This began as the 2nd part of a
review of George Marsden’s book THE TWILIGHT OF THE AMERICAN ENLIGHTENMENT: THE
1950S AND THE CRISIS OF LIBERAL BELIEF, but the essay grew and is not simply a
review any more. So I gave it a more
appropriate title: From “Separate but Equal” to “Integrated but Unequal?” You can find the first part of my review
of Marsden’s book on this blogspot, and part of it at amazon.com.
MARSDEN ON AMERICAN ENLIGHTENMENT – PART 2
Rev. by Hugh Murray
Marsden envisioned the American Enlightenment of the 1950s as
still a combination of Protestant culture and scientific humanism. In Part I of this review, I challenged the
notion of the Protestant domination of the culture. In Part II, I ask, just how scientific was
this Enlightenment? Marsden concedes that by the 1950s most mainline Protestant
churches accepted Darwin and the theory of evolution. Though Darwin’s views on race are still
disputed, there is little doubt that many of the scientists and social
scientists who followed Darwin, including his relatives, strongly believed
there were significant differences in the mental capacity among the races. Some of America’s best educated leaders by
1900 surely accepted these views.
Theodore Roosevelt, intellectual, Republican, Progressive (the original
Progressive Party), cowboy, naval historian, Rough Rider, reformer, certainly
did not believe that the races were equally endowed. Woodrow Wilson, Democrat and another progressive,
university president, reformer, certainly did not believe that either. Wilson, when President, even showed the extremely
popular film, “Birth of a Nation” in the White House, a movie that justified
the creation of the Ku Klux Klan in the 19th century and stimulated
a revival of the Klan in the 20th. One
of Wilson’s progressive reforms was to institute racial segregation into the US
federal civil service. And at the
conclusion of WWI, when forming the League of Nations, the Japanese sought a
resolution declaring all of the races to be equal. Wilson was adamantly opposed, and no such
resolution was authorized.
Almost all involved in the new social sciences could observe
that most Blacks were more backward compared to most whites. The question was why? Some scientists said the reason was simple –
they were born that way. They were
naturally that way. Other social
scientists rejected the importance of heredity, and stressed instead
environment, surroundings, poverty, riches.
The debate continues today between the advocates of Nature vs. Nurture,
though today many will concede some influence to both; today’s debate centers
on how much influence is to be ascribed to one or the other. The notion that some races (or ethnic groups)
were naturally more developed and others more backward was the dominant
scientific theory by 1900, which, in turn, influenced the progressive reforms
as government slowly expanded over the decades.
It
was in this Darwinian Zeitgeist that a law case, begun in Louisiana, was heard
before the US Supreme Court. The
defendant was a light-skinned Negro who entered a rail car reserved for
whites. He refused to leave and was
arrested. When the Supreme Court ruled,
it was nearly unanimous in upholding the state’s law requiring racial
segregation as long as the facilities were separate but equal. The 1896 Plessy
v. Ferguson ruling was decided by a 7-1 vote with the lone dissenter,
Justice John Marshall Harlan predicting that this landmark case would become as
notorious as that of Dred Scott prior to the America Civil War. Harlan’s dissent would for decades fuel a
counter concept of justice: “There
is no caste here.
Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among
citizens. In respect of civil rights,
all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most
powerful.”
Over the decades, the
science of race changed little, but the politics of race flowed with the fates
of war. Following WWII American
attitudes toward race began to shift, in part, due to the revelation of Nazi concentration
camp horrors, where millions had been enslaved and murdered because of their
race. Following the victory of the
Allies, the Left in America engaged in a direct assault upon legal segregation
in the South with the aforementioned Progressive Party campaign of Henry
Wallace. However, Wallace’s meager vote coupled
with Truman’s determination to destroy the Communist movement in the US, found the
dwindling CP movement in retreat, too weak to lead further assaults on
segregation. (By the mid50s, the remnant
Left consciously took a back seat to new leadership, like that of Martin Luther
King, for new challenges to the old system of segregation.)
If the CPUSA was
crippled, the international Communist movement, with its appeals to people of
color in Asia and Africa, posed a growing problem for America and the
West. The British yielded away their
empire – India/Pakistan in 1947, Trans-Jordan/Israel in 48, Ghana in 57, and
the likelihood of many more independent colored nations to follow. How would colored nations view a segregated
America? Truman, who earlier had been no
friend of civil rights for Blacks, by 1948 discovered that the Black vote was
essential to his re-election, and he campaigned for it, even promising to
integrate the US armed services. (In the
1960s Truman would denounce sit-ins, freedom rides, Martin Luther King, and the
growing civil rights movement. Of
course, by then, he was an elder statesman and no longer needed Black votes.)
