Political Correctness: A Vast Left Wing Conspiracy?

During the Monica Lewinsky scandal in 1998, Hillary Clinton used the phrase “vast right wing conspiracy” to describe and label her husband’s political enemies on the right. While there may have indeed been a concerted effort on the right to bring Clinton down, in point of fact, if any conspiracy in American politics deserves to be called “vast” it would be the “vast left wing conspiracy,” which has at least since the Progressive era attempted to redefine American politics in a leftward direction. While the early Progressives had some success in that effort, the left in America really came into its own during Roosevelt’s New Deal. As I have stated elsewhere in “What’s in a Word?” , the very term “liberalism” was redefined by Progressives during that period to mean something entirely different. As James Burnham so aptly described this redefinition in Suicide of the West (1964), classical liberalism, with its belief in individual liberty, had been transformed into modern liberalism, with its primary principle of egalitarian social justice (based on the influence of Marxism and other socialist doctrines). I’ll risk quoting Burnham again because he so appropriately describes that redefinition of liberalism:

This difference in human character type corresponds to a theoretical conflict within the ideology of modern liberalism: the conflict between the principles of free speech and the other individual freedoms on the one hand, and the principle of egalitarian social justice on the other. Essentially, it is a conflict between individualism and regimentation: the individualism that the liberal ideology derives from its past and the regimentation it has absorbed in the present. This conflict is real, and can be hidden but not solved by discussion, negotiation and compromise. It is a fact that liberalism’s inherited principles correspond to individualism, and a highly atomistic individualism at that. It is equally a fact that the Welfare State and plebiscitary democracy mean a good deal and an increasing deal of regimentation. One or the other must give way; and, on the evidence of the past generation, there is little doubt which is the tottering horn of that particular dilemma. (p. 171)

Of course, why rely on the opinion of a conservative about the nature of that transformation when we have no lesser authority than that perennial candidate for the Socialist Party, Norman Thomas, who said in a speech in 1944:

“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of “liberalism,” they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.” He went on to say: “I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democratic Party has adopted our platform.”

But it was with the 1960s and the emergence of the New Left that the vast left wing conspiracy really came into its own. The anti-Vietnam War protests really pitted the New Left against the Old Left social democracy of LBJ, while conservatism did not really become a prominent political force in America until a reaction emerged to the excesses of the 1960s New Left and Countercultural revolts. The Political Correctness movement was both a cause and an effect of the New Left in that the origins of the New Left can be traced back to the cultural Marxism that was Political Correctness, and it was the triumph of the New Left that brought Political Correctness to the fore in American cultural and educational institutions such as schools, universities, and the media.

In 2004 the Free Congress Foundation, a conservative think tank, published “Political Correctness:” A Short History of an Ideology, Edited by William S. Lind. Lind, who wrote the Introduction to that work, stated the following:

While some Americans have believed in ideologies, America itself never had an official, state ideology – up until now. But what happens today to Americans who suggest that there are differences among ethnic groups, or that the traditional social roles of men and women reflect their different natures, or that homosexuality is morally wrong? If they are public figures, they must grovel in the dirt in endless, canting apologies. If they are university students, they face star chamber courts and possible expulsion. If they are employees of private corporations, they may face loss of their jobs. What was their crime? Contradicting America’s new state ideology of “Political Correctness.” (p. 2)

In Chapter II of the above mentioned work, “Historical Roots of ‘Political Correctness,’” Raymond V. Raehn has defined the problem of Political Correctness as follows:

America is today dominated by an alien system of beliefs, attitudes and values that we have come to know as “Political Correctness.” Political Correctness seeks to impose a uniformity of thought and behavior on all Americans and is therefore totalitarian in nature. Its roots lie in a version of Marxism which seeks a radical inversion of the traditional culture in order to create a social revolution. (p.1)

