From a newsletter, and no longer available online:
Human nature book recommendations:
https://www.robkhenderson.com/favorite-books
3 years ago I wrote an op-ed in the New York Times titled “Why Being a Foster Child Made Me a Conservative” (archived/no paywall here).
In 2017, I’d written a version of it for an undergrad writing contest on
campus. They rejected it. It didn’t win. It didn’t get runner up. Or an
honorable mention. I figured it wasn’t very good.
Later, I was at a writer’s seminar. The seminar was specifically geared
for veterans who wanted to write about their experiences. Jim Dao, the
deputy op-ed editor at the Times visited us. He invited us to
pitch to him. It was a different time. A whole 4 years ago. Before Bari
Weiss resigned. Before James Bennet (and Jim Dao) had to resign from the
op-ed pages. Before Don McNeil was fired.
I sent my essay to them. They took it.
One of the points I make in that op-ed:“My skin crawls when people
use me as an example of a person who can shoulder the burdens of a
nontraditional upbringing and succeed. They use my success as an
argument for lax attitudes about parenting. But I am one of the lucky
ones.”
People sometimes hold me up as some kind of example. They say we need
more kids who turn out like me. Kids who grow up in fucked up
circumstances and then graduate from college.
Only 3% of foster kids graduate college, compared to 11% of kids in the
bottom socioeconomic quintile. Poor kids are nearly 4 times more likely
to graduate from college than foster kids.
Anyway, we don’t need more kids like me (trust me). We need more kids
with good homes. So that even more abandoned or abused or neglected kids
don’t go to college, they at least had a decent childhood.
Somehow, the goals shifted to the wrong side. The aim shouldn’t be to
improve a person’s life after they have lived through chaos and impoverishment. The aim should be to prevent such chaos in impoverishment in the first place.
This is because even if one leaves such an environment, the consequences of being in that environment never fully leaves them.
***
When it comes to behavior, sometimes people who are usually smart say, “Bro, it’s in the genes.” Which is odd because these same people are aware that genes are responsible for differences between individuals. They don’t measure an individual's traits in isolation.
Norms can both constrain and unleash behavioral propensities.
I've given this example before. Here I’ll give it again.
Suppose there is a study that measures how many people we punch each
year.
Suppose each of us has a different innate propensity to punch others.
In a completely free environment with no norms or consequences, I would
punch 10 people a year. And in this free environment, you would punch
three people a year. A difference of seven people. Perhaps I am
"genetically" more prone than you to punch.
Now suppose we both live in an environment with strong norms against
punching. In this environment, people lose status for violence. And
violent people experience swift and unfavorable consequences.
In this environment, I now punch only eight people a year, and you now
punch only one. I am still punching seven more people than you each
year. The gap is the same as it was before. But, and this is crucial, we
are both punching fewer people than before.
In the free environment, on average, each of us punched six and a half
people a year (I punch 10, you punch 3; (10+3)/2 = 6.5).
In the rigid environment, we averaged four and a half people a year (I
punch 8, you punch 1; (8+1)/2 = 4.5).
Relative differences exist. I will punch more people than you regardless
of the environment. But absolute differences are important. The overall
number of punched victims will rise and fall depending on local norms.
That matters, too.
***
Education and weight are both 70 percent heritable.
In the 1970s, about 13 percent of Americans graduated from college. Today it’s around 35 percent.
In the 1970s, about 13 percent of Americans were overweight. Today, it’s around 70 percent.
Did our genes make us smarter and fatter over the last 50 years?
No.
It became easier to go to college. So more people went.
It became easier to get fat. So more people did. The heritability of divorce is around 40% percent. In the 1950s, 11 percent of children born to married parents saw their parents get divorced. By the 1970s, more than 50 percent of children born to married parents saw their parents get divorced. Did genes change that much in 20 years?
No. It became easier to divorce. So more people did.
Genes have something to do with behavior. But behavior can be unleashed
or constrained depending on the norms of a society.
Some people interpret behavior genetics findings to mean environment is
unimportant. I interpret them to mean certain aspects of environment
matter even more. Norms and customs constrain differences between
individuals. The absence of norms magnifies them.
***
The renowned researcher James Flynn found that when a white person and an Asian person have the same IQ, the Asian person, on average, will exceed the educational and occupational accomplishments of the white person. He reports, “Chinese Americans could spot whites 21 IQ points and still match them for occupational status…Whites with the same mean IQ as Chinese Americans would fall far below their achievements.” The average income for an Asian American with an IQ of 80, well below average, is $46,975. That is roughly equivalent to a typical American college graduate. IQ is important for life success. But it to some extent, lower ability can be overcome with work ethic, local norms that prize respect and patience, and strong families.
***
Compared to a child born to a married white woman with an average IQ, a
child born to an unmarried white woman with an average IQ is 6 times
more likely to experience poverty.
Marriage has the strongest buffering effect for children of the less
able. Perhaps that’s why the ruling class is so intent on dismantling
it.
***
There is some genetic component to crime. But again, one’s propensity to commit crime depends on the environment.
Compared to 1970, a white male born into a poor or working-class family is now 5 times more likely to be incarcerated. The prison doctor and author Theodore Dalrymple once wrote, “The loosening of bonds between the parents of children has had disastrous consequences both for individuals and society. So, obviously, one would need to be a trained intellectual to deny them.”
*** I’ve mentored poor kids and young vets fresh out of the military. They ask me what they’re up against to obtain success. Here is what I tell them. If you come from poverty and chaos, you are up against 3 enemies: 1. Dysfunction and deprivation 2. Yourself, as a result of what that environment does to you 3. The ruling class, who wants to keep you mired in it Recently, I told a Cambridge graduate student about one of my best friends in high school.
My friend was a tall, good looking guy who played on our school's football team. He could have been recruited to play college football at Sac State. Like me and our other friends, he was failing a class. To be eligible for recruitment, all he had to do was attend make up classes for 2 weeks and earn at least a B. He attended class for the first 3 days then bailed. We spent the rest of our spring break getting drunk and finding trouble. After telling the grad student about my friend, she replied, “Maybe it’s good he didn’t go to college. If that’s who he was and what he enjoyed doing, maybe he wasn’t meant to go.” I asked if that was her son, what would she have done. Her response: “Forced him to go to class every day and threaten to kill him if he didn’t.” Today, my friend works at a gas station. He has a kid he barely sees with a girl he never talks to. We now live in a culture where affluent, educated, and well-connected people validate and affirm the behaviors, decisions, and attitudes of marginalized and deprived people that they would never accept for themselves or their own children.
And they claim they do this out of compassion.
Members of the upper class say it’s fine if my friend and I ditch class and ruin our futures. But it’s definitely not fine for their
kids to do so.
Still, I would prefer if more kids had a happy and safe childhood even
if they never go to college, than if every poor and dispossessed kid got
a fancy college degree.
Recommended Articles:The Rush From Judgment by Theodore DalrympleHow I discovered I have the brain of a psychopath by James Fallon