An excellent essay, and one that I will reference in the future for its description of human nature theories in political history.
Unfortunately, the section about "scientific racism" fell into the same trap the author is arguing against. There are still brain size differences between groups, IQ tests have never shown Whites as a the top performing group (that would be Ashkenazi Jews and then East Asians), and after IQ testing was improved (90+ years ago) they have always shown a persistent gap between different groups, even as all groups have improved (Flynn Effect).
Ironically, the IQ explanation for group equity gaps - the one thing that might actually destroy woke ideology - is that one thing that intellectuals fear to discuss honestly.
“You can throw nature out with a pitchfork, but it will always come running back.”
The "correlation" between "brain size" and IQ tests is correlation, NOT causation. Brain size *might* be correlated with some of those things tested for on an "IQ test", which proves---nothing. When the farmer is driving Einstein across Death Valley at 115º and the truck quits, who's the genius? "It's all relative". There are more variations in ability within "groups" than between them, making such claims of "top performing" even more ridiculous.
There are are so many things correlated with IQ test results that it is certainly measuring something, and that something is one of the most predictive thing that psychology has right now.
The "groups" exist as patterns of genetic differences. What matters for this argument is whether or not those genetic differences include socially important traits (not just skin color and face morphology).
In my opinion, this topic is an example of an "elite misinformation bubble," where the smart and educated people in our society are just not aware of the science.
I think the Einstein analogy is accurate - it is all relative. When we were all farmers, IQ didn't matter much. But it makes a big difference in the modern society we live in. Maybe it won't matter so much if AI takes over.
You touched upon the moral framework that first accompanied the concept of autonomy connecting it to religious beliefs. But personally, it seems the moral framework of Aristotle and more recently articles about intellectual virtues Are a better foundation for maintaining liberal democratic republics. Basically, I side with Montesquieu, Alistair McIntyre et al on the need for civic and intellectual virtues as the educational foundation for a liberal democratic republic. Institutional protections against the natural tendency for individuals and groups to abuse power are insufficient.
In early modern Europe, autonomy was understood as the right to make choices within
pre-existing moral frameworks, frameworks established by various religious traditions.
I have previously mentioned to Prof. Fukuyama that it seems to me that, while Liberalism is "the water in which we swim" (or at least used to until the time of the Orange Menace), in our modernity who is teaching us how to swim? The pre-existing frameworks were "established by various religious traditions." The early liberals *assumed* that these frameworks would continue to be "established" and taught. They didn't even *consider* that such teaching might fade and so they couldn't, and didn't, make any framework whereby those values could be continued, as they *needed* to be. And those values are absolutely critical to dealing with the *emotional* side of human beings. Rationality and thought and "intellectual" are all great and absolutely necessary. But as we know from Haidt and Kahneman, sorry, but we ain't rational! How does the emotional/moral side of humans get shaped to allow civil harmony? It IS possible--visit Japan and you'll see. We've failed miserably to do that, and we're paying the ultimate price for our failure. I think there is a set of morals/values/goals that we can pretty much all agree on: the non-religious 6 of the Decalogue and The Golden Rule. Beyond that, communities should, can and do form around *other* issues. Belong if you want, join a different one if you want. But DO NOT forget the essentials that bind all such communities and all humans. This is our "educational foundation for a liberal democratic republic." How do we recover it? CAN we recover it, or are we doomed to more and more nastiness and thuggery?
Interesting, but your comment seems to ignore the evolution in moral values that has occurred since the "pre-existing values of various religions" were supreme. If you took a snap shot of moral values 5000 years ago, you would see something vastly different, but something that evolved into the "pre-existing values of various religions" and from which current values have evolved.
Sorry, I am not aware of how such values have changed since the beginnings of liberalism. I think, but don't know, that most/all religions have a basic creed fairly similar to the Decalogue. Even the "pre-existing values" included, for example, the Golden Rule. They just didn't think "the other guys" were humans so it was OK to kill them righteously. Sound like Islamic Jihad to you? History has been one of an expanding definition of who humanity is (see slavery) but in my view NOT a change in how humans should be treated. Did you have something else in mind?
I am claiming that the moral values actually held by people have changed over time. New moral norms have been added and others removed. This seems obvious. You point out "who should be considered human" has changed - that is big one. Your view of how people should be treated is not one most actual people have held. So I am not sure what you mean.
Sorry but in >2000 years I don't see much change in the Decalogue, The Golden Rule or in how people think they ought to be treated. Perhaps I'm talking about something much more basic than "moral norms have been added and others removed"? Are you thinking of "laws" as "moral norms"? Yes, the devil is in the details but if you aren't using the foundation for starters the details will indeed be messed up and frequently changed to accommodate social change. And to reiterate, my point is that liberalism didn't think they would have to, and so didn't, deal with the emotional side of humans. If we believe the non-religious 6 of the 10 in the Decalogue and the Golden Rule are the way we should live and behave, who's teaching that now?
