Thanks for this thoughtful article with a lot of background.
Discussion of the elements and underlying causes of physical and psychological average differences between races should be profoundly interesting and useful for multiracial societies on any scale, from a school or workplace up to international level, as it informs what policies will be most helpful - or least corrosive, at a minimum.
Unfortunately the antiracist over-reach from the 1970s onwards dismissed such research and policy making, in favour of very expensive moves in the wrong direction (affirmative action etc). These policies, ironically enough, in addition to not working, actually have very racist messages for individual black people embedded in them, that they are only ever going to succeed if white people make things easy for them, due to their lower intelligence, or whatever. Nice work.
Cofnas believes that facing the realities of race, and average race differences, has the potential to liberate everyone from fifty years of unhelpful thinking and action. It’s a very positive direction to head in.
I think you redeemed yourself at the end. Meritocracy. But not just in hiring practices, but in life generally. Yes, I see racial differences in people I know (I make no presumptions about people I don't know). But racial disparity does not establish a hierarchy. In simplistic terms, 'these people are good at this, those people are good at that'. I wouldn't want to have to defend that statement to the death, but it's at least a little bit true. But who, then, is the better person?
Whatever race is or isn't, I will continue to evaluate the people I meet based on my own bias, and apologize to no one for doing it. In an increasingly technical world, we can little afford to be hiring people on anything but meritocracy. I want the best possible doctor operating on my child. Period. You can leave your racial philosophy at the hospital door.
Meritocracy as a "solution" to racial disparities in ability presents its own set of issues. Blacks are overrepresented—present at rates higher than their presence in the general population—in many sports where participation/victory is selected based on merit/objective standard; basketball and marathon running come immediately to mind.
Nathan Cofnas has been vilified for studying Harvard's own student admission data, supplied in connection with the recent (SFFA vs. Harvard, 2023) Supreme Court decision striking down racial preferences, and coming to the conclusion that, without those preferences and in light of the high standards required of its professors, almost NO blacks would quality to become Harvard faculty members. Cofnas insists that grim prospect must be understood and accepted by those, like the author, who preach meritocracy as panacea in settling issues presented by the fact of racial differences.
Cofnas suggests that some fields where "representation" is more critically important than merit, such as political appointments and corporate governance, could be dealt with using some version of a quota system (had the Supreme Court not banned their use for such purposes). Cofnas is a deep and subtle thinker; neither Glenn Loury nor John McWhorter gave him the opportunity to fully express himself; Coleman Hughes ("Conversations with Coleman" on YouTube) did much better. There, Cofnas recommends that the discussion of racial differences and mechanisms to deal with them be effectively restricted to high-level academics and other professionals rather than thrown into public view as a matter for consideration, debate, and action.
For now, I'll take your word for most of the above. But I respectfully submit that Cofnas is missing the far bigger, far more important picture regarding the populations that private universities in America chose to cultivate. They chose to not merely accept our world as it was or is, not merely accept that so-called race and past or even current performance determines the potential for future performance. Their focus is not on mere "representation" but on far more important "participation."
That's where their focus and our focus should be. Our focus always should be on working toward what We the People declared were the purposes of our Constitution and our nation: to "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" by always stiving toward "a more perfect Union" and a more secure Union, including by not merely "provid[ing] for the common defence," but also by "establish[ing] Justice, insur[ing] domestic Tranquility" and "promot[ng] the general Welfare."
I'd be more inclined to believe that "Cofnas is a deep and subtle thinker" if, instead of thinking about where we are now, he thought about where we'd be if the resources of this nation after the American Revolution had been devoted to eliminating slavery and ameliorating its effects instead of perpetuating slavery and its effects.
Very good thought-provoking article! Thank you for having the courage to write it. But in the "revolution of the American soul" how is it true that "the guiding hand on the wheel was black"? You're right that we shouldn’t care if it were, but I think it clearly was not. Some of the true guiding hands wrote Two Treatises of Government, The Spirit of the Laws, the Declaration of Independence (and many earlier related declarations) and various versions of state constitutions and the U.S. Constitution, including amendments (especially Amendments I, XIII, XIV, XV, XIX, XXIV and XXVI).
Back in the 1690's John Locke with "The Second Treatise of Government" popularized the belief in the colonies that "Men" were "by Nature, all free, equal and independent," which was incorporated into our Declaration of Independence.
In the 1750's, Montesquieu with "The Spirit of the Laws" helped popularize even better beliefs that eventually were incorporated into our even better Constitution. "VIRTUE in a republic is a most simple thing; it is a love of the republic." "A love of the republic, in a democracy, is a love of the democracy; as the latter is that of equality. A love of the democracy is, likewise, that of frugality. Since every individual ought here to enjoy the same happiness and the same advantages."
"The freedom of every citizen constitutes a part of the public liberty; and, in a democratical state, is even a part of the sovereignty [of the people]." "[T]he enjoyment of liberty, and even its support and preservation, consists in every man’s being allowed to speak his thoughts and to lay open his sentiments." "In republics women are free by the laws, and restrained by manners." "In a democracy the people are in some respects the sovereign, and in others the subject" (of the laws).
“[A]s all men are born equal, slavery must be accounted unnatural.” "There is no such thing as a right of reducing people to slavery, but when it becomes necessary for the preservation of the conquest. Preservation, and not servitude, is the end of conquest; though servitude may happen sometimes to be a necessary means of preservation. Even in that case it is contrary to the nature of things that the slavery should be perpetual. The people enslaved ought to be rendered capable of becoming subjects [or citizens]."
Montesquieu even summarized much of the thinking in this article: "THE customs of an enslaved people are a part of their servitude; those of a free people are a part of their liberty."
