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Collapsing Centres and Threatening Perpheries
John Ford (John.Ford@JCU.EDU.AU)
Mon, 31 Oct 1994 10:09:36 +1000
Rushton etc.
Following this debate (?) it seems to me that there is something more
going on here than JUST an academic
debate about rAce and IQ. I was listening to Radio National (Australian
ABC radio production) about R and that Bell curve which tied R etc in
with the political move to the right.
I have also been considering, in "The Year of the Family" a 'turning
to the right'. I am concerned that people like R are given credance
through media. (The ABC in Aust. is Government funded and thefore not
generally influenced by right wing agendas). Possibly R is the
springboard on which the backlash against
what appear to some to be an excess liberalization of society (Western).
To be rather general, the argument runs something like this : The Family is
under threat, homosexuality threatens to be made
compulsory, there are no longer any morals, everyone's on dope, or worst,
the Asians are winning the trade war, the cost of keeping the third world
alive is too great, population growth must be controlled, priest rape
small boys, God is dead - the centre is collapsing!!!!
That these arguments are social constructions ( as is Rushton's) is
denied. They are portrayed as REAL. The Past is promoted as civilization
Lost. o (I accept that previous conceptions of the PAST are also
social constructions). But middle Aust. and middle Ameriac, and middle
Western society are under threat by these new liberal ideals. We MUST
RETURN to
those past ideals and values. Out with the Libs: in with the right.
Enter Rushton et al.
Rushton effectively feeds into this rising, and socially generated ,
fear. He will be used effectively as a political weapon to promote the
social engineering of races and populations. The perphery theatens to
overcome the centre. The centre is reinforced - by science and arguments
of logic.
Just thinking.
john ford
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