The Doom of Egalitarianism

David Stove, author of the piece below taking apart sundry crazy Darwinian dogmas is also notoriously the author of a (I suspect, partly tongue in cheek) piece called “The Intellectual Capacity of Women” in which he utters the blasphemous suggestion “I believe that the intellectual capacity of women is on the whole inferior to that of men.”

Now, I don’t buy that myself, mostly because I’ve known so many women who are obviously not just brighter, but wiser, than men. I’m also extremely skeptical that there is any way to measure such a contention (or a refutation) that means much of anything at all. I suppose there are instruments, quizzes and questionaires that somebody could put together and then arbitrarily decide that the results determine something called “intellectual capacity”, but I can’t shake the idea that it would mostly be a bunch of crap.

That said, what interests me here is twofold. First, it is the fact that this really is blasphemy in our culture, because blasphemy is always about what is sacred. As Chesterton said, nobody blasphemes Thor. Conversely, nobody says “women are inferior to men” because equality is sacred.

Now, as a Catholic, I believe–dogmatically–that women are of equal dignity with men. I got that dogmatic belief from famed misogynist St. Paul, who likewise believed that in Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free.

But we are a culture that is no longer based on crude mystical ideas, but on empirical observation and science. Consequently, we have rejected such religious dogmas as the equal dignity of all human beings precisely because they are religious dogmas and not scientific observations.

Which really brings us to David Stove’s argument and the only thing our culture has to say to it, which is “Shut up! Don’t say that! You must not talk about it!” This is, y’see, the new world of free inquiry which the modern age has ushered in after the long night of Religious Obscurantism.

The trouble is, sooner or later, somebody comes along who does not observe the pieties and who decides to ask, “Why should I assume women are equal to men? Or this race is equal to that race?” He, being an atheist, cares not a fig for demands to reverence human equality or the dignity of the human soul. He doesn’t believe in the soul. He only believes in what can be scientifically measured. And his scientific measurements suggest that, say, this racial group doesn’t score as high on trigonometry as that one, or women don’t do as hot on chemistry tests as guys do. Or men have stronger pectoral muscles than women. Or what have you. The point is: empirically speaking, the notion of human equality is a complete and utter fiction. The only place human beings are equal is in the eyes of God. And so, when a civilization jettisons the God, it sooner or later jettisons the notion of human equality.

At present, the only barrier we have left is custom, the reflexive “How dare you!?” But “How dare you?” only works until a social critical mass can be achieved whereby the revolutionary is able to depict himself, not as a disgusting menace to society, but as a bold thinker who colors outside the lines. Once that is achieved (usually by means of rich people making the Latest Transgression fashionable by means of hip portrayals in the media) it’s just a matter of time before it goes mainstream.