Thanks for this thoughtful article with a lot of background.
Discussion of the elements and underlying causes of physical and psychological average differences between races should be profoundly interesting and useful for multiracial societies on any scale, from a school or workplace up to international level, as it informs what policies will be most helpful - or least corrosive, at a minimum.
Unfortunately the antiracist over-reach from the 1970s onwards dismissed such research and policy making, in favour of very expensive moves in the wrong direction (affirmative action etc). These policies, ironically enough, in addition to not working, actually have very racist messages for individual black people embedded in them, that they are only ever going to succeed if white people make things easy for them, due to their lower intelligence, or whatever. Nice work.
Cofnas believes that facing the realities of race, and average race differences, has the potential to liberate everyone from fifty years of unhelpful thinking and action. It’s a very positive direction to head in.
I think you redeemed yourself at the end. Meritocracy. But not just in hiring practices, but in life generally. Yes, I see racial differences in people I know (I make no presumptions about people I don't know). But racial disparity does not establish a hierarchy. In simplistic terms, 'these people are good at this, those people are good at that'. I wouldn't want to have to defend that statement to the death, but it's at least a little bit true. But who, then, is the better person?
Whatever race is or isn't, I will continue to evaluate the people I meet based on my own bias, and apologize to no one for doing it. In an increasingly technical world, we can little afford to be hiring people on anything but meritocracy. I want the best possible doctor operating on my child. Period. You can leave your racial philosophy at the hospital door.
Meritocracy as a "solution" to racial disparities in ability presents its own set of issues. Blacks are overrepresented—present at rates higher than their presence in the general population—in many sports where participation/victory is selected based on merit/objective standard; basketball and marathon running come immediately to mind.
Nathan Cofnas has been vilified for studying Harvard's own student admission data, supplied in connection with the recent (SFFA vs. Harvard, 2023) Supreme Court decision striking down racial preferences, and coming to the conclusion that, without those preferences and in light of the high standards required of its professors, almost NO blacks would quality to become Harvard faculty members. Cofnas insists that grim prospect must be understood and accepted by those, like the author, who preach meritocracy as panacea in settling issues presented by the fact of racial differences.
Cofnas suggests that some fields where "representation" is more critically important than merit, such as political appointments and corporate governance, could be dealt with using some version of a quota system (had the Supreme Court not banned their use for such purposes). Cofnas is a deep and subtle thinker; neither Glenn Loury nor John McWhorter gave him the opportunity to fully express himself; Coleman Hughes ("Conversations with Coleman" on YouTube) did much better. There, Cofnas recommends that the discussion of racial differences and mechanisms to deal with them be effectively restricted to high-level academics and other professionals rather than thrown into public view as a matter for consideration, debate, and action.
For now, I'll take your word for most of the above. But I respectfully submit that Cofnas is missing the far bigger, far more important picture regarding the populations that private universities in America chose to cultivate. They chose to not merely accept our world as it was or is, not merely accept that so-called race and past or even current performance determines the potential for future performance. Their focus is not on mere "representation" but on far more important "participation."
That's where their focus and our focus should be. Our focus always should be on working toward what We the People declared were the purposes of our Constitution and our nation: to "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" by always stiving toward "a more perfect Union" and a more secure Union, including by not merely "provid[ing] for the common defence," but also by "establish[ing] Justice, insur[ing] domestic Tranquility" and "promot[ng] the general Welfare."
I'd be more inclined to believe that "Cofnas is a deep and subtle thinker" if, instead of thinking about where we are now, he thought about where we'd be if the resources of this nation after the American Revolution had been devoted to eliminating slavery and ameliorating its effects instead of perpetuating slavery and its effects.
Very good thought-provoking article! Thank you for having the courage to write it. But in the "revolution of the American soul" how is it true that "the guiding hand on the wheel was black"? You're right that we shouldn’t care if it were, but I think it clearly was not. Some of the true guiding hands wrote Two Treatises of Government, The Spirit of the Laws, the Declaration of Independence (and many earlier related declarations) and various versions of state constitutions and the U.S. Constitution, including amendments (especially Amendments I, XIII, XIV, XV, XIX, XXIV and XXVI).
Back in the 1690's John Locke with "The Second Treatise of Government" popularized the belief in the colonies that "Men" were "by Nature, all free, equal and independent," which was incorporated into our Declaration of Independence.
In the 1750's, Montesquieu with "The Spirit of the Laws" helped popularize even better beliefs that eventually were incorporated into our even better Constitution. "VIRTUE in a republic is a most simple thing; it is a love of the republic." "A love of the republic, in a democracy, is a love of the democracy; as the latter is that of equality. A love of the democracy is, likewise, that of frugality. Since every individual ought here to enjoy the same happiness and the same advantages."
"The freedom of every citizen constitutes a part of the public liberty; and, in a democratical state, is even a part of the sovereignty [of the people]." "[T]he enjoyment of liberty, and even its support and preservation, consists in every man’s being allowed to speak his thoughts and to lay open his sentiments." "In republics women are free by the laws, and restrained by manners." "In a democracy the people are in some respects the sovereign, and in others the subject" (of the laws).
“[A]s all men are born equal, slavery must be accounted unnatural.” "There is no such thing as a right of reducing people to slavery, but when it becomes necessary for the preservation of the conquest. Preservation, and not servitude, is the end of conquest; though servitude may happen sometimes to be a necessary means of preservation. Even in that case it is contrary to the nature of things that the slavery should be perpetual. The people enslaved ought to be rendered capable of becoming subjects [or citizens]."
Montesquieu even summarized much of the thinking in this article: "THE customs of an enslaved people are a part of their servitude; those of a free people are a part of their liberty."