ISQA Report

In the comments of my last article, I’ve been going back and forth, back and forth. Fortunately, it hasn’t been over a fundamental part of my argument (unlike what some other of my commentators have subjected me to). Instead, the discussion has been over a single word. An adjective.

Militant.

But I’m lazy, so I’ll sum up the conversation with a link to a blog post from Progressive U that covers the same issue:

The idea is simple. Militant atheism means something incredibly different than militant theism. When you think of a “militant” religious person, then you only reserve this for someone who is violent. When you think of a “militant” atheist, you think of someone who is vocal. The problem is…doesn’t “militant” have the same connotation either way? Why then should an unassuming British guy who writes books have a same descriptor as someone who…say…bombs an abortion clinic?

The debate is whether people, either knowingly or subconsciously, slip into believing that “militant” must mean violent. For example, anyone can then claim that Stalin and other totalitarian regimes were followers of this kind of “militant atheism” — and although people can rebuke that by pointing out that Stalin didn’t kill because he was atheist; he killed because he was fanatically totalitarian, the damage is done! If people can associate fanaticism with atheism, then it loses credibility. Subconsciously, people can think, “Don’t listen to him…he’s just militant.“

My problem? I don’t think there is this misrepresentation…I think it’s exaggerated, at best. When I hear people talking about militant atheists, I think they realize these are just vocal people. Some people make the leap and say that these vocal people will eventually try to abuse and damage the religious (and that is a wrong leap), but I think most people are merely offended by the vocal nature. Furthermore, what I don’t want to do, in the end, is abandon troublesome words for “safe” words. This just reeks of political correctness. If a new word has a significant meaning over the old, then there’s a justification…but…just changing to change?

The destructive possible connotation is still there, regardless.

I am reminded of a similar struggle, actually. Whenever the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints do anything, immediately the CJCLDS has to scramble to differentiate. It doesn’t help when the only differing word the news media use is “fundamentalist.” They certainly make sure to say that the FLDS is a splitoff with no current connection to the church at Salt Lake City, but still, the comparison…the sharing of a sentence…is acidic.

I am actually reminded of a similar struggle. Angry and white means something completely different than angry and…say…Black. Angry Black men must be delusional! They clearly don’t see the issues as they are and instead let fanatic and un-thought out emotionality strike past any semblance of rationality they ever had. So…to be credible, you must shun in any and all ways the appearance of being “angry.” Maureen Dowd comments on Barack Obama’s latest metamorphosis over his pastor…and I identify with a lot of the struggle. In order to be so very successful, Obama (and indeed, all minorities) have had to be very civil…very “normal.” But then…as soon as a SNAFU occurs, then comes “angry black man.” And “angry” is bad.

The fact is that the words we use very much are shaped and reshaped…and sometimes our ideological enemies get to “own” the words before we even get to touch them. We can try to reclaim them, but somehow…we always seem to lose. We can’t afford to pidgeonhole ourselves or others using the cutting words of our foes. Militant, much like “angry” or “uppity,” must go out with the rest of the garbage.

But I guess these words, much like the buzzwords we use, just serve to provide our language with the confusing, roundabout, hidden-agenda-harboring sophistication we find so great.

The only question is…is there something wrong with being vocal? To be successful, we know we can’t be angry (even though other people can and there is an inequality about this)…we have to always be at our utmost politest to be on even ground with everyone else…so does that mean that anger…vocal nature…”militancy”…all of these things are a bad thing? Does this mean that ANY fringe group must kill with this overbearing kindness? Not just minority races, but also minority political views? Religious (or lack thereof) views? Sexualities? How many people automatically tune out the “gay pride” side of gay rights movements because they are too flamboyant? But doesn’t flamboyance pave the way for acceptance in a more general context in the end? Or does it just hurt the cause?

I was in a discussion with a militant atheist the other day…and I realized that other than his methods (e.g., the militant part), I could see some common ground. Not saying I’ll become a militant atheist myself, but I’m just going to write a few thoughts down. It probably won’t even sound very coherent, since I’m just jumping around.

You have this idea system. This idea system somehow implies that people should be treated different or afforded different regard. At the very least, it suggests that there is a way of living that is better than another way.

This idea system might be political. It might be economic. It might…however…be religious.

With political and economic belief systems, you can fight these. You can present evidence against and wreck the holes in the arguments and what not, and then you can temper a new theory. However…the problem with religion is that it is out of the scope of these techniques. You cannot present evidence against a religion, and even if you tried, all the followers therein would find you an in-credible source…after all, you aren’t God. You aren’t a prophet. You aren’t even a member. You’re probably from Satan.

