Joe Rogan & Thaddeus Russell - Is Race Biological?

Hello freak bitches. So okay, gender, Jordan Peterson. So I'm completely, absolutely with him, you know. When it comes to that. When it comes to policing of language. Right. But he, as I said, I could be wrong about this, but it sounded to me, and I've listened to him on your show, and I've listened to him elsewhere, and a lot of people have pointed him to me and vice versa because they think we agree on these things and we don't, which is that he thinks, seems to me, that gender is biologically determined, that there are two genders, they're fixed in nature, and that's the end of that discussion. I don't know if he's ever said that. I really don't think he has. I really don't think he has. I think he's said that when it comes to gender identity that he doesn't believe that we need more pronouns. No, he thinks it's just wrong if you think you're a woman when you were born with a penis. It's just sort of absolutely wrong. I think you would have to find him saying that before you could say that. I'm really glad to hear you say that because I wasn't sure where you stood on that. No, I mean, look, man. That's a big deal. People, I think ... That's a big deal. It can get super weird when, okay, how about Rachel Dolezal? She identifies as being black. Great, yeah. She's transracial. How do you feel about that? I think she's correct. Ha ha ha! Not ... Now, hang on. Let me tell you what correct means there. Okay, she's transracial. Not in an absolute way, right? Not in a scientific, objective way. But it's just as true as anything else. Meaning that because ... So race ... Here comes Sam Harris now, and I'm sure Jordan Peterson's in this boat too. I know Sam Harris is because I just heard him talking about this with Charles Murray. He believes there are races of people. He thinks that race is a real thing. He's definitely subtle about it in nuance. He says the divisions between races and the lines are blurry. But he believes there's a biological basis to race. He's very clear about that. That is, to me, absurd and completely unscientific, and it's easily disprovable by ... According to his own standards and by scientific standards. Okay. But anyway ... You see a black guy from Kenya. You see a Chinese guy from China. What's the difference? No difference? Well, here's the answer. You tell me, right? Which is that so historically, the differences between them have changed. That we people, human beings, have said different things, have created different categories, and filled those categories with different characteristics over the centuries. Those have changed constantly, right? My first time I was on here, we had a long discussion about what's in my book, Renegade History on Immigrants, Irish and the Italians, and the Jews when they got here to the United States, here and in Europe, they were largely considered to be Negroes, right? And now, they're as white as anybody. So what are they? At that time in the early 20th century, it was not like ... When I say common belief, I mean it was taught in schools, the following. Taught at Harvard, the following, that Europeans were made up of three distinct races. There were the Nordics in Northern Europe, the Alpines in Central Europe, and the Mediterranean in Southern Europe. And they were very different, biologically. The Nordics were rational, intelligent, disciplined. They were the ones who made civilization. They should run the country. The Alpines were okay. They could be decent farmers, but they're never going to do algebra, and they certainly can't run a government. The Mediterranean were basically either like Negroes or really close, and therefore should be slaves or just peasants. That's my people. Yeah, I know. You're Italians. Maybe you're talking about a long time ago. No, we're talking about 100 years ago, which historically ... That's a long time ago, if you're holding your breath. You know, you love ancient history. I mean, if you look at the whole sweep of human history, that's five minutes ago, right? It is, but it's still a long time in terms of how we address it today. But if we address it today, if you're looking at someone from China, or you're looking at a dark black man from Kenya, there's something different about them. Do you think it's just melanin? Sure. Of course there's something different about them. Many different things. So where do you draw the line around races though? So take all the people in Kenya. Which ones are Kenyans, and which ones are they all Kenyans, and what makes them Kenyan? Or are they all Africans? Well, you know, you can do ... Are they all black? Right? You can test on someone and find out where their origins are. You can find out how much Irish you have in you, how much South African. You can do all that. You can go all the way back to your family lineage through genes. I get that. Totally fine. Well, if you want to go all the way back, we're all African. Sure. Well, there you go. That's another way to disprove this whole thing, right? Right. But is it disproving it because these branches ... It's not disproving it. Sorry. That's a bad word to use