Learning Better

     Dystopic’s latest illustrates nicely why he’s become a power in the DextroSphere. Here’s the opening:

     One thing that has become clear to me over the years is that people can reason themselves in and out of pretty much anything. Evidence can be provided for just about any assertion, no matter how ludicrous, and debunking it can lead to an endless rabbit hole of argument and counter-argument that never resolves much of anything. You can test this by googling just about any idiotic idea, and mountains of “evidence” will be found to support it.

     So how does a man determine what is true, or at least more likely to be true?

     Those ninety-five words make the rest of the article irresistible...at least, for any man who values facts and is disgusted by the ubiquitous campaigns to displace them in favor of feelings and slanders. I urge you to read it all before continuing on to the tirade below. Yet there’s a component missing from the list of filters Dystopic provides, which I hope to supply here.

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     “I understand, Dr. King - you were compelled by the 'truth - tropism' of the scientist. He must go where the data is to be found, even if it kills him.” -- Robert A. Heinlein, “Blowups Happen”

     Some years ago I realized that a considerable fraction of my anthropological and sociological assumptions were persistently contradicted by that persistently aggravating old nag, reality: i.e., the evidence of my senses. My perceptions were amply confirmed by the evidence of others’ senses and the aggregate of news reportage about matters pertaining to crime and public safety. To wit: the white and black races differ markedly in intelligence, aggressiveness, and propensity for lawbreaking.

     To notice those patterns was the first step along a socially hazardous route. I could feel the danger even at the outset. However, “dangerous” data is data nevertheless; being a scientist by education and inclination, I decided to collect it and study it. Despite the prospect of widespread condemnation and social ostracism, I was determined to know the facts...and in time, I became confident that I knew them.

     Today we’re seeing the fruits of the assumption, urged upon us from the cradle and trumpeted from every major organ of “information” in our society, that race is merely a matter of skin color. The Left is determined to make persons who’ve taken my journey through the facts and have arrived at the conclusions I’ve drawn into utter pariahs. Yet the facts, including facts their pet media organs have striven to suppress, are on my side.

     Philippe Rushton searched for the reasons for the race-discriminating patterns I’d noted and ultimately focused on differences in reproductive patterns. While his proposed explanation is effectively impossible to test by experiment, it is consistent with the observed and observable facts, including the grotesque disproportion of black families headed by a single mother. However, that makes it anathema to the bien-pensants determined to vilify and silence anyone who cites facts that point to important differences between the races.

     When John Derbyshire, having long ago absorbed the same facts and reached the same conclusions, elected to compose and publish “The Talk: Nonblack Version,” a worldwide campaign of denunciation erupted against him. That campaign included many persons who had worked alongside Derbyshire for years, knew his intellect, sobriety, and decency, and decided to ally with his detractors even so. But then, “shut up” has been the bien-pensants’ reaction to anyone who dares to differ with their gospel of racial interchangeability:

     If the bien-pensants could support their contentions with facts and reasoning, they wouldn’t be quite so determined to silence us who differ.

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     If you haven’t closed your ears to the fishwifely shrieking of the feminists, you’re undoubtedly aware that they trumpet two statements repeatedly:

• Women are men’s equals in every way;
• Women require special legal privileges as protections from men.

     It takes less than three seconds’ contemplation to unearth the hard-driven contradiction between those statements. Yet feminist activists, especially their street agitators, strive constantly to silence anyone who dares to make note of the clash.

     The following was clipped from Cassie Jaye’s excellent documentary The Red Pill. It depicts the behavior of feminist activists at a Toronto talk by men’s rights writer and activist Dr. Warren Farrell:

     Note that all the obscene screaming, all the demonizations and denunciations, and all the violence issued from the feminists. Had they any rational case to make for their claim that the Men’s Rights movement is a disguised attempt to deprive women of their rights, would they have done what the clip depicts?

     Cassie Jaye several times refers to her exploration of the Men’s Rights movement as a trip “down the rabbit hole.” She didn’t intend the reference to Alice in Wonderland in a derogatory fashion, but rather as a metaphorical illumination of the great distance between what she’d previously believed and what she expected to see. Those who’ve braved the storms of feminist outrage to see her film are aware of just how closely and determinedly the entrance to the “rabbit hole” is being guarded...against any exploration by them.

     The implication could hardly be clearer. After acquiring significant legal, social, and economic privileges that give them the privileged, empowered position in contemporary Western society, the feminists are unwilling to have the other side – the really oppressed side, as Miss Jaye depicts – state its case where others can hear. Were they to be heard, the obscene imbalance in our laws and customs might be corrected. Women would no longer get away with claiming to be “victims of the white male patriarchy.” They would be required to prove their assertion that they’re “men’s equals in every way” by actual performance.

     That, they cannot do.

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     I could go on. I could cite the factual evidence against Islam, homosexuality, the transgender craze, and other darlings of the bien-pensants. However, I choose not to exhaust my Gentle Readers’ patience; besides, if they’ve been reading me for a while, they’ve seen it all already. Let it suffice to say that when some viewpoint starts being treated as an unquestionable dogma – i.e., when persons who question that viewpoint, or who unearth evidence for a contrasting view, are vilified and hounded for daring to disagree – is the instant when rational minds, determined to know the facts, should start searching for reasons it ain’t exactly so.

     Dystopic cites his ultimate decision to accept my view about mortgage debt – i.e., that it’s best avoided rather than embraced as a kind of asset – as an example of the way a mind focused on truth rather than what’s generally believed should proceed. We’ve looked at the facts available to us and have formed our conclusions on the basis of what we know and have seen and heard. The thundering herd disagrees, as do a huge number of financial gurus and “advisors.” Moreover, I, at least, have been denounced for my argument against leaping into debt-laden home ownership.

     I’m accustomed, even inured to denunciation. Remember, I’m an out-loud-and-proud racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic abuser of the physically challenged. That comes with consequences. But the phenomenon should stimulate some thought in observers standing apart from the fusillades.

     The question that should immediately arise in the mind of an honest, open-minded observer is a phrase that should be familiar even to a Gentle Reader who lacks any knowledge of Latin:

Cui Bono?

     Who is it that fears disagreement with “what everybody knows,” and why?

     Food for thought.