Friday, March 13, 2009

Science Says Europe Sucks

A precis of Charles Murray's 2009 Irving Kristol Lecture at the American Enterprise Institute's Annual Dinner:
America's current leaders seem to be leading us down the path to European-style social democracy. But although it makes for pleasant lives
Oh?
the European model stifles human flourishing and erodes the civic and cultural institutions and habits that make for a vibrant, sustainable, and satisfying way of life.
Oh.
Moreover, critics of the European model are about to get a boost from scientific discoveries in neuroscience and genetics that human nature is not malleable, which will undercut the foundations of social democracy.
Indeed: the Charles Murrays of the world should not be treated as equals because they are dense.
The answer: American exceptionalism, in which individuals freely unite to construct a civic culture.
The answer is WE'RE AWESOME!

Not convinced? Let us leave the dry and flavourless summary and hear, from the man himself, PROOF THAT EUROPE SUCKS:
Last April I had occasion to speak in Zurich, where I made some of these same points. After the speech, a few of the twenty-something members of the audience approached and said plainly that the phrase "a life well-lived" did not have meaning for them. They were having a great time with their current sex partner and new BMW and the vacation home in Majorca, and saw no voids in their lives that needed filling.

11 comments:

J— said...

American exceptionalism allows Murray to refer to the elite in the plural.

Righteous Bubba said...

American exceptionalism means Annual Dinner gets capitalized.

Anonymous said...

American exceptionalism means you get to go to Vienna and bore people witless, for free.
Then you can cut and paste your dumb-ass speech ,call it an article and viola! Pay day

Anonymous said...

Europeans are not happy no matter how happy they seem and claim to be, and he has RESEARCH FROM THE FUTURE to prove it.

Anonymous said...

He totally really has the research, but it's in Canada right now so he can't show it to you. And his Canadian research will kick that cheap hussy research that showed the Danes were the happiest people in the world's ASS

Righteous Bubba said...

Also, my friends, LEPROSY.

Anonymous said...

Murray knows about future research, having based The Bell Curve on the work of J. Philippe Rushton* of "Big willies = small brains" fame.

* Based in Canada

And Suctu too, captcha!

Righteous Bubba said...

The penisingularity approaches from the North. Or points North.

Anonymous said...

I read that as 'peninsingularity' and leapt to the conclusion that you were blaming Michiganders.

Anonymous said...

American exceptionalism, in which individuals freely unite to construct a civic culture.
This is coming from a man whose career consists of bleating about the unfortunate aftermath of slavery.

Anonymous said...

"penisingularity"-how many otherwise?
"peninsingularity"-because no man is an island?