I would love to see President Obama’s SAT scores and his high school and college transcripts. Why is it that we heard about Kerry and Bush’s scores but haven’t heard the slightest about our new President’s? Stupid question, I know.
But, why is it that the “Smart People” don’t ask this stupid question? Believe me, if I was as “Smart” as the POTUS and got a 1600 on my SAT’s as he most assuredly did, I would let it slip out. At least once.
Isn’t it obvious that the guy was too busy doing drugs and looking to hang with the “Marxist professors” (his words) than to actually study? Or, if he did study, wouldn’t we find out that his class load consisted mostly of Women’s Studies and the like clasess?
Just reminds me of how much disdain I have for our media. Blech.
thomas sowell talks aabout it better in his new book.
The Divine Right of Intellectuals
Too many intellectuals believe they have a duty to make decisions for the rest of us.
By David Hogberg
the problem is not smart people
the problem is people who are not so smart who think they are smart.
engineers are smart people but they are not romatnics. they work in applied ideas, while the others work in just ideas.
Sowell defines intellectuals as an occupation, as people whose “work begins and ends with ideas.” This includes academics, especially those in the humanities and social sciences, policy wonks, and, to a certain extent, journalists. This distinguishes them from occupations in which the work begins with ideas and ends with the application of ideas. Physicians or engineers usually start with ideas about how to approach their work, but eventually they have to put them into practice by treating patients or constructing bridges.
As a result, intellectuals are free from one of the most rigorous constraints facing other occupations: external standards. An engineer will ultimately be judged on whether the structures he designs hold up, a businessman on whether he makes money, and so on. By contrast, the ultimate test of an intellectual’s ideas is whether other intellectuals “find those ideas interesting, original, persuasive, elegant, or ingenious. There is no external test.” If the intellectuals are like-minded, as they often are, then the validity of an idea depends on what those intellectuals already believe. This means that an intellectual’s ideas are tested only by internal criteria and “become sealed off from feedback from the external world of reality.”
An intellectual’s reputation, then, depends not on whether his ideas are verifiable but on the plaudits of his fellow intellectuals. That the Corvair was as safe as any other car on the road has not cut into Ralph Nader’s speaking fees, nor has the failure of hundreds of millions of people to starve to death diminished Paul Ehrlich’s access to grant money. They only have to maintain the esteem of the intelligentsia to keep the gravy train running.
Intellectuals, of course, have expertise – highly specialized knowledge of a particular subject. The problem, according to Sowell, is that they think their superior knowledge in one area means they have superior knowledge in most other areas. Yet knowledge is so vast and dispersed that it is doubtful that any one person has even 1 percent of the knowledge available. Even the brightest intellectuals cannot possibly know all the needs, wants, and preferences of millions of people. Unfortunately, they have considerable incentive to behave as if they do.
Sowell notes another important distinction between intellectuals and other professions. “There is a spontaneous demand from the larger society for the end products of engineering, medical and scientific professions,” he writes, “while whatever demand there is for the end products of linguists or historians comes largely from educational institutions or is created by intellectuals themselves.” Members of other professions can achieve fame and fortune by finding ways to meet the demand for their end products. But for intellectuals to prosper they must create demand for their ideas by stepping outside their areas of expertise to offer “solutions” to “social problems” or “by raising alarms over some dire dangers which they claim to have discovered.” Chances are slim that Noam Chomsky would ever have achieved the acclaim that he did if he had stayed in the field of linguistics instead of venturing into U.S. foreign policy, nor the entomologist Ehrlich if he had limited himself to studying butterflies rather than making gloomy predictions of human overpopulation.
Reinforcing these incentives is what Sowell dubs the “Vision of the Anointed.” Intellectuals’ belief in their own superior knowledge and virtue leads to a belief that they are an anointed elite who are qualified to make decisions for the rest of us in order to lead humanity to a better life. Under this vision problems such as poverty, injustice, and war are not due to inherent human weaknesses, but are the products of society’s institutions. Solving those problems requires changing those institutions, which requires changing the ideas behind the institutions. And who is better suited for that task than those whose work begins and ends with ideas?
