Red Pill Blues
31st July 2014
John Derbyshire, Patron Saint of Dyspepsia, wants to sell out, if only he can find a buyer.
I want to believe that diversity is our strength; that Islam is a religion of peace; that the Republican Party is a force for conservatism; that if George thinks he is a woman, then by golly he is a woman—his cock, balls, beard, and 37.2 trillion Y-chromosomes notwithstanding; that my personality will survive when my brain is destroyed; that if not for the cruel legacy of colonialism, black African nations would by now have Mars colonies and world-conquering commercial enterprises; that poverty causes crime; that gay is just as good as straight; that a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle; that I have free will; that importing one-quarter of the population of Guyana has been good for the U.S.A., and for Guyana; that IQ tests measure nothing of life-history significance, only the ability to pass IQ tests; that there is no such thing as race; that a loving invisible god is watching over me and listening to my mumbled preferences, when not attending to necessary maintenance chores elsewhere in the Virgo Supercluster; that women’s sports are interesting for non-lesbians to watch even when not conducted in skimpy bikinis; that 10,000 hours of dogged practice will make me a first-class tennis player; that Guatemalan gangbangers will become family-values conservatives once they have touched the magic soil of the U.S.A.; that invoking “culture” (which means: the customary behaviors of a people) as an explanation for the customary behaviors of a people increases our understanding; that black kids will do just as well as white kids academically as soon as we fix the schools; that some person somewhere knows how to fix the schools …
I want to believe the pretty lies. I’ve had enough of depressive realism. I want to take the blue pill. Where’s the nearest retail outlet?