Race Realism Has a Past: Does Race Denialism Have a Future? | John Derbyshire Speech at 2017 AmRen

Originally published on July 3, 2019Show more

John Derbyshire presents a broad, insightful history of the tension between race realism and race denialism. Earlier generations were much wiser than ours. What Mr. Derbyshire calls the “long 19th century”—the period from 1776 to 1914—was one of unsystematized but also undeceived observation of human differences, and an instinctive grasp of the power of heredity. It also saw the gradual acceptance of evolution as the cause of group differences. After the First World War, advances in genetics, psychometrics, and sociobiology led to an increasingly scientific understanding of the three main traits that distinguish both individuals and groups: Behavior, Intelligence, and Personality, or what Mr. Derbyshire calls BIP. It is now unquestionable that all aspects of BIP are significantly influenced by genes.

Unfortunately, there has been a catastrophic retreat from both science and common sense. Ours is an era of what Mr. Derbyshire calls “race denialism,” in which “all observed group differences are said to be superficial, and all statistical differences are said to be caused by historical and social circumstance.” Because deniers still hold power, race realists are waging guerrilla war for the truth.

One tactic is to uncover and publicize “hate facts,” or “things that are demonstrably true but that we are not supposed to talk about.”
It would be comforting to think that science will prevail, but Mr. Derbyshire warns that “scientific thinking is very unnatural.” Most people never get beyond emotion, or even belief in magic, and are adept at ignoring anything that undercuts their beliefs. Mr. Derbyshire notes that the West has already moved on to “sex denialism.” “If you can deny sex differences,” he asks, “what human trait can you not deny?” Denialists are like the White Queen in Through the Looking Glass: “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Mr. Derbyshire is a novelist, pop-math author, reviewer, and opinion journalist. He is best known for his columns at Takimag.com and Vdare.com and for his Radio Derb podcasts. For many years Mr. Derbyshire wrote for National Review, but was ousted for saying sensible things about black people.

VDARE, a great news and opinion publication centered on immigration restriction: https://vdare.com/
John Derbyshire's articles and podcasts on VDARE: https://vdare.com/writers/john-derbyshire
John Derbyshire's X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/DissidentRight
VDARE's X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/vdare
VDARE's Telegram: https://t.me/vdare
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The story of John Derbyshire getting fired from National Review for wrong-think: https://www.amren.com/commentary/2012/04/why-derbyshire-had-to-go/

The line-up of speakers and overview of the 2017 American Renaissance Conference: https://www.amren.com/2017-american-renaissance-conference/
The rest of the conferences speeches can be found through links in the above link.
A summary write-up of how the 2017 conference went: https://www.amren.com/features/2017/07/sell-conference-shrugs-off-anti-fa/

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