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Critique of Alan Wolfe's Critique of THE BELL CURVE
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Reviews Alan Wolfe's critique of the book THE BELL CURVE, in which Wolfe focused on the existence of a "new class" of the cognitive elite. Argues that Wolfe engages in a straw man argument.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Reviews Alan Wolfe's critique of the book THE BELL CURVE, in which Wolfe focused on the existence of a "new class" of the cognitive elite. Argues that Wolfe engages in a straw man argument.
Paper Introduction:
The Bell Curve, by Charles Murray and Richard Hernstein, has proven to be one of the most controversial books of the decade. A detailed examination of intelligence scores, including analyses across class, gender, and (most controversially) race, The Bell Curve has been a magnet for criticism ever since its publication. The most valid criticisms of the work took the authors to task for committing methodological errors, primarily that of crossing levels of analysis (intelligence tests are individual level measures, yet the authors often treated them as group level measures by aggregating scores and making group distinctions). However, few such critical articles were as reasoned as these, most criticisms on a political or social perspective, scorning the authors for an implied racism in their conclusions. Yet another, smaller, class of criticism examines the theoretical under
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On the very first page of his essay, Wolfe compares The Bell Curve tothe Communist Manifesto, raising the specter of yet another book thick withpolemics but slim on facts. Wolfe's critique itself, however, is less than valid. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. It is this supposed choice that Wolfe describes andcritiques. Again, any scholar who displays theknowledge of the subject area that Wolfe does must be aware of theexistence of research based books such as: Oscar Gandy's 1993 book ThePanoptic Sort; James Beniger's The Control Revolution, 1986 winner of theAmerican Publishers Award for the Most Outstanding Book in the Social andBehavioral Sciences; and Shoshana Zuboff's In The Age of the Smart Machine,named one of the ten best business books of 1988 by Business Week. The Flawed Sociology ofThe Bell Curve." The main body of this paper will discuss Wolfe'scriticism of The Bell Curve. Additionally, he pointedly omits any mention ofthe myriad such studies that do exist. This isa clue that Wolfe himself does not intend to present an entirely logicalcritique, but rather one based on rhetorical devices. In the age of the smart machine: The futureof work and power. Murray andHernstein, again according to Wolfe, base their entire argument on thetheory that there is in existence a significant and growing cognoscenti, orintellectual elite, which represents a sea change in the ordering ofsociety. The Bell Curve, by Charles Murray and Richard Hernstein, has proven tobe one of the most controversial books of the decade. A scholar of the quality of Alan Wolfe would know this. Nowhere in the half-dozen books that he cites does Wolfefind any hard data presented to lend support for the thesis. According to Wolfe, the popular and general criticisms of The BellCurve, focusing on the authors' conclusions about intelligence and race,tend to miss the larger and more important point of the book. Next, Wolfe's major criticisms of the theory in The BellCurve will be discussed. Gandy, Oscar (1993). In rhetoric or debate, a straw man is thecreation of a false position and ascribing it to your opponent, or thecreation of a deliberate caricature of that argument. References Beniger, James (1986). The world in general and the United States in particular isincreasingly moving away from traditional, agricultural, and industrialbased economies and toward a knowledge-based economy. Wolfe's characterization of the premise of a cognitive elite is aclassic straw man. While it is correct that Murray and Hernstein do not perfectlysupport this premise, the notion that such support does not exist is false. However, in his representation of thestate of knowledge in the area, he chooses to cite only theoretical booksor "think pieces," which, of course, are not scientific studies based onthe accumulation of data. Writers from John and BarbaraEhrenreich to Daniel Bell to Robert Reich have made claims similar to thoseof Murray and Hernstein about this changing structure of society. The Bell Curve is rightly held out for criticism on many fronts. The most valid criticisms of thework took the authors to task for committing methodological errors,primarily that of crossing levels of analysis (intelligence tests areindividual level measures, yet the authors often treated them as grouplevel measures by aggregating scores and making group distinctions).However, few such critical articles were as reasoned as these, mostcriticisms on