Attacks against egalitarianism have existed for as long as hierarchies have existed. There have always been privileged ideologues paid by the rulers to articulate reasons why the rulers are always right and deserve to use their power in any way found necessary. That’s the way hierarchies work.
In the past, they argued that rulers were appointed by divine fiat. Nowadays, we are too sophisticated to fall for such simplistic justifications. In modern times, there have been two main areas which these ideologues have used to argue against egalitarianism:
1. “Scientific” atomism: The pseudo-scientific analysis of human behavior through purely individual factors, which includes most economics, sociobiology, and evolutionary psychology (as well as philosophical ideologies derived from them). It is used to “prove” that some people are naturally superior to others and that this justifies inequality (up to genocide, depending on the “researcher”).
I have discussed these attacks in various entries, such as “Hierarchies are natural!”, “Greed is part of human nature!”, Against Psychological Egoism and The trouble with time preference (I may have written other entries that relate to this topic, but they are not coming to my mind at present). Economic support for STV can also be included in this category, as it reduces value to the desires of the individual, instead of connecting it to the larger world of labor.
2. “Scientific” racism: The pseudo-scientific analysis of race (itself a pseudo-scientific concept) through the lens of some desirable variable, such as brain size, intelligence, industriousness, or others. This “research” is then used in order to “prove” that some races are superior and some are inferior, and that this justifies racial inequality. The most recent example of this hate rhetoric disguised as science is the book The Bell Curve.
Both of these attacks are interrelated. One starts by attacking individuals, and the other starts by attacking races, but it’s easy to go from one to the other, because whatever standard we use to evaluate one can be applied to the other.
In this entry, the second kind interests me more, since I don’t believe I have ever written about it. As I said, the most prominent example of “scientific” racism in recent times is the book The Bell Curve, which mostly relies on “research” funded by neo-nazi organization The Pioneer Fund, which was first founded to support eugenics policies and now supports its modern equivalent, heredity research. In this we see the natural descent of “scientific” racism from the phrenological racism of the early 1800s, to the eugenics of the early 1900s, to the IQ/race connection of the late 1900s.
It’s hard not to make a comparison between this and the natural descent of creationism towards intelligent design and irreducible complexity. The more failures they face, the more pseudo-scientists have to narrow the field of their nonsense. “Scientific” racism, like creationism, has to increasingly hide under the skirts of science in order to keep its credibility; but both doctrines are more about the performance of scientific rigor and open-mindedness than about actually using scientific methods and being open-minded. Doing actual science would be counterproductive to creationist and racist aims, but giving the appearance of being scientific in order to deceive is very productive to them. Furthermore, both first found their roots in the Bible.
Creationism and “scientific” racism are also inherently elitist, although in entirely opposite ways: creationism in its rejection of evolution as demeaning, populist “liberal dogma,” and “scientific” racism in its pretend adoption of evolution as a rebuttal of “blank slate,” politically holistic “liberal dogma.”
They lump together behaviours seen as criminal in our society, and look for genetic explanations. They tap the spinal fluids of violent prisoners to test for levels of a chemical which they believe reduces violent behaviour. But their choice of violence is completely socially determined. They do not look at the spinal fluids of the policemen who beat up blacks in custody or those of the soldiers who fought in the Gulf War. Violence in these instances is seen as justified. The idea that you can lump together a whole series of behaviours and label them as crime or violence is clearly flawed.
The very concepts of IQ and race are highly questionable, and highly questioned. I don’t think I need to explain this to my readers. Again, the Socialist Review makes a good point in this respect:
Scientists have claimed that there is a gene for being gay. But the idea is ludicrous. The idea that there is a separate group of people who can be labelled homosexual has only existed for the last couple of hundred years. Same gender sexual relationships have existed in all societies, but the idea that gay people exist as a separate group is a relatively new one. It would be nonsense to suggest that the gene has only appeared in the last 200 years.
The idea of race has a political history, reflecting the needs of the capitalist system, particularly in justifying the slave trade. In previous societies the idea that the colour of someone’s skin was significant was completely unheard of. Why then should we believe it now?
Because the whole study is spurious, and the “research” is made up, it should be no surprise that the results of this “research” has always matched prejudice. In the past, Jews were considered to be intellectually inferior, but since World War 2, “research” has proven the opposite, that Jews are the most intellectual race. The current “research” gives us the following order: Jews, then asians, then whites, then, far below, blacks. How convenient that, again, this fits racial prejudices perfectly. What a marvelous coincidence (can you tell I am being sarcastic?).
Such “research” is not much different from the humongous amount of “research” done every year on the GDP (“the economy”). The GDP is used to reinforce both optimistic beliefs about social progress and nationalistic superiority compared to other countries having a lower GDP. It is ostensibly scientific but has very little to do with science or facts.
The only reply by “scientific” racists is that the data is ironclad, that they are being censored, and that we just have to deal with the facts and stop being “close-minded.” This is another similarity with creationism, as I have recently pointed out how attacks against methodological naturalism rely on accusations of the opposition being “close-minded” to the possibility of the supernatural. But the belief that egalitarianism is impossible is just as close-minded as the belief that naturalism cannot explain everything.
Because of its atomism, the doctrine of “scientific” racism deliberately omits anything having to do with social interactions and institutions, and therefore is silent about the violence of currently existing institutions. Here is an example:
To illustrate “consilience,” [biologist E. O.] Wilson interprets the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. He writes that it was partly an example of “ethnic rivalry run amuck,” reflecting our genetically based tribal instincts. It also had a “deeper cause, rooted in environment and demography.”
Consider what Wilson omits from his analysis. Hutus and Tutsis intermarried centuries ago, and there is no biological distinction between them. European colonialists arbitrarily created an ethnic distinction and used the Tutsi minority to impose indirect rule on the Hutu majority. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank imposed agricultural and financial reforms that shifted land use from subsistence food production to export crops such as coffee…
Nationalist leaders in Rwanda recruited, incited, and armed the “teenage soldiers.” Pres. Clinton prevented the US Government and the UN from intervening to halt the genocide. Wilson blames genocide on human nature and overpopulation to let imperialists and local nationalists off the hook. Under the banner of “consilience” Wilson excludes from his analysis knowledge provided by history, anthropology, economics, political science, sociology, demography, and environmental science.
We see now the hypocrisy of the party line that equality cannot possibly work because of inborn inferiority. The refusal to help others which comes from believing in inborn inferiority is what creates these dramatic collapses which then “prove” inborn inferiority further. Like all prejudice, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The final word, I think, should go to C. Loring Brace who, responding to the “scientific” racist concept that toddlers can be genetically evaluated to see if they deserve a good education or not:
There is no such thing as an undeserving five-year-old.