The Natural Self-Genocide of Raymond Cattell

In the lastest issue of Right Now! Kevin Lamb attacks Dr. Barry Mehler for leading a campaign to prevent Raymond B. Cattell, a well known race scientist, from receiving an award from the American Psychological Foundation. In an exclusive article for Searchlight, Barry Mehler responds.

Searchlight #283 (January 1999) p. 17.

In the October-December issue of Right Now! Kevin Lamb contends that "the Left is abandoning traditional liberal ideas – free speech, inquiry and debate, toleration of dissent, and open-mindedness – in order to preserve the sanctity of egalitarianism." Case in point – the scandal that surrounded the American Psychological Foundation's decision to not to confer their prestigious Gold Medal award for lifetime achievement to Raymond B. Cattell.

According to Lamb, this author, was responsible for a "hit-and-run character assassination" of a great scientist. Working behind the scenes "blitzing the media with press releases via fax machine, the Internet and e-mail, the APF "under pressure from Mehler and other organized interest groups," withheld the presentation of Cattell's award. Instead of passing into history peacefully after claiming his final honor, Cattell died amidst a swirl of controversy and condemnation.

As Lamb would have us believe, Cattell was the victim of "modern McCarthyism," having offended the egalitarian doctrines of left wing ideologues. Egalitarianism, however, was never the issue. In my 1997 essay, “Beyondism: Raymond B. Cattell and the New Eugenics,” I suggested that eugenics and fascism had a special historical relationship which was exemplified in Cattell's work. Cattell, an early supporter of German national socialism, founded a religious movement called "Beyondism," which I have described as "a neo-fascist contrivance." At the time of his death, his associates included such notorious neo-fascists as Roger Pearson, Wilmot Robertson and Robert K. Graham. It was my contention that Cattell's work helped to dignify the most destructive political ideas of the twentieth century.

It is telling that one has to go to Right Now! and Mankind Quarterly and the likes of Kevin Lamb to find anyone willing to speak out in defense of Dr. Cattell. When the Canadian History and Philosophy of Psychology Bulletin – an official publication of the Canadian Psychological Association – wanted to put together a special issue discussing the Cattell controversy, all of Cattell's closest supporters, colleagues and family were asked to participate – none accepted. However, some did participate in an email discussion of the issues. During that discussion Cattell's most loyal defenders tried to separate him from the neo-fascist movement he led. Dr. Heather Cattell, for instance, argued that her father's involvement with the publication, The Beyondist, was insignificant. According to her, "a few people tried to involve Dad" in "this obscure 'Beyondist' newsletter" which never got beyond one or two issues and "is certainly not Dad's writing..." (HC to HPPB discussion list, September 13, 1998).

That The Beyondist was indeed Dr. Cattell's writing is made clear by a memo and draft circulated by John Horn. On 28 September 1993, John Horn – Cattell's protege and long time associate – wrote a memo which he attached to a draft statement written by Raymond B. Cattell to the "self-appointed executive group" of the "Beyondism working group." Horn identified the draft, titled "The Beyondist Society: First Annual Meeting" as "Ray's suggestion for the first Newsletter of the Beyondism Society," and comments that he "thinks it needs some editing, some modifications, some shortening, and some added to before it goes to hoards of folks" and he asked for comments. The draft was addressed to Cattell's closest associates including Herb Eber, Robert Graham, John Gillis, Richard Gorsuch, John Nesselroad, and Jack McArdle. Both McArdle and Eber have denied having any significant engagement with the group (Blum, 5 January 1994, p. A47). In it Cattell contended that "Beyondism is an increasing acceptance of reality, and that involves dropping the emotional support of a loving omnipotent god." As an example of a reality that needed accepting, Cattell asked, "Should the more successful [nations] bolster up the less successful (as the U.S. does Somalia)..." Cattell's position is that the U.S. ought not interfere with natural selection by obstructing "natural self-genocide." [from the draft] The draft was published (with the above quotes edited out) as the introductory essay of the first issue of The Beyondist in November 1993.

In his 1972 monograph on Beyondism, Cattell recommended that First World countries allow Third World countries "to go to the wall" when they collapse into chaos, mass famine, and genocide. Foreign aid to under-developed third-world countries is a mistake. Incompetent and obsolete societies are not fit for the competitive struggle for existence. "What is called for here is not genocide, the killing off of the populations of incompetent cultures. But we do need to think realistically in terms of "phasing out of such peoples” (Cattell, 1972, p. 221; Lynn, 1974, p. 207).

According to sociologist Pierre Van Den Bergh of the University of Washington, two-thirds of all people killed by states since 1945 have been internal victims of genocide or politicides. "Estimates of internal blood baths yield totals of 6.8 to 16.3 million victims ... between 1945 and 1987, depending on whose figures one accepts. ...However one wants to classify acts of state sponsored murder it is clear that since World War II, three-fourths of all fatalities were caused by states killing their own citizens..." [quotes taken from a transcript]. What Cattell calls, "genthanasia," Van den Bergh calls "genocide or politicide" committed by elites who inherited "an alien colonial system of government perpetuated by minority rule through corruption and violence" appropriating the organs of state control for private exploitation "through a complex network of nepotism and ethnic favoritism."

What exactly is "voluntary self-genocide" or the "phasing out" of "incompetent cultures?" In the U.S. today there is a vigorous debate over the morality of "doctor assisted suicide." In Michigan, voters recently turned down a proposition to allow physicians to aid terminally ill patients to end their lives. Is this similar to "psychologists assisted self-genocide" – a program in which psychologists help nations like Somalia, Bengla Desh, and Bosnia phase themselves out? Or are we really talking about simply providing a justification for genocide?

•Barry Mehler, Jan. '99