morning and start making bad decisions.
2. Drop out of school as soon as you can.
3. Have babies early and often and with several people, thus lots of
baby mamas and baby daddies (common term white or black) in the mix, but very few husbands and wives.
4. Keep going back again and again until you can get on SSI at $770 per month (Doc it’s my back again, I know I’m only 20 but boy it hurts all the time, I think I need SSI to fix it).
5. Apply for food stamps and sell some of them to other people at discount to get the stuff you really want.
6 Sell some ‘stuff’ (light drugs, heavy drugs, TV’s, scrap metal, and things you find lying around other peoples houses or in stores or cars) on the side to make ends meet.
7 Buy a car that is at least 20 years old and don’t insure it and if you can’t afford tags, find some.
8. Smoke at least a pack to pack and half of cigarettes a day.
9. Lie to everyone mostly all the time, even friends and family and especially bail bondsmen and law enforcement.
10. Buy at least a 50″ flat screen TV. Their fun. (Note: Dice games and gambling in general is encouraged while you are doing this and beer and cigarettes, etc.)
11. Dress well, blacks in particular, whites not so much.
12. Use the legal system to get back at friends, neighbors, enemies, spouses, relatives and just for fun by accusing people of all kinds of stuff (Domestic, Assault, ‘Officer I saw him with a gun’, larceny, home invasion,’he/she touched my daughter/son in an improper way’, ‘I didn’t have no marijuana, that belongs to Bobby’, and many other offenses and be creative. It’s fun to watch people go to jail and it is very empowering.
13. Steal something worth $15.63 from the local Walgreen’s and then pay a bail bondsperson $150 to bail you out. OOpps but he can’t do that because grandma and dad refuse to sign for you. Do not go past go, stay in jail free pass.
14. If you get out of jail on a bond (see #13) instead of going to court and getting probabtion, run from the law and have a bench warrant issued for your arrest and every police agency and our bounty hunters looking for you. When you are found, go directly to jail and have a new bond set and get sentenced to 30 days in jail by the judge who was going to give you probation. Next.
15. Work is to be avoided at all costs as it is oppressive, plus for most males it is difficult to find a job when you only have the use of one hand cause your other hand is needed to hold up your pants and if you are 17 and female it is hard to find work with three babies in tow. Being a drop out with no skill sets, no transportation, and liking to sleep in or watch TV can be detrimental to job choices.
16. Don’t go for the simple highs from alcohol and marijuana step up to the plate and try crack for blacks and meth for whites. The good thing about meth in particular is that after just a few weeks of getting a sooper dooper high,you no longer get high but are so addicted that after six months you turn into something that would scare creatures in the jungle and after one year you get be dead. But oh never mind, its fun.
17. Use the language motiffs of a drunken sailor to friends, relatives, people you don’t know, and especially your kids. Especially your kids cause that way they can learn how to be just like you.
18. If you are one of those magical individuals who actually is trying to claw your way out of this culture by not doing any of this, be sure to bail out those people who don’t want to claw out of the culture with your hard earned cash. Do this as often as possible until you get it.
19. If you don’t want to claw your way out of this culture find someone who is trying to do so and then use them as much as you can to get what they got so that you can have it instead of them.
20. Repeat as much of this as you can from generation to generation so that it becomes ingrained in the culture and then complain about how the law and everyone else is unfair and you are a victim. Then turn on the TV cause its fun.
That’s ‘write’ not right as written. Thanks.
This culture is ingrained and as long as we do what we are doing it will remain the same. We are throwing money at it the wrong way and mostly through the legal system and still some welfare (which is needed for the truly destitute). I find this profession less fun and more hardened every day and I get paid well. Can’t imagine what it is like to be a police officer in this day and age, probably as thankless as teachers. And yes I used to be a much nicer guy. Fortunately I will retire soon enough.
Working at a University-I’m not quite so confident about the return of reason. The “multiculturalISM,” crowd has milked that cow dry. The new way to secure federal & private research dollars (shake down the tax payers) is through “Sustainability.”
Many of the adults I grew up around had less than a high school education, but I would occasionally hear it said that “poor people have poor ways” which is another way of saying that some people don’t live the way they do because they are poor, rather they are poor because of the way they live.
And now…some brilliant researchers may be arriving at a similar conclusion. Amazing!
You state unequivocally that a genetic explanation for cultural differences is “damnably wrong”. Do you have some evidence to support this view?
Dr James Watson, joint Nobel prize winner for discovering the molecular structure of DNA, and a life-long researcher in genetics, was fired for writing
“there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so”.
There’s a statement that should be easy to refute. Can you do it? (Hint: you would need to advance just one “firm reason”. Calling him, or me, a racist, damnably wrong, or Hitler doesn’t count).
Sorry – intended as reply to #7 Bill Lawrence.
True indeed the culture of poverty thesis became terribly passe. But now that sociologists are willing to legitimize it is no reason to believe that the hold of Marxists on universities is waning. Marxists have indeed promoted culture studies through subaltern studies. They even claimed that the subaltern cultures are progressive. What is new now is the willingness to admit that the ‘culture’ of poverty could reproduce poverty.
It is not valid to infer from the greater tolerance towards the culture of poverty thesis that there is willingness to accept scientific methodology. Culture, I think, resists scientific method because culture theorists freeze culture as a given and unchangeable constant. What we see around us today is that cultures even what we regard as the most resistant features of cultures or changing rapidly. People are becoming more flexible and are willing to experiment with novel ideas and novel values. Hence, sceintific explanation involves a cultivated skepticism towards cultural explanations.
Culture-smulture. Economic disparity is directly correlated with IQ (aka intelligence). And that that, and not racist whites oppressing non-whites, is the real reason some communities and countries are poor and others rich (excluding countires rich in natural resources of course). That case has already been convincingly made in books like “The Bell Curve” years ago. When leftist scientists finally admit that THEN I’ll be impressed. It looks like they won’t have much choice soon now that new advances in genetic science are on the soon. Pretty soon we’ll be able to specifically identify the “Homer genes”… Expect that to also be covered up and explained away like you wouldn’t believe…
Culture-smulture. Economic disparity is directly correlated with IQ (aka intelligence). And that that, and not racist whites oppressing non-whites, is the real reason some communities and countries are poor and others rich (excluding countires rich in natural resources of course). That case has already been convincingly made in books like “The Bell Curve” years ago. When leftist scientists finally admit that THEN I’ll be impressed. It looks like they won’t have much choice soon now that new advances in genetic science are on the horizon. Pretty soon we’ll be able to specifically identify the “Homer genes”… Expect that to also be covered up and explained away like you wouldn’t believe…
*corrected typo*
While the so-called ‘culture of poverty’ argument holds far more water than lefty social scientists will give credit for, your line :
” Moynihan’s analysis never lost its appeal to conservative thinkers because conservatives are interested in facts and reason…”
Is hilarious. given the high percentage of self declared conservatives who also declare themselves religious. Facts and reason? Not exactly the foundations of faith…its qbundantly clear that the conservative love of ‘facts and reason’ only extends so far: which is to say, itis essentually non existent. The day a prominent conservative comes forward and states: until facts and reason indubutably demonstrate the existence of God, the conservative movement is atheistic, will be the day your silly statement becomes grounded in the very facts you laud. Are all conservatives as self-deluded, or are you simply a partcularily oblivious sort?