How did this come about? Lind and Raehn trace the origins of Political Correctness to the cultural Marxism of the Italian Communist, Antonio Gramsci, with his theory that to be successful and dominant in the West, Marxism needed to “march through [take over] the [cultural] institutions” of the West, and Georg Lukacs, a Hungarian Communist who in 1923 with other fellow Communist Party intellectuals founded the Frankfurt School in Germany. Lukacs, stated its purpose was to answer the question, “Who shall save us from Western Civilization?” (Lind, ‘What Is “Political Correctness”’? p. 5). Their goal was to undermine and destroy the foundations of Western civilization: Christianity, capitalism, and the so-called patriarchal-authoritarian family. The Frankfurt School became very influential in American universities after its leaders fled to the United States in the 1930s to escape Nazi Germany. Members of this group included Theodore Adorno (co-author of The Authoritarian Personality), Herbert Marcuse (author of Eros and Civilization and mentor of Angela Davis), Erich Fromm (author of Escape from Freedom), and Max Horkheimer. The Frankfurt School blended Marx and Freud and in the ferment of American universities in the 1960s, gave birth to “Critical Theory” and Political Correctness. The term Political Correctness has a long usage with the Communist Party and is synonymous with “the General Line of the Party” (Lind, Introduction, p. 2). I recall first hearing the term used in the 1970s in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in disputes between various Marxist factions – Maoists, Trotskyites, and radical feminists – as to which group was most politically correct. What Political Correctness as cultural Marxism shares with classical, economic Marxism is the vision of a “classless society”: A vision which, since it “contradicts human nature,” must be forced. Thus, Lind concludes that both classical and cultural Marxism “are totalitarian ideologies”: “The totalitarian nature of Political Correctness can be seen on campuses where ‘PC’ has taken over the college: freedom of speech, of the press, and even of thought are all eliminated” (‘What Is “Political Correctness”’? pp. 5 - 6). In a similar vein, Raehn has concluded: “Political Correctness is Marxism, with all that implies: loss of freedom of expression, thought control, inversion of the traditional social order and, ultimately, a totalitarian state” (p. 5). For those who express disagreement with the politically correct status quo, the left has been masterful at using name-calling – racist, sexist, homophobic – as a substitute for rational argument, especially when their Marxist agenda is exposed.

Another parallel between classical and cultural Marxism is that both “declare certain groups virtuous and others evil a priori, that is, without regard for the actual behavior of individuals” (Lind, p. 6). Thus, white males are automatically oppressors while members of acknowledged minority groups, such as blacks, Latinos, women, homosexuals, the Third World, are automatically deemed to be oppressed victims, and therefore, by race, gender, or ethnicity, granted the moral high ground. This is the morality of victimology: your moral status is assigned according to which oppressed or victim group you belong to and has nothing to do with your personal conduct. As Charles Sykes calls this “politics of victimization” a form of Orwellian doublethink, he poses the question: “How else can one describe the insistence that victims not be held responsible for their personal behavior conjoined with the belief that all members of so-called oppressor groups are responsible for crimes they themselves did not commit?” (A Nation of Victims, 1992, pp. 204 – 05). In other words, if you are a member of a victim group, as O.J. Simpson was, and you commit the crime of murder, you cannot be held responsible, but if you are a member of an oppressor group, you are held responsible for crimes you did not personally commit, such as the enslavement of African-Americans in the nineteenth century. For Political Correctness to succeed, belief in the Rule of Law, defined as equality before the law as principles universally applied to all citizens, must be undermined and eliminated. Both Affirmative Action and Hate Crimes are contrary to the rule of law and equality before the law, because they privilege certain favored (victim) groups.

Despite its championing of minorities, the oppressed, and victim groups, Political Correctness did not originate with such groups. Rather, it originated with Frankfurt School émigrés to the United States, as stated above, and their protégés on American university campuses. Christopher Lasch in The Revolt of the Elites (1995) has argued that unlike the 1930s, when Ortega y Gasset wrote The Revolt of the Masses (1930), which inspired the title to Lasch’s work, the current revolt was a revolt of the elite classes from the norms of Western and American civilization. Lasch has argued that despite Affirmative Action and the pretence of a socially mobile meritocracy of the educated elite, the “New Class” of what Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton, has called “symbolic analysts,” this new class of managers, professionals, and policy makers has become increasingly isolated from the rest of American society (Lasch, pp. 28 - 41):