They should run with it and do a list blog like the popular ‘what white people like’.
Can I be a “smart-alecky person”??
In grad school in the physical sciences we of the wise-ass persuasion used to regale colleagues in other disciplines with this chart (which I hope comes out OK):
Idea Results Conclusion
Research scientist X X X
Theoretician X X
Analytical chemist X
Accountant X X
Philosopher X
Social scientist X
Nah, I’m not one of the Smart People, either … I prefer to think I have a lot of native cunning… 😉
In reading the linked article I was reminded of something I read a while back on the decision making abilities of people who were in leadership positions vs the decision making abilities of – well, everyone else.
I wish I knew where that article was now, but the basics of the article as I recall were that studies indicated that people seen as “leaders” didn’t make any better choices than those who were not “leaders” – they simply had the talent to get people to follow them.
It’s not a stretch for individuals who are portrayed as leaders, or see themselves as leaders, to consider themselves to be “smarter” than the rest of us.
After all, they’re leaders, right?
To perhaps provide an example of what I’m trying to say, consider the primitive tribal chieftain who thinks tossing the virgin into the volcano will bring about prosperity – and then promptly leads his tribe on a quest to find just such a virgin to toss into the volcano.
Unfortunately, a certain percentage of the population seems to have confused leadership skills as synonymous to being “smart”.
Sadly, by any criteria so far presented I seem to fail to reach the status of “smart”, and will have to settle for “just plain dumb”…..
Occam’s: The problem with the research scientists is that they are often so focussed on their own area that they don’t have time to dig into problems of the larger world. So as with everyone else, the smart one know what they don’t know and do a little research before opening their mouths.
BTW, there is a video interview with Thomas Sowell at NRO’s Uncommon Knowledge. The fifth section comes up tomorrow, but four are accessable now.
Expat, sure, we of the pocket protector set have lots of shortcomings. The chart was just a joke to wind up people in other fields. /g
Occam’s: My husband and his colleagues are of the pocket protector set. I know they are really smart because they ask me questions all the time. I’m not smart but I have a direct connection to the ground, where everyone’s feet should be firmly planted. I, on the other hand, am fascinated watching their minds play with things I can barely grasp. Symbiosis is a wonderful thing.
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As I have commented on in numerous cases, what the Dems/libtards lack isn’t “IQ” but “Wisdom”, and/or “Common Sense” — the ability to learn from experience, and, even better, from the experience of others.
When nation after nation tries communism/socialism, and it fails utterly, the WISE person figures out there is something wrong with communism/socialism. The merely SMART person fails to grasp this, and just tries to come up with some “excuse” for why it hasn’t worked YET, and decides that it just needs some tweaking somehow.
Don’t think I’m being even vaguely facetious here — I’m dead serious.
Wisdom/Common Sense is the uniquely missing factor in almost all liberals who are no longer “youths”, and it’s the opportunity for experience which makes it so prevalent in youths.
.
The “smart people” meme of the Democrats contradicts another one that the Democrats are the party of the people, unless you are from Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average.
Last year I had a long dinner catching up on events with a childhood friend that unintentionally touched on the “smart persons” meme. She told me she had recently seen a classmate of ours when she was in DC. The brightest person in our high school class is now working in the Obama White House, and invited her there for lunch when she was in town.
My old friend informed me of the recent death of one of our parents’ friends. I found a funeral notice online, which resulted in my connecting with someone else from my past, whom I had last seen at my mother’s memorial service decades ago. We exchanged e-mails. In one-mail she sent me her 2008 Christmas letter which also touched on the “smart people” meme.
We start the New Year with great hope that our President elect with his vast intelligence and a cadre of the best around him can pull the Country out of this abyss we find ourselves in.
