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TEXT 1

Who Is the Real Enemy? 

By Ruth R. Wisse

1. Of the two great political disasters that overtook Western civilization in this century, Jews remain preoccupied with fascism alone. Although the two prominent Holocaust museums that recently opened, in Los Angeles and Washington, will not satisfy everyone’s idea of how history should be presented, they keep Nazism’s crimes in view. As the major victims of Hitler, Jews obviously cannot ignore the force that so drastically reduced them. But communism affected Jews no less than its rightist counterpart; if it claimed fewer Jewish lives, it nevertheless damaged the spirit of Jewry as well as the body politic. Because there were Jews among communism’s promoters and victims alike, the investigation of its evils is necessarily more complex - in a sense, more difficult - than confrontation with the legacy of Hitlerism.    

2. Some people bridle at the equation of fascism and communism: one is born of evil, they say, the other merely an unfortunate distortion of a noble ideal. The origins of socialism in the struggle against autocratic regimes, the personal self-sacrifice and idealism of its early heroes and martyrs, the avowed goal of taking from each according to his ability and giving to each according to his need - how can the generous impulses of communism be compared to fascism’s lust for power? These people believe that because socialism is well intentioned, its abuses under communism should not be assessed by the same standards as a political system that consolidates power for its own sake.     

3. Yet any sensitive moralist should argue the opposite: if socialism really is well intentioned, the more reason to investigate how and why it can enslave the people it sets out to liberate. If communism, conceived as an ideology of liberation, actually curtails more human freedoms than fascism, which explicitly demands that individuals yield freedom to the state, the corruption of the former into its opposite is surely a worthier object of scrutiny than the latter’s truth to form.        

4. The attraction of so many intellectuals to the socialist ideal is another reason why communism does not seem comparable to fascism. Indeed Jews, who place the highest premium on intellectual attainment, have often boasted of the representation of their geniuses in the ranks of the left. The dominance of the left among Jewish intellectuals inhibits reappraisals in a number of ways: because the figures associated with it, from Leon Trotsky to Lillian Hellman, seem so glamorous; because their arguments are presented so eloquently; and because leftism was the useful bridge between Jewish particularism (the parochial concerns of a tiny and always embattled people) and the cosmopolitan international arena so many Jews still want to join. What makes many Jews reluctant to reexamine the implications of socialism is the same dream of an egalitarian international brotherhood that attracted their predecessors to it in the first place.            

5. Yet here again, the enormous appeal of the left to intellectuals would seem to require moral persons to inquire into that very aberration. If a certain group was exceptionally drawn to those ideas, it must have stood to gain the most by them. And if those ideas were so badly corrupted, the group that stood to benefit the most is most obligated to reexamine its premises.                                       

6. Socialism may have appealed to intellectuals in particular because while money can be reapportioned, the intellect cannot. Other forms of goods and commodities could be subjected to the egalitarian ideal, and regulated so as to prevent individuals from accumulating independent power through wealth; those talents that inhere in the person remained beyond government’s ability to equalize, and consequently acquired a much higher relative value. Athletes, artists, and intellectuals rose to the second-highest positions in the communist state after the ruling elite, and if intellectuals were interested in assuming state power themselves, they were well placed to compete for it. As has often been observed, literature and culture acquired an importance under communism that is missing in democratic capitalist countries where competition also thrives in other areas.           

7. Certainly, many Jews believed that they saw a correspondence between the prophetic ideals of compassion and justice in their own tradition and the systematic incorporation of those ideals into a political system. Certainly, many Jews applied an analytic training acquired through the study of Talmud to the analytic requirements of the study of Marxism. Yet just as certainly, the Jewish promoters of communism perverted the Jewish messianic impulse more fatally than did the followers of Shabtai Tzvi or Jacob Frank. And Jews who lent communism their moral support are neither blameless nor innocent of the human catastrophe it brought about.            

8. The motto “Never Again” proclaims the determination of Jews to remain vigilant against the malevolent enemy. To apply this motto to communism will require not only vigilance against others but understanding of false temptations in oneself.

