Social Justice: An Analysis (Part 3)

Below is the third part of a four-part guest essay by Richard Cocks about Social Justice. Previously: Part 1, Part 2

Social Justice: An Analysis

Part 3
by Richard Cocks

Differences in achievement by sex and ethnic groups

Black players make up 70% of the NFL despite black males being just 6.5% of the population. Similarly, blacks are the majority of NBA players, 74%, and are routinely the top stars. The best Olympic sprinters and marathon runners are usually black. These are gross differences of achievement with social and genetic causes.

The idea that racial disparities are inherently a problem does not seem to apply when blacks outperform whites. Likewise, when it comes to the sexes, areas where women far outnumber men or do better are ignored. Sometimes the mathematics simply does not work. 75% of psychology majors are women; not a problem. 33.7% of philosophy majors are women;[1] a problem. Since women are only 50.5% of the population, there are not enough of them to equal men in every field and also to be a large majority in other disciplines. However, to rectify this situation, numerically women would have to stop choosing psychology and other majors where they dominate simply to produce numbers more pleasing to those obsessed with “equality.” This would mean restricting freedom and choice to the detriment of women. This kind of social engineering pressure can be seen when stay-at-home mothers are frowned upon by their feminist peers.

There is evidence that the more egalitarian a society is the more the sexes make different occupational and educational choices. Being able to freely choose exacerbates differences and thus “inequalities.” Women as a group gravitate more towards socially-oriented jobs if they are given the opportunity. This is why women who do well in STEM subjects frequently choose non-STEM careers.

Consider that Finland excels in gender equality, its adolescent girls outperform boys in science, and it ranks near the top in European educational performance.[2] With these high levels of educational performance and overall gender equality, Finland is poised to close the sex differences gap in STEM. Yet, Finland has one of the world’s largest sex differences in college degrees in STEM fields. Norway and Sweden, also leading in gender equality rankings, are not far behind. This is only the tip of the iceberg, as this general pattern of increasing sex differences with national increases in gender equality is found throughout the world.[3][4]

Three factors probably contribute to male ascendency in STEM areas. One is that men tend to be more “thing” and abstract-concept oriented, e.g., scientific theory, than women.[5] Young girls are likely to draw social scenes, young boys an action scene. When women are interested in science, they tend to be more interested in living things — fields such as biology, or veterinary science.[6] Another is that sexual selection pressures from women favor men who earn more money with the associated high social status which STEM careers provide. Women who earn large salaries, on the contrary, find it harder to marry, especially given their proclivity to marry across and up the social strata. Finally, many males who have high math skills have a correspondingly low emotional intelligence. There is no such correlation with women. Women who are good at math are good readers more often than men.[7] So, men gifted in STEM subjects tend to have fewer career options than math-savvy women with their superior social, linguistic and verbal skills.

When [women] first gained the opportunity to enter the workforce there were far more women in engineering [and computer science] than there is now. Numbers grew and then dropped steadily. Countries like India[8] and Iran have higher numbers of women in engineering,[9] even though they are far less equal. The reason [appears to be that] women wanted an education, regardless of what it was. In Scandinavia as women saw that they can choose what they’re interested in, as opposed to just choosing a college course for the sake of going college; we see that women choose socially oriented subjects.[10]

Less egalitarian areas of the world have numbers like Central Asia (47.2%), Latin American and the Caribbean (44.7%), Central and Eastern Europe (39.6%), and the Arab States (39.9%)[11] while the USA has (29%).[12]

The so-called wage gap between men and women is often presented as a problematic inequality. Sexual selection pressures account for some of this; women choosing high-earning men disproportionately. This forces men into different occupational choices — male-dominated jobs tending to have highly unattractive features like exposure to the elements, hard physical labor, poor chances of reaching retirement in that career and high chances for injury and death. These include firemen, policemen, loggers, roofers, contractors, miners, truckers, linesmen and so on. Consequently, supply and demand push up men’s wages.

Sexism seems to have little bearing on the topic. Never-married women make far more than never-married men, while married men with children make the most money. Men work more hours a week than women and commute, on average, twice as far. Factors like this mean that even when men and women do jobs with a similar description, men are likely to sacrifice more for their employment. See “Why Men Earn More, and What Women Can Do About It” based on the book of the same name by Warren Farrell.

A major factor is women interrupting their careers to look after children and also working part-time for the same reason. Given women’s superior interest in living things, social relations and generally more nurturing tendencies, this kind of division of labor makes sense.

When it comes to race, in education and employment, the top achievers are Asians, followed by Jews, then whites, then blacks. Asians with an IQ of 100 perform at a level of a white with an IQ of 120, 100 IQ Jews at the rate of 110 IQ whites and 100 IQ blacks at the level of 85 IQ whites.[13]

Thus “white privilege” is a misguided notion; a label that must be particularly galling for so-called “white trash.” The white child of a dirt farmer finds herself to be ineligible for affirmative action or perhaps the same degree of federal subsidies, despite having similar economic disadvantages to minorities. Any apparent plausibility in the notion of white privilege probably stems from the fact that the majority of Americans are white, and so it seems in principle that they might be in a position to somehow prevent black achievement. But in fact, as previously mentioned, Asians are by far the most successful ethnic group, and as a fairly small minority they have no ability to discriminate in a way that could change the economic performance of much larger groups.