The culture wars that have convulsed America since the sixties are best understood as a form of class warfare, in which an enlightened elite (as it thinks of itself) seeks not so much to impose its values on the majority (a majority perceived as incorrigibly racist, sexist, provincial, and xenophobic), much less to persuade the majority by means of rational debate, as to create parallel or “alternative” institutions in which it will no longer be necessary to confront the unenlightened at all. (Ibid., pp. 20 – 21)

While the evidence, as I have been arguing thus far, contradicts the claim that the left wing elite “seeks not so much to impose its values on the majority,” the point is well taken that they do view the unenlightened with disdain and seek to isolate themselves from contact with this majority. The electoral victory of Obama has given this class new found hope that they can indeed remake America into their own image of what they think it should be. Of course Lasch is not entirely ignorant of the proselytizing tendencies of this new class of upper-middle class “liberals” who “have mounted a crusade to sanitize American society” of tobacco, pornography, “hate speech,” and various chemical additives and pollutants. Lasch continued: “When confronted with resistance to these initiatives, they betray the venomous hatred that lies not far below the smiling face of upper-middle-class benevolence. Opposition makes humanitarians forget the liberal virtues they claim to uphold” (p. 28). As I’ve argued here and elsewhere, there’s nothing liberal about this new elite, at least to the extent that they subscribe to the tenants of Political Correctness and kowtow to the establishment of their peers. So the point being that the new elite, despite their professed belief in radical egalitarianism, do not themselves often rub shoulders with the great unwashed and unenlightened masses, but rather prefer to stay in their enclaves of privilege.

The current phase of Political Correctness is Multiculturalism, which advocates that our own Western and American cultures should not be privileged above any other world cultures, a form of cultural relativism. As undermining as that might be for our own culture, in point of fact, Multiculturalism privileges all non-Western cultures while it denigrates the Western and American cultures it intends to destroy. I will conclude with a statement from a previous article I wrote, “The Clash of Civilizations or the Suicide of the West?” :

Although Multiculturalism claims to promote diversity (of race, religion, ethnicity, and gender), what it does not promote is diversity in thought. Instead, it promotes a New Left, Marxian version of race, class, and gender warfare against America and the West; a new left wing monoculture that excludes, prohibits (when able to), and condemns all opposing viewpoints. As this ideology, through Political Correctness or the idea that one must conform to its tenants or be ostracized, has become dominant in American universities, schools, media, government, and even businesses, one could argue with some confidence that while America won the Cold War with the Soviet Union, she lost the war at home with Marxism.

I hope that I’m proven wrong in the near future.

Feminists ignore “man-cession”

US commentator Christina Hoff Sommers points out that US Feminist groups have been complaining that too much stimulus spending is going on male dominated areas of employment.

Subsequently, the stimulus spending has been reviewed and 42 percent will now be re-directed towards jobs held by women.

This is despite the fact that males have incurred 80 percent of jobs losses in the recession (hence the phrase man-cession) and that males are much more numerous in the run-down transport and communication sectors, which are arguably most in need of government investment.

(Hat Tip: Glen Sacks)

Confectionary and liberal autonomy theory

A Canadian Inuit woman on holiday in NZ has taken offence at a piece of kiwi confectionary known as Eskimos, a chewy, baby-shaped sweet popular in the traditional "50 cent mix," and the choc ice cream Eskimo pie.

Apparently the word Eskimo is now considered offensive to Inuit, as it's a Canadian Indian word meaning something like "an eater of raw meat," and Inuit apparently don't like being labeled by their traditional foes from the south.

Anyway, let's consider liberal autonomy theory.

Under liberal autonomy theory, names of peoples should be self-chosen, and no group should have to put up with names imposed on them by others.

This is why Eskimos are now called Inuit and Canadian Indians are known by the highfalutin' title First Nation Peoples.

This also applies to names of places, which is why foreigners can no longer refer to Mumbai as Bombay or Sri Lanka as Ceylon, and why children's knowledge of geography is just sooo good these days.

There are however, a couple of major difficulties in the application of this liberal autonomy principle.

