Western Men Responsible for all Achievements
The Telegraph, London | 1/28/04 | Julian Coman
Charles Murray believes Western men alone are responsible for all the great achievements of civilisation.
To say that Charles Murray makes enemies easily is something of an understatement. His last major academic work was variously branded as "racist, philosophically shabby, politically ugly, disingenuous and creepy". These were judgments on his mid-1990s bestseller, The Bell-Curve, in which Murray argued that for genetic reasons African-Americans had significantly lower average IQs than whites or Asians. He then lay low, perhaps wondering how such a masterpiece of political incorrectness could be bettered.
The answer comes in the form of Human Accomplishment: the Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 BC to 1950, an extraordinarily ambitious resume of the major cultural achievements, from music to philosophy to chemistry. Its robust conclusions have already had the singular effect of enraging feminists, members of ethnic minorities, lovers of 20th-century modernism, orientalists and Islamic fundamentalists.
Put bluntly, Murray has tried to prove scientifically the overwhelming cultural superiority of dead White males. By pursuing an arcane 134-year-old statistical method known as "historiometry", he claims to have scientifically demonstrated what every cultural conservative instinctively knows: white males have been head and shoulders above all rivals when it comes to significant cultural achievement in the arts and sciences.
Think Shakespeare. Think Michelangelo. Think Louis Pasteur. Don't think women or non-Caucasians. According to Murray, the idea that no one culture or tradition can ever be judged objectively superior to another has led to a willful and quite unjustified "trashing" of Dead White Males. "In anthologies of literature now, women and black writers are represented out of all proportion to their merit, in order to promote equality," he says. "Let's not take Shakespeare - it's too obvious. But, for example, why are pupils reading Toni Morrison instead of Joseph Conrad? Conrad is incomparably better than Morrison could ever dream of being. But if you say that you will be accused of male, white, Anglo-Saxon prejudice."
The methodology of Human Accomplishment is disarmingly simple. For five years, Murray assessed 167 encyclopedias, adding up the space accorded to the most significant scientists and artists throughout history, stopping the count at 1950. Skeptics point out that all but three of the encyclopedias were published in the latter half of the 20th century, giving the experiment a modern bias. Murray argues, however, that within 50 years, greatness will almost always have made itself known. So all pre-1950 candidates for posterity were given a fair chance. In the end, 4002 artists, scientists and philosophers make the final cut. They are divided into a set of league tables claiming to rank scientifically the best and brightest members of the human species up to 1950. The more words devoted to a philosopher, a musician or a physicist in Murray's encyclopedias, the greater his significance and achievement.
Shakespeare naturally takes the Western literature prize, as the most discussed writer of all time. Goethe is next. Beethoven and Mozart tie for music, Isaac Newton wins in combined sciences; Galileo is second. Women, it emerges, have contributed almost nothing. Africa is not even on the map. Confucius gets an honorable mention. But in general, Eastern cultures have just not tried hard enough:
"You have a philosophical and theological culture in East Asia that states that this life is not that important," Murray says. "This is one of a whole cycle of lives if you're a Buddhist. Striving in this life is seen as a source of suffering rather than a source of pleasure. That's explicit in Buddhism, but is also present in Daoism."
By contrast, the development of the Christian notion of vocation, particularly from the 14th century onwards, saw a flowering of intellectual and artistic achievement, almost exclusively among men. "To express yourself, to create beauty, to discover the miracle of God's works through science was seen as pleasing to God. That was extremely powerful in its effects." Thus, between 1400 and 1950, Murray's method has found that 72 per cent of significant figures in arts and sciences came from Britain, France, Germany and Italy alone. Overall, male Europeans and North Americans are shown to be responsible for 97 per cent of scientific accomplishment from 800 BC to 1950. Statistically, when it comes to curing disease, building bridges, inventing glasses or devising new, better modes of transport, Western man is in a league of his own.
"What the human species is today," he says, "it owes in astonishing degree to what was accomplished in just half a dozen centuries by the peoples of one small portion of the north-western Eurasian land mass." Unfortunately, there is a sting in the tail. In the 20th century, Western societies lost their religious convictions while equality and inclusion replaced the pursuit of excellence as the highest social goal. The result: nihilism, relativism, Toni Morrison and "unreadable" literature such as James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. "The 20th century tipped over into a kind of sterility. Finnegans Wake will become a curiosity, like atonality in music."
Instead of the vibrant vision of a Dante, readers got the bleak absurdities of the likes of Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre and even Woody Allen, all utterly depressed by the meaninglessness of life. For a nihilist, says Murray, producing great work is "just harder". As for women and the ethnic minorities: "Let's see them produce the art. It's not necessarily true that justice, freedom and the social good go hand in hand with the production of great art."
