The Peculiar Geneticism of Andrew Sullivan

Why is Andrew Sullivan perpetually over-eager to assign cultural differences to genetics? It started with his almost crusade-like promotion of The Bell Curve when he was at The New Republic and now he seems initially taken with a new book called A Farewell to Alms by Gregory Clark. Not to mention his dedication to a rather conservative rendering of the "people are just born gay" school of thought. This latter bit of geneticism is more apt to be true than the rest, but for Sullivan it's part of a strange little trend. I'm not sure where this comes from for him, but I'm pretty curious.

Comments

[Dom]

Sullivan didn't even read the book, he just read a review of it. The review, or the relevant part that he quotes, is about the development of Capitalism in England, yet he makes a sudden leap and explains why this means democracy can not take root in Iraq!!! And he supported the Iraq war. Pity the book didn't come out sooner.

[Strong]

Sullivan writes: "These are my wild-eyed inferences from a book I have not yet read." This after speculating that Iraqis "will not soon muster anything like the skills and practices for a Western European democracy." 'Inference' is too kind a word for this sort of plainly racist nonsense.

[joe perez]

i think sullivan's just coming to the party of the plainfully obvious rather fashionably late