Heterodox Academy: A Good Idea Gone Awry? | Nathan Cofnas

[@jonathan-anomaly]

Excellent interview! Thanks for publishing the article and interviewing the author

[@brianmeen2158]

I love your work Jonathan!

[@danstewart2770]

Thank you Dr. Confas for an excellent discussion.

[@michaels4255]

O'Sullivan's Law: "Any organization that is not explicitly right wing will eventually become left wing!"

[@theeuropeanperspective3391]

Great interview, thanks! "Wokism ends when people understand the reason for racial disparities", says Cofnas. I think that more is needed. Wokism appears in many different areas, not just in the race area. It appears, for example, in sexuality, 'body positivity', religion, etc. These are identity categories, but arguably Wokism is also present in other areas like 'climate change' and 'immigration'. All these have links to each other, and a person who has a particular view on any of these will probably have a predictable view on others as well. It's like a network of attitudes mutually supporting and reinforcing one another. Trying to fight Wokism by focusing only on the race issue is important but probably not enough. Cofnas focuses on making people understand the empirical validity of the genetic basis of racial disparities. Again, this is important but probably not enough: there is also a value issue underlying Wokism with regard to race. It is the idea that races SHOULD be equal and that it is bad if they are not equal. One should ask: why is it bad if people are not equal? In fact, the example of West African sprinters, dominating Olympic games shows that most people have no problem living with this kind of inequality - even if this is caused largely by genetics. Why is I*Q inequality different? Most educated people would nowadays reject a full-on blank slatism with regard to I*Q differences - WITHIN one race. In other words, they would accept that the I*Q bell curve of whites, blacks, etc. is at least partially caused by genetics. What many of these same individuals would, however, reject, is the idea that the difference in the peak of the bell curves of whites and blacks might be partially caused by genetics. They desperately want this difference to be purely environmentally caused, and thus possible to be erased by some environmental measures like education, fighting 'racism', etc. The motivation behind this is the idea, as mentioned above, that it is not acceptable if races are unequal in the I*Q area. This idea of insisting on equality needs to change before Wokism can be defeated in the area of race (and presumably in other areas, too).

[@jwf2125]

I’d like to hear McWhorter’s response to the claims made about him here. And I’d like to see a discussion between this guest and Haidt.

[@williamfarmer5154]

I have actually heard McWhorter say that he doesn't believe there are any racial differences in average intelligence.

[@carolblume5073]

@@williamfarmer5154 Ikr. He said as much on Glenn Loury's podcast 6/25/21 after Charles Murray's latest book came out. Wish somebody would give him a talking-to. If a scientist is trying to solve the problem, get out of the way. My hope is that it will help decrease violent crime. If you think about the big picture, it's not the most intelligent thing to do.

[@brianmeen2158]

@@williamfarmer5154I like mcwhorter but how does he wave away the large amount of data regarding IQ? That’s what I don’t understand about many academics - they pretend that that type of data doesn’t exist …?

[@nickelmouse451]

@@brianmeen2158 Not sure I know the quote, but the general position of sceptics here is the argument given by James Flynn. The argument isn't that there are not average differences between racial groups whose IQ is tested. The argument is that race is a negligible factor in explaining this. Why is it that mixed race children (whose fathers were Black American soldiers) had much higher IQ scores than mixed race children raised in the USA? Why is it that African school kids do incredibly well in British schools, but Jamaican school kids don't? It's because there is a difference in culture.