So, this idea system from the religion goes unchallenged. You can be treated unjustly and you have no weapon against it.

Now…this isn’t true of all religion. After all, you can have people in a religion who interpret things differently or view things differently. So, unlike what some people might say, you can still be religious and support gay marriage or abortion rights or things like that. You can still find that atheists can be moral.

However…the fact is that there are people who…JUST BECAUSE OF THE RELIGION, will claim that these things can’t be moral. Atheists can’t be moral, you fool! Gays are inherent sinners, don’t you know! And anything that abuse the right to life of an innocent fetus? Too easy to disagree with.

In politics and economics and nearly every field, you can believe these things too…but the exception is you have to back it up. It has to fall under scrutiny. Things like slavery fell under scrutiny. Prohibition fell under scrutiny.

But where do we say that things stay or go? When can we legislate morality and when not? It’s easy to say…let’s award religion no “special” status and put it ALL under scrutiny. Voila. Militant atheism.

Religion has this incredibly slick position in society that atheists like Richard Dawkins can’t agree with.

To tell the truth, I don’t know if I can agree with it either. I don’t, unlike the MAs, target religion. But “tradition” seems to fit too. Many do what they have always done, what they parents have always done, what their ancestors have always done without even thinking that there might be a better way. They become hostile to anything that threatens this tradition and rigid to any idea of changing anything. They say, “Don’t fix what isn’t broken,” but also know — from tradition — that “nothing is broken.”

I don’t agree with being militant, necessarily. But, on the other hand, you won’t get anywhere unless you do it. Members of minority groups — not just race, but any minority — are too invisible to get anything changed unless they speak out. So…for now, militarism is a necessity.

*Update*

An interesting addendum. Think about the connotations of the descriptive “militant.” When you think of a militant religious believer, then you actually bring violence into play. Whether it is bombing nations, other churches, abortion clinics, or something like that, there is violence. Sensible believers are of course quick to distance themselves from this…but when you think about militant atheists…you have a guy who wrote a book and talks harshly about it (although, I contend that anyone with a British accent like that can’t “talk harshly” ;))

The closest thing to “militant” atheists tend to be people who did not use their atheism as justification. You have militant totalitarians or militant fascists or even militant communists who happen to be atheist, but your militant atheists just…write books.

It’s interesting…I think that people recognize a difference too…people know when you talk about militant atheists that you aren’t talking about bombers. People who *happen* to be atheist who bomb stuff don’t do it because they are atheist. On the other hand, people who *happen* to be (insert religion here) who bomb stuff often DO do it because of that religion. Their justification is their target is evil/misguided/whatever, so getting rid of it is justified.

The closest thing to a militant atheist, then, is not a militant Muslim or militant Christina…but just a hardcore evangelist or proselytizer. How interesting?

Does this require us to rename what we call hard-talking atheists? Are the just arrogant? Aggressive? I’m not sure.

Something troubling has happened to the site recently (that I probably shouldn’t expose, but I will). “What is this, I don’t even” (which isn’t even an article; it’s just my category for reject articles here!) has propelled the blog to unheard of heights of readership.

I know, I know…I want to find the essay from which that brilliant phrase comes from too. Unfortunately, your princess is in another castle and the cake is a lie.

In addition, EVERYONE loves doppelgangers. And the sporker kids probably hate me tremendously much right now for messing with one of their flock. Reports also show that 90% of people want to know what isqa means…in Spanish.

There’s one thing that really annoys me about a lot of the things I’m involved with…there’s so many buzzwords and acronyms. I know, I know, it’s because all of the things I do have a serious envy of law and medicine who get cool dead languages to play with. How’s business supposed to compete with Latin? That sounds cool REGARDLESS of what you’re trying to say. Engineers enshroud themselves in a sea of calculus, but what is an elite writer (or wannabe) supposed to do? What about the aspiring management consultant?

But…that doesn’t stop the fact that buzzwords are so terribly roundabout. So incredibly “efficient” and perfect-sounding. Why be an auditor when you can be in assurance? To take the humanity out of everything.

You’re not solving problems anymore; you’re creating “solutions.” You’re not writing articles; you’re “crafting” “knowledge banks.” What the HECK is a knowledge bank? What kind of interest does it offer?

It’s not just a part of being in business. I don’t quite remember the last time I had a PPI. It was a really long time ago…I was never able to attend EFY, but the substitute was good enough. I admit we didn’t do FHE as much as possible, but we still do what is expedient.

