THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

The more I read here, the less I understand.

I had always assumed we consider people of other races to be at least fellow humans. I thought calling non-whites sub humans were comments made out of anger and frustration. I knew IQ differences were significant, but I didn't think of something so radical as considering different races different animals; animals that might be psychopathic or not have a "self" as we know it.

The subject is always comparison of blacks to whites, an easier task. What is the place for East Asians in your Weltanschauung? Their IQs are close to whites but they are not as creative.

Maybe you ought to give us a required reading list or something so we can understand this way of thinking and this world view, to help us FEEL what it was back then.

Comment by Al Parker

ME:

That old "I don't understand" line has been used to death as the ONLY answer antis ever had for the Mantra.

I don't think you are doing it for that reason, but what you are trying to say politely is that you don't agree with me. You are a good sport and you can take whatever I dish out, and that drives me nuts. It is much easier to deal with nasty people I disagree with than with a good guy.

I am JOKING, damn it!

Al, what you are facing RIGHT NOW is going to be the STORY of the coming century. Everything we assumed has to be reexamined, and it is going to HURT. In 1600 we had a nice, comfortable, complete and ancient view of the universe that was OURS, that we were loyal to, that had a beginning, a present, and an end. The earth was created in February, 4004, all people ended up in Heaven or Hell, the earth was the center of the universe.

In 1700 we had a medical system based on knowledge 0of Greek and Latin, on Galen. It was a completely human-centered system that showed that all disease was related to psychology, an idea we think was invented recently. There were physical humors in the body, but word humor was still psychological. They were balanced by bleeding, and they did not exist in mere animals.

There was no filthy little germs, no connection to the animal world.

It was a fine system that met all our psychological needs.

It just didn't cure anything.

The assumptions you list are what our society is based on. It is exactly like the Humor Theory and a geocentric universe. It was invented to make us feel good because we had no other answers, so we naturally settled for the one that suited us best. Now we are running into serious knowledge about the human brain, DNA, carbon dating, and this stuff has as much relevance in the new century as bleeding for pneumonia does in a modern hospital.

If anyone had a memory, this would be routine. We went through it with Galileo, we went through it with a lesser-known hero Semmelweis, we went through it with the germ theory of disease, we went through it as astrology turned into astronomy. Over and over and over we have dealt with this same thing. The professors and priests were on one side and reality was on the other.

I should be dealing with people who are capable of saying, "OK, now we are actually learning something about the social sciences, so it is time to drop Political Correctness in the universities and the convenient theories in the churches and get real, AGAIN," But we're right back to shrieks from preachers about how this makes us nonhumanunsouls and social scientists who constitute, once again, a solid roadblock.

It is a NEW age, and the new age is exactly the one in which you are listing your assumptions. The one thing you should learn from me is that in a time like this if you can list your assumptions then you had better get over them.

ALL men are NOT more intelligent than ALL chimpanzees, but we have developed a convenient morality that says that they are. It is convenient, not TRUE. Loose and sloppy thinking like that is fine if you don't know enough to think straight about a subject. In 1200 AD, geocentrism was as good as anything else.

But in the new century, whatever "we" believed about "humanity" is no longer relevant. No, it is DESTRUCTIVE. In fifty years I might morally prefer a good dog with all his loyalty and an artificial frontal lobe to the average human. I may make that frontal modem permanent and prefer him to most humans.

Nobody has any trouble with the idea that races must be equal because their IQ overlaps. But animals are animals even though their intelligence overlaps at the extremes. A gorilla is capable of sign language. The average gorilla is far more intelligent than the whole legal category of humans calls idiots and he is certainly, literally infinitely, more intelligent than a fertilized embryo that just went "SHAZAM! BOOM!"

Bleeding to treat pneumonia is GONE. Vanished. Nil. One over n as n REACHES infinity. Nada. Nichts.

Geocentrism is GONE. Vanished. Nil. One over n as n reaches infinity. Nada. Nichts.

And in the new century, what you assume "we" think is GONE. Vanished. Nil. One over n as n reaches infinity. Nada. Nichts.

I still have to speak in those terms. Language cannot keep up with such changes. I still speak of THE earth, though I am aware that definition may apply to other planets. But I am not denying that other planets exist. I am speaking to be understood.

You are confused because you are one of a tiny group that is already being hit with the twenty-first century. A bit of confusion is certainly in order. In a couple of decades this will go from confusion to REALLY hitting the fan. But by then, if this seminar works, we'll be on the next steps.