Due to their superior economic performance, Asians are more likely to get bank loans and less likely to be fired than whites. Their educational success is so notable that top schools routinely discriminate against them to minimize “racial disparities.” Harvard, for instance, invented the admissions category of “leadership” qualities which can mean anything they want it to mean and cannot be objectively assessed in order to cut down on the number of Jews and Asians admitted.

It is relevant that only 2 in 10 Asians are born out of wedlock, 3 in 10 whites, 5 in 10 Hispanics, 6.6 in 10 Native Americans, and 7.7 in 10 blacks.[14] When black children have two married parents, their chances of economic success increase enormously and the likelihood of poverty decreases nearly to single digits.[15]

It seems that between 70% and 90% of violent crime is committed by fatherless men, and partly for this reason blacks are a slight majority of offenders, despite being a small proportion of the general population.[16] As such, a black man is far more likely to interact with the police than a white man. The more interactions, the greater chance things might go badly. Blacks are also more likely to get suspended from school due to behavioral problems. A future criminal is unlikely to have been a model student.

The notion of “disparate impact” has been invented to try to claim that rules against disruptive behavior at school are racist if they “impact” members of one racial group more than another. Asian students are the least likely to be disruptive, followed by whites, then Hispanics, then blacks. That is also the order of academic achievement and the reverse order of likelihood to be criminals. Rules affect those most who are most likely to break them. This is not unjust. When students are disruptive, all learning is negatively impacted by all racial groups — and it is the poorest students who are the most dependent on receiving education from schools rather than their home environments. So, well-behaved black students are likely to suffer the most from badly behaved students, a disproportionate number of whom will be black. Nevertheless, the Obama administration sent what is called a “Dear Colleague” letter backed by the Department of Justice suggesting that black and Hispanic students’ civil rights were being contravened by their heavier involvement in disciplinary actions.[17]

The Obama administration in another Dear Colleague letter, [18] went so far as to complain that there were racial disparities in special education classes and suggested that more white students should be admitted.[19] Forced attendance of students who do not need special education would be a very strange waste of time and money just to satisfy an elite’s taste in equal numbers.

Resentment

Resentment is endemic to the human condition and can never be eliminated. In The Discourse on Inequality, Jean-Jacques Rousseau commented that when social life consisted of sitting around a bonfire telling stories, singing or dancing, the less popular storyteller would resent the better. The inferior singer would wish he had the talents of the superior and feel resentful at the extra attention and praise the other received. The worse dancer admires the better, wishes to change places with him, and resents his rival.

Rousseau correctly postulated that as societies develop, these differences between people tend to produce more and more divergent results. In an “information” or “post-industrial” society, differences in IQ are likely to lead to relatively big differences in income, whereas in an agrarian situation, it might make far less difference.

Rousseau commented that comparisons generate hatred in the human heart. This led to his fantasy concerning a state of nature where individuals lived in total isolation punctuated by brief and random matings. Since humans are born and raised in human company, resentment is here to stay and no gross inequality of income is necessary to generate it.

Jordan Peterson comments that to exist is to be limited. Limitations are a source of suffering. No matter how powerful an individual is, there will be limits to his abilities and these will generate frustration. This means that some individuals will decide that they want to reject existence itself. They might also resent God as the infinite out of which their puny finite existence is carved. Thus resentment is something endemic to the human condition. Only by consciously affirming the value of existence can this be overcome. Each person must be careful not to take out his resentment on his neighbor, who will in some ways be his superior and thus symbolize the annihilation of limitation. For instance, a tenured professor might come to wish he had the status of an adjunct with no committee work or necessity to publish. The mighty can come to resent even the lowly.

In Gnosticism, Sophia — the next step down the metaphysical ladder from The One — is depicted as resenting the creative abilities of The One. In response she creates the Demiurge in imitation of The One and the fruits of her resentment are evil. Gnosticism recognizes that anything short of absolute infinitude can generate resentment, and the Gnostics imagined that the proper goal of all individual souls was to be annihilated by being reabsorbed into the One, their divine sparks merging with The Divine itself. By desiring the infinite, Gnostics desire nonexistence, and thus reject Life and Creation.

Resentment is an almighty “No!” directed at Life and God. This seems to account for the behavior of those horrible individuals who insist on murdering others before committing suicide themselves.

Resentment is not something to be cultivated and nourished. The social justice advocate, in order to garner support in a democracy for his cause, must actually foster resentment in himself and others. If the aim is to reduce resentment, then the SJW is the problem, not the solution.

Unjustified resentment is a strange combination of love and hate. One person wants someone else’s social status, wealth, looks, intelligence, way with the opposite sex, musicality or taste in clothes. In that regard, he loves the person’s qualities and wishes to possess them. However, he cannot be that person, since that position is occupied. Thus, the admired person is viewed as an obstacle to the admirer’s happiness and hated. A desire forms to destroy the obstacle and to take his status and possessions as his own.