I suppose I know that the purpose of buzzwords is to craft a professional teamwork culture and community that has unity even through its diversity, but why does it have to be so…fake? Ugh, that last sentence was terrible. “Community?” “Diversity?” “Craft?” Now, the social groups that people have are something created as delicately as a carpenter might create a chair.

But I guess this kind of lingo serves a very important task…it provides a failproof shibboleth for discovering who is and who is not. Who is new and who is experienced? Us vs. Them. It is a tool to establish classism even when classes shouldn’t exist.

I think it’s funny how Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, had a formal dialect called “tecpillahtolli” (sorry if I messed up that spelling terribly, haha) reserved for the nobility. What’s so special about that? After all, noblepeople often speak in an elevated way because of their education and status. Well, this dialect was composed to be as roundabout as possible — speakers had to learn how to always say the opposite of what they meant (and be able to decode when other speakers would do the same to them). Most upper-level languages might have an air of dignity or perhaps even humility, but most aren’t specious.

I guess that’s what buzzwords today are all about too. Firing an employee or terminating him is just too bad. Right-size your business instead.

I find it interesting that people “regret” decisions. They feel that some of the most trivial things that can occur to them in life are the most grave.

I try to live life as it is. I try to do what I need to do, regardless of the situation. I think that this gives me flexibility…when the details of a situation change, I can easily change what I will do to accomodate.

I worry that I will become too loose of a person…or too weak. For example, I look at school. In my opinion, what school you go to is really immaterial in the end. As long as it has a degree that’s worth something and can get you into the field you want, then who cares about what else? But others I know…they seem to have been groomed from birth for their schools, and they are dangerously loyal. A school is a school. What else do you need to think? If you don’t get accepted, then you don’t get accepted. It’s not the end of the world. There’s no reason why you have to go to X School instead of Y School when both X and Y will get you where you need to go.

People get attached to things too easily, and I think this hurts sometimes. They become so passionate over their attachments that if they lose them, they overreact and melt down. What use is this?

I understand that there are some things one should be attached to. There are some things one should be passionate about. I don’t think that flexibility and devotion are exclusive. On the contrary, when I choose to do my best, I put in everything I have. When I need to do something else, I shift my 100% over easily.

When I see people with such fierce loyalties, such fierce faiths, strong attachments — to any cause — I find myself drifting away from them. I can’t fully identify with that part of them.

Why do I fall for this stuff?

The opening question was innocuous and murderous enough: “Why do so many people claiming to be introverts love posting on message boards?”

…but I knew this was a trap from the extrovert devil from the start…an attempt to find a lapse in the introverted faith/logic that would suddenly make all of us robots explode from the contradiction and blasphemy against all that is good and lonesome.

The answers that some posed…however…were what really forced me in the struggle.

• Because they’d rather not talk to people face to face.
• You get time to reply online.
• You can’t be shouted down.
• You don’t actually have to have a relationship with a message board (obviously!)
• It’s a text-only all-the-time-in-the-world interaction with a bunch of far-away strangers.
• Most people who claim to be introverts don’t really enjoy being alone all the time; they are just shy.

In short, introverts are terrible people who suck tremendously and can’t deal with the extrovert world, so they escape to the land of make believe (which is a good song, btw). It’s just a step below those random sporker kids. Seriously.

I thought about another of my posts here…“OK, last time I lied.” I thought about how that might compromise my viewpoint…but then, I realized the enemy had actually been setting up a magnificent straw man for its defenses.

People misidentify what introversion is in the first place. Introversion is not shyness. It is not social anxiety disorder. It is not avoidant personality disorder. That is why the bolded last point particularly irks me…this supposes that not even introverts know what they do like and don’t like…and that we all are hiding behind our fear of the outside world. I don’t have much to say about APD or SAD or shyness…(at least, not yet…I don’t want to make enemies right now), but I do know these are different struggles.

I have no problem with talking to people face to face. I do it every day. I have no problem with the speed of conversation…interviewing is one of my sick, sick hobbies. I don’t use the internet just because I’m too slow to snap back with witty comebacks elsewhere. I couldn’t care less about being shouted down — I do enough to get shouted down both on and offline, but that doesn’t stop me. I don’t go to a message board to avoid a relationship (and, in fact, a confession I will reiterate from “OK, last time I lied,” just so I don’t appear to be so much like a robot, is that I’m not avoiding relationships. I think people who view the internet as a place where you no longer have to treat your fellow humans as people are misguided [putting it lightly].) And the last point…well, yeah, but if my friends from school were inclined to IM every day, I’d communicate with them like that too.

