The Coming Storm

www.fredoneverything.net ^ | 4/29/2004 | Fred Reed

[chasio649]

The Bell Curve, an excellent book more maligned than read, pointed out a trend seldom noticed. The authors called it “cognitive stratification,” not a phrase Byron would have chosen but serviceable enough. It means the concentration of the intelligent.

In 1850 people of high intelligence were dispersed through the population. If the child of a cowboy had an IQ of 160, he would probably remain in the geographical region with cowboys. He might be more successful than most, and might choose as friends the quicker wits thereabouts. Yet he would be part of the community.

A cowboy could be intelligent, but didn’t have to be. But then came the professions that required high intelligence. The dull-witted cannot work as programmers, chemists, engineers, doctors, or investment brokers. They can be decent and productive. They cannot write assembly code for a planetary probe.

In 1850 there were few jobs requiring the very bright. Today they abound. Universities began to scour the country for the highly intelligent. These, once found, met each other at elite universities or, later, in the places where the bright concentrated to work: Laboratories, software houses, hospitals, magazine journalism, and occasionally law firms. They married each other. Their children tended to be bright. The result has been that the bright tend to live, play, work, and sleep almost entirely with each other.

An opposite concentration occurs at the other end of the curve. In the cities the bright among the ghetto rise and leave for the suburbs. Who is left behind? If, generation after generation, the smartest take themselves out of the gene pool, the results will be just what we see. This is the underclass. It exists. It is larger than most people suspect. It is dangerous.

“Underclass” is not synonymous with “blacks.” There is a large and, I gather, growing black middle class. There is a substantial white component in the underclass. In the barrios of California one encounters Mexican unsalvageables. Whatever their color, they share low intelligence, little education, bastardy, and a tendency toward antisocial behavior. (Or, as we call it in English, “crime.”) They have no attachment to the standards that constitute civilization. They hate those above them.

Many of the insulated bright imagine themselves to be liberal (an arguable proposition), to care about “the people,” and to favor “diversity.” Few I’ll guess have had any contact with the underclass, or even with people who don’t have degrees. They have never been in South Central, never spent time in roadside stores in backcountry Kentucky or hung out with the crackers of Florida. They have never really met even normally intelligent rural people, whom they call “rednecks.” At their parties you do not see bus drivers or cops or factory hands.

If they knew “the people” they would not like them. The diversity they ideologically approve are people they viscerally detest. Down inside they must know this: It is why they avoid them. The diverso-elite alliance is a fragile one.

The elite do not understand, or perhaps more correctly refuse to admit, how very limited are the dull. They can’t concede that the course of managed improvement that they once believed in for the underclass, and try still to believe in, won’t work. Thus for example they call for programs to close the “cybergap,” and bring the internet to the downtrodden. They don’t understand that the downtrodden can’t use the internet, and aren’t interested.

The very bright assume without thinking that people can learn anything they choose. A woman who graduates from Yale in biochemistry takes for granted that if she wants to learn Italian, she can. It will take time and effort but she will have no doubt as to the outcome. New digital camera? She can figure out how to use it without the manual. She is used to gas chromatographs and gene sequencers. Learn PhotoShop? She just does it. After all, it’s only software. She assumes, unless she thinks carefully, that people know history, politics, literature, because she does and everyone she knows does.

It isn’t so. There are huge numbers of people who don’t read books, have never read a book, who can’t read. According to Newsweek,* forty-seven percent of Detroit is functionally illiterate. The illiterate live in a mental world beyond the capacity of a biochemist to imagine. Try to erase from your mind everything that you have ever read. Then imagine regarding a camera as simply incomprehensible. Or a checkbook.

The cognitive elite tend to favor diversity and affirmative action. They say that they believe that all groups are equally intelligent, and furiously resist evidence to the contrary. Yet by now they have to know it isn’t true. Believing what you know to be false, pretending to like people you naturally loathe, stresses the tectonic plates. A spring is being wound.

The potential for conflict is high. The underclass—the diversity—exacts a price. It is responsible for crime, almost all crime, which carries with it the cost of the prisons, police forces, decay of the cities, welfare both open and hidden, and a decline in the tenor of life.

The need to make the merely dull-witted seem not to be, even though they are not necessarily of the underclass, degrades the schools. The beneficiaries of affirmative actions, though they are seldom of the underclass, are frequently of the same racial groups. This fuels a quiet anger, a racial anger, among the middle class, who among themselves no longer even pretend that things are not as they obviously are. It isn’t quite reasonable that it should be racial, but it is.

The elite can buy their way into safe neighborhoods and better schools. The economic middle class cannot. They resent paying for welfare, resent taking up the slack for workers who don’t, and have no ideological attachment to diversity. As the baby boomers retire, suggest some,** the cost of their maintenance to the working middle class will become so burdensome as to engender revolt.