This is the story of Cain and Abel. Abel is blessed by God and his sacrifices — the denial of current pleasures for future gains — are well-received. Cain’s efforts pale by comparison. A murderous rage and resentment overtakes him, leading him to kill his brother.

No huge disparity of wealth or power is necessary to have these feelings. At one point in English history the “Lord” had the right to take and wear the shirt of a low-born peasant when he died. The shirt had been worn for years and probably never washed.[20]

The living conditions of Cain and Abel or the Lord and his peasant, the singers, dancers and storytellers of Rousseau would have had the most minor of differences by other standards and yet resentment believably arises. One professor looks with jaundiced eye on some minor award or promotion received by another professor of the same rank; the beauty show runner-up resents the winner — though both are far prettier than nearly everyone else. An Olympic champion might envy the two-time Olympic champion.

Even where humility is the aim, there can be competition. In an old joke, a bishop stands up and says he is humbled to be in the presence of so many worthy gentlemen. The Archdeacon takes to his feet and repeats that he too is humbled to be addressing such an estimable audience. This goes on down the ranks until finally the lowliest, least prestigious priest announces how humble he feels. The Dean turns to the Archdeacon and says “Who is HE to feel humble?”

Under communism, the State itself and elite party leaders would be resented, this time with some justification, since the state becomes a tyranny. The pathological fantasy of communist equality eviscerated the general standard of living; everyone had to endure a police state driven by fear and mutual suspicion and still the dread beast of resentment lived on.

Trying to reduce economic-based resentment in this way is comparable to throwing acid in the faces of beautiful people when their beauty is resented, or cutting the tendons of top athletes; in short, of creating the world of Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron.

Sowell points out the unstoppable nature of resentment. Each person can potentially find one reason or another to resent another. A rich sibling might resent the happy marriage of another; a beautiful person might resent an intelligent one; an intellectual the satisfactions of manual employment with its tangible results; a wealthy person the job satisfaction of someone who actually enjoys his job; a successful person might envy parents who do not have a handicapped child, the stay-at-home parent envies going to work, the worker, staying at home. Eliminating all differences of wealth would not eliminate resentment.

It is possible even to envy those who feel less resentful. Resentment is a painful affliction, and to feel less of it is desirable. In a related fashion, on a meditation retreat it is possible to envy the apparent equanimity of fellow meditators and wish to possess their state of mind and self-control.

Any talent, natural or cultivated, can arouse admiration and thus resentment. The solution is not to ban talents. Any circumstance might appear enviable in some other circumstance. Do we ban circumstances?

Inculcating a feeling of gratitude might be more productive than dwelling on such differences. In other instances, envy can be used productively as an inspiration to copy the behavior of the envied person and try to learn from them.

With regard to resenting the success of companies: it is no skin off anyone’s nose if Apple makes an obscene profit. It is not as though the money Apple earns would otherwise find its way into the pockets of the average American citizen. Admittedly, there is something annoying about their high prices and their cash mountain with which they purportedly do not know what to do. But if their customers like their products and are willing to pay their prices, it is not up to anyone else to second-guess the transactions involved.

Coming up in Part 4: Who gets to be a student?

Richard Cocks is a commentator whose work has been published by Orthosphere, Sydney Traditionalist Forum, and University Bookman.

Notes:

1.   dailynous.com/2017/12/09/women-majoring-philosophy-schwitzgebel/
2.   World Economic Forum (2015). The Global Gender Gap Report 2015. Geneva, Switzerland: World Economic Forum; Programme for International Student Assessment, 2016; nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/
3.   Many sex differences are larger in gender-equal countries. Lippa, R.A., Collaer, M.L, & Peters, M. (2010). Sex Differences in Mental Rotation and Line Angle Judgments Are Positively Associated with Gender Equality and Economic Development Across 53 Nations. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 39, 990-997.
4.   quillette.com/2018/02/15/sex-stem-stubborn-facts-stubborn-ideologies/
5.   1 Su, R., Rounds. J., & Armstrong, P. I. (2009). Men and things, women and people. Psychological Bulletin, 135, 859-884.
6.   Lofstedt, J. (2003). Gender and veterinary medicine. The Canadian Veterinary Journal, 44, 533-535.
7.   Stoet, G., & Geary, D. C. (2015). Sex differences in academic achievement are not related to political, economic, or social equality. Intelligence, 48, 137-151.
8.   Government of India, Ministry of Human Resource Development, “Table 35: Out-Turn/Pass-Out at Under Graduate Level in Major Disciplines/Subjects (Based on Actual Response),” All India Survey on Higher Education (2015-16) (2016): p. T-103.
9.   www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-science-technology-engineering-and-mathematics-stem#footnote3_55lsi1x
10.   www.reddit.com/r/JordanPeterson/comments/6vrqy0/gender_differences_in_scandinavian_countries/
11.   www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-science-technology-engineering-and-mathematics-stem
12.   www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/01/27/more-students-earning-degrees-in-stem-fields-report-shows
13.   James R. Flynn, Asian Americans: Achievement Beyond IQ, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 1991, p. 1.
14.   www.nationalreview.com/blog/corner/latest-statistics-out-wedlock-births-roger-clegg/ and www.washingtonexaminer.com/77-black-births-to-single-moms-49-for-hispanic-immigrants/article/2622236
15.   www.heritage.org/poverty-and-inequality/report/marriage-americas-greatest-weapon-against-child-poverty-0
16.   Exact numbers are hard to come by because the Bureau of Justice does not reliably track family backgrounds and when they do, they put step-parents in the same category “two parent” — though having step-parents also makes juvenile delinquency more likely. www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/12/the-real-complex-connection-between-single-parent-families-and-crime/265860/
17.   www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-201401-title-vi.html
18.   www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-201612-racedisc-special-education.pdf
19.   “Upward Mobility,” Jason L. Riley, Wall Street Journal, p. A19, 02/14/2018.
20.   An anecdote mentioned by Bill Bryson in his history At Home.
 