The clincher came in
1954 when the US Supreme Court again turned to laws requiring segregation of
the races in various cities. In the 1954
Brown v. Topeka Board of Education case,
the US Supreme Court ruled that legalized racial segregation in the public
schools was un-Constitutional. It
asserted that to segregate the schools by race was itself discriminatory. Chief Justice Earl Warren helped achieve this
shattering change on the High Court, which may have surprised some. Warren in the 1940s had been California
Attorney General and one of those most responsible for the round-up and
internment of Japanese after Pearl Harbor. Warren, then elected Republican Governor of
California, in 1948 was nominated for Vice-President on the ticket headed by
New York Governor Thomas Dewey, a ticket certain to win according to the polls. Truman’s upset victory meant Warren remained
Governor. In 1953 the newly elected
Republican President Eisenhower appointed Warren Chief Justice of the US
Supreme Court. Many liberals hoped the
High Court could increase American prestige and win respect throughout the
world by changing the laws on racial segregation. Also, Justice Felix Frankfurter, who was Jewish,
was determined to end discriminatory race laws that had destroyed so many Jews
in Europe. Frankfurter was disappointed
with the arguments presented by Thurgood Marshall, the NAACP attorney, and was
aware that they were not convincing some of his fellow justices. We know now that Frankfurter secretly gave to
emissaries of the US Justice Department, who were also presenting the case
against segregation, daily accounts of what the court’s justices deemed strong
and weak arguments. In this most important
case, the referee was aiding and abetting one of the teams in the contest. This collusion of a judge with the
prosecution would normally be grounds for retrial and impeachment of the
officials. Had a Justice of the US
Supreme Court helped the segregation team instead, we would still be hearing in
the media about the horrible scandal.
But because Frankfurter cheated, broke the law, committed a crime for
the “good guys,” his crime is overlooked.
(In reality, I suspect there is much more collusion between justices and
attorneys; the surprise here is there was a whistleblower decades after the
case was settled.)
The Warren Court
ruled unanimously against legalized segregation in the schools in 1954, voting
9-0. For a court that usually prided
itself on precedent, the Brown ruling
overturned nearly 60 years of precedent supporting legalized segregation. (I am one who believes that if the first
decision was incorrect or unjust, then the precedent ought to be overruled.) The scientific evidence presented at the
Court was flimsy at best; like Black girls choosing white dolls in preference
to Black ones. Yet, my own view is
similar to that of the dissent by Justice Harlan in 1896 that the American
Constitution is color blind, and segregation by race was in itself
discriminatory.
There were many
problems implementing the Brown decision, and here is not the place to review
the school crises in Little Rock, New Orleans, and various locales when Blacks
were first allowed to enter formerly white schools. Yet, one issue does belong here. Desegregating a railroad car or bus is one
thing; desegregating education is quite another. Of course, some Blacks are extremely
intelligent, and some had learned quite well in the segregated school
systems. But it was also clear, that as
groups, Blacks were still behind the whites academically. While the cause might be debated, mainly
environment or mainly heredity, Blacks were behind, sometimes grades behind the
white students. The initial hope of many
Americans was that Blacks, being the intellectual equals of whites, would quickly
catch up with whites in academic performance, as had many immigrant children. Some Blacks did. But as a group, Blacks remained behind.
In segregated
schools, classes could be streamed: super students in one class; average
students in another; and slower students in a 3rd. But with integration, suddenly the slow
classes were filled with Blacks. To
some, it appeared as if there was resegregation inside the integrated
schools. So Federal agencies and judges
were soon declaring streaming illegal too.
Then liberals suggested the way to boost the performance of Blacks in
schools was to provide pre-schools, Head Starts, and other programs to improve
the early academic environments. But
within a few years after pupils completed these programs, the initial boost
wore off, and the then slightly older Black pupils were no better off in
performance than those who had not been enrolled in such costly programs. And when classes were integrated, and Blacks
continued to perform poorly, then there were demands for Black teachers who
would be living role models, and this would thereby raise the performance of
Black pupils. But on objective exams,
Blacks continued to do poorly. Now, we
witness more and more scandals of Black principals, and Black teachers cheating
– erasing the wrong answers that Black pupils placed on the exams, erasing them
and correcting them so that their classes will appear to be doing well (and then
they may even receive monetary awards, even if the pupils remain in reality far
behind). The Left seems to be spinning
ever more epicycles trying to hold together the Ptolemaic view that the sun
revolves round the earth, and that all races are equally talented in all fields
and are equally intelligent. American
educational policy is based on this “scientific catechism,” which is nothing
more than an expression of the Left-liberal “faith,” its hope, its fundamental
ideological belief. And to question this
“scientific fact,” is to become a heretic, beyond the bounds of polite society
and a villain to the academedia complex.
It matters not how many facts can be assembled to dispute this
Left-liberal article of faith; it is now the official US Govt. hypothesis, a
Nice Eon Creed that must be accepted. No
more Galileo’s! The Church was
right. Stalin was right. Question the govt.’s science at your
peril. If you question, then prepare to
pay as they prepare the pyre.
It is not my purpose here to recount the debate over racial
differences. I will mention that some of
the egalitarians, like socialist Stephen Jay Gould, in his assault on the IQ
tests and their results, himself resorted to many distortions and false
measures. Furthermore, in other cases the
Left was so determined to discredit the results of research concerning twins
and IQ (thereby showing a powerful influence of heredity in intelligence), that
they claimed Cyril Burt, the author of such research, had forged his data. Later, it was discovered Burt did add some
figures to his data later because some materials had been shipped out of London
during the Blitz and was not immediately available. Moreover, when Minnesota, many decades later,
studied twins and intelligence, those studies reconfirmed the findings of Cyril
Burt. And when a refugee from Hitler’s
Germany, Hans Eysenck, who studied under Burt in London, also found significant
differences in the IQ among the races, one of his Left-wing colleagues punched
him in the nose. When various Nobel Prize
winners have spoken up on the difference, especially between whites and Blacks,
they have been interrupted at universities, insulted, and prevented from even
presenting their scientific opinions.
