John Derbyshire, American Renaissance, June 9, 2014

Every weekday for two weeks–from June 9 to June 20–we are running essays by race-realist commentators on the future of American race relations. Specifically, we have asked them to imagine what America will be like 20 years from now. The ten contributors to the series, whom we will publish in alphabetical order, are:

John Derbyshire, Paul Gottfried, Gregory Hood, Joseph Kay, Paul Kersey, Tom Kuhmann, Gavin McInnes, Fred Reed, Richard Spencer, Jared Taylor.

It is our pleasure to present our first contributor, John Derbyshire.

● Demography. We shall of course be much more multiracial in 20 years’ time, with a huge indio-mestizo component, more East and South Asians and Austronesians, and big localized populations of Africans. The old 90-10 white-black U.S.A. of the mid-20th century will be fondly remembered only by white octogenarians expiring in retirement homes where non-white orderlies pick their pockets.

The result need not be unstable. Multiracial nations can be stable: Brazil, Malaysia. Contrariwise, monoracial nations have endured bitter civil wars: Spain, China.

Racial disaggregation in housing and schooling will be further advanced along the fault lines: black, indio-mestizo, other. “Other” will be a loose alliance of East and South Asians, white Hispanics, and legacy whites. Similarity in group profiles in behavior, intelligence, and personality, together with the common imperative to avoid concentrations of blacks and indio-mestizos, will override group differences.

There will be more high-wealth enclaves, as rich Chinese and white Hispanics settle here in hundreds of thousands. This may lead to a rise in employment of domestic servants–Austronesians and mestizos, probably–or perhaps robotics will take up the slack.

● Ideology. The state ideology–“political correctness,” “the Narrative”–seems to me quite robust. I don’t expect it to change over the next 20 years.

The Harvard Crimson has surveyed this year’s graduating class. Fifty-nine percent declares itself “liberal or very liberal.” Only 14 percent say they are “conservative or very conservative.” These are the people who will be running the USA 20 years from now.

The Narrative on race–i.e. that all observed race differences in behavior, intelligence, and personality are 100 percent social in cause–should hold firm. The comforts, satisfactions, and rewards of adhering to the Narrative will keep the media and educational elites loyal, and most people will follow their lead.

● Dissent. I expect some measured tightening of the controls on dissent, for two reasons.

First, continuing failure of rectification programs will cause increases in cynicism around the margins.

This should be easy to police. Head Start has been failing for 50 years, but the elites still believe in it; and to the degree ordinary citizens know about it, they follow the elites.

Some extra policing will be necessary, though, to keep cynicism in check. Comment threads at major news sites will have disappeared. Public shaming will be more frequent. Psychiatry will have declared racism a mental disorder.

Second, the human sciences will deliver results discomfiting to the Narrative. This is bound to happen as geneticists, neuroscientists, and social psychologists probe deeper into human nature.

History tells us, however, that ideology, which rests on the emotions, is far more potent than science, which rests on the intellect.

There will in any case be less intellect around 20 years from now, as dysgenic trends push the bell curve leftwards and smart machines relieve us of the low-level intellectual labors that keep us alert.

So, again, not too hard for the authorities to control.

● Technology. Social change will continue to be driven by technological advances. Smarter machines will wipe out ever more low-level jobs, swelling the numbers of “useless mouths,” disproportionately among low-IQ races (blacks, indio-mestizos).

The fact that the population is getting dumber as the machines get smarter will be an accelerant.

Self-driving vehicles will be revolutionary. Cabbies, truckers, bus drivers, and traffic cops will be nearly extinct by 2034. Much lower accident rates will bring dwindling demand for auto body repairmen, insurance adjusters, tow truck drivers, and EMS staff.

With ever fewer jobs for the left side of the bell curve, a universal dole–a federally-guaranteed minimum income–will be in force.

Augmenting the pacifying effect of the dole will be increased surveillance of underclass districts, perhaps employing drones; so crime may actually decrease, leading to a reduction in non-black fear of blacks.

This could push back against racial disaggregation but probably not by much. Non-blacks still won’t want their kids in schools with too many blacks and indio-mestizos.

● Politics. With that tightening of the controls on dissent, the national politics of 2034 will have even less content than today’s.

Which is to say, practically none at all in regard to race. The US ruling classes today already have no differences among themselves on race issues. All cleave to the Narrative. All consider dissent on race topics to be “hateful.”

To the degree that party politics is of any importance, we shall be in a period of Democratic Supremacy. The Republican Party will either have contracted to its conservative (that is white, Christian, Southern) core and be nationally irrelevant, like 18th-century British Tories, or it will continue to offer the Narrative fronted by different personalities, as at present.

Probably the universal dole will be the last major domestic political issue. Even that will not be strongly contested; the need is too obvious.

Nature. Never leave Mother Nature out of your calculations; it makes her angry, and Ma’s not nice when she’s angry.

I have no expertise in climatology and must perforce fall back on the opinions of friends–sensible, conservative people with no axes to grind–who do know the relevant science. They assure me that yes, humanity is warming the planet, although the speed and consequences of the warming can fairly be disputed.

Even leaving aside warming, 20 years can bring some nasty surprises. A major volcanic eruption–not an infrequent event–could cause a years-long spell of cooling, as could changes in the Sun’s output.

Either warming or cooling could cause food crises in nations on the Malthusian edge in Africa, West Asia, and Central America, leading to Camp of the Saints-style mass migrations. With cheap modern navigation aids, this could include transatlantic flows. The United States has already received boat people from Africa.

I consider this a low probability, high impact event. As with the French in Jean Raspail’s novel, the Narrative will have been so thoroughly internalized as to make resistance impossible.

John Derbyshire is a novelist, pop-math author, reviewer, and opinion journalist living on Long Island, New York. His most recent book is the essay collection From the Dissident Right.