Not so elementary, Dr. Watson!
by Ian Buckley
(Now Updated with Reader's Responses!)
The Nobel Laureate James Watson recently caused a stir when he stated that black people were less intelligent than white people. While naturally agreeing at least with Dr. Watson's right to speak his mind without fear of the pervasive cult of political correctness, surely his bald statement raises more questions than it answers.
How do we define intelligence - is it in terms of IQ tests - which may well only measure the ability to do IQ tests? This 'intelligence' , is it formed from one or two elements, or from many? Isn't 'intelligence' something of a social construct anyway?
It's not so elementary, Dr. Watson.
On the contrary, it might be suggested that whites are deficient in intelligence, or even in basic sense. Right now, there are hundreds upon hundreds of allegedly superior Europeans stuck in slit trenches and tents in Afghanistan. .. not Africans! There have been African wars, of course, but on careful analysis it can be seen that almost all have been fomented and imposed by outside parties. From South Africa in 1900 to Sierra Leone of the day before yesterday, the same patterns re-occur time and time again. We find monopolists greedy for precious metals, diamonds, copper or zinc, eager to corner the market.
By contrast with the largely pacific record of Africans, the white peoples of Europe managed to annihilate nearly 10 million of their own - to absolutely no purpose whatever - during World War I. Is this intelligence? Or is it in accord with the Chinese proverb : 'Lifting a rock in order to drop it on one's feet'?
Then again, your average white corporate businessman often lacks basic cognitive ability. He flicks through a paper and finds a story in the Science and Technology section regarding the new mobile phones that can be used in-flight. But invariably this 'superior type' doesn't make the connection with earlier stories - stories being exactly what they were - that prominently featured working mobile phones aboard certain American planes on a certain Autumn day.
Likewise, these intelligent white folk usually fail to display any sequential reasoning ability. They accept that Iran is a 'threat', but then fail to ask the reason 'why'. What is the nature and extent of this threat? Are these Iranians about to arrive in our capitals in tanks? Do they want everyone display a portrait of the late Ayatollah? Put us all in factories knotting elaborate carpets, maybe?
It should also be noted that black America has - rightly - distrusted government and authority for 40 years or more, while white America remained so utterly naive as the demolition contractors got to work. Which group displayed greater collective intelligence? Would readers like to assess the relative merits of Louis Farrakhan and Cynthia McKinney, as compared to Rudolf Giuliani and Albert Gore, inventor (!) of the internet and global warming?
Come to think of it, isn't Nigerian Kano more intelligently designed than the wretched London? 'Hell is a city like London' said William Blake, a verdict confirmed by Michael Palin 184 years later. Indeed, Palin went further than Blake, likening London to the very pit of Hell. The Ashanti or Zulu chieftain is a very fine, upstanding, wise figure of a man, most especially when compared to the PR executives, hedge fund financiers, advertising bosses, TV moguls and banking managers who dominate the white Western world.
It is certain that Dr. Watson is not one of us - whoever 'us' might be - but a snobbish conservative, on the lines of Doc Theodore Dalrymple or certain US talk show hosts. 'I'm more intelligent than you are' is mere divisive, schoolboy stuff. For my own part I consider anyone who opposes the New World Order of diminishing expectations and perpetual war to be a friend and ally, whatever their origin or particular political stance.