"Powerful" groups such as western whites, have to respect indigenous names, but minority indigenous people don't have to refer to whites using white names. Hence New Zealand Maori are allowed to refer to European New Zealanders as Pakeha, and Canadian Inuit can call Canadian whites Qallunaat, but Canadian or New Zealand whites can't come up with their own names to replace Maori and Inuit.

Another problem is that if you don't allow people to use their own names to describe others, things can get pretty confusing.

For example, in some contexts an Inuit can't call Canadian Indians, Native Americans, since Inuit are a type of Native American and to do so would be to suggest Eskimos aren't indigenous.

However, if he were to call them Indians he'd be using a term imposed on Native Americans by whites, and since whites can't call Inuit Eskimos, why should Inuit be able to call Native Americans or First Nation Peoples Indians - what's the pecking order there, PC theorists.

Given all the problems with applying this PC theory in practice, it might be best if such minor breaches of political correctness were overlooked.

Non-Canadian Whites have adopted the word Eskimo in good faith, and only use in an informal context, and anyway would this woman prefer we called Eskimo pie, Inuit pie. I think not, since that would probably be more offensive, since instead of being a quaint, naive title Inuit pie might be taken as an informed racial slur, referring to the previous Eskimo practice of leaving unwanted babies out on the ice to die during hard times.

Classical composers not so PC

At the Political Compass website I came across this interesting chart on the political views of some of the leading classical composers.

Given the overwhelmingly left-liberal orientation of nearly all popular musicians it's refreshing to see some diversity of political opinion among the old-school.

An example of "ethnomasocism"

In Saturday's Press under the title "Racial bigots damage Christchurch's reputation" the following letter was published about a small white nationalist turnout in the town square. In between the author's description of events, I've included my interpretation from my own (albeit very brief) observations and reports from others.

"Saturday was the United Nations Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, held to spread the message of peace and tolerance.

I found it hard to tolerate that the white pride constituent of Christchurch hijacked what is supposed to be a harmonious event for their own sick means: a white pride day.

(There is such a thing as racial discrimination towards whites. Many western countries have affirmative action laws that discriminate against whites, and schools and universities regularly prescribe textbooks with a clear anti-white bias. There is even an anti-white academic discipline called whiteness studies).

A clan of white supremacists descended on Cathedral Square, clad in barely disguised neo-Nazi outfits: steel-capped boots, army boots, army uniforms, white pride T-shirts, shaven heads, swastika tattoos.

(A small group of perhaps 20 white nationalists, wearing army boots and white-cross, white pride t-shirts, stood in an unoccupied corner of the square for about 30 minutes. I don't know if any had Nazi tattoos.

They carried New Zealand flags and signs: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children." They were extremely intimidating.

(Their appearance was slightly intimidating, but they were pretty much sticking to themselves and weren't engaging with the general public.)

The presence of these people and what they stand for filled me with disgust and embarrassment: they made me feel sick to the stomach. I felt ashamed to be white.

Hundreds of tourists from all over the world came to the square on Saturday and were meet by this sight. They were scared and intimidated I found myself apologising profusely to them in an effort to salvage their impression of Christchurch.

Is this the image we want to present to visitors? An un-welcoming place for hatred for non-whites?"

(It was a cool, wet morning and there were relatively few tourists or shoppers in the Square at the time, nor did they threaten or shout down any members of the public. They were not doing anything that could be construed as "hatred" to other races. Also you would have had to get up very close to them to see if they Nazi tattoos or not).

For a description of ethnomasocism check this link from Mild Colonial Boy.

ACC blowout

One of the things I've always disliked about New Zealand is the unjust state-funded accident compensation system, which was apparently adopted in dubious circumstances in the 1970s.

Since the country already has a relatively generously funded health and welfare system, it's puzzling why it actually needs a public provider of accident insurance like the Accident Compensation Corporation.

If somebody has an accident at work, they are already covered by the public health and welfare system, and shouldn't really expect additional public help in the form of income compensation through a parallel ACC system.

Most workplaces are a lot safer than they used to be, and if workers in dangerous jobs do require insurance, then this could just as easily be provided by competing private insurers, rather than a government monopoly provider.