I am talking about the way people used to behave that we would now consider abnormal, if not immoral. Few people now think cat burning or gruesome public executions are entertaining. Before the Enlightenment, Europeans thought it was immoral not to be a Christian. Before that to be a Protestant, before that to be an Arian, before that to be a Christian. One didn't need to doubt someone's humanity to kill or persecute them, wrong beliefs were enough.
Look at the Vikings: your decalogue was more of a to do list for them. They evolved into one of the most moral societies we know (also one of low religiosity).
Fukuyama reduces human nature to biology and politics. Passions, genes, and evolution are made primary, with contracts and states set up to manage them. That confuses accident for essence.
Hobbes and Rousseau leaned on theology even while turning it inside out. Hobbes made original sin into the war of all against all. Rousseau moved corruption from the self to society. Both relied on Christian terms but transformed them into new forms.
Neither faced the deeper truth. Human beings are more than nature or culture. We are drawn beyond both—toward truth, beauty, and the infinite. Liberalism shrinks this to autonomy. But utility and contracts do not make us human. The call to communion does. Politics may order life, but it cannot define life.
A social movement is a living thing. Imbued with energy. In motion to stay in motion. Newton points out that this object only stops if acted upon by a superior force. A correction.
The progressive movement for autonomy and individualism, once good in an oppressive society, has run out of good work to do. It now eats the good. It has turned into cancer. Eating collective and healthy social connective tissue. It doesn’t know when to stop. Its activists feed voraciously until the white blood cells of the social immune system stop it.
Sadly, this is Trump. And MAGA. There would be no need, nor demand, for Trump were the progressive left not so depleted of moral good and helpful work to do.
Many decry this as an end to our norms. But our norms depended on consensus which were hijacked by activist elites intent on forceful reengineering of the social contract. That we, the majority, do not agree to. So, Progressives summoned Trump and his corrective. When our cherished norms become corrupted by those who demand they bend to “progress” - even though the majority of us disagree - it is time to topple those norms. To start again. That is what’s going on. And the Save Democracy! crowd are blinded to this underlying truth.
I was inoculated against woke nonsense by Steven Pinker's "The Blank Slate." This essay is an excellent "booster."
An excellent essay, and one that I will reference in the future for its description of human nature theories in political history.
Unfortunately, the section about "scientific racism" fell into the same trap the author is arguing against. There are still brain size differences between groups, IQ tests have never shown Whites as a the top performing group (that would be Ashkenazi Jews and then East Asians), and after IQ testing was improved (90+ years ago) they have always shown a persistent gap between different groups, even as all groups have improved (Flynn Effect).
Ironically, the IQ explanation for group equity gaps - the one thing that might actually destroy woke ideology - is that one thing that intellectuals fear to discuss honestly.
“You can throw nature out with a pitchfork, but it will always come running back.”
The "correlation" between "brain size" and IQ tests is correlation, NOT causation. Brain size *might* be correlated with some of those things tested for on an "IQ test", which proves---nothing. When the farmer is driving Einstein across Death Valley at 115º and the truck quits, who's the genius? "It's all relative". There are more variations in ability within "groups" than between them, making such claims of "top performing" even more ridiculous.
There are are so many things correlated with IQ test results that it is certainly measuring something, and that something is one of the most predictive thing that psychology has right now.
The "groups" exist as patterns of genetic differences. What matters for this argument is whether or not those genetic differences include socially important traits (not just skin color and face morphology).
In my opinion, this topic is an example of an "elite misinformation bubble," where the smart and educated people in our society are just not aware of the science.
I think the Einstein analogy is accurate - it is all relative. When we were all farmers, IQ didn't matter much. But it makes a big difference in the modern society we live in. Maybe it won't matter so much if AI takes over.
You touched upon the moral framework that first accompanied the concept of autonomy connecting it to religious beliefs. But personally, it seems the moral framework of Aristotle and more recently articles about intellectual virtues Are a better foundation for maintaining liberal democratic republics. Basically, I side with Montesquieu, Alistair McIntyre et al on the need for civic and intellectual virtues as the educational foundation for a liberal democratic republic. Institutional protections against the natural tendency for individuals and groups to abuse power are insufficient.
Todd: AMEN.
From this essay by Prof. Fukuyama:
In early modern Europe, autonomy was understood as the right to make choices within
pre-existing moral frameworks, frameworks established by various religious traditions.