here. It is calling it out as a fiction, as a social construct, which is that these lines have been drawn all the time in all kinds of different ways over the centuries by human beings who just look at all the people in the world. They line up the seven billion people in their mind, and they draw lines. They say, oh, these people over here, this side, those are the Negroes. Over here, these are the Mongoloids. Over here, these are the Asiatics. Over here, these are the Nordics. Over here, the Aryans and the Jews. Those change all the time. But these are just categories we invent, right? Who's black? Is Jimi Hendrix black? Well, Jimi Hendrix has a mixed background, right? I mean, wasn't his mother white and his father black? So what's his race? Is he black or white? It's a good question. There you go. Got a lot in him, but there's a big difference between someone like Jimi Hendrix and someone that is very, very dark and comes from a specific part of the world where everyone around them is very, very dark. Let's do that. They are very obvious and repeatable characteristics, right? Let's do that. Congo, these knives come from the Congo. The people there. They're pygmies, actually. I mean, that's an even more specific group. Say, just West Africa. We can even do West Africans, where the Western slaves, American slaves come from. And just across the continent, not even that far away, there's Somalia. You know what Somalians look like? And Ethiopians? Think about them and how they look and think about how West Africans look. Are they the same race? Well, very, very dark. Very, very dark. Very dark and Somali. Somalis look different than everybody, clearly. You know a Somali immediately, right? Same continent, same pigmentation, basically. Very thin. Yeah. Their facial structure, very different. Why are they black? Why are they the same race? Is the question. Is that the same race? I mean, we're talking about Somalians. Would you consider Somalians the same as Ethiopians or as the same as Egyptians? So my thing is- Which is also Africa? My thing is, let's get rid of these categories. These are all silly, made up categories. There's no reason to do- They're all arbitrary. Okay. Lines have been drawn between groups of people, arbitrarily, over the centuries. Well, you're arguing against something that Sam Harris said. So what did Sam Harris say specifically? Well, it's not just him. It's a lot of people. So you don't agree that there is any race at all? I'm just saying it's a fiction. It's made up. Okay. Right? It's just a- It's like- Well, is it a fiction or is it a way we're trying to define the variations between human groups? Because there are variations. Oh, that's definitely what it's been about. That's definitely been the motivation. Right? And think about what the consequences have been. Okay, but that's- It's never been good. Just because there's consequences- Never been good. For variations or recognizing variations doesn't mean you should stop recognizing actual variations. But then you make, but they always make claims right after that. Like- They don't have to though. That's a straw man, isn't it? I mean, you don't have to make a claim that Chinese people are different because they look different. No, but then it's just- But you can say, well, this is what a Chinese person generally, they have these very stringent characteristics. They don't have blonde hair. They don't have blue eyes. They're not tall and skinny. They look like Chinese people. Sure. But then again, Chinese people all look the same. I mean, there's- You don't have to say that. Right. But again, what makes- What's the difference between a Chinese person and a black person is very clear. Not really. Well, an ethnic Kenyan. Not always. Someone who lives in Kenya, who was born and raised multiple generations deep, and their parents are Kenyan, their grandparents are Kenyan. There's a very big difference between them and someone who lives in Shanghai. Yeah, but- Who was born in Shanghai, their parents are born in Shanghai. They go all the way back many, many generations of being pure Chinese. Right. And they're not variations even among people who have lived only in Shanghai. But what do you want to call those variations? Nothing. But you're talking about something that's clearly identifiable. Are you just going to ignore it? I would say that there's, of course there are genes that run in families, and I completely agree that genes determine in large part how we look. Fine. So you can certainly say, this person is likely, because of their genes, connected to that person last generation, to that generation, to this family lineage. Sure. Well, what does that give you? I don't know. Nothing. I mean, the thing is that people have taken that and they've said, oh well, these particular characteristics, human beings, we're talking about complexity in human beings at the beginning of this, right? People are infinitely complex. Right. Okay. So the thing is, what people have done historically is they've just picked certain characteristics among people and said, ah, that is what determines your race. Is the issue of the word