Probably the most unjust part of the ACC system though, is that it also extends to accidents outside of work, with employees expected to make contributions towards a public fund to cover everything from skiing accidents to allergic reactions to bee stings.

Not surprisingly, with little incentive for people to use their common sense in avoiding accidents, non-work related claims have soared, with accidents in the home the most rapidly rising area of claims.

Strangely, even though the system greatly benefits people who engage in injury-prone activities like skiing, contact sports and ambitious DIY projects, it most ardent supporters are left-liberals - exactly the kind of people who are least likely to be engaged in dangerous hands-on activities.

Recently things have come to a head with the incoming National government finding out there has been a massive surge in ACC costs over the last decade, with physiotherapists being among the main beneficaries.

Hopefully this will initiate a serious overhaul of the system, with a view to either scraping it completely, or at least restricting it to work-place accidents.

Politics and free speech

Jim Kalb has an interesting article at Turnabout on political correctness and its opponents.

Mr Kalb points out that right-liberals support politically incorrect free speech more than left liberals because they are less concerned with results than with principles.

Since left liberals believe that liberal principles such as non-discrimination need to be translated into less discrimination in terms of real world outcomes, they are willing to override traditional reasons for defending free speech, such as a concern for establishing the truth or countering corruption, through legislation like hate speech laws.

For example, in the left-liberal view, if free speech makes a particular group, such as women or muslims, feel alienated or insulted, then it is acceptable to restrict freedom of speech.

In contrast, right-liberals are generally opposed to introducing laws to enforce people to conform to liberal principles, as they believe in equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome.

Hence, while right-liberals believe people should respect liberal principles of equality, they don't believe they should be restricted from saying things which violate such principles.

Subsequently, the defence of free speech has been a lot stronger in the United States than in many European and Commonwealth countries, where elites have a greater concern with equality in practice rather in theory.

Among the various liberal groups in the U.S, libertarians have been the strongest supporters of free speech and are well represented on the Internet, which has a disproportionately high percentage of libertarians.

However, those groups which stand to lose the most from the censorship of free speech, are not libertarians but particularists like traditional conservatives and ethno-nationalists, who wish to directly challenge liberalism over key liberal concepts like the malleability of human nature.

So although particularists and libertarians don't have a lot of common in terms of political ideology (with most, but not all libertarians shying away from the topic of equality) particularists seem to be somewhat dependent on libertarian support in getting their message across to the public.

Kalb says that the popular and intellectual appeal of libertarianism is growing, and its growth appears to be influenced by the growth of new technologies such as online business, which appeals to the laissez-faire/individualist ethos of libertarians.

If libertarianism does continue to grow, it will be interesting to see if particularism does also, and whether the two forces will move closer together, as in some form of paleo-libertarianism, or drift further apart.

Shopkeepers under the bed

In the 18th Century the petit-bourgeois were held in relatively high standing by classical liberals like Voltaire, but for today's intelligentsia the self-employed lower-middle class have about as much status as the untouchables in the Indian caste system.

Take for example, this quote about Hitler in a recent observer column by Robert McCrum. In writing on the recent films spate of historical films about the Nazis he states:

Finally and most chillingly, there's what Hannah Arendt called the 'banality of evil', the petit bourgeois provincialism of the Fuhrer, whose astounding ordinariness, junxtaposed with the Nazi inferno, continues to mesmerise genereations of biographers and historians."

Given that the 20th Century witnessed history's greatest mass murder of petit-bourgeois under Joseph Stalin, with his persecution of the Kulaks, one might think educated liberal snobs might ease up on comparing them to Hitler.

To be fair, McCrum does mention Stalin's crimes, quoting biographer lan Kershaw, but conveniently avoids any awkward details of Marxist intellectuals knocking off Ukrainian small farmers.

"Stalin was a fair greater mass murderer, but Hitler's programme was planned and executed in a hideous parody of organised government.

Mind you, liberal petit-bourgeois bashing even extends to knocking former left-liberal icons like Ralph Nader, a son of a shopkeeper, demonised by Democrats supporters for daring to run against the party in 2000 and 2004.

