It may or may not be a coincidence that the considerable increase in the use of the word “rape” coincides with the very rapid rise in the use of “feminism” in the 1970’s. Whole books have been written on the basis of such slender associations, though admittedly mostly in the behavioural sciences.
As previously discussed, behavioural scientists are under no compunction to choose their variables according to established principles, after sustained perusal of a century of published literature, or Delphic consultation with knowledgeable colleagues. The best researchers attempt one or all of those preliminary steps, but they are not compulsory.
So, to examine what may be a chance correlation of frequency patterns it is wise to try other possible words. A reader has kindly suggested “virile” but as my reply (below) shows, this does not work. Neither do the following words, chosen by a most distinguished person, to whom I had described the problem over breakfast. “Nuclear” “culture” “ethnic” “political” “economic” “black power” and “terrorist” all fail to show the same pattern, although they undoubtedly were frequent words at the time (much more frequent than our words in question).
One word shows a clear association, though as a mirror image: “intelligent”. As it goes down and down, rape goes up, until the two words, the formerly common “intelligent” and the formerly rare “rape” touch each other in 1997. The conclusion is clear and irrefutable (I am using behavioural science talk ironically): as we ceased to regard people as being intelligent there was a rise in rape, and feminism. Perhaps we were all too aware of dysgenic trends and, looking at people’s behaviour, the word did not spring to mind so easily.
Spooky.
"Perhaps we were all too aware of dysgenic trends ...": it's a favourite joke of mine that nobody nowadays believes in eugenics but everyone believes in dysgenics.
ReplyDeleteUse of the word "intelligent" would correspond in America with the decades after 1830 as European immigration gained impetus.With the rise of psychology as well as studies of IQ (including testing) there would quite naturally involve a strong interest in human imtelligence. Even the enormous racial IQ gaps revealed by the WWI tests would not have obstructed public interest because Political Correctness did not exist. When I taught psychology at Seton Hall University in 1958, my classes of 100 or more learned about words like "moron" and "Imbecile" without blinking. After 1960 our American culture(and apparently the UK) was transformed into an incresingly malignant culture in which narcissism and adult infantilism took hold and the word "diversity" became a national obsession. Concurrently psychology courses were steamrolled to rid them of any sign of human inequality. Using a wonderful text called EXPLORING PSYCHOLOGY by David G. Myers, I often reflected on the miracle of such a text still suviving amidst the cultural malformations created by liberalism.However, my black department chair unilaterally replaced it with a profoundly PC text that resounded with cultural Marxism. Discussing intelligence in 2013 is a game of chicken that aims to destroy the likes of Jason Richwine. A dysgenic America(and UK) have little use for scientific truth if it violates the Inequality Taboo. Small wonder use of the word "intelligent" has faded.
ReplyDelete