The thing is…introversion is simply a superpower of being recharged by time alone. Much like how the green lantern needs green (which, by the way, a weakness to yellow is a really sucky superweakness, by the way, considering yellow and blue make green…), pyromaniacs need flame, and Brian Warner needs to look edgy and offensive, introverts simply need some time alone. This doesn’t mean the Lantern is afraid of yellow, pyros are afraid of water, and Marilyn Manson is afraid of not appealing to teenage mall goths (although maybe he is; he seems too smart for that kind of cult of personality, though); just that their preferences are preferences. And…except for the pyromaniac, perhaps, these preferences aren’t “bad.”

But…if introverts go on the internet, that might suggest they don’t really want to be alone. Well…let’s think about why one would want to be alone. Well, according to About.com (man, I haven’t used this in a long time!):

…they either need to regain their energy from being around people or that they simply want the time to be with their own thoughts. Being with people, even people they like and are comfortable with, can prevent them from their desire to be quietly introspective.

Interesting, Ms. Bainbridge, and thanks! I like to think about things I’m interested in. I like to talk about things I am interested in. This is straightforward. However, the problem with the extrovert world is that you have so many formalities…you have small talk to get out of the way, and you have to say things in such a way as to not shock another, and even what you talk about is decided by a tyranny of the majority — if you want to talk about philosophy and everyone else wants to talk about American Idol…well, I hope you’ve brushed up on Idol.

Oh, Ms. Bainbridge, you’ve covered this for us!

Being introspective, though, does not mean that an introvert never has conversations. However, those conversations are generally about ideas and concepts, not about what they consider the trivial matters of social small talk.

So…let’s think about what introverts did *before* the internet. They might decide to read up on subjects they liked. If they could find communities that cared about important ideas and concepts, they’d cling to these groups when they felt like it. And so on and son.

With the advent of the internet…all of a sudden, you could find information. And quick. Have you ever gotten lost on wikipedia? Even better…now you could connect with other people who talked about such engaging topics as you wanted to talk about. It was like matchmaking (for something other than STD-ridden booty)! Success!

Someone will say eventually, “So…basically, introverts just want to pick and choose what they will talk about…they can’t function fluidly and talk about anything and everything as face to face conversation requires.”

…er…No. We can and do. But that’s a part of our work and school lives: the times when we must be public. If you did something that didn’t engage you — that dragged you down bit by bit — all day, wouldn’t you want some time to recharge later?

You know what’s interesting to think about? It’s the realization that the myths that we study in school were once taken very seriously by people. We seem to find it ok to classify all of these mythologies, from the Greek, the Roman, the Norse, the Japanese, the Chinese, the Native American, or from wherever origin they might come, as of a fundamentally different “stuff” than our current religions. We seem to think that there’s something fundamentally different about Christianity, Judaism, Islam — at least as Abrahamic religions; I can’t speak so much about which non-Abrahamic religions are still in the cool spot — that will guarantee either the validity of one of them (if we are optimistic) or at the very least, their continued longevity (if we are skeptical).

But I mean…all of this stuff we have is so yawn-worthy. Yay, love your neighbors. Alternatively, smite them. Smite them with kindness. Kind them with smiteness. So boring. Life and death-ish. And maybe you might have some beautiful imagery and symbolism and prophecy and dream of what the end of this world might look like, but nothing…spectacular.

Why can’t we believe something interesting…let’s look at a passage from the Indian Mahabharata as translated by Charles Berlitz in his 1974 book, The Bermuda Triangle:

Gurkha flying in his swift and powerful Vimana hurled against the three cities of the Vrishis and Andhakas a single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and fire, as brilliant as ten thousands suns, rose in all its splendour. It was the unknown weapon, the Iron Thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and Andhakas.

This “iron thunderbolt” (as well as the flying ship “vimanas”) are talked about a lot…and even if we want to be skeptical, we must at least admit that these things sound incredibly cool. I think nearly everyone is “skeptical” about the Lord of the Rings happening (although, there are probably some people who do believe it was true), but we can admit that is something that sounds incredibly cool. If we want to indulge our curiosity, we might want to note how this sounds suspiciously like a nuclear weapon.

But that’s all mythology! It’s just an elaborate story that just happens to describe destruction and carnage in a way that we misconstrue to be a nuclear holocaust.

