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Vagabond of Letters, DLitt's Reviews > The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life
The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life
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by
Re-rated 5 on second reading.
This is THE MOST IMPORTANT SOCIAL-SCIENCE BOOK OF THE 20TH CENTURY, BAR NONE. (That's the first time I've written an all-caps sentence in a review.)
This book is brilliance above brilliance. It is dry, academic writing (and only one section out of four deals with race and IQ, and only a small part of that section -- so much for all of the one-star reviews deriding it as if it were nothing else, and, even if it were, as if the truth must not be admitted, must not be spoken, if it fitteth the narrative not), but, in the best tradition of such dry academic writing, is packed with information on every page. The book is an eloquent defence of the truth of hereditarianism vis-a-vis intelligence, and conclusively demonstrates that America is stratifying -- has stratified -- and will be stratified in to a society of classes based not on descent-qua-descent, or aristocracy (as they should be), or the warrior ethic, but upon a largely-inherited intelligence, which is distributed extraordinarily unevenly across various 'population groups'.
To the egalitarian theorist, this book is heresy -- it thesis heresy -- its authors apostates who must be burned, for they give the lie to the inane notion that all men are equal in all ways.
One-quarter star deducted because the authors don't draw out the implications of their (proved) thesis, and, in a display of the cognitive dissonance engendered even amongst (especially amongst?) the learned by the dogmata of multiethnicism and the multicult and cult of diversity, show that they may not even be aware of such implications.
This is THE MOST IMPORTANT SOCIAL-SCIENCE BOOK OF THE 20TH CENTURY, BAR NONE. (That's the first time I've written an all-caps sentence in a review.)
This book is brilliance above brilliance. It is dry, academic writing (and only one section out of four deals with race and IQ, and only a small part of that section -- so much for all of the one-star reviews deriding it as if it were nothing else, and, even if it were, as if the truth must not be admitted, must not be spoken, if it fitteth the narrative not), but, in the best tradition of such dry academic writing, is packed with information on every page. The book is an eloquent defence of the truth of hereditarianism vis-a-vis intelligence, and conclusively demonstrates that America is stratifying -- has stratified -- and will be stratified in to a society of classes based not on descent-qua-descent, or aristocracy (as they should be), or the warrior ethic, but upon a largely-inherited intelligence, which is distributed extraordinarily unevenly across various 'population groups'.
To the egalitarian theorist, this book is heresy -- it thesis heresy -- its authors apostates who must be burned, for they give the lie to the inane notion that all men are equal in all ways.
One-quarter star deducted because the authors don't draw out the implications of their (proved) thesis, and, in a display of the cognitive dissonance engendered even amongst (especially amongst?) the learned by the dogmata of multiethnicism and the multicult and cult of diversity, show that they may not even be aware of such implications.
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On the topic of the drawing out of the conclusions, Murray is aware, but he refuses to publicly say it... which is a shame. He's a smart dude, but he's totally civnat (which makes no sense given his books).