February 21, 1995

Charles Murray
The American Enterprise Institute
1150 17th Street, N.W.  
Washington, D.C.  20036

Dear Mr. Murray:

	First, I'd like to say that The Bell Curve, which I finally got around to reading in its entirety last month, is infinitely more worthwhile than the hundred or so articles I had read about it.  It is an absorbing, illuminating, and historically important book.  There was so much more in it than I had been led to expect.  I found Part II particularly fascinating and surprising.  It was a stroke of genius to have that long section on the correlation between IQ and social behaviors before even getting to the part on race.  Anyone who issues opinions about the book without having carefully read it (which is true of most of its critics) should be ashamed of himself.  

	Second, I want to express my sadness about the passing of Richard Herrnstein.  I met Prof. Herrnstein at a small conference organized by Jared Taylor in Hempstead, New York in 1993 and he struck me as a very fine gentleman.  It is especially sad that he should die just before the publication of a book that made him famous, and that he hasn't been around to help you defend your thesis.  

	Third (and this is the immediate cause of my writing this letter), I have to tell you that I am troubled by the continual note of disingenuousness that creeps into both your writing and your public appearances.  On one hand, you are speaking truths that challenge the entire edifice of modern liberalism; on the other hand, you keep backing away from those truths and telling your audience that your message is really "no big deal" at all.  

	That's what you did, for the upteenth time, this past Sunday morning on "Meet the Press."  First you retreated from your stand on the limits of melioration.  "We don't how to raise intelligence," you said, "But that doesn't mean we should't keep trying."  By saying this, you undercut your own argument on the basic unchangeability of IQ and and re-opened the door to never-ending, ever more ambitious variations on Head Start.  

	But it got worse.  Charles Rangel said to you (and it was the only sensible and non-vicious thing he said on the entire program):  "Alright, Mr. Murray, you keep saying we should be candid about race.  So tell us what you believe about race differences."  And having been given this opening by Rangel (who seemed ready to hear an honest reply), what did you say?  First, that there is a difference of a standard deviation, a term which you said "people don't understand" and then you didn't bother to explain it either.  Second, that the difference is really no big deal, since "there's a lot of overlap."  Third, that the difference is not much bigger than the average difference between siblings.  And finally, that these differences are not "scary."  

	Thus, given the chance before a national audience, you didn't say at all--in a way your audience could understand--what the race difference really is and what it signifies.  For example, you didn't mention that the percentage of blacks in the 115 plus range is a small fraction of the percentage of whites, which shows that the absence of group equality in America is not due to discrimination or lack of opportunity or lack of "incentives," but to these profound group differences.   According to every other participant on the program including the ineffable Jack Kemp, these differences are to be overcome by unending social engineering to produce "opportunity."  Thus you failed to rebut both the egalitarian fiction and the big-state social-engineering philosophy which is based on it.

	The truth is that your ideas are scary to anyone committed to modern liberalism and the egalitarian fiction.  So why pretend that they're not?  

	You are always saying to your critics, "Oh no, Dick Herrnstein and I did not mean this, we did not mean that ..."  But you never come out and clearly state what you do mean, keeping your audience in a state of confusion, tension and suspicion.  Having stirred the most inflammatory and hurtful issue there is, and then trying to act as though you haven't stirred it at all, you end up with the worst of both worlds:  You end up seeming both mean and disingenuous.  

	I'm sorry to sound so displeased.  I am an admirer and grateful reader of yours.  But I simply do not understand how a man could write a book as bold and smart and effective as The Bell Curve, and then retreat from its ideas at every opportunity.

	I'll say it once again:  I do not understand.  

	Can you explain?  

							Sincerely,

							Lawrence Auster