If Fewer Males Were Born, The Crime Rate Would Be Lower
Is there anything morally reprehensible about that claim?
Just wondering.
Is there anything morally reprehensible about that claim?
Just wondering.
posted by Winston Smith at
3:32 PM
28 Comments:
Winston is judging Bennett's remark on just a basis of: One, what is the minimum it takes to make his assertion true? And two, is it true? On that basis Bennett would just be asserting a mere counterfactual claim, and that claim would likely be true. Statistically, there is a relationship between race and crime. What then, asks Winston to himself, could be offensive about uttering truths?
But almost nobody who is not a philosopher uses English subjunctives to express mere counterfactual claims. They use them to claim a causal link. A sentence like "If the cuban missle crisis had ended in a nuclear exchange, the crime rate would be lower." should strike even the philosophical ear as odd, since although the counterfactual is true, failure to blow up the world is not a cause of crime. (I'm assuming that everybody buys it in said exchange. If there were survivors the per capita crime rate I'm sure would be very high indeed, what with the fighting for radioactive cans...) In cases where the situation is ripe for blame, the subjunctive is usually used to pin it. Compare: "If she hadn't gone to that party, then she wouldn't have been raped." Again, as a counterfactual it would be true, but such an assertion would be in normal conversation asserting something false - false and odious.
In the context of Bennett's remarks, it clear he is not just calling attention to a statistical fact, but assuming - rather offhandedly too - that there is some causal role role played by being black in criminal activity. This is very likely false, and offensive too. Not in the PC, don't-you-know-the-nasty-entymology-of-that-word way that can happen to the innocent, but the way that expresses genuinely unjust beliefs. It would be even worse if he were try to dole out blaim, but there is not evidence for that in this context.
The other way that Bennett's remark differs from Winston's example is that there very likely is a causal connection between merely being male and crime, and plenty of science to explain the mechanisms.
Bennett could have meant:
1. if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down because blacks have criminality in their blood
2. if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down because for various social reasons the crime rate among blacks at this point in U.S. history is high.
Both (1) and (2) are plausible, though, you cannot assume that he definitely meant (1) unless you have additional evidence based on other things Bennett has said.
And for the record, I'm not white and I think he's a despicable guy, but I also think everyone is better off in a world where people understand what a reductio ad absurdum argument is.
I'm on the Bennett is making a defensible nonracist argument side of things, but think he shouldn't have risked angering so many people to make the obvious point that murdering the helpless for the greater good offends common morality.
Also, I imagine most people will recognize a causal connection between a few easily-identifiable genes in a subpopulation and a history of slavehood and discrimination on the one hand and a higher crime rate on the other, and plenty of science to explain the mechanism.
You can insert any group you want into Bennett's statment and it makes sense, especially when you consider that the term "criminal" is undefined.
The question to answer is, do you think that black people have a higher tendency towards criminality based on the fact they are black?
If you do, Bennett is all fine and good. If you don't, the comment reeks of the same odor it would if any other group was lumped in. Winston's use of the term "male" in his question is (sorry to say) crap. Use the word "Southerner" or "Frat Boy" of "Liberal" and examine your response accordingly.
Bennett's comment is technically accurate in the same way that aborting all cheerleaders would lead to a reduction in crime. Aborting any group of people, taking into account the "givens" of the argument, would always result in a reduction of crime. If you eliminate a group of people, of which group certain people commit cirmes, well, gee whiz...crime is reduced.
Wonder why Bennett chose to target blacks. Just wonderin'.
Uh, to answer the actual question...
It is, to me, morally reprehensible to target any demographic for abortion or other "solution" based on the fact that said demographic appears (or even in fact does) produce more criminals than other demographics.
Collective punishment, individual rights, fautly premises and all the rest enter into the equation, but you get the idea.
We are individuals with our own successes and failures to meet. We all deserve a chance. 'nuff said.
Re the "all males" point, I've heard women make exactly that statement (usually with a beer in hand)--"if men were removed from the planet there would be no more war." I've learned over the years never to argue with this ridiculous statement. In the case of Bennett, in the first place I think he's pretty much lost all stature as a serious thinker, and what he had originally was pretty marginal. (The philosophical community used to have Bertrand Russell as a public figure.) People like Limbaugh were impressed--woohoo. The discussion of his clearly racist remarks on Fox News last Sunday was instructive of the pathetic level of msm discourse. Poor Mari Liason understood where the racism lay. She was completely ignored by Hume, Kristol, and Wallace, all of whom blathered on about how Bennett was just conducting a "thought experiment" and not asserting that we should abort all black foeti. Sheesh, give me a break. The racism lies in suggesting the determinism of racial characteristics. In the US we hold it to be self-evident that people have open possibilities, what ever their race. The fact that Bennett doesn't really believe that (and thus makes his statement about aborting all black babies) is what makes him a racist. The fact that he has a career of being a hypocritical blowhard ("The Book of Virtue"--really, give me a break!!!) is why he deserves to be publicly pilloried for such a statement as this recent foray into the ongoing discussion of events. Of course it's quite true that Jefferson wrote the original "self-evident" truth, and at the same time of writing, owned other people. Perhaps consistency is indeed the hobgoblin of little minds? --Beel
Just for the record, I wasn't asserting anything.