TEXT 1 QUESTIONS: Who Is the Real Enemy?

1.   What are the "two great political disasters that overtook Western Civilization in this century" referred to in the text?

      a. Communism and fascism

      b. Corruption and crime

      c. Fascism and Hitlerism

      d. Socialism and Nazism

2.   "The attraction of so many intellectuals to the socialist ideal" is given as an additional reason why people refuse to equate fascism and communism (paragraph 4). What is the first reason?

      a.   Belief in the good intentions of early communists

      b.   False interpretations of the communist ideology

      c.   The fact that Jews were victims of fascism

      d.   The fascist distortion of its own ideals                       

3.   Why are Lillian Hellman and Leon Trotsky mentioned in the text?

      a. To give examples of an aberration that was never discovered

      b. To illustrate why the dangers of communism were not recognized

      c. To show that even the intellectuals on the left were victimized by the enemy

      d. To show that Jewish figures were a majority among communist intellectuals

4.   What is the writer's criticism of people who refuse to compare fascism to communism?

      a. They do not look closely enough into the historical facts that lead to political positions.

      b. They do not recognize that socialism and communism were basically the same movement.

      c. They are not willing to inquire into the factors that tend to corrupt ideologies.

      d. They do not see that leaders of both ideologies use similar arguments in order to gain power.

5.   According to the text, what can explain the attraction of so many Jews to communism?

      a. A common enemy

      b. A common history

      c. Common heroes

      d. Common values

6.   What did the Jews' study of the Talmud and their study of Marxism have in common?

      a. The external forces that led them to study

      b. The final goal that guided their studies

      c. The integrity with which they studied

      d. The method by which they studied

7.   According to this writer, what kind of enemy is most difficult to deal with?

      a. An enemy who has already been defeated

      b. An enemy who has not yet done harm

      c. An enemy whom one cannot understand

      d. An enemy with whom one identifies

8.   What is the MAIN message of this text?

      a. Intellectuals, and among them many Jews, were attracted to communism’s ideology.

      b. Jews did not recognize the dangers of communism because of their own connection to it.

      c. Jews should be the first to denounce Hitlerism, because they were its foremost victims.

      d. People do not learn important lessons from history because they forget the past too easily.

TEXT 2

The Bell Curve and the Science of Intelligence

By Tim Beardsley

A tendentious book abuses science to promote far-right policies.

1. Rarely do 800-page books that are crammed with graphs reach best-seller lists. The Bell Curve, an inflammatory treatise about class, intelligence and race by the late Richard J. Herrnstein, a psychology professor at Harvard University who died last September, and political scientist Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute, is an exception. The book’s deeply pessimistic analysis of U.S. social woes, together with its conservative policy prescriptions, has hit a nerve.        

2. The Bell Curve depicts a frightening future in which, without strong corrective measures, a “cognitive elite” will live in guarded enclaves distant from the dull masses. Opportunities for the underclass will become limited as tolerance evaporates. Strict policing will be widely accepted, and racial hostility will most likely spread.     

3. This apocalyptic vision is presented as the consequence of unpalatable, undeniable “facts” about inheritance and intelligence. But the thesis rests on curiously twisted logic. Its authors have been highly selective in the evidence they present and in their interpretation of ambiguous statistics.     

4. The arguments stem from the same tradition of biological determinism that led, not so long ago, to compulsory sterilization in the U.S. and genocide elsewhere. The notion is that individuals’ characteristics are both essentially fixed by inheritance and immune to alteration by the environment. Efforts to help those who are unfortunate by reason of their genes are unlikely to be rewarded. Solutions, therefore, should include those Murray has long advocated: abolish welfare, reduce affirmative action and simplify criminal law. 

5. Herrnstein and Murray produce data suggesting that intelligence - as assessed by a high IQ score - is increasingly important to economic success. They also argue that people who have low scores - including disproportionate numbers of blacks - are more likely than others to fall prey to social ills. The two accept evidence from studies of twins reared apart that there is a large heritable component to IQ scores: they estimate it to be 60 percent. The writers declare themselves agnostic on the question of whether racial differences in IQ scores are genetic, although they are clearly inclined to favor that possibility.       

