A new study by the University of Leipzig sheds a worrying light on the depth of racist and authoritarian beliefs in German society.
The Local deThese are just some of the more hair-raising findings of the study, which the University of Leipzig has been carrying out at regular intervals since 2002.…
- One in every ten Germans wants their country to be led by a 'Führer' (dictator) who applies a firm hand for the common good.
- Eleven percent of respondents say that Jews have too much influence in society.
- Twelve percent think Germans are by nature superior to other people.
- Four in ten people think Muslims should be prohibited from immigrating to the country.
One in 10 Germans wants country to be ruled by 'Führer'
If only Dr Schauble wasn't a near perfect Dr Strangelove...
ReplyDeleteIt's only a matter of time, however before this happens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww7WlSPi9gc
"One in 10 Germans wants country to be ruled by 'Führer' — University of Leipzig study"
ReplyDeleteBefore stoning those evil Krauts, I'd advise Anglo-American friends to remember the old proverb about houses with glass ceiling.
Twelve percent think Germans are by nature superior to other people.
ReplyDeleteOnly 12%?
100% of the Germans and 1st generation German-Americans that I have met personally believed that Germans were superior -- smarter and harder working -- and that German products were superior.
That attitude is not unique to Germany, of course. The Japanese seem to feel the same way.
We Americans tend to believe we are morally and politically superior, but we don't believe that Americans are smarter or that American products are better.
@Ralph, interesting about German IQ. I wasn't aware of that. Some quick googling comes up with many theories that attempt to explain the IQ difference. I am told that German culture emphasizes education and knowledge? Contrast that to American culture that emphasizes competitive sports (far more important in high school than academics) and materialism.
In America, IQ and other standardized test scores usually correlate strongly to parent's income.
I suspect that similar studies elsewhere would reveal similar results regarding preference for authoritarianism, exceptionalism, order, and purity.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Führer means "leader" in German, as Duce does in Italian. HItler was called Der Führer and Mussolini was called Il Duce, meaning "the leader."
Strong leaders, who some would call dictators, have enjoyed wide support in many places historically right down to the present and the US has also backed many of them simply because they supported US interests regardless of anything else.
This preference for strong leadership and "order" argues against the assumption of neoconservatives and liberal internationalists (including liberal interventionists) that all peoples would chose "freedom and democracy" as "natural," if only they were liberated from strong leaders, even if the leader is popular.
For example, polling suggests that Assad would be overwhelmingly be reelected in a Syrian election over any of the prominent opposition and certainly over the Salafist and Wahhabi Sunnis that the US is backing at the bidding of Saudi Arabia, who would put an end to secularism in Syria and repress Christianity and Shia Islam.
Moreover, Erdogan was elected democratically and is governing in way that the US would regard as dictatorial if he were an adversary rather than an ally.
Excellent post John :)
ReplyDeleteIn the Americas, El Presidente is the term used for putative dictators. Trump might like to be called The Boss, but that title has been taken.
John,
ReplyDeleteI'm fascinated by your claim that "Strangely enough the kind of people who run around writing papers about having uncovered "scientific" proof of the mental deficiency of black children with respect to white children, as apparently proved by IQ tests, never write papers that show the mental deficiency of white children with respect to the alleged superiority of children in the Far East."
What "kind" of people are these? I mean how do they stand out? Are they particularly tall or fat or what? I look forward to you quoting your sources for that.
Far as I know the psychologists who have done IQ tests showing that whites are more intelligent than blacks are perfectly at ease with tests that show the Chinese are more intelligent than whites. But I look forward to you citing evidence to prove me wrong. Well actually I'm 99% sure you wont be able to provide any evidence.
Ralph,
ReplyDeleteThere is no scientific evidence because, as is well known, there are more genetic variations between people of the same "race" than there are between different "races". That is to say, take you and me for instance: presumably indigenous English going back a very long time. Then add, say, a black African to our little test case. There'll be more genetic differences between we two indigenous white Englishmen than there will be between either you or me and the black African. That's a genetic fact. So there can be no biological difference. The brains of homo sapiens have not changed for approximately 100,000 years. Again, a biological fact. So there can be no scientific evidence of a difference in intelligence between races. If there were, we'd know about it. All the biological and anthropological evidence is one way: no intellectual differences due to geographical characteristics or what we call "race". The other question to ask is why were white Europeans so backward for so long if they were so smart, while the Nile and Mesopotamian regions prospered so dramatically? Then why die white Europeans prosper so dramatically and the Nile and Mesopotamian regions sink into backwardness so quickly? Did white Europeans suddenly evolve significantly improves brains? Did the people of the Nile and Mesopotamia regions suddenly evolve lesser brains? Genes don't change that quickly and neither does a great lump of anatomy called the brain.
