GRANT JEWELL RICH
University of Chicago
The appearance of the new edition of Ashley Montagus volume on race offers both cause for celebration and reason for reflection. Based on a work first published in 1942, at a time when the Nazis were using pseudoscientific racial theories to justify their atrocities, this updated 1997 edition appears in a world in which deadly ethnic conflict continues to persist in such places as Bosnia and Rwanda. Fortunately, Montagus work represents action research at its best; this single volume includes discussion of most of the important research that refutes racist claims, and yet the book remains accessible to the general reader. In addition, Montagu reveals himself to be a patient teacher, one who is willing to repeat lessons he first taught us over fifty years ago. Mans most dangerous myth, race, he warns, is persistent and frightening, and the germ of a solution to the issue may reside not in ignorance or through ignoring what may be distasteful but through enlightened action (p. 463). The current volume offers a giant leap toward this enlightenment.
Perhaps Montagus understanding of racial myths is rooted in his own experience as a Jew growing up in East Londonand as an immigrant later on in the United States. Or perhaps his wisdom stems from the experience and erudition accumulated over his 94 years. At any rate, a public intellectual in the best sense of the term, Montague is a veritable walking encyclopedia of the vast literature (past and present) on the subject of race. (When I visited with him recently, he regaled me with stories of his teachers, the anthropologists Malinowski and Boas and the statisticians R. A. Fisher, Spearman, and Pearson.)
Over the 23 chapters and four appendixes, Montagu attacks common misconceptions. Notably, he aims to refute the erroneous belief that there is a genetic linkage between the physical appearance (phenotype) of the individual, the intelligence of the individual, and the ability of the group to which the individual belongs to achieve a high civilization (p. 31). For instance, he demolishes J. Phillipe Rushtons perverse claim that an inverse correlation exists between brain size and race and penis size and race (Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective, New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1995). Other myths countered by Montagu include the myth that intermarriage leads to degeneration, the myth that blacks and whites have different body odors, the myth that the Jews are a race, and the myth that there is equal educational opportunity for Native Americans denied access to their cultural heritage.
Like a nasty virus, racial arguments tend to appear seasonally; and just when one thinks one is vaccinated, the virus strikes again in a slightly different and potentially more powerful form. For instance, the repulsive notion that there is an African AmericanCaucasian intelligence difference and that it is rooted in genetic factors has surfaced repeatedly. It emerged in a 1952 work by Frank C. J. McGurk (On White and Negro Test Performance and Socioeconomic Factors, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 48[3]:448450), in Arthur Jensens 1969 monograph (How Much Can We Boost IQ Scores and Scholastic Achievement? Harvard Educational Review 39:1123), and most recently in the 1994 book by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray that sold 500,000 copies, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (New York: Free Press). Montagu attacks the absurdity from both ends, and having already argued earlier that the concept race is a fallacy, he proceeds first to demolish the notion that IQ tests reflect intelligence and then to offer evidence that indeed intelligence test scores of blacks from some states are superior to the scores of whites from other states. Such data indicate that, far from genetic differences, environmental factors are at the heart of the disparity. These data, presented in an appendix, more or less recap a 1945 Montagu paper based on World War Iera test scores, yet the essence of so many of the arguments and data remains remarkably contemporary and relevant to present-day educational policy.
While racists frequently employ evolutionary arguments in their work, Montagu reminds us that it makes more sense to assume natural selection has placed a high premium on educability for all groups. Indeed, a central lesson in the book is that variability in physical and intellectual traits, when it exists, is usually greater within a population than it is between populations. One area in which genetic arguments have been advanced is the evaluation of Head Start programs; research on these programs reveals that graduates sometimes have IQ scores that increase at first only to decline by the sixth grade. Racist arguments use this information to claim that education programs are doomed to failureafter all, these arguments go, one cannot alter what is innately programmed. Montagu indicates that a more likely explanation of the score increases and decreases is simply that, once the enrichment has stopped, the student is again placed in a deprived environment. So the correct response by educators will be to bolster education programs throughout the school years rather than to eliminate Head Start.
Montagus work suggests that what will begin to effect social change is enlightened action, not what he defines as tolerance (recognition of difference which one must suffergenerally, not too gladly [p. 241]). Such a plan requires teaching the absurdities of Jensen, Rushton, Herrnstein, and Murray, as distasteful as the task may be. The reader will thank Montagu for the updated intellectual armory his work offers to the scientist or educator confronted with a racist argument. Few social science books are read 50 years after publication; this book is one of the few. While we may marvel at Montagus mastery, the reader closes the book with the most important question unanswered: Will the book be needed 50 years from now?
just a thought.