49 thoughts on “Social Justice: An Analysis (Part 3)

  1. As Jordan Peterson noted, in the heyday of Swedish Social Democracy and institutional feminism, men and women poured disproportionately into certain fields because they WANTED to and some areas appealed more to one sex than the other. This is because men and women are fundamentally different.

  2. Good commentary on one of the Seven Deadly Sins, i.e., Envy.

    Arising from our inherently divided human hearts eventually envy curdles the milk of human kindness. The only cure I know is to begin refusing all comparisons, good or bad, with others.

    Perhaps its opposite quality is admiration. To seek the Good, the True or the Beautiful in others serves to crowd out the ugly clamor of resentment.

    • *The only cure I know is to begin refusing all comparisons, good or bad, with others.

      Perhaps its opposite quality is admiration. To seek the Good, the True or the Beautiful in others serves to crowd out the ugly clamor of resentment.*

      Dymphna, an excellent remark. Thank you. At the same time, there’s another kind of comparison, the kind that can inspire us to do or to be better.

      • I’m not sure, but I think comparisons with others is inherently harmful. At least I can’t think of an example where it would work in social interactions – or even in musing to oneself.

        OTOH, the ability to admire the gifts of others without resentment (how could one ‘resent’ Michaelangelo?) expands the Self in a healthy, non-grandiose way.

        • If we don’t compare things, we don’t see Judeo Christianity is better than Islam. If you don’t compare things, you don’t see it. If you don’t see it, what are you doing with this site?

          • You’re conflating the personal with a broader cultural responsibility to reflect the Beautiful, the True, and the Good, to the extent possible in any given place. Individually we will always fall short of this goal. But that doesn’t mean we can’t perceive the collective unconscious (as Jung would say) to move toward that aesthetic reality.

            As Pauline theology would say, “through a glass darkly”.

  3. “Black players make up 70% of the NFL despite black males being just 6.5% of the population. ”

    Surely then what’s needed are basketball quotas… a certain minimum % in each team to be Chinese, Indian and Native American. Diversity always makes a team better, so that should improve the quality of all the teams, right?

  4. This essay has a major flaw and that is you working with different races and the notion that people aren’t exactly the same and races and gender are just a social construct, not something rooted in biology. I’m joking, of course, but the previous sentence is exactly how SJWs would react to this sort of thing, throwing the one or other slur towards your person and calling you a bigot. It is very well written and I think every sane person can appreciate it.

  5. It is a long established biological (evolutionary) fact that women are more nurturative, affiliative and communicative than men, Richard, and hence could you define precisely what you mean by ‘emotional intelligence’ in the sentence here “…many males who have high math skills have a correspondingly low emotional intelligence.”?

    Is it possible that a mathematical mind tends to be more pragmatic as it exists in a world of precision and definitives rather than in a world of general vagaries, or is it simply the case that men are equally ‘emotionally intelligent’ within but less demonstrative without?

    Another way of looking at it might be that because of the burden of child bearing and nurturing our ancestral womanhood existed in a relatively more sessile environment with greater ease of group communication and emotional expression than their constantly motile hunting and fighting partners? There may also be some clues to be found in the facts that on the whole men have a more acute sense of spatial awareness than women and that their metabolic temperature comfort range is also different.

    • Good points. You may also have demonstrated why men die sooner. The male risks more and suffers the effects long-term.

      You’d think that sad reality would make women more compassionate but it doesn’t. The current pink-hat mobs are going to destroy a Supreme Court candidate, because Resentment.

    • How about men whose intellectual and emotional development are about equal. I offer as an example my systems analyst husband with a Phi Beta Kappa in Mathematics who also painted for decades (before his eyes wore out) and has continued to write complex poetry. And has a robust spirituality.

      Now that his eyes are gone, he uses his mathematical abilities to create computer-generated art in the form of complex (or complex-looking) Fibonacci spirals.

      Yeah, I do call him Saint Baron.

      • Quite, Dymphna. Even the human X chromosome inheritance tree is an example of a Fibonacci recurrence sequence in either open or closed form (as in Binet’s formula). So much of our existence can be illuminated mathematically that I would suspect that we nerds could not be fairly judged as bereft of emotional intelligence – whatever that may be.