Of course, I’m no archeologist, and I do not posit anything as fact, but some claim that the Indian settlement of Mohenjo-daro, which seemed to flourish from 2600 BC as an immaculately designed and planned city with urban sanitation for heck’s sake to about 1700 BC when it was mysteriously abandoned, had skeletons that showed several times the amount of “normal” radiation.

That’s just silly though. No reputable organization thinks that (so archeologists and anthropologists, don’t hit me). But Mohenjo-daro itself, as well as several cities from the Indus Valley civilization, did feature quite advanced urban planning. There is evidence that the IVC had knowledge of a kind of proto-dentistry and drilled molars have been found.

I guess the IVC didn’t “mysteriously abandon” and that there are other scientific explanations…and as time passes, we might find out exactly how their culture thrived with such advancements that no other contemporary area had seen at the time.

And now…it’s time to burst your bubble! Mythology has a few problems…The fact is that epic poems such as the Mahabharata described nearly all of its war-scenes with such hyperbole, so to interpret them as being indicators of WMDs would mean, as Colin Briggs says: atomic bombs must have exploded over the north Indian plains with such frequency as to reduce said region to an uninhabitable radioactive wasteland, a misapprehension which any visit to the area will rapidly dispel.

Epic poetry itself is designed to gratify one party (the victor) over the other party. Or it is supposed to pump up the feelings of its audience, and when you hear about your civilization using catastrophic space nukes, that’ll pump you up. It’s like when you tell a story over and over…you want your friends to be impressed by what you did, so eventually you realize that you might have to stretch the truth just a wee bit to get things more noteworthy.

As for the quote of iron thunderbolt? It was fabricated from several sections of the Mahabharata unfortunately…The translator just decided to pick and choose which parts of the original source sounded best; he took some descriptions quite out of context, and tried to force words to mean what he wanted them to mean

Maybe this is why we don’t trust mythology. But surely, our own religions would never pick and choose what parts they would accept from original sources, translate opportunistically, and force words to mean one thing or another.

I’ve heard in waaaaaaaaaaay too many internet arguments someone pose something like, “Remember, evolution is just a theory…”

…Yes, and?

“Theories haven’t been proven. They are just concepts and hypotheses.”

What?

“That’s why they aren’t laws.”

*facepalm*

The problem is actually an understandable and innocuous one at first…there are two “ideas” of theories. One definition; the common, most publicly used one; is that of a “conjecture or guess.” It might be even just speculation. In this general definition of the term, you might say something like, “I have a theory about why my grade sucks in Management. It’s because the teacher puts my scantron through the Bizarro Scantron Grader of Evilitudinality (all rights reserved) which turns all of my correct answers into really stupid, unthought and hurried answers. It might even double mark the scantron or put blanks where I once had answered correctly!”

Obviously, this theory is just speculation. It has not been tested. It’s just an idea…

The problem is when the unlearned person thinks this theory is the same as a scientific theory, when nothing could be further from the truth in reality. Actually, this lay idea of a theory might be a hypothesis in the world of science, because it is a conjecture for a possible explanation of phenomena (e.g., my bad test scores) that allows for testing to reach the truth of the phenomena (e.g., I will have to replicate sending a perfectly-filled scantron through the BSGoE and then repeat the evil in action.). I can perhaps suggest this, “If I use my management teacher’s machine, good answers will suddenly become bad” and then test for that.

After a hypothesis is tested repeatedly (via the scientific method, which you should’ve learned about in…oh…the 7th grade? unless you go to school in Oklahoma [hah, I actually went to school in OK, so I can make fun of it without being held liable for defamation because I know the truth! How's that!?]), then it might be rejected, edited and retested, or it might strike gold! This gold is a scientific theory…a more or less ESTABLISHED and VERIFIED way to account for known facts and phenomena.

When we have a theory, we know something correlates with something else, or even that something might cause another thing…but we aren’t completely sure on every detail. As we become able to say things that are always, 100% true (within a relevant range of activity), then we are able to create laws.

So…if you want to oppose evolution…which you are free to do so…even if people will laugh at you and call your state a lolstate if you happen to enact policies setting intelligent design/creationism at the same level of evolution (luckily, OK hasn’t done this…yet >_>)…I mean…if you want to believe in intelligent design and evolution, that’s cool…just recognize one is science and one is…not. But if you want to continue to believe that there is no difference between the scientific statuses of evolution and intelligent design, then just realize that your argument can’t hinge on, “Well, evolution is just a theory.”

Anyone worth his worth in salt (including seventh graders), will say, “So what?”

