A Formula for Eradicating Racism

Debunking White Supremacy

Timothy McGettigan, Earl Smith

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781137599742
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137599759
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: African American Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

In this book, Tim McGettigan and Earl Smith make the unprecedented argument that racism is a remediable form of suggestion-induced sadism. The authors explain in plain terms how societies like the USA construct racism, and put forward a practical plan to eradicate racism in the USA and all over the world.

1

Aesthete Apes

Abstract: The authors argue that what sets humans apart from other life forms is aesthetic discontent. Other species are determined by their biology and environmental constraints. Aesthetic discontent has motivated Homo sapiens to perpetually endeavor to improve upon the human condition. Varying levels of achievement among humans are not determined by biology, but by “agentic” motivation.

McGettigan, Timothy, and Earl Smith. A Formula for Eradicating Racism: Debunking White Supremacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. DOI: 10.1057/9781137599759.0005.

What is excellence? For reasons that scientists do not yet fully understand Homo sapiens evolved a pronounced aesthetic sensibility (Schellekens and Goldie, 2011). Not only has Homo sapiens developed more sophisticated technologies than any other species, but Homo sapiens has also cultivated the most elaborate artistic tastes (Diamond, 1992, 2012). Mere survival has never been enough for Homo sapiens. Humans have also hungered for aesthetic satisfaction: beauty, poetry, art, love, invention, progress, and so on. Other species are content with the mundane and mediocre. Cows do not complain about eating grass, nor do they dress their salads to be as pleasing to the eye as they are to the palate.

Discontent with the status quo is a uniquely human phenomenon. Among all living species chimpanzees share the highest percentage of genes with humans (Gibbons, 2012). While chimpanzees exhibit an impressive capacity for tool use (Lonsdorf, et al., 2010), they remain content to manipulate found objects. One of the most important distinctions between chimps and humans is that humans have never been content with anything. Homo sapiens has always been intent upon improving everything: cooking tastier food, building more commodious housing, making better fitting clothing, accumulating more and better information, improving means of transportation, seeking a better quality of life, and so on. In sum, Homo sapiens is unwilling to accept the world as it is. Humans are imbued with an insatiable passion to change the world for the better.

Aesthetic discontent is the motivation that impels mountaineers to climb previously unconquered peaks because “they are there” (Green, 2005) and it is the sensibility that drives Olympic athletes to excel in sporting competitions where there is little potential for monetary payoff, such as trampolining, competitive walking, archery and synchronized swimming. The pursuit of aesthetic excellence is also what drives scientists to seek maddeningly elusive truths, such as “elegant” physical theories, and it is also what motivates artists to produce masterpieces.

Why are humans plagued with endless aesthetic discontent? Thanks to Darwin (1859) the most straightforward answer to any question concerning life on earth is “evolutionary adaptation.” Humans are discontented aesthetes because, at least so far, it has been evolutionarily advantageous for humans to be agents of change (McGettigan, 2013). Most creatures survive by randomly evolving biological traits that either enhance or compromise their fitness within a given environment; thus, environmental constraints determine the fate of non-agents. Humans, however, have reversed that relationship by drawing upon a special form of cognitive agility, or what we define as agency, to tweak the environment to accommodate their whims (McGettigan, 2011). For example, instead of being at the mercy of the world’s harshest deserts, agents transform those deserts into 24/7 carnivals like Dubai and Las Vegas.

The right stuff

History is a celebration of remarkable human achievements. The vast majority of humans fly beneath the radar of historical record keeping. It is only a rare few who distinguish themselves sufficiently to become more than historical footnotes. So, what is it that separates the few from the many? Is it mere chance, the fickle winds of fate, or are history’s outstanding achievers truly special? Do history-makers have more of “the right stuff” than their contemporaries? And, if so, what is the right stuff?

We will argue that, contrary to widespread opinion, humans are all made of the same stuff. From the smallest to the tallest, the strongest to the weakest, and the smartest to the most uncultivated, humans are all, biologically speaking, cookie-cutter copies of each other. Thus, what distinguishes average achievers from legends is not genetics but agentic inspiration (Carli and Eagly, 1999). The most exceptional achievers are those who activate their agency sufficiently to accomplish boundary-breaking feats of innovation.

