The Marching Morons

[tikistitch]

There are reasons why we loves PZ Myers (all that squiddy goodness).

And then there are reasons why we loves us some PZ Myers.

I detest "The Marching Morons."

Bova gives an accurate summary; it's also the primary plot point of the movie Idiocracy. It's also the premise behind eugenics and behind a lot of right-wing phony elitism. It's wrong. It was a very popular story, but the reason isn't complimentary: it fed into a strain of self-serving smugness in science-fiction fandom, the idea that people who read SF are special and brilliant and superior, we are the technological geniuses and far-seeing futurists, while the mundanes leech off our vision. The eugenics movement built on the same us-vs.-them mentality, that there are superiors and inferiors, and the inferiors breed like cockroaches.

The most troubling part of it all is the attempt to root the distinction in biology—it's intrinsic. "They" are lesser beings than "us" because, while their gonads work marvelously well, their brains are inherently less capacious and their children are born with less ability. It's the kind of unwarranted labeling of people that leads to decisions like "three generations of imbeciles are enough"—bigotry built on bad biology to justify suppression by class.

People, they are us.

Listen to the Squidfather!



We were struck by this blog entry especially because the erudite Mr. Tikistitch was just chatting with us about some similar effluvia this morning as we jogged in the happy, happy sunlight. He noted that the percentage of Hispanics in California is now approximately one third of the state's total population. It is actually within a few percentage points of the state's non-Hispanic white population.

We recalled that, back when we were a baby tiki, we attended a public school in a fairly wealthy, but also fully integrated, area of Cali. In those days, students were "tracked," that is, we attended mostly classes set aside for what was termed "university bound" students. Part of the tracking was based on prior grades, but for a good part of our public school career, a number of classes were set aside for students who'd scored beyond a certain level on an IQ test. A test that was administered in 4th or 5th grade, mostly to children whose families had requested--or even pushed--for it to be given to them.

Now, guess how many Mexican-American students were among our classmates in the happy happy high IQ club? Given that the roughly 1/3 of the student body was of Hispanic origin? How about, zero. (There were one or two kids with Hispanic surnames amongst the class, as we recall.)

We got a great education--can't knock that. But were always a little creeped out that some part of our public schooling was more or less exclusively available to students who were certified members of the Master Race.

Back to PZ:

Here's the real solution to the "marching moron" problem: teach them. Give them fair opportunities. Open the door to education for all. They have just as much potential as you do. Bova complains that people aren't willing to work for change, but this is exactly where we can work to improve minds — but we won't if we assume the mob is hopeless.

I have to confess to taking these kinds of stories personally. My family was probably what would be called the working poor nowadays, when I was growing up I was called white trash more than a few times, and yes, I come from a large family. My parents did not have the educational opportunities I did, but they were smart and self-taught and made sensible, practical choices in their life, and they cared to give all of their kids a chance. I can testify from personal experience that if there's a problem, it's not in ability — it's in a culture that dismisses broad swathes of the population because of who their families are, or how much money they make, and perpetuates inequities of opportunity on the basis of bigotry and classism.

tiki's family: basically, a bunch of hyperfertile drunks from Montana. White trash, as PZ so splendidly terms it. We have met the mob, and they is us.

Comments

[mmymoon.livejournal.com]

Blegh, I hate this attitude. I once had a "omg I'm in Mensa" intellectuals-are-superior dude inform me that I HAD to breed, because I owed it (to the world, I guess) to boost the "smart" population.

I had some words for him, and they weren't very civil or snooty-educated-sounding words, either.