I am amazed how often “stupid right winger” comes up in blog comments when one has the gall to disagree with one of the annointed on the left. While it used to anger me, it now amuses me. Like Ronnie said to Mondale, “There you go again.”
While Tom Lehrer definitely felt himself to be superior, which is perhaps justified when one gets an MA in mathematics at age 20 from Haavaad, he also nailed the oh-so-superior theme of the left in The Folk Song Army.
Recommend this article from the American Thinker; it’s right on point.
A by-product of being a “smart person” is often arrogance and the absence of a sense of humor — especially a genuine self-effacing sense of humor. It can’t be acquired or faked. Our current president ain’t got it.
I think Smart People (TM?) are upper-normal range and — and this is important — extremely comformist. Conformist in the age when old hippies teach school means “left wing.” Time and time again, while supervising the schooling of my own kids, one of whom is brilliant beyond what we can barely understand, I’ve come up against the fact that those the teaching establishment considers “gifted” are kids who listen and obey really well.
Truly gifted kids, particularly the upper range, tend to be bewildering rather than gratifying to educators. I studied them at one point, then again when I found myself raising one. I think what I learned is right, though Neo can correct me, if I’m not. Between something called “Saltational development” which means particularly at younger ages your kid can be way above others in one thing and way BEHIND them in another (And then bewilderingly jump ahead in a short space of time) and what seems to be an obsessive tendency in geniuses (i.e. become obsessed with subject, often odd subject, like… Roman architecture, till conquered, then move on to something else and never touch it again. Ignore everything else while concentrating on current obsession) kids in the upper ranges are often diagnosed as slow or learning disabled (particularly boys who are rude when they’re bored) and if the parent doesn’t know to intervene end up slow-tracked which is not good for them.
In gifted education as in many other things, we’re eating our seed corn. Or not even that, we’re just flinging it away to waste.
Now, let me get down from the soapbox that’s taken me far afield (it’s a movable soap box, clearly) and point out true geniuses are more likely to come up with a conclusion that’s not politically correct. (Of course, it’s also often incomprehensible, like “What we should do to improve the health care delivery system is plant more eucaliptus. There WILL be a reason for this (right or wrong) but it takes patient questioning to follow the thought pattern. Most teachers don’t bother.)
That said, I, also, am not a Smart Person. In fact my Smart-people acquaintances and colleagues consider me empty headed. You see, I never “discuss” politcs or show it in my work. It has cost me a lot, but I like to be able to look in my mirror while I apply my makeup.
I refer to them as The Better People
Scottie,
Your comment reminds me of an exercise we had back in school. We were divided into groups of about 5 to 7 people and given a simple scenario. We were the sole survivors of a plane crash in the wilderness. The questions we had to deliberate were the following:
1) Should we stay with the plane or leave the crash site to look for help.
2) If we leave, what do we take with us? There was a list of stuff. (This was a red herring)
The right answer was to stay with the plane. Apparently, your chances of survival are much higher. Anyway, during the deliberation in our group I had the right answer (though I didn’t know it at the time), but there was a person in our group that convinced all of us to leave the plane through force of personality and persuasion, effectively leading all of us to near certain death.
I guess I am not a leader. Nor am I smart.
The Smart People are really obssessed classist also. They just love a niche definition for everyone so they know the box they’re supposed to never wander outside of.
I used to be a Smart Person. However, luckily for me, I was just barely smart enough to figure out eventually that being Smart is not enough, and also not all it is cracked up to be. As a result, I hope I am a little smarter than I used to be, though no longer very Smart at all.
A lot of these know it all ‘smart’ people types are people with 120 something IQs trying to act 145+…
Leftists with actual 145+ IQs act less absurd.
Thomass – if a Smart one has a 120 IQ and then (like Mrs Whatsit) figures out that she/he is not so Smart, doesn’t the IQ go up automatically after crossing that threshold? It seems that way to me.
[I was like Mrs Whatsit.]
