we all know but won’t say

Freddie deBoer:

I just don’t believe people, on this issue. When they say that they think all people have the same innate ability to perform well in school or on other cognitive tasks, that any difference is environmental, what I think inside is, I don’t believe that you believe that. When researchers in genetics and evolution who believe that the genome influences every aspect of our physiological selves say that they don’t believe that the genome has any influence on our behavioral selves, what I think inside is, I don’t believe you. I think people feel compelled to say this stuff because the idea of intrinsic differences in academic ability offend their sense of justice, and because the social and professional consequences of appearing to believe that idea are profound. But I think everyone who ever went to school as a kid knew in their heart back then that some kids were just smarter than others, and I think most people quietly believe that now.

I have often had exactly this thought! We all know but we choose not to say.

(Also, Freddie is correct to say, elsewhere in this post, that there are hundreds of supposedly reputable people who a few years ago lied relentlessly about his book — the book he hadn’t yet written! — in the hope of getting his contract canceled, and have never apologized or retracted their falsehoods. Having a blue check means never having to say “I was wrong,” I guess. That was one of the events, one of several, that permanently and definitively soured me on Twitter: seeing how enthusiastically professional journalists and academics would lie in order to bring down someone for wrongthink — when in fact the person wasn’t even guilty of the heresy they accused him of. It’s the act of burning witches that justifies you; the question of whether the people you’re burning actually are witches doesn’t arise, then or later.)