White people are not inherently more intelligent than black people, and the people of the Far East are not in any way inherently more intelligent than white people. Just like the European example I gave, why then did East Asia languish in backwardness for so long? The answer of course is political and historical. Well, if that is the case for Europe and East Asia, why shouldn't it be the case for the rest of the world? Socio-economic, politics and history are the answers to human problems, not differences in humans. Can there be differences in intelligence between peoples of different geographies? I suppose it's theoretically possible, but since there is no scientific evidence for it why entertain this possibility. It is as close to a biological impossibility as anything we know. The tests, in any case, are ludicrous.
As to those so-called psychologists, what I meant to write was that they don't trumpet loudly the alleged superiority of non-white people over white people. My apologies in the way I phrased that. What people like Richard Lynn and Charles Murray allegedly find and write reports showing is that there is a difference between East Asians and white Europeans and their descendants but the differences are not great ones. But you don't hear that being advertised. They do find a huge difference between East Asians and white Europeans on the one hand and everybody else. That is trumpeted very loudly.
"Intelligence" is impossible to measure with out restrictive assumptions or hidden presumptions.
ReplyDeleteHow long would the most cultivated and "intelligent" civilized person last dropped in the Amazon jungle, the depths of the Congo or the Australian outback alone and with nothing but a primitive tool or two. The natives who have lived there from millennia would be watching unseen, laughing their asses off at the reality show underway. But they are "primitives" by our standards.
To put it another way, Howard Gardiner observed that there are many types of intelligence, and Daniel Goldman has made a career of emotional and social intelligence.
ReplyDeleteHere is personal anecdote. In college, I was "smart," good grades, hight SAT and high IQ. I joined Air Force ROTC with the expectation of fulfilling my military obligation (3 years at the time) as a fighter pilot. At the end of the second year came time to take the aptitude test to determine one's future in the AF. I scored a miserable 9 out of 100 on the spatial intelligence test. I could not tell the simulated plane was right side up or upside down. They said I would lucky to be let near a cargo plane let alone a fighter. Moreover, just then they upped the time of obligatory service from 3 years to 5 years for pilots. So I dropped out ROTC and laster when through OCS (office candidate school) to become a reserve naval officer, with an obligation of only 3 years.
That actually worked out pretty good since I served just when Viet Nam heating up and the Army, Marines and AF were engaged in combat. I never got closer to the shore than a mile and we were never shot at. I met a friend who had been in ROTC with me that went on to become a pilot and was flying cargo planes into Viet Nam. He said there was not a manhole cover on the base since the planes are taking small arms fire and the pilot put manhole covers on their seat to literally cover their asses. And of course, we know how many fighters were shot down and pilots killed or captured.
So being a dumbbell spatially worked out very well for me.
Et nous! You're very philosophically spatial and alive Tom. :-)
ReplyDeleteTom: "How long would the most cultivated and "intelligent" civilized person last dropped in the Amazon jungle, the depths of the Congo or the Australian outback alone and with nothing but a primitive tool or two."
ReplyDeleteThat reminds me of the stories of those people whose ancestors, including their own parents, lived in remote jungles for thousands of years but moved to more developed parts of the world. That is so say, illiterate and primitive by today's standards. But magically their children learned to read and write, passed all kinds of examinations, attained all number of qualifications and joined the high professions in medicine, academia, law, etc. Thus proving the brains of primitive peoples are cognitively no different to those anywhere else. As to be expected, there's also never been any findings of anatomical differences in their brains.
These psychologists who claim racial differences are frauds and are pushing fraudulent tests. They should be twinned like towns in countries are, but in this case by ideology. These psychologists should be twinned with their economic cousins, the Austrians.
Tom,
ReplyDeleteI think you suffered from the sort of unconscious military Ricardian equivalence that is all the economic rage today. You could have passed the air force tests but chose not to because you could see into the future and see the results of passing the tests. You chose to fail, with the understanding that you would not be blown out of the sky in the future and would instead be safer on a boat somewhere off the coast of Vietnam. If you doubt me, I refer you to the honourable George Osborne, MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer, a man of infinite prophecy.
Preocupan los Neonazis en Bolivia (translation: Concern over Bolivian Neo-Nazis)
ReplyDeleteArticle in Spanish but don't worry about reading it: the opening photo tells the whole story.
Just a taste of the text: Nazis in a nation of Indians? That's a question the author asks.
http://www.taringa.net/posts/noticias/18027615/Preocupan-los-Neonazis-en-Bolivia.html
I suspect UKIPers would be well-received over there.
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And speaking of which: when is the presidential election in the US? :-)