I’ve worked hard over time to develop a plan for myself…a deliberately and painstakingly chosen plan. I have analyzed long and carefully about who I am and where I need to be going. A lot of people live their lives with doubt about who they are and who they should be. But for me, I think I’m on the right track.

It’s incredibly exhilarating to go through some kind of ordeal — such as an interview or debate — and come out feeling integrated. You feel as though every attack against you failed because you truly are solid. You feel as if you’ve proved your personal integrity.

Onto another topic…I’m just wondering…with the results of the recent Democratic debate…does Barack Obama feel integrated still? For so long, Hillary has been pounded and pounded, but last night, Barack got a bit of the same. I will admit: that debate had some ridiculous questions. I will admit: I don’t think they should have asked some of those questions. But I must ALSO admit: these are questions that will be asked, if not now, then during the race for the general election…when all is fair in love and political war.

I don’t know. Hillary seems content in admitting that her dirty laundry has been out in public for a long time, but rather than clean it, she just admits it’s out there and believes that she will prevail even with it hanging out to fester. Barack…only recently have we seen his dirty laundry aired…is he tough enough to bring it in and start cleaning? Will he shrink from the humiliation? Will this happen?

And this McCain dude?! Where’s his dirty laundry? The media unsuccessfully tried to pull some scandal out of a hat, and that was utterly ridiculous. Where’s the real dirt? C’mon; we already know the media and politics are like mongooses and snakes…this should be glorious gladiatorial combat with casualties from all sides! Massive chaos and destruction from CNN, Fox, MSNBC are within each of their grasps, but for McCain, they can’t seem to find anything. How dull. The media is letting us all down.

There’s one thing that really scares me…the idea of a scientifically-minded racism. I mean…people harbor dumb views all the time, but I’m a little comforted by these views because they don’t have anything to back it up. They are just ignorant people making ignorant assumptions.

But what is really scary is when people who should know better propose dangerous systems of racial inferiorities and superiorities based on race-based genetics. These are people who not only harbor some kind of misguided view of race, but they justify their views with what we take to be supported science. It’s people like James Watson who say the prospect of Africa is “inherently gloomy” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas the testing says not really.” He has the gall to suggest that even though we want to find people equal, “people who deal with black employees find this not true.” It’s people who say, “You’re inferior, but I don’t hold you against it; your genetics make you so.”

His foundation is a suggestion that there is no reason to believe that people “geographically isolated” should have “evolved identically.” And, from other studies in evolutionary biology, that’s not an unreasonable thing to suggest…but to suggest that this is the primary and unchanging determinant of any factor, particularly intelligence? How irresponsible!

The people who try to turn this into a positive are even worse…according to them, we have natural genetic weaknesses and strengths that should be appreciated. So what if Asians are all scrawny — they are smart and that makes up for it! So what if blacks are all dumb because they are more physically powerful/agile/whatever and that makes up for it.

Ugh. This disgusts me. I would like to understand that I live in a society where I determine my own fate; my race determines little more than my skin color. We also know from evolutionary studies that what we assume composes race is actually little more than a human construct. We can assume that skin color correlates and causes all sorts of other traits, but it really doesn’t. Humanity doesn’t work like that, even if people may believe that.

What humanity does have is another factor — nurture — in the debate. We have traits based on how we have been raised and acculturated, and these things might be inherited by our tendency to grow up similarly to how our parents grew up. But this does not mean we are in a genetic trap…for the most part, we can always work out of our supposed weaknesses. Our parents can give us a better life than they had, and we can take advantage of this as well. If we are lazy and do not take this advantage, then we shouldn’t blame this on a genetic fate.

We need to think about other sciences not often thought about when bringing up biology. What about sociology? How has a person been raised to form his consciousness that might explain certain trends? We stereotype Asians as being good academically, and the people who follow that evil of scientific racism will contend it’s because they are genetically more academically inclined, but these people fail to look at the fact that many Asian cultures tend to emphasize education on the cultural level. If you take away that cultural advantage, then there is no real bonus, which there should be if it were a genetic factor.

Genetics leads us in the wrong direction. Genetics misleads people into thinking that it’s ok to say, “Well, he’s going to be inferior in x way; we should just accept this.” No! Social science lets us realize a more important truth: we can change things about ourselves by changing the way we are socialized. What is it about certain Asian cultures that promotes education? Is this factor lacking in certain other cultures and subcultures?

When we realize how much effect socialization can have, then we can do some real sociological, rather than genetic, splicing. Take the good aspects of this culture with the good aspects of that, and then, we begin to approach something good about multiculturalism.