6. Herrnstein and Murray concede that just because a trait has a heritable origin does not mean it is unchangeable. Nearsightedness is one example of an inherited, modifiable condition. But they decide, on the basis of a questionable look at the data, that “an inexpensive, reliable method of raising IQ is not available.” This conclusion is used to justify an attack on programs aimed at helping society’s most vulnerable; the authors prefer to let the genetically disadvantaged find their own level. Evidence that does not accord with Herrnstein and Murray’s way of thinking - such as the observation that IQ scores worldwide are slowly increasing - is acknowledged, then ignored.        

7. Leaving aside the substantial and unresolved issue of whether a single number can adequately summarize mental performance, The Bell Curve plays fast and loose with statistics in several ways. According to Arthur Goldberger, an econometrician at the University of Wisconsin who has studied genetics and IQ, the book exaggerates the ability of IQ to predict job performance.      

8. Other correlations that the writers establish between social ills and low IQ scores are equally suspect. Herrnstein and Murray put great weight on comparisons between the ability of IQ scores and parental socioeconomic status to predict what will happen to young people. Yet the measures of socioeconomic status they use cannot ensure that homes are equally stimulating. The point is crucial because numerous studies have demonstrated that early childhood surroundings have a large role in molding IQ scores - while very few studies have indicated a significant role for heredity. Consequently, their conclusions about the dominance of IQ cannot be taken at face value.         

9. Herrnstein and Murray’s hereditarian bias is also obvious in their account of a study of 100 children from varying ethnic backgrounds who were adopted into white families. The study got under way in the 1970’s. At age seven, the black and interracial children scored an average of 106 on IQ tests - considerably better than the national average of black children and close to levels scored by white children. A decade later researchers Sandra Scarr of the University of Virginia and Richard A. Weinberg of the University of Minnesota found that the IQs of the black and interracial children had declined to 89 and 99, respectively, whereas those of white adoptees had fallen from 112 to 106.       

10. Scarr and Weinberg concluded that racially based discrimination at school probably explained the drop in the black youngsters’ scores. Jencks agrees: “The results are perfectly consistent with the difference being due to something in the early home environment and, for older kids, their experience in school.” But Herrnstein and Murray interpret the findings differently: “Whatever the environmental impact may have been, it cannot have been large.”       

11. The Bell Curve’s most egregious failing, however, may be its bleak assessment of educational efforts to improve the intellectual performance of children from deprived backgrounds. Herrnstein and Murray cast a jaundiced eye over Head Start and other efforts for at-risk youngsters - projects that have been claimed to produce long-lasting gains in IQ, a possibility that would not square well with biological determinism. Herrnstein and Murray downplay such results, noting that such interventions are too expensive to be widely used. The only one they are enthusiastic about is adoption, which, paradoxically, they accept as having a positive effect on IQ.       

12. Scarr, who accepts a substantial role for heredity in individual IQ differences, insists that efforts to boost intellectual functioning in disadvantaged youth can deliver results. “There’s no question that rescuing children from desperately awful circumstances will improve their performance,” she notes.        

13. Scarr also points out that ameliorating a child’s environment may reduce social problems, regardless of its effects on IQ. “The low-IQ group deserves a lot more support than it is getting,” she argues. “Other societies manage not to have the same level of social ills as we do.” Edward F. Zigler, a prominent educational psychologist at Yale University, asserts that “in terms of everyday social competence, we have overwhelming evidence that high-quality early education is beneficial.”        

14. Therein lies the fatal flaw in Herrnstein and Murray’s harsh reasoning. Even though boosting IQ scores may be difficult and expensive, providing education can help individuals in other ways. That fact, not IQ scores, is what policy should be concerned with. The Bell Curve’s fixation on IQ as the best statistical predictor of a life’s fortunes is a myopic one. Science does not deny the benefits of a nurturing environment and a helping hand.