I was just asking.
Incidentally, I usually indicate the difference between an assertion and a question by ending assertive sentences with a '.' and interrogative ones with a '?'.
Also for the record, I think that Bennett is an intellectually dishonest asshole. What I'm interested in is sort of this: is Bennett's utterance alleged to be racist in itself, or, rather, only in conjunction with certain background assumptions/conclusions about Bennett's other beliefs.
See how intellectual musing gets one in trouble, WS? The parsers will be the death of us all.
This is helpful for those who wish to delve beneath the surface.
Nothing immoral in that from my p.o.v. of morality.
Steve
"The effect on the national crime rate per capita, however, depends on whether the per capita crime rate for a group is above or below the national average. For example, getting ride of all Asian Americans would raise the national per capita crime rate because Asians are imprisoned a rate barely than 1/5th that of non-Hispanic whites and 1/33rd that of African-Americans.)"
Am I the only one who notices the huge logical fallacy in just this small slice of Tom's link?
Never thought you were asserting, Winston, tho Socrates would make various remarkable assertions just to get things going--it's a fine tradition. My take on the "all males" "assertion" is the same as the "all black" one--that it runs into problems when it points to future behavior, at least in a moral universe structured with the Jeffersonian proposition that "all men [humans] are created equal." --Beel
Since nobody's responded in a day, Mr. Carroll, I suppose the answer's no. Please share with the class.
Correlation isn't causation, but neither is it necessarily coincidence.
Rilkefan put it best, I think, that Bennett foolishly touched America's real Third Rail to make a minor and irrelevant point.
Somehow I detect a spitload of PC coming up, but be careful anyway...
Tom,
The relevant point was the author's implied 100% correspondence between crime rates and imprisonment rates, when he suddenly switches from one to the other. There's a large inductive leap there.
As for:
"Correlation isn't causation, but neither is it necessarily coincidence.",
I'll just say thanks for that immensely content-laden statement.
And no, rilkefan didn't put it best, Beel did, when he said:
"The racism lies in suggesting the determinism of racial characteristics."
...........................
"Somehow I detect a spitload of PC coming up, but be careful anyway..."
A feeble, first year law student attempt at litigation by *inoculation*, except that your 'argument' isn't really one at all, but rather a preemptive pejorative labelling of points you find inconvenient.
Perhaps, but I was, to my own disappointment, accurate. You played the racism card right on schedule, and honest inquiry is impossible after that.
I understand your avoiding the Third Rail, tho. I see you took my caution under advisement. But I've no time for cat-and-mouse with your thesis, whatever it is. You sniff at the causation-correlation-coincidence nexus, but do not address it. There is either a Black crime phenomenon or there is not. Perhaps at some point you will say what you think directly.
Yes, you're just so accurate, brilliant one. Unfortunately, the racism card was already dealt - by Bill Bennett. Maybe he was trying to draw to an inside straight. Whether or not his argument is racist/immoral, the underlying assumption he used to build his point was "more black people = more crime", which is loathsome.
I'm not avoiding anything at all. That "Black crime phenomenon" you allude to can be explained myriad other ways, and has been, in fact.
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/usa/Rcedrg00.htm
Maybe you can show me your own ride on the rail, whereby you demonstrate how criminality is something that inheres in blacks? Perhaps a scientifically sound study that controls for all other factors besides being African-American? Then we can have an "honest inquiry".
It could be fun, kind of like showing how wealthy white males are genetically predisposed to fleece large corporations and contribute to Republican campaigns.
See, there's no denying the correlation, so's I'm just sayin'...
Your tone makes it impossible to gauge your sincerity in this inquiry. To explore correlation is by no means an endorsement of "inherence," and the suggestion that it is begs the question and is frankly insulting. Moreover, since you have declared Bennett guilty of dealing the racism card (while somehow avoiding calling it racist, a distinction to me without a difference), to signal any agreement with him would expose me to the same slander. I decline to continue with you under those conditions.
I do not know if you are being disingenuous or are honestly unfamiliar with sources other than advocacy groups like Human Rights Watch. In good faith, sort of like Charlie Brown and the football, I'll suggest a look at Department of Justice figures taken from the victims' reports. This controls for inequalities in incarceration rates, and since well over 90% of crime is intraracial, factors out the false testimony of Susan Smith types as well.
Although it defies your comforting caricature of me, I would be glad to see the "Black crime phenomenon" proved to be a fiction and wish you luck. If you succeed, I will happily disseminate your findings in my travels to & fro on the internet.
I mean that sincerely. On the other hand, to acknowledge, even statistically, a "Black crime phenomenon" seems to be branded in advance a thoughtcrime ("loathsome"), if I read you correctly. Orwell vs. orthodoxy, indeed.
I believe the drug issue is sui generis and so must be considered separately. The stiffer crack laws were supported, indeed advanced, by the Black political establishment as a result of the crack epidemic of some years back. The results are tragically mixed, and I'm at a loss for a better way myself. All the alternatives are a choice between bad or worse.