I have previously mentioned to Prof. Fukuyama that it seems to me that, while Liberalism is "the water in which we swim" (or at least used to until the time of the Orange Menace), in our modernity who is teaching us how to swim? The pre-existing frameworks were "established by various religious traditions." The early liberals *assumed* that these frameworks would continue to be "established" and taught. They didn't even *consider* that such teaching might fade and so they couldn't, and didn't, make any framework whereby those values could be continued, as they *needed* to be. And those values are absolutely critical to dealing with the *emotional* side of human beings. Rationality and thought and "intellectual" are all great and absolutely necessary. But as we know from Haidt and Kahneman, sorry, but we ain't rational! How does the emotional/moral side of humans get shaped to allow civil harmony? It IS possible--visit Japan and you'll see. We've failed miserably to do that, and we're paying the ultimate price for our failure. I think there is a set of morals/values/goals that we can pretty much all agree on: the non-religious 6 of the Decalogue and The Golden Rule. Beyond that, communities should, can and do form around *other* issues. Belong if you want, join a different one if you want. But DO NOT forget the essentials that bind all such communities and all humans. This is our "educational foundation for a liberal democratic republic." How do we recover it? CAN we recover it, or are we doomed to more and more nastiness and thuggery?
Interesting, but your comment seems to ignore the evolution in moral values that has occurred since the "pre-existing values of various religions" were supreme. If you took a snap shot of moral values 5000 years ago, you would see something vastly different, but something that evolved into the "pre-existing values of various religions" and from which current values have evolved.
Sorry, I am not aware of how such values have changed since the beginnings of liberalism. I think, but don't know, that most/all religions have a basic creed fairly similar to the Decalogue. Even the "pre-existing values" included, for example, the Golden Rule. They just didn't think "the other guys" were humans so it was OK to kill them righteously. Sound like Islamic Jihad to you? History has been one of an expanding definition of who humanity is (see slavery) but in my view NOT a change in how humans should be treated. Did you have something else in mind?
I am claiming that the moral values actually held by people have changed over time. New moral norms have been added and others removed. This seems obvious. You point out "who should be considered human" has changed - that is big one. Your view of how people should be treated is not one most actual people have held. So I am not sure what you mean.
Sorry but in >2000 years I don't see much change in the Decalogue, The Golden Rule or in how people think they ought to be treated. Perhaps I'm talking about something much more basic than "moral norms have been added and others removed"? Are you thinking of "laws" as "moral norms"? Yes, the devil is in the details but if you aren't using the foundation for starters the details will indeed be messed up and frequently changed to accommodate social change. And to reiterate, my point is that liberalism didn't think they would have to, and so didn't, deal with the emotional side of humans. If we believe the non-religious 6 of the 10 in the Decalogue and the Golden Rule are the way we should live and behave, who's teaching that now?
I am talking about the way people used to behave that we would now consider abnormal, if not immoral. Few people now think cat burning or gruesome public executions are entertaining. Before the Enlightenment, Europeans thought it was immoral not to be a Christian. Before that to be a Protestant, before that to be an Arian, before that to be a Christian. One didn't need to doubt someone's humanity to kill or persecute them, wrong beliefs were enough.
Look at the Vikings: your decalogue was more of a to do list for them. They evolved into one of the most moral societies we know (also one of low religiosity).
Fukuyama reduces human nature to biology and politics. Passions, genes, and evolution are made primary, with contracts and states set up to manage them. That confuses accident for essence.
Hobbes and Rousseau leaned on theology even while turning it inside out. Hobbes made original sin into the war of all against all. Rousseau moved corruption from the self to society. Both relied on Christian terms but transformed them into new forms.
Neither faced the deeper truth. Human beings are more than nature or culture. We are drawn beyond both—toward truth, beauty, and the infinite. Liberalism shrinks this to autonomy. But utility and contracts do not make us human. The call to communion does. Politics may order life, but it cannot define life.
Excellent Frank. Superb.
A social movement is a living thing. Imbued with energy. In motion to stay in motion. Newton points out that this object only stops if acted upon by a superior force. A correction.
The progressive movement for autonomy and individualism, once good in an oppressive society, has run out of good work to do. It now eats the good. It has turned into cancer. Eating collective and healthy social connective tissue. It doesn’t know when to stop. Its activists feed voraciously until the white blood cells of the social immune system stop it.
Sadly, this is Trump. And MAGA. There would be no need, nor demand, for Trump were the progressive left not so depleted of moral good and helpful work to do.
Many decry this as an end to our norms. But our norms depended on consensus which were hijacked by activist elites intent on forceful reengineering of the social contract. That we, the majority, do not agree to. So, Progressives summoned Trump and his corrective. When our cherished norms become corrupted by those who demand they bend to “progress” - even though the majority of us disagree - it is time to topple those norms. To start again. That is what’s going on. And the Save Democracy! crowd are blinded to this underlying truth.
yes, this essay is interesting and persuasive. Thanks, Mr, FF.