race, is maybe the issue, like there are obvious physical characteristics, the difference between someone who is a Mongol versus someone who is Brazilian versus someone who is ... There's some pretty obvious physical characteristics for geographic areas. Would you agree? Or common physical characteristics for some geographic areas? Sure. So on average, people in China are shorter than people in Polynesia. Well, here's a place where you could do it. Okay. Canada. Like try to find a Canadian. You don't know what a Canadian looks like. They could be English, they could be American, they could be anything. I was trying to entertain your strongest argument. So like China, right? You could certainly say that people in China are on average, on average, shorter than people in Polynesia. Well, they look different on average. Yeah. I mean, that's one way in which they look different. Right. So you're talking about physiognomy, facial features? That bone structure, Polynesians tend to be like really stout people. I suppose you could say the width of their eyes is narrower or whatever on average. Right. Whatever, sure. Okay. Okay, so what? That's it. I mean, what do we ... Okay, so they are likely to be in lineage from that part of the world? Fine. That's cool. I got no problem with that. But what else do you want to say? The thing is, Joe, no one stops there. They always go on to that. They always go on from there and they start to make all these other claims. Oh, well, that race is really good at math. Their IQ is higher. This is what actually Sam Harris and Charles Murray were just saying. They can do the coding for Google better than other people can. Whatever, right? They are more scrupulous. They smoke cigarettes more. Whatever it is. They are accused of being more easily addicted to opium. You name it, right? Things change. But that's the problem, is that once you start there, people have used those differences for other reasons, almost always, which are nefarious and injurious and have done terrible things to people. Your problem is recognizing those characteristics and those differences and calling it a race and then attaching all sorts of other claims to this category. Precisely. Okay. Yeah, that's exactly what Sam and Charles Murray ... This is Charles Murray's thing, although it's actually ... It's only a small part of his work and he gets accused of it being central and it's not. But anyway, he does still nonetheless believe this and so does Sam Harris and so does other people that there are differences in IQ among races. Okay. Now, on the surface level, they are completely correct. There's no question, meaning that IQ scores among people that we identify as African-American have been lower than among the people we define as white-American. Totally true. Totally true. And they are right that that is suppressed, that we are not allowed to even talk about that data, which is there and I have no problem with that. I'm sure that's true. Here's the thing though. How do we define African-American and how do we define white? First, that's the first problem. Those, as you know, definitions have changed over time. So Jews used to be in the African-American group and Italians used to be in the African-American group. No, they were never called African-Americans. Yeah, they were. They were called Negroes. What? Yes, they were. Jews were called Negroes? There was a book written ... This is in my book, Renegade History. In 1911, there was a book written by a scholar and this was one of many, the title of which, his name was Arthur Abernethy, the title of which was The Jew is a Negro. That's the title of it. That's hilarious. This was common. This is what people ... This is what year? This is all through the late 19th and early 20th centuries from about the 1880s when the Jews started coming over in big numbers, from the 1880s into the 1940s. I'm saying this is what was taught in college classrooms, that Jews were of a different race and there was some difference of opinion about whether they were black or whether they were just some other inferior race, but they certainly weren't white. That was widely agreed upon until World War II, basically. How do we define African-American? Is Jimi Hendrix African-American? Well, you're talking there's a big difference in the term African-American versus Negro, right? No, it's the same thing. It's just a different name for the same category. Yeah, but it's from Africa. They knew that these Jews weren't from Africa. So the one drop rule ... It's just a continent ... No, no, no. They believe that the genes ... and they're right about this, right? The genes came from Africa. Some from Africa. Yeah. So that's ... and they're right, so do all of our genes, right? Right. All of them. So that was part of their claim and that they were from part of Europe that was a bit closer to Africa. This is what they said about Italians in particular, Sicilians, right? They were like, hey, look where it is. That's why these people are fucking all the time and having babies and ... That's true. ... lazy and can't work and fight in bars and get drunk and ... right? Right. So how do