        • I *think* emotional intelligence has as its base an intuitive understanding/perception of feeling states. Thus, people who exhibit behaviors on the Autism spectrum wouldn’t be likely to perceive or empathize much with others. In fact, their own feelings might often be out of their self-awareness. Kind of like being tone-deaf.

      • Dymphna – You write: “How about men whose intellectual and emotional development are about equal?” I am not writing about intellectual development generically – just of mathematical intelligence; a rather narrow and restricted sphere of intellectual endeavor.

        It is specifically mathematical intelligence that has an odd tendency to be inversely related to emotional intelligence and no other kind.

        Talking of tendencies does not mean all math savants are emotionally retarded – possibly not even the majority. So your husband is not a counter-example because we are talking about “tendencies” and generalities. Only if I had falsely made a blanket statement referring to all men would a single exception be relevant.

        It is comparable to that old saw that smoking should be avoided because of the increased chances of several dire diseases and someone saying that their great uncle lived to be 103 while smoking daily. That fact is neither here nor there concerning the increased statistical chance of you or any other individual getting lung cancer, etc.

    • Hi, Seneca III. Thanks for reading and commenting. I’ve provided the reference for the scientific evidence that math-smart women do not suffer from low emotional intelligence as commonly as math-smart men in the article. I think it is endnote seven.

      It is a fact that autism and Aspergers syndrome are more commonly found in men – so we are not as emotionally intelligent on average as women.

      The pragmatic and precise mathematical mind are qualities of the left hemisphere of the brain. It is the right that provides emotions. The “general vagaries” are the stuff of life and describe an concrete situational and broad awareness. Narrow focus is high resolution. Broad focus, low resolution. Humor, metaphor, poetry, music (but mostly not language) are generally speaking right hemisphere phenomena. Interestingly, however, actually solving complicated mathematical problems involves intuition and insight – neither of which are pragmatic and precise.

      Emotional intelligence was correctly described by Dymphna as the ability to identify and describe what you are feeling in real time and the corresponding ability to do the same with others. The two capacities are intrinsically connected. If I know what you are feeling and can describe it then I can do the same for myself.

      This, of course, does not mean that all men are less emotionally intelligent than all women or anything even approximating this.

      On the merely anecdotal level I know of one math professor whose wife refuses to socialize with math professors because of their emotional imbecility. That particular math professor, however, was himself perfectly normal in that regard. Such a phenomenon is not at all unusual.

      • Thank you, Richard. I’ve had a good look at the link you suggested and the summary of the book ((Stoet & Geary 2015 – Sex differences in academic achievement…) there is quite comprehensive for a change which is useful as I don’t have a copy of the book. I found these three abstracts interesting (bold below is mine).

        “… Females have been shown to score higher than males on cognitive tasks more often. However, since there is much debate in the literature about these kind of sex differences (Miller & Hapern, 2014; Stoet & Geary, 2015), and since these sex differences did not occur across the board in this study, these results should be interpreted with caution and further research investigating these differences in-depth is necessary. …”

        ”… Analyses of global international assessments (i.e., PISA) show that boys outperform girls in mathematics, while girls do better at reading. The evidence, however, is mixed and these differences are inversely correlated across the four waves of PISA between and within countries (Stoet & Geary 2015). Theoretical explanations relate these gaps to biological and socio-cultural causes, but research indicates the difficulty in isolating the two and reaffirms that both are important. …”

        ”… The early presence of a sex difference in variability supports a genetic contribution to larger male variability rather than social cultural effects (Hyde 2014). This is in contrast with a variety of observed mean differences between males and females; for example, sex differences in math performance have been shown to be highly associated with cultural variation in opportunity structures for girls (Else-Quest et al. 2010), although this has recently been debated (Stoet and Geary 2015). In sum, our findings are consistent with the notion that genetic mechanisms moderate greater male variability. …”

        What I did not find* was any reference to the phrase ‘emotional intelligence’ which brings me back full circle because it struck me as a contradiction in terms. It still does, by the way, and I’m not the only one so effected though in academic literature such as we would appear to be in a minority.[1]

        Two of the definitions of ‘emotional’ are ‘arousing or characterized by intense feeling’ and ‘(of a person) having feelings that are easily excited and openly displayed.’

        The medical definition of Intelligence is, 1a: the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations. b: the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one’s environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria (as tests) 2: mental acuteness.

        Thus, I guess there is a bit of an impasse here; on my side perhaps because of my intuitive suspicion of the current academic inclination towards ‘trendy’ PC interpretations particularly in the fields of Social Sciences and Psychology. I’m a bit of an old curmudgeon I suppose…the product of a wildly misspent youth now trying to bring maturity into serious disrepute 😊 🤐 😇

        Thus, in closing, Richard, may I say I really have enjoyed this discussion (and your article) but I have to move on now as my In Tray is full of correspondence that I must answer this weekend.

        Many thanks and best regards, Seneca III

        ————————————————————–
        N.B. * Although it is possible that it was there but not in the review abstracts.