Oh, Portia. You hit a subject near and dear to my heart….
I’ve come up against the fact that those the teaching establishment considers “gifted” are kids who listen and obey really well.
I was in those ‘gifted’ classes for quite a while–until high school. I came to despise it. We were treated like trained seals: show off your math! Show off your language skills! Play chess! Balance this ball on your nose! It’s horrible.
All little lefty automatons taught by some lefty cat-lady. I longed to be “just a normal kid”. So I rebelled, and joined JROTC and earned the opprobrium of the ‘gifted’ at my school. It was the best thing I ever did.
I went on to become an Army officer, an engineer, and a competetive powerlifter.
(To be presumptuous,I think the weightlifting and military training was for me what ballet was for Neoneocon–a purely physical discipline to complement and foil the intellect.)
Somehow, I’ve always believed that if you have what others consider a big fat intellect, you are going to have to work like hell to build your spirit and body or you end up “lopsided”, “unbalanced”. I later discovered this was, of course, a classically Greek idea.
I would sent every able gifted kid into the gym or give them some good, strict military style training to learn to use that ‘gift’.
Since I was a kid, I’ve loved that aspect of “Bladerunner”:
JF Sebastion: “Your Nexus Six. Show me something.”
Roy: “We’re not computers, Sebastian, we are physical.”
Pris: “I think, therfore I am….”
Roy: “Very good, Pris. Now show him why….
Here’s what I’ve learned: It’s better to be a clever person than a smart person. It’s better still to be a lucky person. We make our own luck.
We were the sole survivors of a plane crash in the wilderness. The questions we had to deliberate were the following….
Always stay with the plane. Then skin and dress the casualties for snacks later; don’t waste nothin’. Build a big fire. Secure all the half-full/full water bottles (everyone has those on a plane.) Write a book about how horrible it was that gets made into a movie. Make a million bucks.
Two quotes come to mind. One is Orwell’s observation that some ideas are so absurd that only intellectuals could believe them. The other is W.F. Buckley’s observation that he would rather be governed by the first 1000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty.
Ever since the American public was too stupid to elect Adlai Stevenson, lefties have defined Republicans as stupid. Eisenhower was stupid in spite of being the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and defeating the Nazis. Gerald Ford was stupid and a klutz in spite of being an All America football player and honor graduate of the U. of Michigan. Reagan was stupid and a clown in spite of saving the U.S. economy from the disaster of Jimmy Carter and in spite of winning the cold war. George Bush was stupid in spite of eight years with no terrorist attacks and low unemployment. Smart Obama has had three attacks in 11 months and unemployment is 10%.
Scottie ….studies indicated that people seen as “leaders” didn’t make any better choices than those who were not “leaders” – they simply had the talent to get people to follow them.
Very true. I’ve been fortunate to serve with some of the best leaders. The best leaders don’t just make choices; they quickly gather all the best ideas from everyone (a staff, if you will) synthesize the ideas, with help, into a plan and then get everyone to execute their part of the plan because they want to: Success!
If pressed for time, the good leaders are more autocratic ‘cuz a quickly executed 80% solution is far, far superior to a late 100% solution (Obama!)
I guess it’s really just the OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) Loop. The leader must decide (sometimes rapidly) and then lead the Action while continuing to Observe and getting feedback in the next “Orient” portion of the loop.
I’ve noticed the “Smart People” often repeat the Observe, Orient cycle over and over and over and then Decide and Act too late. (Obama!)
It seems there is some implied virtue in our benighted culture to endlessly Observing and Orienting (it’s so nuanced! he’s so smart!). Bush, as he correctly stated, was The Decider; not the Observer and Orienter. (Obama!)
In fact, I would say that repeating the Observe, Orient of the loop without the Decide, Act is the equivalent of voting “present”. (Obama!)
Hmmmm, that’s got me thinking:
Now that we’ve lost the political will for The War on Terror, we’ve deluded ourselves, as a nation, that continuous Observation and Orientation is not only the same as Decisive Action, it is more virtuous.