Putting the liberal obsession with knocking the petit-bourgeois to one side though, I don't see what's so "astoundingly ordinary" about Hitler. If anything the guy was extraordinary un-ordinary in his particular combination of personal traits.

For a start, there's the combination of Iron Cross-winning tough guy and bohemian arts student, which doesn't exactly make him easy to stereotype. Then there's the junxtaposition of his banal, derivative painting with the advant-garde futurism of his Nazi party designs like the Swastika, adopted from an Eastern design, and his mastery of the latest propaganda techniques - staid traditionalist on one hand, trendy visionary on the other.

Further highlighting Hitler's individuality was his hatred of democracy and consensus on one hand and his dislike of aristocratic elites on the other. And on top of this there's his hatred of smoking, eccentric appearance, vegetarianism and post modern love of animals - traits more associated with a liberal university lecturer than a merciless Fascist henchmen.

Perhaps the greatest mystery is how a hypochondriac pill-popper was able to hold him nerves together during over 40 assassination attempts (as well as flash rockets, perhaps those Germans were making some super drugs to).

Hence Hitler's warped uniqueness may well have been a factor in why he was able to go so far. The German people were expecting a Franco or Mussolini when they voted him in, but instead got some sort of demented combination of Jim Jones, Pol Pot and Staachi and Staachi.

The banality of evil might be good phrase to describe conventional henchmen like Stalin and Sadam, but I don't see how it applies to a true totalitarian eccentric like Hitler.

British fascism, Italian democracy

How times change, 70 years ago most people would have associated suppression of speech with totalitarian states like Italy, Germany and the Soviet Union.

However, Italy showed how far it's come in defending democracy this week when it allowed entry to controversial Dutch MP Geert Wilders.

Earlier Mr Wilders was barred from entering the UK by Home Secretary, and leading liberal fascist, Jacqui Smith.

Liberalism and its enemies - the old and the working class

Considering that left-liberalism is traditionally associated with standing up for the underdog, you'd think that under-privileged groups like the elderly and the working class would be worthy recipients of liberal support.

Unfortunately, given liberalism's obsession with minor points of language and "saying the right thing" the grouchy, apathetic elderly and the "rough around the edges" working class are at a distinct disadvantage in modern liberal society.

Witness the increasing number of older white guys in the media, from sports commentators and talk-show hosts, to politicians and noble-prize winners, who've had to "retire early" for blurting out politically incorrect statements at inconvenient moments.

Like radiation seeping out of a concreted-over nuclear powerplant, pre-1968 thoughts leak out into the open as the aging frontal lobes begin their inevitable decline.

Meanwhile the working class are increasingly finding that their un-enlightened voting patterns and talk radio statements, are also getting them into a lot of hot water with the liberal establishment, with liberals getting their own back by encouraging liberal-approved immigrants to take over previously working class neighborhoods (note that the working class should not be confused with the underclass, who are doing much better out of liberalism, thank you very much).

However, if tactless, politically incorrect statements are a crime in themselves then where does that leave those who suffer from disorders of impulsivity? Hence all this intolerance of un-PC speech got me thinking about whether liberalism will start reigning its otherwise tolerant attitude towards those suffering from the likes of ADHD and Tourette's Syndrome, where saying the wrong thing pretty much goes with the terrority.

Politically incorrect tactlessness was certainly an issue for an ADHD-sufferering South African ex-truck driver I meet a few years back, who'd be lucky to last 30 minutes if he were ever let loose in a modern liberal workplace.

An amusing example of the irony of liberalism's support for disabilities and intolerance of un-PC impoliteness was provided in a recent VDARE column where Peter Brimelow exchanged words with liberal radio host and ADHD advocate Thom Hartmann who strongly supported the replacement of "Merry Christmas" with the culturally neutral "Happy Holidays".

Clearly the irony of Hartmann's liberal hypersensitivity over the Christmas issue and his advocacy for an impulse control disorder (a significant symptom of which is blurting out tactless statements) was lost on him.

