The more I read about Charles Murray, the more I am angry, alarmed, and disturbed.... [View all]

[YoungDemCA]

I knew this guy was a right-wing "intellectual" (scare quotes necessary) who co-authored "The Bell Curve" and had attracted a lot of controversy, but I didn't fully realize just how vile his entire worldview is. I chalk it up to ignorance of Murray on my part. An apt description of Murray may be something like
"Professional Racist" or "Intellectually Dishonest Hack of the Worst Sort".

He gets paid a lot of money by the American Enterprise Institute, a very influential right-wing "think tank" in Washington, D.C., to write his insidious racist, classist, far-right bullshit.

From RationalWiki:

Far more crankish, though, was the The Bell Curve's further conclusion in the third and fourth parts of the book that innate intelligence plays an important role in the different socioeconomic statuses of differing ethnic groups in the United States. Arguing that intelligence is inherited in large part, and that the average intelligence of different ethnic groups can thus be assessed, the book then concludes that different ethnic groups have varying levels of intelligence, and certain groups are poor or unfortunate mainly because they are not as smart as others

and Murray's influence:

Despite frequent and harsh criticism by academics, in some venues The Bell Curve has proven disturbingly influential. The ongoing strength of its lines of argument has continued up to the present day, particularly during such contentious public discussions as the American debate over illegal immigration from Mexico. Heritage Foundation analyst[14] Jason Richwine, notable for co-authoring that organization's report on why illegal immigrants would feast on the blood of white babies[15], made headlines in 2013 after it was discovered that his 2009 Harvard doctoral dissertation argued that persistent differences in IQ among Hispanics suggest that IQ tests should serve as a barrier to immigration.[16] Richwine cites Murray in the dissertation, stating that “no one was more influential than Charles Murray.”[17]

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve

Murray on female philosophers:

“No women has been a significant original thinker in any of the world’s great philosophical traditions.”

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Speaking of influence: Paul Ryan has cited Murray in speeches about education, poverty, and the "culture of dependency" that is "particularly present in the inner cities."

Know thy enemy, DU. Charles Murray's poisonous worldview carries great currency with the Right-and it has infiltrated the mainstream discourse about race, poverty, education, social class, and feminism.