I have no problem with an attempt to link white-collar crime with Caucasoid Republicans, if you can do so. Certainly the assertion is made often enough hereabouts, although the Democrat Chicago machine is once again in the same frying pan.
My first blush is that greed is one of the few human universialities, but everything's on the table in an honest inquiry. Last one through the looking glass is a rotten egg, Mr. Carroll.
There is no insincerity on my part. The problem is that you keep referring to a "black crime phenomenon" and denying my explanation for said phenomenon by dismissing the analyzer (Human Rights Watch) without offering your own *explanation* for this phenomenon.
It's quite simple, really. There are three possibilities:
1) The bcp is due to increased commission of crimes by African-Americans due to factors embedded in African-Americans.
2) The bcp is due to differences in reporting and/or arrest/prosecution/imprisonment of crimes committed by blacks.
3) The bcp is due to increased commission of crimes by African-Americans due to externalities like their socio-economic conditions.
Or some combination thereof.
Go ahead. You explain it to me. And while you're at it, you can explain to me where in the DOJ statistics it controls for inequalities in incarceration rates (if what you mean by this is what I think you mean - specifically that a black arrested and prosecuted for a given crime stands the same statistical chance of going to prison as a white arrested and prosecuted for the same crime).
And it's impossible to consider the entire crime problem separate from the drug issue, despite your contention that it's 'sui generis'. Take a look at what proportion of inmates are incarcerated for low-level drug crimes and you'll see that the 'War on Drugs' distorts the entire justice and penal system in this country.
Where are all of the drug sweeps going on that pick up even the lowliest of users and throw them all in the can? I'll tell you where it's not. It's not in the wealthy lily-white town in which I grew up, where you couldn't take a step at one of the huge saturday night parties without disturbing a pile of blow.
And to use Mr. Bennett's example, do you really think that if we aborted all the fetuses of wealthy, privileged caucasians that the white collar crime rate wouldn't go down?
Or the answer is 4) none of the above, an inquiry you have closed off.
I shall follow Rilkefan's advice, and my own. Peace, I'm out.
Right, just hint, oh so cleverly that there's some secret exalted explanation for these statistics.
Do you even have a theory? A hypothesis? Anything? Beuhler? Beuhler?
Since your argument amounts to: here are some DOJ statistics - the numbers speak for themselves, I'll just assume that you don't have any substantive answers to, for example, the points made in the first comment by Karl.
So rather than engage in your vaunted 'honest inquiry', you choose to shy away from the 'honest discusssion'.
You preferred to assume various strawmen, such as the accusation of racism on your part (never proferred by me) and my caricaturing of you (never done by me). So you play the victim, hint at some "alternate" explanation, and run away.
Are you kidding? You won't even decide whether the phenomenon exists or it doesn't. Discussion is pointless.
Like I said, look to the victim stats, which have nothing to do with "the system." Count the bodies. If you want me to do this stupid dance with you, learn where my feet are so you can stop stepping on them.
If you ever want to get to Square Two, the whys, then familiarize yourself in advance with the arguments on the other side, which are just a google away. Any first-year law student would do the same. Otherwise, we're wasting each other's time.
If you'd ever actually posit what the 'phenomenon' is, maybe I could admit that it exists.
If you're referring to higher crime rates in the black population, nobody, myself included, is denying it.
And thanks for offering a great piece of evidence for my hypothesis #3 above. Take a look at the first chart on your link. The one where both the black victimization and commission rates for homicide halved from about 1994 to 1999.
I say causation, since economic conditions improved markedly during that period, particularly for the lower class, which is made up disproportionately of African-Americans.
Now since you accurately claim that correlation is not causation, I welcome you to posit an alternative to my theory which is supported, at least prima facie, by YOUR evidence.
Harsher crack laws, three strikes laws, more abortions, Black community activism, the takeover of Congress by Newt Gingrich and the GOP in 1994.
I dunno, Mr. Carroll. All of the above have been posited. Except the last one. :-)
As Tommy Smothers said, "When you don't know what you're talking about, it's hard to know when you're finished." I don't know what we're talking about anymore. Bennett had the temerity to reference Freakonomics, the left-wing watchdogs pounced on him, a big stink ensued, and we expended a lot of cyberink on someone neither of us really give a damn about.
"If you're referring to higher crime rates in the black population, nobody, myself included, is denying it."
If you google "black crime," the very first two articles (both very good in their own ways) that pop up indicate otherwise. I decided to research the topic for myself a few years back, and have rarely found one where the sides are in such total disagreement.
Except that Bennett didn't reference Freakonomics' metrics, he used his own.
Not that I necessarily buy F's conclusions, but they specifically did not use race as a metric.
If you read Karl's first comment again, you'll see where the offense lies, IMO. The same as if I said: "If we nuked all the trailer parks, the meth crisis would be mostly done away with".
Even if true in its most literal sense, the implicit premise is offensive.
All the best truths are offensive. ;-)
Thanks Mr. Bulworth.
Are you guys still fighting about this?
Jeez, I forgot about this thread.
Who's winning?
I lost. I got compared to Warren Beatty.
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