Interestingly, liberal society's most polite and diplomatic demographic - educated middle class women - also happen to be disproportionately well-represented among liberal work places and in liberal politics, funny that.

Condemn first, read later

I've recently been reading through a couple of books from three controversial academics - DNA by James Watson and the infamous Bell Curve by Charles Murray and Richard Hernstein.

One of the most striking things revealed in both books is that none of the three academics are particularly pre-occupied by race issues, despite all three being condemned for rank racism by the mainstream media.

When the Bell Curve was first published in the mid 1990s, various critics in the media were quick to condemn Murray and Hernstein for suggesting there were significant IQ differences in the U.S between Blacks and Whites. However, only one chapter in the book is actually devoted to race issues. Most of the book deals with IQ differences among whites, and the many policy implications of the unchanging distribution of IQ scores after over half a century of universal public schooling.
Nor, does the book necessarily advocate right-wing approaches to dealing with the social and economic problems caused by IQ differences. Despite the fact that Charles Murray is a self-confessed libertarian, in the Bell Curve he doesn't necessarily advocate reducing government spending on public education or other right -liberal policies. A 1920s-style Fabian socialist like George Bernard Shaw would probably be less offended by its public policy discussions than the majority of today's neo-conservatives and libertarians.

Arguably the most interesting finding in the book, in my view, is the declining level of education among high IQ students, rather than those at the bottom of the Bell Curve. As the authors point out, dumbing-down modern schooling has actually improved the academic performance of most average IQ children, but at the same time it's undermined the education of the smartest pupils, who are now no longer challenged as much as they used to be.

If the book had been written in 1904 instead of 1994, the press would have no doubt spent more time talking about its relevance to the decline of elite education rather than its single chapter on racial differences.

In the same way that Samuel Huntington's Clash of Cilivisations was simplistically criticised as a work of Islamophobia, the Bell Curve has been written off as a white supremacist book about racial IQ differences. Indeed, in some ways the Bell Curve is something of a anti-managerial work, in that it questions the value of the one dimensional BMA- type education criticised in more left-leaning books like John Ralston's Saul's Voltaire's Bastards.

Reading through half a dozen chapters of Watson's DNA (first published in 2003) he certainly doesn't give the impression of being the far-right racist he's been labeled in the popular media over his recent African IQ comments. For example, he describes the early-20th Century eugenics movement in the U.S as a "pseudo-scientific vehicle for the notably unscientific prejudices of men like Madison Grant and Harrry Laughlin," and criticises the 1924 Immigration Act (unfairly in my view) for restricting refugee immigration in the 1930s.

About the only right-wing comment I noted in the book was Watson's interesting observation that despite the popular perception, Republican administrations are no stingier than Democratic ones when it comes to investing in scientific research.

Cultural double standards

Whenever a social scientist compares a non-western, indigenous population with a western one, the culture of the western population is usually defined as faulty, while the culture of the indigenous population is described positively.

In a Press article entitled "NZ past seen as damaging to men," (Saturday, February 2) concerning a new study by Otago University Professor Alistar Fox, it is suggested that British culture and colonialism are key factors in the violent behaviour of Maori men.

However, rather than just making the point that cultural alienation may be a factor in the violent behaviour of a certain section of the Maori population, and that European culture has often clashed with traditional Maori culture, the author of the study, at least according to the article, seems to suggest there is something wrong with European New Zealand culture per se.

For example, despite the fact that European New Zealand society has had one of the world's lowest white crime rates for over a century, the author of the study argues from New Zealand literature that European New Zealand values such as "a strong work ethic," "self-repression" and a "mistrust of emotions," have prompted white New Zealand males "to engage in a range of transgressive behaviours."

In reality though, the empirical evidence, in the form of very low crime rates, suggest that for violent behaviour at least, "self-repression" among white males may well have been a factor in lowering, rather than increasing serious anti-social behaviours. In fact, it is only in the few decades, as traditional protestant values have started to wane, that anti-social behaviour among white males has started to increase along the lines seen in other western countries like Britain.

