You Aren’t Allowed To Believe That

David Friedman blogs about Academia’s “official lies,” where he references a list put together by a commenter on one of his previous posts:

–There is no such thing as “race.” It is not a scientific concept.

–Affirmative action is necessary because racism continues to be the primary cause of the poor performance of blacks in school.

–IQ tests do not measure anything real about human intelligence.

–IQ is not heritable.

–If government programs for the elimination of poverty have failed, it is for one of two reasons: 1) they have not been sufficiently funded; or 2) those implementing the programs have not been sincere.

–All differences between men and women are culturally determined.

If anyone doubts the extent to which these ideas dominate public discourse on college campuses, I invite that person to assert publicly a contrary view and see what happens. I say “publicly” because many people will tolerate such notions in private, but they will feel compelled to silence them if they are offered as part of the public discourse of the campus.

I haven’t looked too deeply into any of the items listed, but I do find the collection fascinating. I’m always interested in what one isn’t “allowed” to believe in a given societal setting.

 

Class Warfare

I’ve heard it said that the middle class exists to protect the truly wealthy from the poor.

What say you, true, false, or unfairly worded statement?

 

GDP Fetish

Interesting quote in the WSJ today:

He has what I call the “GDP fetish”—the belief that increases in GDP are good whether or not they represent increased production of things that people actually value. If the government spends $100 billion digging holes and then filling them back up, then GDP can rise by $100 billion or more even if the $100 billion is totally wasted. Some stimulus projects, in fact, are little better than hole-digging. One example I noted on a recent visit to Detroit is the tearing up of sidewalk corners to make them wheelchair-friendly, even though the sidewalks themselves have so many craters that people in wheelchairs use the roads instead.

 

Kim Dotcom’s Epic Tweet of Irony