2

Nature vs. Nurture

Abstract: The authors consider the implications of the longstanding nature vs. nurture debate. Racial intolerance is often predicated on the assumption that racial differences are biological and immutable. The authors challenge those assumptions by arguing that the most important distinctions between people are sociological and are therefore modifiable. Also, historically noteworthy achievements are the result of six sociological success factors (Preparation, Adversity, Innovation, Obstinacy, Serendipity and Notoriety) rather than the innate superiority of one group or another.

McGettigan, Timothy, and Earl Smith. A Formula for Eradicating Racism: Debunking White Supremacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. DOI: 10.1057/9781137599759.0006.

As a species the most extraordinary quality that humans possess is agency. Agency, or free will, can be understood as a form of ingenuity that enables individuals to transcend otherwise deterministic social and environmental constraints (McGettigan, 2011, 2013). Most species are determined by the limitations of their genetics. A creature that happens to be marvelously adapted to a particular aquatic environment runs out of luck when its pond dries up. The same is not true for Homo sapiens.

Agency is a special, uniquely human intellectual capability that enables agents to defy the status quo. Because of this agentic intellectual agility humans are not entirely determined by either their biology or their environs. If human aspirations were strictly delimited by biology, then humans would never have walked on the moon (Chaikin, 2009) or, closer to home, Oscar Pistorius (2009), the prosthetically enhanced South African track star, would never have qualified for the Olympics.

As an aside, we acknowledge the horrendous crime (Gottesdiener, 2013) of which Oscar Pistorius has been convicted. Quite apart from Pistorius’ criminal misdeeds his feats on the field of athletic competition remain the stuff of legend. When legless humans can literally compete on an equal footing with able-bodied Olympians, then it is evident that biology, in and of itself, does not determine the fate of any particular individual. For people who experience debilitating physical handicaps, such as Oscar Pistorius and, in the realm of science, Stephen Hawking (Ferguson, 2012), human achievement is a combined product of biology and agentic ingenuity.

If humans were truly determined by their biology, then few people would have heard of Oscar Pistorius, or Stephen Hawking, the path-breaking physicist who was silenced decades ago by Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. However, because both men are agents they have been able to overcome otherwise catastrophic biological limitations and, each in his own field of endeavor, achieve at a higher level than the majority of their able-bodied peers. Franklin Delano Roosevelt provides another example of a physically challenged agent who refused to allow his handicap to limit his political aspirations. Also, Frida Kahlo and Helen Keller had every right to be defined by their severe physiological impairments. However, both women treated their handicaps as motivators to inspire lifelong achievements that put the majority of their able-bodied contemporaries to shame.

Though people have long argued that humans are either a product of nature or nurture (Dowling, 2011), we will argue that the human experience is necessarily a dynamic combination of nature and nurture. If anyone is ever going to achieve a sensible resolution to the nature-nurture debate, they will have to acknowledge that each side of the debate describes something essential and non-reducible about high-achieving agents. Unquestionably, humans are biological creatures who are constructed from molecules that obey the laws of physics. However, humans are also much more than that.

Being endowed with advantageous biological characteristics does not guarantee that one will exhibit above-average athletic capabilities. In fact, the reverse can be true. Biologically advantaged people can sometimes exhibit a paucity of athletic skill; greater than average height does not guarantee that one will also be an adept basketball player. Alternately, people with significant physiological disadvantages can sometimes achieve physical and intellectual feats that beggar belief. Again, Pistorius, Hawking, Kahlo, Keller and FDR provide compelling examples.

Biology alone does not determine success or failure for agents. Biology is merely a starting point. It is what agents decide to do with their biological advantages or disadvantages that ultimately distinguish average from extraordinary achievers.

North and South Koreans are probably very similar to one another genetically, yet North Koreans are poor while South Korea has developed a tiger economy that is post-Malthusian, modern and prosperous. The difference, evidently, lies not in the two countries’ genes or geography but in the fact that the same set of social behaviors can support either good or bad institutions. (Wade, 2014, p. 179, emphasis added)

One could argue that if Napoleon had grown to an average height he might not have cultivated the legendary Napoleon Complex that drove him to build an empire (McLynn, 2002).