a political or social perspective, scorning the authors foran implied racism in their conclusions. Finally, a criticism of Wolfe's arguments will beprovided. A detailedexamination of intelligence scores, including analyses across class,gender, and (most controversially) race, The Bell Curve has been a magnetfor criticism ever since its publication. Wolfe, Alan (19 ). The important question, then, is the second one: How shallthe nation deal with this situation? In such an economy,individuals who lack appropriate levels of cognitive ability will becondemned to a role in an underclass of nannies, janitors, and cooks, whilethe cognitive elite create and maintain vast wealth and essentially aseparate society. Wolfe's omissions, on the other hand, appear to benothing short of intellectual dishonesty. Among this latter group is sociologist Alan Wolfe's essay"Has There Been a Cognitive Revolution in America? Wolfe'sprimary criticism, then, is not the importance of high level cognitivethinking, nor even the existence of highly successful knowledge-basedindustries, but rather the sweeping claims made by these authors that weare experiencing a change on par with the Industrial Revolution of the lastcentury. New York: Basic Books. His concern is for thepremise that leads into the study. Each ofthese books are based on serious and rigorous scientific study and areconsidered seminal works in the area of the changing nature of work,society, new technology, and the New Class; and each lends support to thetheory that there is a cognitive elite of growing strength and importance. However, these flaws can be ascribed to lazinessor inexactitude. The control revolution: Technological andeconomic origins of the information society. The primary structure of Wolfe's criticism is a version of what isknown as a "straw man" argument. Two stark opposites are posited aspotential outcomes. Yet another, smaller, class ofcriticism examines the theoretical underpinnings of the Murray/Hernsteinconclusions. Second, how does the nation thendeal with those individuals who do not, or cannot, take part in this newworld order? He tips hishand on the aforementioned first page, when he compares The Bell Curve tothe Communist Manifesto. They have not discharged their assumption;therefore, their conclusions are not valid. For Wolfe, the conclusions of Murray and Hernstein about inheritedintelligence and racial differences are secondary. It is clear fromthe number of outside works that Wolfe refers to that he has studied thetheory of the New Class extensively. Murray, Charles, and Richard Hernstein (1994). Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press. In the case of The Bell Curve,however, it is a fatal flaw. Either an activist government with expanded welfarestate, if not outright socialist, impulses intervenes to adequately sharethe new wealth among all citizens, or a great North American BananaRepublic develops, wherein the cognitive elite enjoy fabulous wealth intheir gated communities while the masses shuffle through life in squalorand urban decay. In eachcited case, according to Wolfe, the claims stand alone without evidence tosupport them. The gist of The Bell Curve is that the first question is moot:Intelligence, the authors claim, is largely inherited, thus a great portionof the population is doomed to toil away their lives in the intellectualunderclass. The paper will be divided into three parts:First, Wolfe's description of the theoretical arguments in The Bell Curvewill be detailed. The panoptic sort. Has there been a cognitive revolution in America?The flawed sociology of The Bell Curve, in Zuboff, Shoshana (1988). Itsanalytical methods are questionable and its conclusions are troublesome.The authors also erred in fully and completely detailing the support foreach of their premises. This allows thecritic to attack a target with known weaknesses that is easily knockeddown. However slight, this is a bit of an ad hominenattack, a somewhat personal dig at the openly conservative Murray. The bell curve. Logically, then, this is not a premise so much as anassumption, and the rules of logic and formal argument dictate that theassumption must be discharged in order for the argument to be consideredvalid. Wolfe finds this to be a common flaw in works that similarly describethis "New Class" of cognitive elites. The most important question, writesWolfe, is whether this new world order, this cognitive elite, thisintellectual underclass in fact exist at all. In the cases of the other authors that he mentions, this ismerely a source of academic debate. Despite their voluminous supply of data onintelligence scores, Murray and Hernstein provide no support for theirmajor premise. First, how can a nation ensure that a significantportion of its population acquires the intellectual tools necessary toparticipate in the knowledge economy? If this premise is correct, several major public policyquestions follow.
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