Sure, protestant values may not have the same effect on Maori, who had a more open and communal culture, but that isn't to say such values haven't had a positive, civilising effect on European New Zealand males. Imagine if a social scientist said something like: "traditional Maori culture was brutal and collectivist, with little emphasis on personal responsibility or emotional restraint."Such a statement would immediately be regarded as racist and arrogant, yet saying that European New Zealand culture was "repressive" and led to "transgressive behaviours" is seen as perfectly acceptable by most left-liberal whites.

The article then includes some comment from Chief executive of Maori Family Violence Unit He Waka Tapu Daryl Gregory, which though possibly accurate, glosses over the high level of violence that existed in traditional Maori society prior to the arrival of Europeans:

"The process of colonisation was violent and left Maori feeling subservient to the coloniser.

"Seeing themselves as warriors made them feel strong, when in fact Maori men worked in a range of fields, such as gardeners and midwives, he said."

While colonisation was extremely disruptive and may well have had a negative impact on some aspects of Maori society, extensive archaeological evidence indicates high levels of violence were a fact of life in almost all pre-industrial societies, so it is highly unlikely that rates of crime among Maori increased significantly after European laws and customs were established.

Rather than blaming Europeans culture for the problems of a non-European group, social scientists and social workers should be focusing on how Maori can either adapt to European culture, or come up with their own ways of dealing with the challenges of colonisation.

It's totally non-sensical to blame one culture for the behaviour of people who don't come from that culture, but in liberal theory, there always seems to a need for a villain and a victim.

Liberal illusions

One of the things which left-liberals and libertarians have a hard time grasping is the fact most people don't think like they do. I don't just mean that they don't share their ideologies, but that their thinking is influenced by a whole different set of priorities and limitations.

Most libertarians tend to be young educated, males of an introverted disposition, who believe that most people desire maximum autonomy and are capable of handling such freedom. However, contrary to right-liberal assumptions, most people tend to be extroverts who are more influenced by the world around them then their own thoughts and feelings. In other words, if other people are doing stupid things, many of them will too.

An example of this is the world of advertising. As an introvert I tend to think of advertising as a largely irrational waste of money, but it must work on some people or companies wouldn't spend so much money on it. Subsequently advertising tends to directed advertising at extroverts, particularly the status seeking, high IQ extroverts who dominate the world of business.

While intelligent extroverts are usually able to channel their impulsivity into constructive activity, underclass extroverts cannot manage their own lives without societal help.In most cases, low IQ extroverts are well aware of their poor impulse control and the fact they can be easily influenced, but are unable to control their own behaviour unless distracted by other activities and responsibilities.

Recently, I was watching a story on television about teenage pregnancy in the UK, in which a young mother was asked about her reason for having a child which she was unable to support without state help. The answer was very revealing, if a little obvious to some. She said that having a baby gave her a sense of responsibility, and that without it she would probably be out on the streets committing petty crime. According to her logic, it was cheaper for the state to pay her to stay at home and look after a baby, than have her skip school and get into trouble with the law.

Libertarians believe that such negative behaviours can be controlled through limited government. If there are no incentives for teenagers to have children, then they will rationally decide not to have children until they can afford to support them. But if members of the underclass are genuinely unable to control their impulses, then punitive punishments, which occur after the event, are unlikely to deter them. The absence of a welfare state doesn't stop millions of woman in poor countries from having children they are unable to support.

This is why it is important that social norms must take account of human nature.

If teenage mothers who had children out of wedlock were socially ostracized, as they were in the 1950s, they would have a much stronger incentive to delay having children. Nobody likes being socially ostracized, and this is especially true of those who are most strongly influenced by those around them.

Among modern liberals there also is a belief that, within the law, they should be able to do as they please, without regard to how their actions influence other sections of society. For example, if middle-class liberal woman believe solo motherhood is acceptable, and show off the fact they are capable of rising children on their own, then less capable, less intelligent women will try unsuccessfully to copy them.

One of the most ironic things about today's age of liberal individualism is that it is only differences in human preferences which are recognised. Differences in human abilities and dispositions are ignored, leaving society at large to clean up the mess created by giving too much freedom to those who are unable to handle it.