Race, Politics

I read a review in the TLS today, of a book about the genetic basis for racial differences.

As soon as I start reading anything about genetics and race, I get all prickly and hypersensitive. This is a difficult area, where science, history, politics and prejudice meet, in an uneasy standoff. This is a place where real data is scarce, where argument is often value-laden or freighted with unspoken cultural assumptions, and where objective scientific rigour nudges up against wishful thinking, anxiety, and the (very real and understandable) sensitivities and fears of different racial groups. There are ghosts haunting these discussions: eugenics, racism, and -- inevitably -- the Nazi concept of racial purity, and the exterminatory 'cleansing' policies that this concept influenced.

My hackles rise when I read about genetics and race. This is partly about my intellectual limitations -- my inability to comprehend the statistical aridities of population genetics -- and the resulting sense of frustration and inferiority, but mostly it's about the polarised political background to these questions: people on the right tend to subscribe to the idea of innate differences between groups -- socio-economic groups, racial groups -- and this assumed 'innate difference' tends to be used to rationalise/justify the way western societies have 'settled out'; that is, with strata of 'winners' and 'losers'.

In 19th century England, for example, when the population was (relatively) racially homogeneous, stratification was largely based on class/socio-economic status. These categories were seen as fixed, with a biological base...'experts' categorised people by physiognomy, by head bumps, by the distance between their eyes. The dominant understanding in establishment circles -- education, science, politics -- was that people lived in poverty, ignorance and squalor -- or in wealth and comfort -- because of their underlying, inborn physical characteristics. People were where they were because that was where they belonged in the order of nature. This is obviously a neat way to sidestep awkward questions about equality, social justice, and wealth distribution.

That's part of the political baggage I carry with me: my strong left-leaning tendencies mean that I'm wary (and suspicious) of any analysis that defends the status quo.

There are differing views in the scientific community about how much genetics can tell us about behaviour, race and difference. My reading tells me that these issues are still wide open, with insufficient evidence to reach firm scientific conclusions. Questions of equality, fairness and social justice are moral/political ones, which scientific certainty cannot speak to.

It's easy -- and comforting, if you're relatively rich, like I am -- to think that the way wealth and power are distributed are rooted in meritocracy and equality of opportunity. I just don't think that we've reached that point yet -- certainly not in the UK.