2014-01-10

Racism And The Fallacy Of Composition

Specifically, racism is the fallacy of composition. Here's Steve Sailer:
The classic example is South Korea, which was a poor country with little altruism for non-family members. The typical pattern is that nice white people in America find out about a country or culture that doesn't do a good job of taking care of its orphans and they start adopting that culture's unwanted children and giving them good homes. Eventually, the donor country starts to become ashamed by the fact that the American adopters are better people than they are, and decides to get its house in order and do a better job of taking care of its own orphans.
Sailer, typically trigger-happy with the links to supporting evidence (after all, he styles himself a journalist), offers nothing in support of his claims about South Korea. Nor does he cite even anecdotal evidence for what he labels "the typical pattern" of international adoptions. He offers no citation of anything (and, honestly, how could he?) in support of the hackneyed narrative that South Korea (as a country, understand) started "to become ashamed by the fact that American adopters are better people than they [the Koreans] are." All this is not just a likely story. It is a complete fabrication.

The really great thing about Steve Sailer, though, is that one doesn't have to invest too much time refuting his points. Give him enough blog space and he will readily discredit himself.

Conspicuously absent from Sailer's narrative, of course, are the strict domestic adoption regulations here in the States that encourage American parents to adopt from abroad. Please understand that Sailer will not and cannot mention this fact because it blasts a gaping hole in his narrative about African American culture. Rather than point to the obvious, he links to an 11-year old article written by (surprise!) Steve Sailer, in which he claims that the reason Americans don't adopt inner city black kids is because black people oppose it.

Also conspicuously absent from Sailer's narrative about South Korea and Russia is any account of the economic growth experienced by those countries, which happened for many reasons beyond simply a collective sense of shame for their high international adoption rates.

But then again, we wouldn't want historical accuracy to get in the way of insinuations about racial supremacy.

No comments:

Post a Comment