The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

It’s the Degeneracy, Stupid

Posted on | January 2, 2019 | 1 Comment

Instapundit calls attention to a study showing a 5-point IQ decline between men born in 1975 and those born in 1991 — between Generation X and Millennials, in other words — and researchers blame this on increased childhood time spent on computers, smartphones and videogames. Ace follows this with research showing that too much screen time contributes to psychiatric disorders among children.

While I don’t deny the destructive influence of all these gadgets, I think this research underestimates the ways in which demographic decadence has contributed to the decline in IQ. The problems that Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein described in The Bell Curve are highly relevant to any such discussion. If effective contraceptives are widely available, and if there are social pressures on young women to pursue college education and professional careers, fewer highly intelligent women will become mothers, and those who do become mothers will have fewer children. If the smartest women have the fewest children (and this is the general trend that has developed over the past 50 years), then the overall average IQ of the population will decline. This is not an opinion, but a fact — the science is settled — and our policy-makers have been ignoring the dysgenic trend for too long. Instead, we have doubled-down on a rhetoric of “empowerment” for women that is anti-natalist in effect, if not also in intent. There are limits to what can be done, in a free society, to reverse the disastrous demographic trends that have afflicted the United States in the past half-century. However, when we witness evidence of degeneracy, we ought not to pretend that we don’t know what we’re actually seeing, or what is causing our society’s descent into idiocy.

Could saying this be considered . . . offensive?

Here’s the thing: If you’re smart enough to comprehend the preceding paragraph, then obviously you must be quite intelligent. Besides which, people who enjoy reading about politics and current events are quite generally above-average. (Stupid people just watch TV.) It should be obvious that I, as a conservative, would never advocate any policy that would infringe anyone’s constitutional liberty. But what has happened is that the elites who control our institutions of education and communication do not wish to permit a free discussion of these demographic realities. You cannot solve a problem you’re not allowed to discuss, and so we keep drifting toward catastrophe in eerie silence.

UPDATE: Of course, Mike Judge’s 2006 film Idiocracy might be helpful instruction, for those too stupid or lazy to read books.



 

Category: Culture, Education

Comments

One Response to “It’s the Degeneracy, Stupid”

  1. Morning Reads for Friday, January, 4, 2019 - GeorgiaPol
    January 4th, 2019 @ 8:15 am

    […] No, it’s not a band name. Dropping IQs. […]