        [1] “In this paper I argue that the concept of emotional intelligence (EI) is invalid both because it is not a form of intelligence and because it is defined so broadly and inclusively that it has no intelligible meaning. I distinguish the so‐called concept of EI from actual intelligence and from rationality. I identify the actual relation between reason and emotion. I reveal the fundamental inadequacy of the concept of EI when applied to leadership. Finally, I suggest some alternatives to the EI concept.”

        Edwin A. Locke – Why emotional intelligence is an invalid concept. Journal of Organizational Behaviour, June 2005.

        • Thank you for that, Seneca III. There is a pragmatic aspect to concepts – are they useful?

          From my POV Edwin Locke is deeply confused. For the purposes of my discussion, emotional intelligence is, as I’ve written, the ability to identify what someone is feeling and to describe that state in words. So, at least in my case, it has a clear, intelligible meaning. We constantly monitor each other’s faces for clues regarding emotions. This ability is going on at a semi-conscious “intuitive” level. As a right hemisphere phenomenon, it is very hard to put into words. It is a skill and skills cannot be fully put into words.

          Alternatively, EI is what sufferers of autism are lacking. If it doesn’t exist or is not at all a useful concept it will be news to autistic types who are sometimes given pictures of emotion-laden human faces to help them figure out what is going on on an emotional level.

          Another person I have interacted with who thought EI was uninteresting was himself very very low EI (as I am defining it, which is not unique to me) – which is, of course, an ad hominem – but when it comes to such judgments it seems relevant.

          Here is an article I wrote on the left and right hemispheres that seems to be pertinent to all this. The call for precision and clarity as qualities of intellectual well-functioning and complaints about “vagueness” are indicative of LH tendencies. Aristotle commented that it is a maxim of good thinking not to demand more precision from a subject matter than it is capable of delivering.

          Finally, quantification is a modern obsession that omits all qualitative aspects of life and the universe which is a rather large lacuna if you ask me.

          https://orthosphere.wordpress.com/2018/05/23/chaos-and-order-the-right-and-left-hemispheres/

          • “Alternatively, EI is what sufferers of autism are lacking. ”

            I would think that your illustration would be more appropriate with Asperger sufferers than autistic people, since autistic people also often suffer from sensory distortions, whereas Aspergers are more purely totally at sea with respect to dealing with other people.

            The Genius Famine speculates a distinction between a very high IQ genius, who may or may not have emotional intelligence, and a super-productive genius such as Turing, Einstein, Newton, who not only have high-IQs, but are driven towards what the authors call a “quest” or a great, ground-breaking scientific or technological discovery which is completely unique. The Genius Famine speculates that in the case of the super-productive geniuses, the mechanism of the brain normally used for social interactions (which is broader than EQ, which involves insight and perception) is literally hijacked to maintain the drive towards the “quest”. Examples of “quests” are the theory of gravity, specific theory of relativity, general theory of relativity, information theory, etc.

            This would mean restricting freedom and choice to the detriment of women. This kind of social engineering pressure can be seen when stay-at-home mothers are frowned upon by their feminist peers.

            In the Mouse Utopia experiment, the deviant female mice appeared to pressure the less-deviant female mice to modify their actions to conform with those of the deviant females.

            Mouse Utopia

            Three factors probably contribute to male ascendency in STEM areas. One is that men tend to be more “thing” and abstract-concept oriented, e.g., scientific theory, than women.[5] Young girls are likely to draw social scenes, young boys an action scene. When women are interested in science, they tend to be more interested in living things — fields such as biology, or veterinary science.[6] Another is that sexual selection pressures from women favor men who earn more money with the associated high social status which STEM careers provide. Women who earn large salaries, on the contrary, find it harder to marry, especially given their proclivity to marry across and up the social strata. Finally, many males who have high math skills have a correspondingly low emotional intelligence.

            There is a fourth factor.

            The IQ distribution forms for males and females differ such that the mean IQs are the same, but the male IQ curves are flatter and extend further. In other words, there are more very high-IQ males than females, and those are the areas inhabited by productive STEM types.

            http://www.mwilliams.info/archive/2005/01/men-and-women-are-different-2-bell-curve.php

            The notion of “disparate impact” has been invented to try to claim that rules against disruptive behavior at school are racist if they “impact” members of one racial group more than another. 

            In fact, “disparate impact” is used to describe not only punishment criteria, but any selection mechanism. Basing a college admission solely on SAT scores can be said to have a “disparate impact” on blacks because it will eliminate a larger proportion of blacks from consideration for admission than it will whites or Asians. By the way, I support the ability of a private school to make any selections it wishes on any criteria at all. And I think there are extremely persuasive arguments that the US government should not be involved in funding higher education at all.

             Each person must be careful not to take out his resentment on his neighbor, who will in some ways be his superior and thus symbolize the annihilation of limitation. 

            I think it depends on whether you have a close-knit identity group or you have a heterogeneous mixture of identities.

            The authors of
            The Genius Famine speculate that the really great, productive geniuses are systematically dysfunctional as individuals, for reasons I won’t go into right now. But, their contributions are so great to society as to produce an evolutionary trait in society to tolerate and support these individuals.