Diversity as a spoils system just may be heading toward its end. It’s curious: I don’t know anyone who objects to hiring without regard to race, creed, or color. I know almost no one who isn’t angry about affirmative action--and about the enstupidation of the schools for the benefit of the uninterested, and about unending crime…. If the dam finally breaks, what then?

[tsomer]

This is Horse Sh_t.

We are forever underestimating people, to our own detriment.

[archy]

Aside from inflation? I don't know, but reflecting on my own experience, in the 60's $3000 bought you tuition at a good college, or a good car. Now, $30,000 does the same thing.

Except, the cars have gotten better.

I had a 1965 auto with an aluminum block engine and other engineering features that kept its weight to around 3100 pounds, had independent suspension that combined with the right radial tires resulted in excellent handling that could corner with a Porsche 911, could seat 5 reasonably comfortably, had a speedometer calibrated to 140MPH and could reach at least a measured 125MPH in a half-mile, and shared it's 108-inch wheelbase with it's Chevy Nova stablemate, a bit longer than the later Chevy Citation. A trailer-towing stiffer suspension was available as an option, as was a choice of turbocharged or 4-carburator versions, and seat belts provided by the Irwin Parachute company were standard, at least in the sportier models.

In 1965, it carried a stickerprice around $2100, depending on options, of course, but easily in the $2000-$2500 range.

I do not believe such a bargain can now be had for 10 times that price. Nor for twenty times the 1965 cost.

I understand one of the old ones will be competing against some of the most recent factory offerings in the next Coast-to-Coast *Cannonball Rally* road race, and some other competitors driving current production machinery are running scared about the prospect. I'm looking for a good example for rebuild myself.

[Cultural Jihad]

We are forever underestimating people, to our own detriment.

Exactly. The Ubermenchen ideologues endlessly worry and fret over the 'Untermenchen,' much to the detriment of those less-valued as well.

[ought-six]

"People with lots of brains and lots of money "team with" (i.e. use) people with little brains and little money to get the votes to reach into the pocket of people with regular brains and regular money (i.e. the rest of the Country)."

You have just defined liberalism and the Left, and the political party they comprise: The Democrats.

[cyborg]

Maybe I'm watching too much MTV's Pimp My Ride.

[FastCoyote]

"Absolutely! Extremely intelligent people tend to talk themselves out of big business deals. Some are also so busy delving into and exploring everything, they're the happiest people on earth, but not monetarily successful. Many are so occupied that they also tend to socially inept (I've seen some that shouldn't be let out! LOL!)"

I have learned through much experience that it is the kiss of death to let a techie or scientist get anywhere near a business deal (I'm getting better at it, but include myself in this description). It is a truism that some people are smarter than others (a reality that is only controversial in a politically correct Gulag). But it is not a truism that smart people are successful.

[archy]

Maybe I'm watching too much MTV's Pimp My Ride.

I'd say so. Would you really go to a drive-in movie in one of those beasties?

Or would you rather go in something of this sort:

[petercooper]

Lack of common sense is inherent in all IQ ranges.

Perfect!

[cyborg]

I like.

[FITZ]

I don't doubt that the elites know many in the non-elite class, (their groundskeepers, clerks, etc.)

They don't but the groundskeepers, clerks etc aren't necessarily low IQ and the kids of the groundskeepers and cleaning ladies might be as bright as the kids of the elite --but to find the really low IQ'd you can go down to the welfare office where you see moronic looking women who have no clue who the daddy was --- and they're being paid to breed. How many in the IQ range of 60 to 80 are reproducing because the government sends them a check.

[Bon mots]

Are these immigrant gangs??
I moved abroad to get away from that. It worked.

[Lady Jag]

I have learned through much experience that it is the kiss of death to let a techie or scientist get anywhere near a business deal

Haha! The really smart ones don't want to.

Measering intellect should NOT be unPC! It's insane that we're not testing kids in school. Many lives are wasted by not knowing where their talents lie.

[Cicero]

I read The Marching Morons when it came out. Very amusing book. Kornbluth and Pohl collaberated on some excellent SF novels.

There's some truth in this, but not much. No one who has not lived in academia could believe how dumb many people in our best colleges actually are. They are appointed for ideological reasons or affirmative action, not for talent.

Most of my colleagues in the humanities are totally ignorant of the sciences and mathematically challenged, to say the least.

Intelligence is not the same thing as common sense, wisdom, courage, or moral virtue. Not all stupid people turn to crime. As we've discussed here in other threads, many so-called mentally challenged people are kinder, nicer, and even wiser in some ways than people with high IQs.

[Gritty]

Most of this problem is not an IQ or affirmative action problem. It is a moral problem, which translates into a cultural problem.

Thieves and lazy scoundrels are, well, thieves and lazy scoundrels. Many have high IQs and come in all skin colors.

