How The Left Snookered Itself Into Supporting Hatred

The Western Left has, by 2020, wedded itself to blank slate theory. Not only is it dogmatically true among most leftists that all human subgroups are precisely identical in intellectual capacity, but it’s also dogmatically true that if you believe that human subgroups differ in intellectual capacity you are evil. As this essay explains, the Left has snookered itself thanks to the rigidity of its own ideology.

Inherent to modern leftist theory is the belief that the under-representation of black, brown and Muslim people in prestigious positions in Western business, academia and politics can be best explained by white supremacy. The inherent racism of the white man, we are told, induces him to keep black, brown and Muslim people out of these high positions. The presence of inequality is taken as evidence of the existence of prejudice.

Part of this leftist theory is the adamant denial that white people might be wealthier than other races because of a higher IQ. All the science that suggests that an academic achievement gap – roughly equal to one standard deviation – exists between black and white students, is racism. Any scientist arguing for such an explanation is a racist.

Also part of this theory is an adamant denial that white people might be wealthier than other races because of a culture that leads them to study hard, and thereby to earn high positions on merit. Leftists are not keen on the idea that the Enlightenment of the Ancient Greeks lit the torch for the intellectual achievements of the entire Western World for the past 2,500 years. Much simpler to blame any difference in outcomes on racism.

If you’re the sort of slave-minded person who resents anyone better than you, this philosophy intuitively appeals. There are few things that the weak like to do more than think up reasons why the strong are immoral. Any explanation that ascribes immorality to those who excel will appeal nicely to the vanity of those who have not excelled.

Adopting this belief brings with it some probably unforeseen consequences.

If you say all human groups are precisely equal, the greater over-representation of Jews in high positions in politics, media and academia can only be explained by nepotism and/or an extreme ingroup bias. If it cannot be down to a genetic or a cultural advantage, it can only be explained by Jews weaseling their way into high positions and then corruptly holding the door open to other Jews on the basis of their shared identity.

Something similar applies to Far East Asians in the West, whose achievement often exceeds that of even Jews. In many American universities, Asian students need to get higher marks before they will get accepted – not only higher marks than blacks and Hispanics but higher than whites as well! These universities discriminate against Asians because they are forced to in order to remain ideologically coherent (to the extent that this is possible).

It’s unfair to assume that someone’s excellence is necessarily the consequence of immorality, but this conclusion is now unavoidable for leftists. If Jews in America and Northern Europe have average IQs of around 107-108, as estimated by the world’s foremost intelligence researcher Richard Lynn, then some proportion of over-representation in high positions is all but inevitable (at least while the average IQ of the host population is less than 107). Therefore, leftists are bound to end up hating them.

This was demonstrated by Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign for the British General Election last December.

If you believe in blank slate theory, the different outcomes for groups with different IQs cannot be the result of anything that could be attributed to an inherent superiority, whether that superiority be natural or learned. Therefore, anyone who ascribes to strict egalitarianism ends up snookering themselves into defending positions that, if presented to them in isolation, they would reject.

The more horizontalist a person’s moral viewpoint becomes, the more necessary it becomes to ascribe moral impropriety to anyone who excels. If all human subgroups were precisely equal, then any subgroup that dominates must therefore be exploitative or aggressive than the others. The more they dominate, the more exploitative or aggressive they must be. Therefore, it’s fair to hate any group that excels.

This is every bit the slave morality that it sounds like.

Some leftists have twisted themselves into comically inconsistent positions on account of this dogma. There is a strain of them that will tell you that the underachievement of browns and blacks is the fault of white supremacism, but the overachievement of Jews is, at the same time, best explained by genetic or cultural reasons inherent to Jews.

The problem here is that said leftists have merely adopted an anti-white position, and are therefore just as hateful as any Nazi. The only consistent thing about believing that Jews earned their position by merit but that whites cheated their way to their (lesser) position is a hatred for white people. And anti-white hatred, despite its current fashionability, is not a morally superior position.

The only truly loving conception of reality is one that sees it accurately. Firstly, this means to see it accurately despite the egoic temptations to view it in a way that makes you seem genetically, culturally or morally superior. Secondly, this means to see it accurately despite the egoic temptations to deny that fact that you are genetically, culturally or morally superior when you really are.

This double balancing act is the essence of metaphysical gold. Anyone who can stave off both the traps of narcissistic sadism and narcissistic masochism is a true philosopher.

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If you enjoyed reading this essay, you can get a compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2019 from Amazon for Kindle or Amazon for CreateSpace (for international readers), or TradeMe (for Kiwis). A compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2018 and the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2017 are also available.

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