            My own thought is that once you have different identity groups competing in the same environment, the incentives to tolerate deviant, but productive individuals go out the window. It is a form of the Tragedy of the Commons, where absent an overriding ethos binding all members of the group, the economic incentives shift from conserving the resource, to using it as quickly as possible, disregarding the certainty of ruining it.

          • Ronald B., this is disappointing: almost 800 words. I’ll read it when I have time but I thought you knew we’d requested briefer commentary.

            Why not an actual post in future, when you want to respond to a subject?

            Thanks.

          • We constantly monitor each other’s faces for clues regarding emotions. This ability is going on at a semi-conscious “intuitive” level.

            And those emotions are hard-wired from the brain to the facial muscles. They are also universal to humans, and some of them register with primates. Here’s a good wiki on the subject:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affect_theory

            There aren’t very many affects, or emotions, but unless one is severely impaired (as in stroke victims or Asperberg’s) the ability to “read” others’ emotions is crucial to many endeavors – including leadership positions.

            However, the ability to manipulate other people through the masking of emotions whilst being able to “read” what others are feeling is the hallmark of personality disorders like psychopathy and sociopathy.

            https://psychcentral.com/blog/differences-between-a-psychopath-vs-sociopath/

            Jordan Peterson has discussed the clinical differences between the two in some detail, but I can’t find the reference. In general, people often find such “otherness” fascinating is that they’ve managed to avoid closely encountering one. The reality is quite sobering.

    • It’s a long ignored biological fact that men are outrageously more nurturative, affiliative, and communicative than women, but we hide it well. Indeed, we must in order to do what needs doing. Listen in on any group of guys and the emotive outpouring is astonishing to behold. 😯

      • Very funny. Dave Barry has written some hilarious columns about guys’ conversations. On the other hand, he also wrote about the important distinctions to be made between “guys” and “men”. The first time around I married a guy; the B is a man.

        • That’s lovely, Dymphna. It’s a pity “Gates” isn’t in colour, so we can see the Baron’s blushes.

  6. May I suggest a cure for resentment and the social ills it fosters and brings? Love your neighbor (whoever he or she may be) as you do yourself. Do unto them as you would have them do unto you. After all, they appreciate the same things (respect, polity, amicability etc.) that you do. Thus, together we can flush resentment down the gutter and leave any revenge-taking to the Lord who sees it all anyway.

    • First, you have to define your terms, acuara.

      What do you mean by “love”?

      Who do you consider your “neighbor”?

      In what ways do you love and honor yourself?

      List the behaviors and intentions this kind of cure would entail.

      Thanks.

      • What do you mean by love? Caring for one another as you would yourself. A loving marriage in which both spouses are there for each other in every moment and circumstance is a good example of this. My wife and I have been working on this for the nearly 20 years that we have been married. It’s a daily thing that can’t be taken for granted.

        My neighbor is whoever is next to me and I should care for them as I would myself, such as walking a couple of blocks to deliver a letter that had been mistakenly delivered to my address, and BTW, admitting when I have made a mistake or was in the wrong.

        I really don’t think about loving and honoring myself. I have too much else to think about and be responsible for. I simply leave that to the Lord and let Him take care of it. I will have an eternity to learn where I missed it or did well.

        The kinds of behaviors? Holding the door open, allowing another the parking space (BTW, that’s happened at Costco and as I did a better space opened up), making certain that the person for whom you are doing work receives the full benefit of your abilities and energies, (as it is written, “as unto the Lord” {satisfy Him and His standards and you won’t have to sweat the small stuff, proved true from personal experience}).
        Oh and finally, help those who are without when called upon to; but for the Grace of God, that person could have been you.

        You’re welcome.

    • BTW, there isn’t really a “cure” for resentment/envy. It arises from our fear we’re not good enough.

      Since human beings are born emotionally wounded, the best one can do is keep on keeping on. Every single day. No vacations.

  7. I don’t know why this site now refuses my comment. I hope this passes. Dymphna, if you don’t compare things, it means you don’t compare Judeo Christianity versus Islam. If you don’t compare it, why you make this website.

  8. I’ll tell you what’s funny.

    We talk about the natural distribution of traits and talents based mainly on genetic differences, but we talk about whether an individual (or collective) is willing to accept the differences as part of nature, rather than as evidence of discrimination on the part of whites.

    We know that character traits, as well as intelligence, have a heritability component. I posit that the ability, or willingness, to accept empirical evidence in the case of emotional subjects is biologically determined, in the same way that intelligence is. If this is true, then the key to success is not persuading the other side (leftists) but in making the beliefs of our own side stronger, and even more important, in motivating our side to act. Call it energize the base.

    My experience is that leftists in general, even very intelligent ones, do not follow logic on certain issues. That is, they simply do not respond to logic, facts, or even personal history on topics such as immigration or socialized medicine.

    I heard the O’Rourke – Cruz debates tonight. Living in Texas, I of course have an interest in the contest. Cruz was very much the establishment Republican, far more so than before the Republican Presidential primary. However, O’Rourke was very much the social warrior, socialist leftist. One very striking example was, he used the vastly disparate percentages of blacks in prison as evidence the police and courts discriminated against blacks. He never mentioned, even to reject the possibility, that blacks could be disproportionately in prison because they disproportionately commit crimes.

