Charles Murray, a sociologist by background and a datanaut by inclination, has carved out a prominent place in American intellectual debate by the simple expedient of writing clearly about difficult subjects. He is an Enlightenment Regular Guy, who does not want Americans to lose ground, or be split apart or be cast asunder by imperious...
Read MoreIn the mysterious way these things come round, it's been a mustache month. There was this weird story about Harry Harris, our Ambassador to South Korea. He has a mustache. He was born in Japan to a Japanese mother and American father. That's got the South Koreans stirred up. O-kay. Given that we have committed...
Read MoreHere’s George Orwell reviewing Russell's Power: A New Social Analysis in 1939: Today, eighty-one years later, we have sunk much further, to depths of reality-denial that even Orwell could not have imagined. So here is Charles Murray—a very intelligent man—stepping up to do his duty. (For my take on Charles Murray, his work, and his...
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Originally published in Academic Questions, October, 2018 (click here for original) reposted by permission When Charles Murray's book Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950 was published in 2003, I was assigned to review it. Forming my thoughts after reading the book, I recalled an earlier exchange...
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How can a heretic safely and openly discuss taboo topics? Not easy, particularly on today’s intolerant university campuses, but history shows multiple tactics to overcome censorship. It’s just a question of being creative and knowing the limits. Familiar examples have included using non-human parables—think Animal Farm— substituting the neutral sounding euphemisms such as “at-risk youngster”...
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Here’s something I did enjoy watching—as opposed to the Clinton/ Trump debate.It’s intelligent, instructive, and thought-provoking, and so the opposite of retail politics. It was balm on my wounded psyche, 84 minutes of sunlit good sense after a raging storm of gibberish—a panel held at the National Press Club (boo!) last week: Immigration and Less-Educated...
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JayMan • September 20, 2015 • 3,300 Words
Post updated, 9/23/15 9/22/15. See below! This will be the first column in a series on the broad human behavioral dimension dubbed "clannishness" by HBD Chick. I've talked quite about clannishness here, and of course it is the main theme of HBD Chick's blog. For background, see: start here | hbd chick clannishness defined |...
Read MoreJayMan • December 26, 2013 • 2,500 Words
"Racial Reality" (RR), also known as "Italianthro," has apparently responded to my challenge. He claims to have left a comment to my post, but I didn't see one. I haven't looked in my spam box in a while, so if it ended up there, it may have gotten deleted (spam comments are automatically deleted after...
Read MoreJayMan • January 4, 2013 • 2,000 Words
Now that the blogosphere has discovered my finding that conservatives are outbreeding liberals by a rather large margin, many have taken it as a reason to rejoice. The genes for "pathological altruism" (which are a feature of the special evolutionary path that Northwestern Europeans have undertaken, which seems to result in such traits), which gives...
Read MoreWhat's the matter with wealthy, white Massachusetts?
As a European historian specializing in the 19th century, I’ve never been able to figure out what American journalists and politicians (not to mention academic sociologists) mean when they refer to “classes.” This term has two time-tested meanings. Either we’re talking about social groupings with legally recognized statuses which until the 19th century had certain...
Read MoreJayMan • June 1, 2012 • 8,100 Words
Edit, 10/26/12: I've added a table of contents, to make navigating through this long post easier! Unlike the vast majority of HBD'ers, I lean to the political Left on a variety of issues. The primary reason for this is that most of the stuff that comes out of mainstream conservatives in America is utter insanity....
Read MoreHow Niall Ferguson Can Save the World from the Rabble Unfit to Rule An interesting conservative meme is bubbling to the surface in time for the 2012 presidential election. Call it “The Rabble Are Unfit to Rule.” In essence, it’s trying to turn the 99% doctrine on its head, saying “Yes, I am the 1%....
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