Scrooge defended

Justin Schwartz jkschw at hotmail.com
Thu Dec 28 21:11:53 PST 2000


.>
>A seasonal classic, pointed out by Matt Hogan, by the repellent Michael
>Levin:
>
><http://www.mises.org/fullarticle.asp?control=110&titlenum=&FS=&title=Scrooge+Defended&Month=3>
>

Did I ever tell you all about the time I had occasion to debate Michael Levin at Antioch College? The topic was Levin's loathsome and inane views on black inferiority. I am not sure why Levin was invited to the world capital of political correctness. I was apparently invited because I was at nearby Ohio State, where I was teaching at the time, and had written a letter critical of Levin's views on affirmative action and black intelligence to the Am Phil Assn Notes and Proceedings. Also, I would talk for free.

We met at the podium. We shook hands. I told him, honestly, that I liked a book he had written on the metaphysics of mind, a technically proficient piece of philosophy of mind with no political content. He laid out his views, briefly that blacks score 15% lower on IQ tests on average than whites; that certain studies suggest that the heritability of IQ is .75, and so blacks are genetically dumber than whites. Therefore affirmative action is a bad idea, because it will put dumb blacks in positions where they will do bad jobs. I am not making this up; this was his argument.

I was understated in response, beyong certain bitter jokes, such as that unlike Plato's noble lie, whereby people are slotted into higher and lower social positions because of their supposed metallic "content," Levin doesn't admit that his "natural" justification of inequality is a lie. I criticized the idea that IQ tests measure a unitary quantity called "intelligence" in Gouldian terms. I explained that even if it did, Levin's argument didn't follow because, in part, his notion of heritability was confused. I noted that Levin had no coherent explanation of who counts as "black," so he had no well-defined intergroup comparison. I explained, further, that even if he did, that "intelligence" as measured by IQ tests is not the only, or the most important, qualification for most jobs or educational oppotunities. And I concluded by saying that Levin's views about affirmative action were nonsense even if everything else he said was right, because justice for individuals requires redress for past and present discrimination, and his argument only addressed averages.

This talk was a great disappointment to Antioch. The students were angry that I did not denounce Levin as fascist and that I pointed out that the logic of his ragument was flawed; they wanted me to stick to contravening his premises, which of course I had done, but I wasn't supposed to say, even hypothetically, that his conclusions did not follow even if his premises were true, even though I denied that they were true, except that blacks on average score lower than whites on IQ tests, which true. I was criticized for admitting that. The student paper attacked us both as racists.

Levin wrote me a letter thanking me for disagreeing with him in a civilized way. I wrote him back declining his thanks, and saying that I agreed with his more vituperative detractors, but thought he was better discredited rationally.

I just thought you might find this episode interesting.

--jks _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list