    Cruz, of course, waffled on the topic by indignantly defending the integrity of the police, but staying far, far away from the statement that maybe the incarceration rates for blacks reflected their rates of committing criminal acts. O’Rourke appeals to the Bernie Sanders voters, and the single lady spinsters in tennis shoes. I guess Cruz appeals to the Trumpers who realize what a disaster O’Rourke would be as senator, even though it’s difficult to imagine being energized about anything related to Cruz.

    The Cruz campaign can’t even get yard signs to the people who want to display them.

    • @Ronaldb – Yes, the refusal to entertain the possibility that blacks commit a disproportionate amount of crime is a major mistake and deeply irrational. Very importantly, as I have written, blacks are far and away also the victims of black violence. This puts the lie to any claim that liberalism gives a damn about the people it claims to be concerned about. Virtue signaling and showing yourself to be one of the good guys trumps any results for actual, living, breathing people.

  9. No doubt that there are some Asians who did well in the Western societies that they migrated to but most predominantly Asian societies that I encountered tend to be more backward, more cruel, more oppressive, exploitive, extremely vicious and tend to be more corrupt,breed more inferiority, etc. Just look at all the Asian countries, with their extremely crowded and mostly uncivilized environment that tend to prey on any of us that they deemed as disadvantaged. Their Asian societies, are in reality, culturally, socially, politically, etc are no better that Western societies in any way.
    I think we should not be fearful of speaking out against Asian or Islamic societies.

    • @wpass – You are quite right. Chinese and Indians tend to work hard and save money and to value education. As groups, they do very well wherever they emigrate. But there is a reason they emigrate – which is that their own cultures are corrupt and dysfunctional. Once transplanted into another economic and cultural context they tend to outperform the natives. E.g., New Zealand, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Fiji and the USA.

      • Good point about the corruption and dysfunction in Indian and Chinese cultures, though I do think India is so ungovernable because of its Muslim population. The problems non-Muslim Indians face were supposed to be solved by partition but then a lot of muslims refused to move to Pakistan. The partitioning of India was a disaster.

        Both countries are huge and that might be a factor in their ungovernability. But that’s a simplification of vast subject 😉

      • @Richard, I do personally have (too) many unpleasant encounter with Chinese and Indians as well as Islamic societies. They are much more how do is say it unbearably and unhelpfully exploitive.Just like their so called IQ has been overhyped, they also tend to be much more nasty in social and work situations to anyone that they deemed to be their slaves. They do work hark harder in being abusive and intimidating us who really work hard.
        That is why, whenever you see many of them dominating western countries or Asian countries, many of us who are hard workers and have decent values end up struggling for even basic necessities in their dominated damaging Oriental hellholes. Many of their corporation or companies that are run by them are known to be extremely cruel and irrational.
        In reality, they don’t outperform the western societies in any meaningful sense. Their Oriental influenced service and management are crap most of the time.

  10. I think people are mostly and rather amazingly good and that our deficiencies as a species are that we could have 1. More courage—we follow too much—and 2. Less seeking of power over others.

    The seven deadly sins as above and described by the Greek Ponticus are not particularly important because as soon as we grow up and realize we are all finite and are all going to get frail and die, we mostly shed things like jealousy and greed. Say, by age 28.

  11. Emotional Intelligence

    If the word intelligence is used simply to describe an emotion, than fine. Or whatever. Personally, I prefer to act on an emotion, rather than describe it. What is more satisfactory: 1. A man (no offense to any men out there) cheats on a woman. She finds out. She gets mad. She asks her man to sit down so she can describe her emotions. After half an hour she feels enraged because her man’s mind starts wandering. Duh. So now she is a raving maniac and nothing got accomplished. Alternatively: 2. A man cheats on a woman. She finds out. She gets mad. She grabs a chair and hits him over the head. It is much more satisfying. It seems to me there is way too much talking going on in the world.

    I don’t like the combination of emotional intelligence. As a female, especially, I can say without hesitation, that intelligence goes out the window when emotions get involved. For instance, why do some otherwise intelligent women make stupid choices when it comes to selecting a mate. The same can be true, of course, with intelligent men selecting bimbos. Though I don’t think a man’s choice of selecting a bimbo is based on emotions, strictly.

    I love the differences between men and women. It is precisely because men are not as emotional as women that we need and appreciate them. And of course, love them. They bring us back down to earth. With very few exceptions (I can think of only one: Golda Meir), women should absolutely not be in charge of running countries. Not ever. Unless they have strong men behind them to reign them in when emotions go haywire. As in opening borders so they can “nurture and take care of” millions of needy people, for instance. A strong man would have said: “H*ll no. Absolutely not. Are you nuts? Go and get yourself a bunch of pussycats to take care of, or something.”

    So, no to “emotional intelligence”. Either you’re emotional and clearly incapable of being intelligent, or rational at a given moment – or you’re intelligent, in which case thank Heaven your emotions don’t mess things up.

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