The Tao of Steve
Does Steve Sailer, mentor to Razib and me, have some special appeal to brillliant minds stuck in mediocre state schools? Is it his fascinating, yet deceptively plain-worded insights that settle in the mind like a lazy cat? Is it the cool composure of his modest, yet tireless intellectual courage? Is it his skepticism toward trendy neocon rhetoric that, unbeknownst to anyone else on the Right, has the substance of cotton candy?. Who knows? I suppose I should be grateful to Steve for routing me to Gene Expression and offering me the opportunity to enrich my mind with Razib’s writings as well as his. But at this point I sort of feel like Eliza Doolittle after Henry Higgins transforms her from a Cockney flower girl to a respectable lady. How can I go back? How can I tolerate the egotism, self-deception, and shameless self-interest and hypocrisy that is the basis of most people’s intellectual life when I have become so spoiled by Steve’s sober ethics and refreshing optimism?
Update from Razib: Speaking of Steve, he has an article up on the Mongol y-chromosome lineage. Please remember that much of what is written about the Mongols was by conquered or vanquished peoples, so the Great Khan probably wasn’t any more bloodthirsty than Caliph or King, though his military success left a higher body count.
Also, my first email to Steve in the winter of 2000 had the following phrase in it:
“I find the evidence for human biodiversity far more compelling that I would have thought, but I still hold that culturalist explainations for differences seem more likely….”
One reason Ann Coulter is a little cooler than you think.
Not yet, but soon!
If you haven’t guessed, I too am a shameless Sailer groupie.
I have learned more from Steve Sailer than I learned from 2 post-graduate degrees. Now, to learn to release the bitterness I feel every month when I pay those student loans…
Is it his fascinating, yet deceptively plain-worded insights that settle in the mind like a lazy cat? Is it the cool composure of his modest, yet tireless intellectual courage? Is it his skepticism toward trendy neocon rhetoric that, unbeknownst to anyone else on the Right, has the substance of cotton candy?
What a butt-kisser. Geez.
The other day I ran across some old papers, including this copy of the e-mail I sent Steve on Oct. 3rd, 2000 (when I was just starting to learn about the internet and discover what was out there), immediately after having spent three or four days “post-discovery-of-Steve” reading every word on his site and in his archives:
“Just discovered your stuff — can’t believe it! It’s absolutely mind-boggling! LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT and can’t stop reading it — every word — amazing, wonderful stuff — where have you been all my life? I just don’t know what to say! Does everybody know about you? Somebody PLEASE get the word out! This guy’s un-fuh-RICK-ing-believable!”
I think it was legendary jazz trumpeter Myles Davis who said, “The history of jazz can be summed-up in four words: ‘Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker.’ ”
The history of my own personal “at-long-last-seeing-the-light” can be summed up in four words: “National Review, Steve Sailer.” I began reading the former in the mid-80s after seeing ads for it on TV by Charleton Heston and Tom Sellek, but there were still big pieces missing — very big pieces, though I didn’t know it then. I knew it when I discovered Steve — it was like waking up from a long sleep, and opening my eyes for the first time.
It’s hard for me to adequately express what I owe Steve in regard to my finally becoming aware of the reality about what’s been going on in the world these past 30 or 40 years.
Oleg,
Butt-kisser? I am professing genuine admiration. I want nothing from Steve than his occasional answers to my emails (which he provides). Isn’t trying to get something from someone the essence of sycophancy? Admittedly, this is a very pro-Steve forum, but here, if nowhere else in my life, I bow falsely to no man.
I know what you mean about not being able to go back. I find I really have to be careful what I say, these days. I try to stay out of political discussions, because it’s too easy to let “forbidden” thoughts escape. I suppose someday when I’m out of a PC university environment, I won’t have to care as much, but for now it’s just more trouble than it’s worth…
Steve’s website was a bit of an epiphany for me as well. Since my mid teens I had read increasing amounts of popular scientific books usually dealing with physics but progressively dealing with evolutionary psychology/genetics/biology.
Books by Pinker, Sapolsky, John Gribben, William Wright, Debra Niehoff, Dean Hammer and many others, culminated in the now famous The Bell Curve and finally through Steve’s website, Jensen’s The G Factor. I had been transformed from a slightly left of center deist/agnostic teen to an atheist libertarian slightly right of center (although many on the right and left would view my thoughts on biodiversity as far right)young adult because science made so much more sense than the “just so stories” and agitprop of the world’s religions and PC left. Besides, science’s “just so stories” (particularly sociobiology and evolutionary psychology) evince cogent arguments and can be used to make predictions and empirically test those predictions. In science, one can disregard theories that don’t hold up empirically – not so with religion or the PC left.
An inchoate version of biodiversity was beginning to form in my mind. My nascent theories, formed from perusing science books and journals, were eerily similiar to those of Steve’s Biodiversity in some respects. My introduction to the Internet came sometime in late 96, so it’s surprising that I didn’t come across Steve’s website until early 2002.
I was nearing the end of my intellectual voyage concerning my budding version of “biodiversity” when I discovered Steve’s website. My budding views on the human condition now had a name: Human Biodiversity.
Steve had detailed and researched, quite meticulously, his views on biodiversity and provided empirical evidence and references for his views. It is through Steve’s website that I became familiar with Gnxp, Hu’s diversity index, The Human Races Archives, Wild Taboo, VDare among others. Steve opened up a whole new world ripe with information on the human condition. For that I will always be grateful.
I too came across GC and Razib through Sailer’s website. And what was the first thing that made me read Sailer website? I was doing a book report on Jackie Robinson, and I came across Sailer’s article “How Jackie Robinson Desegregated America.” After that article, I next was intrigued by the Human biodiversity Hall of fame (Junior Seau and the superathletic Samoans), the article on Michael Jordan, and the article on the Olympics. Only after reading everything on the site about sports did I venture into other topics.
Keep up your interest in sports, Steve! It’s the ultimate proof of human biodiversity!
“…brilliant minds stuck in mediocre state schools…”
So I guess duende is in college, so am I.
I’m just wondering, how many of us gnxp viewers are college students?
I first heard about Steve Sailer when he was mentioned on Jerry Pournelle’s website. I remember wondering upon first reading some of his work if he were a racist. Reading a bit more made me sure that he isn’t. He is simply honest. We are so used to hypocrisy that complete honesty is disconcerting at first, and I admire Mr. Sailer for his dedication to the truth. Such dedication requires courage.
As his reputation grows–and I have been doing my best to spread the word–I’m sure he is going to become the target of increasing hostility, for many entrenched interests in the United States can’t afford the wide dissemination of the truth. For example, look at the attacks that Arthur Jensen, Charles Murray, and Edward O. Wilson all have had to endure. They have made sacrifices for truth, and I’m sure Mr. Sailer will one day do the same, if he hasn’t had to do so already. (I’m not certain, but I believe he lost a gig at National Review due to either editorial fear or political correctness.)
As a previous writer mentioned, gaining some insight into what is really going on is not without its price. In my case, I am strongly considering beginning a new career as a high school teacher, and I have started taking some of the prerequisite classes for credentials. As you all no doubt know, the entire field of education is rife with misinformation. Not having Mr. Sailer’s courage, I often find myself keeping silent when I hear or read things that just aren’t so. Such silence shames me somewhat, but I realize that if I am ever going to get into a position where I can teach students something they can use, I need to survive myself. Notice that I am not posting my last name. You are a better man than I am, Mr. Steve.