Now that we are virtuously and endlessly performing “OO”, without the “DA”, the terrorists are “inside our OODA cycle” and executing their actions successfully: Traitor Hasan, Pantybomber….
So what was Obama’s decision in the face of these succesful terrorist actions? A pledge to put out more sensors and systems to Observe terrorists and Orient intelligence analysts towards stopping terrorism!
OO-OO-OO-OO-BOOM!
MikeLL,
Unfortunately, put your scenario into the modern business or political environment and you have a similar play out of events.
Those with the more forceful, coercive, or persuasive personalities manage to “lead” the less independent minded.
The independent minded become observers as their input is ignored and things eventually implode.
Usually the independent minded have at least considered making alternative arrangements to weather the mess that follows these *leaders* leading everyone else off the cliff….
All in all, I’d rather be dumb sometimes.
Gray,
“Always stay with the plane. Then skin and dress the casualties for snacks later; don’t waste nothin’. Build a big fire. Secure all the half-full/full water bottles (everyone has those on a plane.) Write a book about how horrible it was that gets made into a movie. Make a million bucks.”
Thanks! Nothing starts the day off right like a good ol belly laugh!
Regarding OODA, I think you are giving our “smart” leaders too much credit here.
Observe, Orient, Decide, Act = OODA
I think the “smart” people in charge now are missing out on the very first part of that loop.
Observe – a leader has to understand what they are observing.
If a leader looks at a situation with a preconceived notion or is clinging to some inaccurate stereotype they are unwilling to question within their own mind, then that leader isn’t really observing so much as they are looking for evidence that justifies their preconceived notions, which in turn self-validates their resulting response to the situation.
From there on out things have already left the rails and the OODA loop ain’t gonna help them.
then that leader isn’t really observing so much as they are looking for evidence that justifies their preconceived notions, which in turn self-validates their resulting response to the situation.
My point is that they never actually decide to respond to the situation with action.
They only respond to us by pledging to perform more Observation and Orientation.
If they are uninterested in the OODA loop, then the terrorists are already inside our loop….
AVI’s favorite again! I won’t repeat all of my usual points, but simply note that liberalism is a social, not intellectual phenomenon. Progressives are skilled at reading cues that tell them who sounds cleverest and coolest, who get the inside jokes. Appearance matters more than reality. It doesn’t matter if we are safer, it matters whether we feel safer because foreign people say nicer things. Health outcomes, wealth outcomes, education outcomes – all of these things matter less than the warm feeling one gets from having visibly cared about them.
AVI: That’s one of the reasons I freak people out when they meet me or know me and then hear of my political leanings. There’s a dichotomy between the way they “read” me and the political side I’m on. I’ve even had people say, “But how can that be true? You’re so [fill in the blank—intelligent, artistic, well-read]!
I’m with mrs whatsit too, as in I gave up my smartness for common sense. I was somewhat of a gifted child too and learned first hand that most public school teachers really loathe smart kids. I was mostly just told to sit on my hands while everyone else caught up.
Then I grew up to be an engineer.
People think that I am some kind of redneck because i am conservative and come from a background of rural poverty. I say rednecks might be some of the smartest people around…. and redneckness is in the eye of the beholder. They don’t call it “horse sense” for nothing.
Heck, even Victor Davis Hanson was a farmer. He even talks about the derisiveness he still gets for it. Nothing like a little “country wisdom” to shake things up.
Well, this thread is a keeper.
Stupid is as stupid does, same goes for smart. 🙂
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I would love to see President Obama’s SAT scores and his high school and college transcripts. Why is it that we heard about Kerry and Bush’s scores but haven’t heard the slightest about our new President’s? Stupid question, I know.
But, why is it that the “Smart People” don’t ask this stupid question? Believe me, if I was as “Smart” as the POTUS and got a 1600 on my SAT’s as he most assuredly did, I would let it slip out. At least once.