we define these terms? What does white mean? That's totally changed. But how much of it is ... right. The real question is how much of it is cultural. So there's that. Right. Hold on. And then IQ. Well, I think it does measure something. I think it's real. I do. I really do. I think there is something called ... this is a G factor, which it tests. It measures. G factor is this thing that was invented, this concept. It's a category, but it's a real category in the world we operate in, which is your ability to do rational thinking, reasoning, like math, like writing scholarly essays. I'm sure my G factor is higher sort of than other people's, although I'm terrible at math, so that's yet another problematic wrinkle for these people. But yeah, I believe that IQ measures that stuff, that kind of thing. But is that what intelligence is and only is? Clearly no. No. No, there's a lot of variables that IQ doesn't test for. What do you think IQ tests tests, right? They test all kinds of intelligence? They test emotional intelligence? Do they test the intelligence of Jimi Hendrix? Do you think he was great at calculus? I don't know. I sort of doubt it. Was he smart? Was he intelligent? Clearly. In different ways. He was clever with a guitar, that's for sure. So then how do you define intelligence, fellas? Creativity is unquestionably some sort of measurement or expression of intelligence. We separate that off though, and we always have as a society. We shouldn't. That's why you don't do well unless you're really, really, really good if you're just creative in the way we define that and not intelligent in the way IQ tests define it. So it's all problematic. All it does is ask questions. It just keeps raising new questions. It never has answers. There's this thing that goes on where certain people just need to keep finding racial differences that are innate, biological, fixed, that can't be changed. It's like, first of all, you've never done this because it's so fluid and you're always, you're never really answering it. Then what if you did finally prove it? What are we going to do with that information? We just recognize that there are variables. Like when we're talking about Polynesian people, we're talking about people from Tonga, very stout, strong people. Samoans tend to be very stout, strong people. I mean, that's a characteristic, actually a positive characteristic that's attributed to people from that area. Do you ignore that? How do you address that? No, of course not. I would say people from Polynesia are more likely, men from Polynesia are more likely to be offensive linemen in the NFL. So your issue is calling it a race itself. Yeah. And then attributing other things to it. All I'm saying is guys from there tend to be bigger. Yeah, hell yeah. No doubt about it. But so what? That's the end of it. Is there a part of the world where people are generally thought to be dumb? Yeah, Africa. Sorry, the continent we've been talking about. That's the history of this country. That's the history of Europe. That's the history of the modern world is the belief that people from Africa are dumber than whites. Well, isn't the problem with that, that Africa is also where the pyramids were created? That's what justified slavery. That's what justified colonialism. That's what has justified all sorts of things. So that's the problem here, is that these attempts to define people by race and by the way by gender have done nothing but terrible things. Nothing but terrible things. And you can't do it anyway. It's scientific bullshit. It's total superstition. It's utterly arbitrary. The lines are always being redrawn by the people who do this stuff. So why are you still doing it, guys? Where do you draw the goddamn line? All the people in Africa are black, really? Egyptians are the same race as people from the Congo, as the people from South Africa, as the people from Somalia? I mean, how are they the same race? Because it's pigment, skin pigment? Is that the only determination? Well, it's a fascinating thing when you call people African Americans or call them Italian Americans, because Italy isn't actually a country, whereas Africa is a continent. Fantastic point. It's weird to call people continent Americans. Who's an Italian, right? Because guess what? Italy didn't even exist until the 19th century. I mean, it was just a bunch of city states until then. And there was no such thing as an Italian. People who lived there didn't call themselves Italian. It wasn't a concept. It wasn't a name. It was nothing. And then they made it into this nation state that they called Italy. And ever since then, every sorry but every dipshit Italian American is like, really proud that I'm Italian. Well, that dude, that has no meaning really in the deepest history. It has some meaning, sure. But they talk about it as if it's rooted in nature. Like it's biological. People love it. They love being a part of that stupid team. It's Sopranos. I blame it Sopranos. It's tribalism. Yeah. It's tribalism. It is tribalism. And it's stupid. And if it were just stupid, I wouldn't care. It's that it is, as I said, it just leads to bad stuff.