When The Bell Curve was
published in 1994 the general media paid more attention to its critics than to
the research revealed by authors Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray (no
relation). The point is – for over a
century many social scientists have found a significant gap in the intelligence
among the races, and most attribute that gap mainly to heredity, not
environment.
Today, those students who support this scientific view on
university campuses are often vilified, threatened, and in classes given poor
grades. If they are teachers, they will
probably be given an ultimatum to stop discussing such “hurtful, racist” views,
or get another job. Yet, the Leftwing
scientists, like Jared Diamond are beloved by the academedia complex. His Guns,
Germs, and Steel (1997) attempted to answer the question of why Black nations
are so backward compared to those of whites.
Because Diamond’s answer was found in the environment, in geography and
plants and animals, rather than innate differences in the intelligence of
different races, his book was lauded by the Left and well received. It seemed to provide an anti-racist answer to
the question that all asked, but never out loud. Why were Black lands so poor; those of whites
so rich? No wonder his book won the
Pulitzer Prize! I witnessed Diamond
address a session at a major history convention. Hundreds were in attendance. A panel of 3 scholars discussed his book, but
their criticisms were minor, peripheral.
When I rose to ask why organizers of the event had not invited anyone
who disagreed with Diamond, Diamond, from the stage immediately rose and
responded. “Some of those critics were
racists,” he assured the large audience; and staring directly at me he added,
“and some of them are here today!” A
woman seated beside me, quickly jumped to seek another seat. She clearly did not want to be tainted by
sitting next to me, or to be associated in any way with someone called a “racist.” And people still invoke McCarthy to
illustrate “guilt by association”! There
is no room for debate on race in academia when you disagree with the Left
Ideologues. While Diamond has on
occasion questioned the notion that races exist, in Guns,.. he thought the natives of New Guinea are more intelligent
than whites. And though he is uncertain
if races exist, he is delighted that DNA may solve the question of who is truly
Jewish and thus may be allowed to immigrate into Israel!
By the 1950s, the American Enlightenment that Marsden describes
was already abandoning its basis in science on some major issues. Political correctness trumped research. Universities have become new Inquisitoriums,
determined to stamp out any Galileos on race and intelligence, race and crime,
race and athletic ability, race and temperament, etc. By the late 1960s on campus, one dared not
assert that there were natural differences between the Blacks and whites in
intelligence, or later, even notice the superior skills of Blacks in basketball
prowess, or as sprinters, or as boxing champs.
We are to turn a blind eye and pretend that all are equally talented in
all spheres of life. That pretense may
have been necessary in Stalin’s Soviet Union, but must we continue the pretense
in America today? A land where one dare
not speak the obvious. The truth. What has happened to the American
Enlightenment? What has become of
America?
Let me state my position clearly. I am not a scientist. Yet, on most objective exams of intelligence
and achievement, Blacks as a group do quite poorly compared to whites and Asians. Poor whites often outperform well-off Blacks
(indeed, this is one of the arguments by the Left for maintaining race-based
affirmative-action programs rather than those based upon class). The cause of Blacks’ poor performance may be
primarily environmental. However, there
is considerable and mounting evidence that it is primarily genetic. But increasingly today, debate on this topic
is forbidden. Governmental policies are
based on the environmental theory, and huge sums go to “close the racial
gap.” Victory is proclaimed if the gap
between Blacks and whites is narrowed.
Because this may be achieved by raising the scores of Blacks, OR by
lowering the scores of whites, the latter may be more easily accomplished,
especially through hostility to whites in many public schools.
The liberal faith, when confronted with the reality that
Blacks as a race, perform badly, that faith never waivers; liberals find ever
more ludicrous excuses, but never question their hypothesis that all races are
equally talented in all fields.
Government, reforming education based upon the liberal world view, has not
only fostered a new segregation of schools, but has created schools that may
well be worse than the legally segregated schools of decades ago. (In
those “horrible old days” before 1954 there was no need for metal detectors in
schools, no need for policemen patrolling the hallways, and it was rare that
students would attack each other, much less attack a teacher! Progress? For whom?)
In the name of humanism, science has been abandoned, replaced
by a Stalinist conformity, pretending to be scientific. This new creed dominates the academedia
complex; inculcating that Blacks as a group are just as smart as whites, that
women are just as strong as men, that whites are just as good at sprinting;
Blacks just as good at swimming; that DDT is harmful to humans; that the earth
is warming; that the emperor is smartly attired. The scientific humanism
is no longer scientific and its retribution against those who dare challenge
their “scientific” faith is not humanistic.
The American Enlightenment about which Marsden wrote was too
narrow to be enlightened, too ideological to be scientific.
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