The Other McCain

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

Ashkenazi Jews Have the Highest IQs on Average, But Then There’s Jen Rubin

Posted on | January 16, 2025 | No Comments

Before we discuss Jen Rubin and her “exciting new online platform,” let’s first take time to examine the problem of stereotypes. Being a member of the Appalachian-American community (we consider “hillbilly” to be an offensive slur), I know a few things about belonging to an ethnic group with reputational issues. This is why, despite my noted musical abilities, I never learned to play the banjo. Also, I’ve never lived in a mobile home, I don’t drink moonshine and my wife is not my cousin.

One has a duty to try to avoid behaviors that might contribute to negative stereotypes of one’s ethnic group. However, one must acknowledge that stereotypes don’t arise for no reason, but rather have some basis in fact. The stereotype of hillbillies as lazy and stupid arose at a time when the dangers of the hookworm parasite were unknown; a disease that sabotages health cannot be prevented if you don’t know what causes it, and the South suffered as a result. Nowadays, we have hillbillies graduating from Yale Law, thank you very much, and so it’s time to stop the anti-hillbilly hate speech. (Stay off the moonshine, J.D.)

People who claim The Bell Curve is “racist pseudo-science” either (a) have not read the book or (b) are too stupid to understand it. As I have repeatedly pointed out, the most important part of The Bell Curve is the first 115 pages, about how standardized testing gave rise to “cognitive partitioning,” and has nothing to do with race, a topic that doesn’t appear until page 269. One point that the authors emphasize, but which critics seem determined to ignore, is that when discussing “Ethnic Differences in Cognitive Ability” (the title of Chapter 17 of The Bell Curve) they are talking about group averages, which are not predictive of any individual’s ability or life opportunities. That is to say, however one’s group may rank in terms of median IQ, it is one’s individual score that really matters. It is only because our political system has developed an obsession with categorizing people as members of groups that an analysis of such differences is necessary, in order to demonstrate that racism (there are five A’s in “RAAAAACISM!”) isn’t the causative factor of social problems. These problems won’t be solved by quota regimes (“diversity”) nor by any of the other “reforms” advocated by liberals.

Well, I could continue that rant indefinitely, but the point is that group averages are not predictive for individuals. Ashkenazi Jews have the highest average IQ of any ethnic group and yet, there’s the helplessly stupid Jen Rubin who thinks we’re going to believe her when she claims she voluntarily left her job at the Washington Post, rather than getting axed as deadwood at a newspaper that’s lost readership and revenue at a startling pace in recent years. So, in announcing she’s going to launch “The Contrarian” with Democrat apparatchik Norm Eisen, Jen Rubin delivers a sanctimonious lecture about how “billionaire owners of major media outlets have betrayed their audiences’ loyalty and sabotaged journalism’s sacred mission — defending, protecting and advancing democracy.” And she’s going to fight the good fight for the “sacred mission” with . . . a Substack blog? Because that’s what her gushing about an “exciting new online platform” is about, as if there were something unique being offered, rather than a mere $7-a-month newsletter on Substack. John Nolte quips: “The good news is that The Contrarian’s subscription fee will be $7 per month, which means we will all save $7 per month by not reading Jennifer Rubin.”

Some of us are old enough to remember when Jen Rubin was much less stupid than she is now, and the cause of her cognitive decline is generally attributed to Trump Derangement Syndrome. However, I have an alternate theory — tertiary syphilis, sometimes called “general paresis,” a degenerative neurological disorder caused by untreated syphilis:

Typical symptoms include loss of social inhibitions, asocial behavior, gradual impairment of judgment, concentration and short-term memory, euphoria, mania, depression, or apathy. . . .
Delusions, common as the illness progresses, tend to be poorly systematized and absurd. They can be grandiose, melancholic, or paranoid.

Well, if “poorly systematized and absurd” delusions are symptomatic, the idea of saving democracy with a $7-a-month Substack certainly would tend to confirm such a diagnosis in the case of Jen Rubin, but I am not a doctor and this is only an alternate theory.



 

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Category: Media Bias

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