The effects of the Holocaust and mass Jewish emigration on economic advancements for Eastern European gentiles?

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Futurist
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Re: The effects of the Holocaust and mass Jewish emigration on economic advancements for Eastern European gentiles?

#31

Post by Futurist » 22 Jun 2020, 00:53

AFAIK, we had various programs--such as Head Start--in order to improve academic performance (including of underachieving groups)--but they failed to have almost any lasting impact, especially in recent decades:

https://medium.com/@houstoneuler/the-ch ... 534a9c4476

Raising IQs in the developed world--especially in recent decades--appears to be a rather hard thing to do. Maybe there is more hope in some developing countries, but even so, there's no guarantee that there's actually going to be full convergence (as opposed to partial convergence) to developed world levels of student achievement, et cetera.

Really, if one isn't a genius but wants to become one, one's best bet might be to experience a severe head injury--but of course this could also result in one becoming disabled and/or brain-dead; so, not something that's actually worth doing. This guy, of course, does appear to have become a savant as a result of a severe head injury:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2019 ... ths-genius

Futurist
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Re: The effects of the Holocaust and mass Jewish emigration on economic advancements for Eastern European gentiles?

#32

Post by Futurist » 22 Jun 2020, 00:57

In regards to evolution, there's no reason as to why any population can't become smarter over time if its smartest members will consistently out-reproduce its duller members. As I previously said, this paper suggests that this is precisely what happened to Ashkenazi Jews (but not to other Jews) during the Middle Ages:

https://web.mit.edu/fustflum/documents/ ... socsci.pdf


Sid Guttridge
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Re: The effects of the Holocaust and mass Jewish emigration on economic advancements for Eastern European gentiles?

#33

Post by Sid Guttridge » 22 Jun 2020, 07:49

Hi Futurist,

European Jews have also undergone repeated severe natural selection due to pogroms, expulsions, etc.

You can't take land or property with you when expelled, but you can take your intellect and skills. This has pushed their culture in a particular direction not shared by most of their host populations.

Cheers,

Sid.

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Re: The effects of the Holocaust and mass Jewish emigration on economic advancements for Eastern European gentiles?

#34

Post by Futurist » 22 Jun 2020, 08:10

Sid Guttridge wrote:
22 Jun 2020, 07:49
Hi Futurist,

European Jews have also undergone repeated severe natural selection due to pogroms, expulsions, etc.
Yep, absolutely!
You can't take land or property with you when expelled, but you can take your intellect and skills. This has pushed their culture in a particular direction not shared by most of their host populations.

Cheers,

Sid.
Yep--specifically, it might have made intellect and skills more valued among Ashkenazi Jews than among gentiles and other Jews--thus perhaps resulting in more eugenic fertility among Ashkenazi Jews over the centuries in comparison to gentiles and other Jews (such as Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews).

Sid Guttridge
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Re: The effects of the Holocaust and mass Jewish emigration on economic advancements for Eastern European gentiles?

#35

Post by Sid Guttridge » 22 Jun 2020, 11:39

Hi Futurist,

One doesn't acquire group characteristics through "eugenics".

One acquires them through natural selection and can heighten them through culture.

Cheers,

Sid.

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Re: The effects of the Holocaust and mass Jewish emigration on economic advancements for Eastern European gentiles?

#36

Post by gebhk » 22 Jun 2020, 12:09

Hi Sid and Futurist

You are both right, of course, although I would be wary of single-cause explanations of what are hideously complex processes, the mechanics of which we mostly do not even begin to understand!

Another point is that we are not talking about raising IQs here, but about attaining a specific training and certain qualifications. Given the nature of, say, medical education then (and to a certain degree even now), the ability to memorise factoids was more valuable than actual intelligence. Some people can do that well despite having a limited intelligence (whatever that is), There is a reason why God invented the phrase "Hippocratic Oaf" (incidentally the other modern references to Hippocrates are the words "hypocrite" and "hypocritical" because Hippocrates did not believe in oaths. Go figure. But I digress).

The access to education in this context isn't just (or perhaps even mainly) about IQ. It is about the opportunity to get into the right schools and pass the right exams. For this reason, traditionally, the more affluent parts of society produce more doctors and lawyers etc. If you have to pay for your education the reasons are obvious. Even if that education is entirely free, the affluent will have the resources to pay for extra tuition and equally importantly, for tuition by experts in passing exams (I can personally vouch for the efficacy of the latter). Finally (from the demand side of things), the over-representation of any social group in a profession ensures that only the 'right people' are admitted to higher professional education and jobs.

From the 'supply' part of the equation, there has to be a desire by the poorly represented parts of society to 'better themselves'. This is far from a given. In many parts, children (and particularly female children, incidentally) are actively discouraged from having 'ideas above their station' by their families and/or their communities. There also has to be acceptance of the finished article, the "he can't be a proper nurse, he's a man"! syndrome. Cultural attitudes are all-pervasive, subtle and manifest themselves in quite bizarre ways. For example, my wargaming hobby is the virtual preserve of white chaps of a certain age. Seeing a female face among the punters at a show is unusual (though not so much among the vendors); seeing a non-white person engaged in any aspect of the hobby so rare as to be very noticeable. Yet it is one of the cheapest entry-level hobbies there is and shops selling the fantasy-end of the hobby are to be found in most towns enticing customers in. So it is neither cost nor lack of accessibility that is preventing people from certain social groups from participating but culture.

These barriers can be overcome, but only by a significan external input. If you want to succeed in a short period of time, that input needs to be heavy handed. I doubt that the Romanians are particularly genetically more athletic and musical than say Poles, Czechs or Hungarians. However their children were screened regularly from an early age and specialist 'hothouse' education was provided for any that showed promise, while the parents had little or no say in the matter. The numbers of Romanians in the world's orchestras and Romanian achievement in the sports arena speak for themselves and are out of all proportion to the size of the country or its affluence. In my opinion, a big part of this success is that all strata of society were mined for talent, not just the few affluent per cent.

Without the heavy hand, results take a very long time because people rarely change their preconceptions. For meaningful change in attitude to take place, by and large the older generations have to die off/retire before it can take root in organisations and institutions. No doubt, that is the reason why change in the US is so protracted and stubbornly elusive. One only has to look at how long it took (and is still taking) women to achieve parity in certain professions to appreciate how long these processes are likely to take.

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