So what is a politically correct intellectual allowed to say?

Lately, people who are quite politically correct and academically respectable, are acknowledging that Gould and Lewontin were wrong and making $#!% up, and no heresy charges ensue. Indeed, they have been pissing on Lewontin since 2003. Now if Lewontin is wrong, then the races are genetically different in important ways, if Gould is wrong, then Darwin is right that races are the origin of species, and Morton was right that negroes and native Americans have smaller cranial capacities than whites.

So what is the version that a politically correct person with career that could be subject to reprisals now permitted say about races? Lewis et-al piously assure us that though cranial capacities differ significantly, this is wholly a function of environment, offering no explanation or evidence for this.

In 1972, holy writ became that genetic differences between races are insignificant, and that races are entirely social constructions. Supposedly we only imagine that humans come in different races. Supposedly there is no phenotypic or genotypic difference between so called races. Supposedly, not only is it impossible to tell what race someone is by looking at his DNA, it is also impossible to tell by looking at his face!

Of course that was obviously ridiculous, so people were reluctant to actually say it. But it was quite dangerous to contradict it. So official doctrine tended to be sort of endorsed, and quietly contradicted. People continued to study races, racial differences, and genetics, but used the word “populations” as code for races, and got away with saying things that would have got them into very big trouble if they had used plainer words.

And then in 1996 Nei et al said “human populations are known to vary considerably over evolutionary time and thus the evolutionary rate would vary from population to population”, and produced a bunch of diagrams implying that certain “populations”, for example the “Nigerian population”, had not evolved much from the common ancestor of man and chimp.

Suddenly the hammer came down hard, though plenty of academics before Nei had said worse. Nei et-al recanted and repented, and piously proclaimed that there is no significant genetic, evolutionary, or phenotypic difference between “populations”.

This strictness put people in something of a bind, since strict conformity prohibited what any fool could see, and an entire field of academic study.

In the twenty first century, the strictness seems to have eased up somewhat, so what now is permitted to be said? What is the official line?

Since it was supposedly impossible to tell people’s race merely by looking at them, terminology that acknowledged such distinctions became politically incorrect. Thus race, supposedly, refers to continent of origin. Thus Turks and Iranians were supposedly Asians, and Chinese also supposedly Asians, thus supposedly the same race.

This was particularly confusing in Britain. Since they had to call all sorts of people Asians who were obviously not Asians, they had difficulty calling actual Asians, for example Chinese and Vietnamese, “Asians”. They tended to call actual Asians “orientals” or some such instead, though with much fear that such language was politically incorrect. And since they so many of the people that they were required to call “Asian” look very like people from Somalia or Morocco, they tended to call Somalis and Moroccans Asians, since they were unclear on the rationale for assigning people to the correct racial group. Supposedly Moroccans are Africans, even though they are obviously not Africans, any more than Iranians are Asians. So in England, Somalis tend to be “Asians”, and Chinese not “Asians”, contrary to the use of language that the politically correct intended. Instead of racial terminology referring to continent or origin, without regard to the supposedly invisible appearance, it merely became confused.

The intent was to force people to categorize races on the basis of continent of origin without regard to actual race, since supposedly they are all alike, but the actual effect was that people used racial terminology inconsistently and incoherently.

This confusion, however, gave the politically correct a way out of the bind in which they had put themselves:

The politically correct are now allowed to acknowledge that natural differences exist, but supposedly races as conventionally defined do not correspond to these natural populations. Only the politically correct are allowed to notice these naturally distinct populations, thus the politically correct are now allowed to be as racist as they like. The politically correct can now even acknowledge what Nei was reprimanded for acknowledging, that certain populations evolved at a slower rate than others, that some populations evolved more rapidly towards the use of complex artifacts, and other populations also evolved quite rapidly, but in directions other than towards intelligence and use of artifacts.

But no one else is allowed.

For the rest of us, it is still the case that it is supposedly impossible to tell someone’s race by his genes or physical appearance, and as I write this, the columnist Andrew Bolt is undergoing a heresy show trial over this very question, even though he has repeatedly recanted, repented, apologized, and denounced his previous views.

Andrew Bolt got in trouble for noticing that the chief beneficiaries of grants to aboriginal Australians and affirmative action were not natives living in poverty on reservations, but people who were more than 98% white by ancestry and members of the white ruling upper class culture, often descended from people who had also been members of the white ruling upper class culture and also been beneficiaries of government grants.

He is now undergoing an extremely lengthy show trial.

From his recantation and apology, we now know it is terribly racist to think that race has anything to do with race. Rather, race is socially ascribed or self chosen. It is horribly racist to deny that certain people are aboriginals just because they look 100% white and have never had more exposure to aboriginal culture than that which is obtained by reading National Geographic.

Thus when the politically correct tell us that races as socially defined have nothing to do with natural differences really existing between different human kinds, what they actually mean is that races as socially defined better not have anything to do with natural difference really existing different human kinds, and if they do have something to do with such difference, you are going to be in big trouble. It is not a statement about popular usage of racial terms, but a threat. Use racial terms that way or else what was done to Andrew Bolt shall be done to you!