Isn’t it obvious that the guy was too busy doing drugs and looking to hang with the “Marxist professors” (his words) than to actually study? Or, if he did study, wouldn’t we find out that his class load consisted mostly of Women’s Studies and the like clasess?
Just reminds me of how much disdain I have for our media. Blech.
thomas sowell talks aabout it better in his new book.
The Divine Right of Intellectuals
Too many intellectuals believe they have a duty to make decisions for the rest of us.
By David Hogberg
the problem is not smart people
the problem is people who are not so smart who think they are smart.
engineers are smart people but they are not romatnics. they work in applied ideas, while the others work in just ideas.
Sowell defines intellectuals as an occupation, as people whose “work begins and ends with ideas.” This includes academics, especially those in the humanities and social sciences, policy wonks, and, to a certain extent, journalists. This distinguishes them from occupations in which the work begins with ideas and ends with the application of ideas. Physicians or engineers usually start with ideas about how to approach their work, but eventually they have to put them into practice by treating patients or constructing bridges.
As a result, intellectuals are free from one of the most rigorous constraints facing other occupations: external standards. An engineer will ultimately be judged on whether the structures he designs hold up, a businessman on whether he makes money, and so on. By contrast, the ultimate test of an intellectual’s ideas is whether other intellectuals “find those ideas interesting, original, persuasive, elegant, or ingenious. There is no external test.” If the intellectuals are like-minded, as they often are, then the validity of an idea depends on what those intellectuals already believe. This means that an intellectual’s ideas are tested only by internal criteria and “become sealed off from feedback from the external world of reality.”
An intellectual’s reputation, then, depends not on whether his ideas are verifiable but on the plaudits of his fellow intellectuals. That the Corvair was as safe as any other car on the road has not cut into Ralph Nader’s speaking fees, nor has the failure of hundreds of millions of people to starve to death diminished Paul Ehrlich’s access to grant money. They only have to maintain the esteem of the intelligentsia to keep the gravy train running.
Intellectuals, of course, have expertise – highly specialized knowledge of a particular subject. The problem, according to Sowell, is that they think their superior knowledge in one area means they have superior knowledge in most other areas. Yet knowledge is so vast and dispersed that it is doubtful that any one person has even 1 percent of the knowledge available. Even the brightest intellectuals cannot possibly know all the needs, wants, and preferences of millions of people. Unfortunately, they have considerable incentive to behave as if they do.
Sowell notes another important distinction between intellectuals and other professions. “There is a spontaneous demand from the larger society for the end products of engineering, medical and scientific professions,” he writes, “while whatever demand there is for the end products of linguists or historians comes largely from educational institutions or is created by intellectuals themselves.” Members of other professions can achieve fame and fortune by finding ways to meet the demand for their end products. But for intellectuals to prosper they must create demand for their ideas by stepping outside their areas of expertise to offer “solutions” to “social problems” or “by raising alarms over some dire dangers which they claim to have discovered.” Chances are slim that Noam Chomsky would ever have achieved the acclaim that he did if he had stayed in the field of linguistics instead of venturing into U.S. foreign policy, nor the entomologist Ehrlich if he had limited himself to studying butterflies rather than making gloomy predictions of human overpopulation.
Reinforcing these incentives is what Sowell dubs the “Vision of the Anointed.” Intellectuals’ belief in their own superior knowledge and virtue leads to a belief that they are an anointed elite who are qualified to make decisions for the rest of us in order to lead humanity to a better life. Under this vision problems such as poverty, injustice, and war are not due to inherent human weaknesses, but are the products of society’s institutions. Solving those problems requires changing those institutions, which requires changing the ideas behind the institutions. And who is better suited for that task than those whose work begins and ends with ideas?
They should run with it and do a list blog like the popular ‘what white people like’.
Can I be a “smart-alecky person”??