Real genius

For agents, the true measure of excellence is “achievement that intentionally and ingeniously exceeds the records of one’s most accomplished predecessors.” Examples of such accomplishments include, among other things, setting athletic world records, intellectual breakthroughs that generate new scientific truths, and producing revolutionary artistic masterpieces. The most extraordinary achievers in any field of endeavor are the agents who commit themselves to the mastery of a particular avenue of pursuit—which can include practically any type of activity, including, science, sport, art, politics, technological invention, education, and so on—and, once having equaled the feats of past masters, true geniuses find some way to push the envelope of individual, agentic achievement even further (Merton, 1965).

In contrast with Shenk (2014), we argue that individual agents, not pairs, are the source of real genius. Individuals may derive certain forms of inspiration from working in pairs, but the creative process of redefining reality, or transcending previously established limits of human achievement, is an intimately individual-level intellectual accomplishment (McGettigan, 1999, 2006, 2011, 2013).

Einstein (Isaacson, 2007) is rightfully considered a genius because, upon colliding with the venerable limitations of Newtonian physics, Einstein transcended those time-honored intellectual boundaries by inventing a new physics of relativity. In turn, Bohr, Heisenberg, Feynman, Gell-Mann and others earned their genius badges by transcending the limitations of Einsteinian physics and opening up the wonders of the quantum universe (Kumar, 2009a). The most exceptional agents aren’t just smart; they are original thinkers and doers who intentionally transcend the established boundaries of human achievement.

Also, the most noteworthy achievers in a particular field of endeavor may not be renowned as “geniuses” per se. Nevertheless, the most successful agents tend to share a similar commitment to transcending previously unassailable thresholds to human achievement, such as running a sub-four minute mile, breaking gender and color barriers in various sports, revealing new scientific truths that inspire paradigm revolutions, climbing previously insurmountable mountains, demanding service at lunch counters even though one has the “wrong” skin color, or being the first member of a politically marginalized minority to ascend to a paramount political office.

The truth behind the lie

Contrary to the claims of neo-eugenicists—people who assert that humans can be defined and ranked according to various appealing or repugnant biological attributes (Agar, 2005; Kluchin, 2009; Wade, 2014)—we argue that the most significant distinctions among humans are sociological. Inequality is a very real social phenomenon and racial inequality has been employed as a malevolent rationalization to perpetrate many of the worst crimes in history (Kühl, 1994). However, most forms of inequality are products of sociological misperceptions, ignorance and bloody-minded hatred (Hattery and Smith, 2012). A case in point is that most racial distinctions, while widely perceived as being biological in nature, are actually concatenations of ethnic and, thus, sociological differentiation.

To help illustrate the role that agentic innovation plays in cultivating human excellence we will draw upon the example of Serena and Venus Williams, arguably the two most dominating players in the history of women’s professional tennis. Like all agentic innovators the Williams sisters have not achieved success because of their biological superiority. The Williams sisters have succeeded in dominating women’s tennis by pursuing an innovative training regime that has equipped them with a better set of game-day skills than their rivals. Thus, the Williams sisters win because they are more ambitious agents than their opponents (Smith and Hattery, 2013).

Sociological success factors

Race is only a factor in human achievement insofar as racism creates a pervasive environment of sociological bias for members of privileged vs. despised castes (Hattery, Embrick, and Smith, 2008). For example, being born with richly pigmented skin has never been a key ingredient for success in the world of professional tennis. Quite the reverse. Instead of being determined by skin pigment excellence is primarily a matter of agentic activation—or the extent to which an individual decides to exceed conventional expectations and, thereby, blaze an original path to unprecedented success. Separate from the issue of racism, the amount of success, notoriety and excellence that agents achieve is largely a function of the following six sociological success factors:

1Preparation

2Adversity

3Innovation

4Obstinacy

5Serendipity

6Notoriety

Sociological success factor 1: Preparation

To achieve excellence, agents must cultivate their potential through training. In spite of what neo-eugenicists, such as John Entine (2000) might say, conditioning makes a huge difference when it...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• 1  Aesthete Apes
• 2  Nature vs. Nurture
• 3  The Farce of Race
• 4  Scientific Racism
• 5  Species vs. Race
• 6  A Remedy for Racism
• 7  Planet of the Super-Adaptable Apes
• 8  Segregated Buses and Redefined Realities
• 9  What is Excellence?
• Appendix 1The Origins of Excellence Email Exchange
• Bibliography
• Index