The Telegraph, London | 1/28/04 | Julian Coman
Charles Murray believes Western men alone are responsible for all the great achievements of civilisation.
To say that Charles Murray makes enemies easily is something of an understatement. His last major academic work was variously branded as "racist, philosophically shabby, politically ugly, disingenuous and creepy". These were judgments on his mid-1990s bestseller, The Bell-Curve, in which Murray argued that for genetic reasons African-Americans had significantly lower average IQs than whites or Asians. He then lay low, perhaps wondering how such a masterpiece of political incorrectness could be bettered.
The answer comes in the form of Human Accomplishment: the Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 BC to 1950, an extraordinarily ambitious resume of the major cultural achievements, from music to philosophy to chemistry. Its robust conclusions have already had the singular effect of enraging feminists, members of ethnic minorities, lovers of 20th-century modernism, orientalists and Islamic fundamentalists.
Put bluntly, Murray has tried to prove scientifically the overwhelming cultural superiority of dead White males. By pursuing an arcane 134-year-old statistical method known as "historiometry", he claims to have scientifically demonstrated what every cultural conservative instinctively knows: white males have been head and shoulders above all rivals when it comes to significant cultural achievement in the arts and sciences.
Think Shakespeare. Think Michelangelo. Think Louis Pasteur. Don't think women or non-Caucasians. According to Murray, the idea that no one culture or tradition can ever be judged objectively superior to another has led to a willful and quite unjustified "trashing" of Dead White Males. "In anthologies of literature now, women and black writers are represented out of all proportion to their merit, in order to promote equality," he says. "Let's not take Shakespeare - it's too obvious. But, for example, why are pupils reading Toni Morrison instead of Joseph Conrad? Conrad is incomparably better than Morrison could ever dream of being. But if you say that you will be accused of male, white, Anglo-Saxon prejudice."
The methodology of Human Accomplishment is disarmingly simple. For five years, Murray assessed 167 encyclopedias, adding up the space accorded to the most significant scientists and artists throughout history, stopping the count at 1950. Skeptics point out that all but three of the encyclopedias were published in the latter half of the 20th century, giving the experiment a modern bias. Murray argues, however, that within 50 years, greatness will almost always have made itself known. So all pre-1950 candidates for posterity were given a fair chance. In the end, 4002 artists, scientists and philosophers make the final cut. They are divided into a set of league tables claiming to rank scientifically the best and brightest members of the human species up to 1950. The more words devoted to a philosopher, a musician or a physicist in Murray's encyclopedias, the greater his significance and achievement.
Shakespeare naturally takes the Western literature prize, as the most discussed writer of all time. Goethe is next. Beethoven and Mozart tie for music, Isaac Newton wins in combined sciences; Galileo is second. Women, it emerges, have contributed almost nothing. Africa is not even on the map. Confucius gets an honorable mention. But in general, Eastern cultures have just not tried hard enough:
"You have a philosophical and theological culture in East Asia that states that this life is not that important," Murray says. "This is one of a whole cycle of lives if you're a Buddhist. Striving in this life is seen as a source of suffering rather than a source of pleasure. That's explicit in Buddhism, but is also present in Daoism."
By contrast, the development of the Christian notion of vocation, particularly from the 14th century onwards, saw a flowering of intellectual and artistic achievement, almost exclusively among men. "To express yourself, to create beauty, to discover the miracle of God's works through science was seen as pleasing to God. That was extremely powerful in its effects." Thus, between 1400 and 1950, Murray's method has found that 72 per cent of significant figures in arts and sciences came from Britain, France, Germany and Italy alone. Overall, male Europeans and North Americans are shown to be responsible for 97 per cent of scientific accomplishment from 800 BC to 1950. Statistically, when it comes to curing disease, building bridges, inventing glasses or devising new, better modes of transport, Western man is in a league of his own.
"What the human species is today," he says, "it owes in astonishing degree to what was accomplished in just half a dozen centuries by the peoples of one small portion of the north-western Eurasian land mass." Unfortunately, there is a sting in the tail. In the 20th century, Western societies lost their religious convictions while equality and inclusion replaced the pursuit of excellence as the highest social goal. The result: nihilism, relativism, Toni Morrison and "unreadable" literature such as James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. "The 20th century tipped over into a kind of sterility. Finnegans Wake will become a curiosity, like atonality in music."
Instead of the vibrant vision of a Dante, readers got the bleak absurdities of the likes of Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre and even Woody Allen, all utterly depressed by the meaninglessness of life. For a nihilist, says Murray, producing great work is "just harder". As for women and the ethnic minorities: "Let's see them produce the art. It's not necessarily true that justice, freedom and the social good go hand in hand with the production of great art."
I mean, I'm not well versed in the different accomplishments of each society, but I'm pretty sure the Chinese had a good hand in the role of human development...