Who would you rather have as a neighbor and a friend - bubba and hildabeast clinton, some Hollyood glitterati, a poverty pimp, a welfare momma with a passle of illegitimate brats,... or the man who sits near you in church every Sunday, is the school janitor, drives a 15 year old car and whose wife works at Wal-Mart to try to keep her kids in clothes?

Answering that question tells you just where you fit in this story!

[Veracious Poet]

Welcome to the intentional balkanization of our once great republic, brought to you by the GOP & DNC in bi-partisan cooperation...

[FITZ]

I would bet it is --- something like this immigrant neighborhood --- which is not exactly poverty stricken --- the cholos often aren't poor at all --- it seems to be the values they are raised with:

http://www.borderlandnews.com/stories/borderland/20040502-112896.shtml

Five alleged gang members were arrested after a Thursday night spree of bashing car windows and assaults with bats, bricks and tire irons on the far East Side and Lower Valley, police said.

The five men were arrested by the police gang unit on aggravated assault and criminal mischief charges late Thursday and early Friday after an investigation.

Gang officers arrested Jaime Renteria, 19, of the 100 block of Roman Gabriel; Victor Valle, 18, of the 3400 block of East Glen; and Jose Cordova, 22, Ivan Cordova, 18, and Daniel Cordova, 17, all of the 12900 block of Brandeis.

About 7:30 p.m., an unidentified man was allegedly assaulted in the 3500 block of East Glen, and the windows of his vehicle were broken, police spokesman Javier Sambrano said.

Later, on Lee Treviño Drive, the group allegedly threw a beer can and smashed a car window with a crowbar.

About 10:20 p.m., the group allegedly confronted Abraham Lazo, 19, and Marcos Lazo, 22, at a home in the 9500 block of Grenada before the confrontation moved to the 200 block of Caribe, where a fight erupted, police said.

Abraham and Marcos Lazo were allegedly beaten with a baseball bat, a tire iron and bricks and were treated at Thomason Hospital.

[Lady Jag]

The study is old now, 1984, (but is the newest I have) where Johns Hopkins found the average MD's IQ was 105. Average people run this world.

[DameAutour]

The result has been that the bright tend to live, play, work, and sleep almost entirely with each other.

In my own experience this is true. I'm black. All of my family members are black. Most of the people I personally know are black. And we are all intelligent to highly intelligent. All of my friends are very intelligent people. Genetics and attraction being what they are, my parents and my brother and my aunts and uncles are all intelligent people who married other intelligent people and had intelligent children (except for one stupid cousin).

In fact, it was many years before I realized that high IQ is not something black people are known for. I used to dispute "The Bell Curve" because all of the black people I know well are very intelligent. Now I know that the book was telling the truth, about so many things.

With the influction of illegals, the underclass is only going to grow exponentially larger. And because of outsourcing and the "global economy", the intelligent people who would have emigrated to the United States for opportunities can now stay in their own countries.

[MissAmericanPie]

The gangs are a mixed bag. Many are illegals, who seem happy to tell our kids to go back to Europe. The Crypts have this area, and wear blue, though some of the ones that attacked my son were Crypts, and the ones I confronted were Crypts, most were not. There is a type that likes to run in packs and can't be officially called a gang, though in effect this is what they are.

This incident was certainly not the first, the situation had been building to a climax for about two or three years. Us avoiding trouble and them looking for trouble.

My husband had caught them stealing the third replacement bike from our front porch and retrieved it, much to the howling and screaming of the mother I had the conflict with later, while her son got on his cell phone to call someone to, as he put it, "pop a cap in us".

My husband's idea has always been to avoid trouble, ignore it, buy a new bike and go on, and that's a good idea and he's the boss. But that night when I saw those little savages chasing my son, I lost it big time. I was just fortunate that all the police did, when they caught up with me, is really chew me out good for risking my life. I spent weeks after that afraid that the woman would press assult charges on me. She vanished, fortunately. Packed up her family and moved.

[Ronzo]

His parents taught them good values and hard work.

You nailed if FITZ...

It's not "intelligence" or "knowledge" that's important for life, it's values. The problem with our inner city poor is not their lack of intelligence, it's their lack of values.

I know several people who have worked with the poorest of the poor here in American and around the world. They all say the same thing: it's not lack of knowledge or intelligence that seperates 'them' from 'us', but rather it's the poor's inability to have hope that things will ever get better.

The root problem is hopelessness.

It's true for inner city Detroit as it is for the slums of Calcutta. The poor have no hope, and therefore fall into a cycle of destruction, for they don't even 'value' themselves.

Values, is both a code of conduct and a mental state whereby one can stop the cycle of destruction and begin to fight the good fight.

If someone tells you that you are garbage your whole life, you then act like garbage.