Politically correct non sequitur of the week

Concerning James Watson’s remarks to the London Times that blacks on average are less intelligent than whites, Richard Pendlebury of the Daily Mail wrote:

The Nobel Prize-winning scientist James Dewey Watson is living proof that genius is no guarantee against holding incendiary beliefs.

Pendlebury’s censorious observation is as logical as the statement that being tall is no guarantee against liking oranges. No, it’s worse than that. It’s like saying that being extremely intelligent is no guarantee against having unorthodox opinions. Or it’s like saying (as Washington Post reporter Dan Balz wrote recently, in a tone that clearly suggested there was something not right about the situation) that being three months away from the first presidential primary is no guarantee against the primary contest still being “unsettled.” These bizarre complaints could only be made by liberals, because liberals are fundamentally uncomfortable with reality. Liberals want geniuses to be non-controversial. Liberals want elections to be decided three months before the votes are cast. They want a controlled and equalized reality.

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John B. writes:

Pendlebury knows his statement makes no sense; he knows there is no reason to think a genius would say nothing incendiary. Incendiary is merely his best substitute for the word he doesn’t want to use—racist.

That’s what troubles him: that Mr. Watson’s remarks are racist.

Pendlebury doesn’t want to have to think about that. He wants racists—if they must exist at all—to be persons easily dismissed as stupid. He wants being liberal to be a guarantee that smart persons agree with one. It makes it easier to get through the day.

Pendlebury is so disturbed that Watson’s a racist that he can’t even say it out loud; he’s afraid somebody will notice. That’s why he rifled through his store of adjectives and came up with incendiary. “Yes, incendiary; that will do it. How wryly I’ve dissembled my discomfiture.” The turn of phrase was stillborn because its essence was wryness’s enemy: evasion.

LA replies:

Excellent. If Pendlebury said “racist,” he’d be admitting that a man he regards as a genius has a racist view, which would open up the possibility that the view Pendlebury regards as “racist” may be the correct view.

LA continues:

But here’s a further question for you. Why couldn’t Pendlebury simply have said that genius is no guarantee against saying things that are stupid and incorrect, rather than saying that genius is no guarantee against saying things that are incendiary?

The former would make internal sense, i.e., it wouldn’t be a non-sequitur; and it would reflect what he, Pendlebury, really believes, instead of being evasive. So, why didn’t he say it?

John B. replies:

Because he doesn’t really believe it.

LA replies:

You mean he doesn’t believe Watson is wrong? Meaning he, Pendelbury, personally believes that there are racial differences in intelligence, but, to protect himself, he cannot admit that, so he criticizes Watson for making an inflammatory statement rather than for making a false statement. In other words, he criticizes him, not for saying something that’s not true, but for being so rash and impolitic as to say something that’s true that one is not supposed to say. And, ironically, in making such a criticism, Pendlebury is being entirely sincere, because he himself believes that there are certain true things that one must not say.

John B. replies:

Yes. That view of Pendlebury underlies our exchange. When we point out with relish that he’s avoiding opening up the possibility that Watson’s view is correct, we’re playing gotcha, as one says. We mean he’s avoiding it because he fears it’s true. Suspects it’s true. Knows it’s true.

Kristor writes:

Pendlebury couldn’t say that he thought Watson is wrong because, in his heart of hearts, he probably doesn’t believe it. He doesn’t want to face that fact, because doing so would require a radical reassessment of his world view. Such reassessments are hard work, dangerous, and scary. So he averts his eyes, shuts his ears.

LA writes:

Let’s try to imagine how John Podhoretz would deal with the debate we’re having right now.

He wouldn’t be able to, he wouldn’t be able to go anywhere near it—just like the Science Museum that’s spiked Watson’s talk.

Commentary has published Charles Murray several times since 1994. What are the odds that he will be continue to be published in Commentary once it’s been taken over by John Podhoretz?

Greco writes:

Pendlebury’s censorious observation is as logical as the statement that being tall is no guarantee against liking oranges …

Her lonely “congrats” sits there like Eleanor Rigby …

You are on a roll, sir! I bet you can feel it in your bones. No response required. I just wanted to drop a note to say “wow, this is good writing…”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 17, 2007 11:59 PM | Send