Are Blacks Dumber?

New York magazine's cover story is entitled, "Are Jews Smarter?" The unspoken, but unavoidable flip side of that question, of course, is, "Are Blacks Dumber?" Along with, "Are Latinos Dumber?" and "Are Arabs Dumber?"

Basically, "Are Gentiles Dumber?"

The article makes a lot of interesting points. Frankly, I got lost in some of the explanation regarding genetic ties between intelligence and diseases to which Jews are susceptible. But I think the article glosses over the most meaningful correlation.

As it points out, a dramatically high proportion of the Jewish males looked at in the study were involved in professions (as indicated by hundreds of years of records) that required mastery, or at least proficiency, of high-order mental skills. It seems to me that if a culture, or a sub-culture, places a value on intelligence -- and places that value in such a way as to positively influence reproductive rates -- it should be unsurprising almost to the point of being uninteresting that the culture's intelligence rate rises.

In other words, if the women aren't attracted to and won't marry and won't bear the children of the dumb Jews, the dumb genes die with their lonely, frustrated carriers. Repeat that for a few generations, then think about the fact that the cycle will keep repeating -- the dumbest of even this now-smarter culture will continue getting selected out.

Whatever inheritable trait gets you laid is the one that wins the battle of shaping future generations. If you live in a culture where short guys are a laughing stock, check back in a few hundred years and see how many there are. If you live in a culture where violence is a constant threat, women will likely flock toward capable protectors -- rewarding either the physicality and/or intelligence responsible for that capability.

I have no idea whether the article's "evidence" of Jewish smartness is valid or not (and even if it is, let's not make the racist's mistake of assuming that intelligence differences have any moral bearings on, well, anything). But assuming consistency over time, in the absence of countervailing factors, there's no way a societal emphasis and a corresponding reproductive emphasis on intelligence could not at some point yield a higher level of intelligence. If you keep selecting for a trait, you will get it.

The political component of this is not the standard PC argument about whether discussing genetics is racist. The political component of this is patriotism. Every day we as a nation make choices about what kind of behavior to reward and to celebrate. Right now, we seem to have elevated dysfunctional stupidity -- of the supposedly "moral" religious variety and of the supposedly immoral celebreality variety -- as the quickest route to fame. We have also embraced (well, not recently, but you know what I mean) a president who openly denigrates the value of education. In doing so, we tell our males that they can gain esteem, status and power by acting like idiots. We discourage females from seeking intelligent, educated males and encourage them to seek the idiots: Those likely to reap society's rewards of status, wealth and power.

If we continue this trend, for generation after generation, what will we turn America into? We saw a preview of it in a recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution article that tracked the correlation between institutional southern ignorance and the social price paid. We're already starting to lose ground to other cultures -- Indian, Asian, European -- that value intelligence more than we do. Their economies and lifestyles and achievements increasingly rival, and sometimes surpass, our own.

Every time we make a choice about what we value, every time we buy something, praise something, ridicule something, discuss something, we're choosing either to help strengthen our country or to weaken it.

That's enough from me for now. "Breaking Bonaduce" is on...