[@duncanweller1]

When I was a kid I hid my drawing talents because it made other children, just a few, jealous. The fist instance was when I suddenly got a lot of attention in class in Grade five from the other students and from the teachers. I didn't think much of it then - it was fun. But when I got to high school I hid my abilities, except in art class, because my abilities seemed to upset some kids. In university it was very clear: I began to make some people very jealous. I was chased down by an older adult student one day who told me that I might be able to capture a likeness of someone, but I couldn't capture their soul. Anyway, things got stranger and stranger. I switched to English Lit and headed off into the real world when I lost interest in getting my Masters degree. I could make this a long story, but suffice it to say, I learned from my experiences and others that many people are utterly terrified of talented people. We're talking about Canada. It might be different in the U.S. The idea that some people might be born with a genetic propensity to be naturally good at something scares some people. I've never had that same feeling. When I meet people with natural abilities I'm always impressed. And I just assume I can learn something from them. I'm beginning to think that this woke ideology started in the arts - whenever it was in history when it was determined that anyone could be an artist, whether they were talented or not. And today, to be an artist, you certainly don't need talent. It is now a very egalitarian endeavour. Problem is, the public aren't fooled by it. They can tell when someone is talented and many do in fact support us. I have no problem selling my children's picture books because people really like them. I'm told, by parents, that books for children today are too dumb for their kids and the artwork and stories are generally terrible. Anyway, I could go on, but... you get the idea. I think the universities are suffering from Egalitarian creep and envy. Thanks for the video. Got me thinking.

[@michaels4255]

Toqueville said that this was what democracy would lead to. If we would teach heredity and genetics at every grade level, I think we could improve people's attitudes, but the education policy makers would never tolerate that. We are living through a genomics revolution, but most people are kept in the dark about how inheritance works because of the obsession with equality.

[@robertramsay5963]

Interesting comment. I hid my writing ability. It was so embarrassing when the high school teacher would read my essays to the class.

[@carriersailor2474]

@@robertramsay5963 I was accused of tracing a picture of Mao in a class when the teacher showed my drawing. The voice was anonymous. I was pleased - I was an introvert, and had no desire to stand up and take applause. The pic was a copy of the back of a thin bio of Mao I was reading - happily, it did not turn that little conservo version of me into a Maoist. The pic on the book was about one third the size of my copy. So it was impossible to have been a trace. I felt very pleased - to me, it meant that the guy who said that thought the pic was a very good one. I and another kid also took a shot at making a comic book about that High School. Fail! We never got to even one copy. I spent way too much time on one detailed drawing of one teacher, inspired by a Mad Magazine picture of an out-of-touch rich guy. My partner never completed the script. Oh well! Kid times - as they sang on "All in the Family" - those were the days!

[@johnsolheid48]

I'm curious. Dr. Cofnas dismissed bad Democrat policies as a causal factor in current disparities. However, there is pretty substantial evidence that the welfare state has had catastrophic effects on the African American community. Thomas Sowell has shown rather convincingly in a number of works, notably Discrimination and Disparities, that, if we compare the status of African Americans at the beginning of the 1960's with their status today, we find that in many ways, they are worse off (unemployment, single parent families, crime, etc.). Walter Williams, Wilfred Riley, Shelby Steele, have all made similar arguments. While that is not the only causal factor for current disparities, you can't just discount that as a poor explanation.

[@flacjacket]

I think his point is that conservatives act as if these policies are causal when really they merely amplifying the consequences of an extant condition which they ostensibly sought to redress. It is still laying the blame of the differential in outcome at the feet of society when it properly belongs (by all empirical evidence) at the feet of biology. As long as you can blame society you justify utopian managerialism, you justify the perpetual revolution which can never be completed until absolute equality of outcome asserts itself, which will never happen in the absence of oppressive force against those who would otherwise rise above the bassest level. Moreover it is just another capitulation of the spineless conservatives to the framing of their enemies, which is why they always lose.

[@harrying882]

Only when plains start falling out of the sky, and theatre patients refusing to be operated by them will anything change.

[@morthim]

'johnathan haidt went woke' when wasnt he woke?

[@brianmeen2158]

I was wondering what heterodox academy was getting done.. I saw them release a few videos that got a decent amount of views but like many of the others that earned about wokeism - it was only endless talking and nothing in the way of solutions. At least Desantis and rufo are trying to actually change policy even though it won’t have much effect overall

[@morthim]

'hetrodox academy failed' wait it exists?