In grad school in the physical sciences we of the wise-ass persuasion used to regale colleagues in other disciplines with this chart (which I hope comes out OK):
Idea Results Conclusion
Research scientist X X X
Theoretician X X
Analytical chemist X
Accountant X X
Philosopher X
Social scientist X
Hmm. Not really. Try this one:
————————–Idea——Results—–Conclusion
Research-scientist—–X———-X—————X
Theoretician————X—————————X
Analytical-chemist—————–X
Accountant————————–X—————X
Philosopher————-X
Social-scientist—————————————X
Nah, I’m not one of the Smart People, either … I prefer to think I have a lot of native cunning… 😉
In reading the linked article I was reminded of something I read a while back on the decision making abilities of people who were in leadership positions vs the decision making abilities of – well, everyone else.
I wish I knew where that article was now, but the basics of the article as I recall were that studies indicated that people seen as “leaders” didn’t make any better choices than those who were not “leaders” – they simply had the talent to get people to follow them.
It’s not a stretch for individuals who are portrayed as leaders, or see themselves as leaders, to consider themselves to be “smarter” than the rest of us.
After all, they’re leaders, right?
To perhaps provide an example of what I’m trying to say, consider the primitive tribal chieftain who thinks tossing the virgin into the volcano will bring about prosperity – and then promptly leads his tribe on a quest to find just such a virgin to toss into the volcano.
Unfortunately, a certain percentage of the population seems to have confused leadership skills as synonymous to being “smart”.
Sadly, by any criteria so far presented I seem to fail to reach the status of “smart”, and will have to settle for “just plain dumb”…..
Occam’s: The problem with the research scientists is that they are often so focussed on their own area that they don’t have time to dig into problems of the larger world. So as with everyone else, the smart one know what they don’t know and do a little research before opening their mouths.
BTW, there is a video interview with Thomas Sowell at NRO’s Uncommon Knowledge. The fifth section comes up tomorrow, but four are accessable now.
Expat, sure, we of the pocket protector set have lots of shortcomings. The chart was just a joke to wind up people in other fields. /g
Occam’s: My husband and his colleagues are of the pocket protector set. I know they are really smart because they ask me questions all the time. I’m not smart but I have a direct connection to the ground, where everyone’s feet should be firmly planted. I, on the other hand, am fascinated watching their minds play with things I can barely grasp. Symbiosis is a wonderful thing.
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As I have commented on in numerous cases, what the Dems/libtards lack isn’t “IQ” but “Wisdom”, and/or “Common Sense” — the ability to learn from experience, and, even better, from the experience of others.
When nation after nation tries communism/socialism, and it fails utterly, the WISE person figures out there is something wrong with communism/socialism. The merely SMART person fails to grasp this, and just tries to come up with some “excuse” for why it hasn’t worked YET, and decides that it just needs some tweaking somehow.
Don’t think I’m being even vaguely facetious here — I’m dead serious.
Wisdom/Common Sense is the uniquely missing factor in almost all liberals who are no longer “youths”, and it’s the opportunity for experience which makes it so prevalent in youths.
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The “smart people” meme of the Democrats contradicts another one that the Democrats are the party of the people, unless you are from Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average.
Last year I had a long dinner catching up on events with a childhood friend that unintentionally touched on the “smart persons” meme. She told me she had recently seen a classmate of ours when she was in DC. The brightest person in our high school class is now working in the Obama White House, and invited her there for lunch when she was in town.
My old friend informed me of the recent death of one of our parents’ friends. I found a funeral notice online, which resulted in my connecting with someone else from my past, whom I had last seen at my mother’s memorial service decades ago. We exchanged e-mails. In one-mail she sent me her 2008 Christmas letter which also touched on the “smart people” meme.
I am amazed how often “stupid right winger” comes up in blog comments when one has the gall to disagree with one of the annointed on the left. While it used to anger me, it now amuses me. Like Ronnie said to Mondale, “There you go again.”
While Tom Lehrer definitely felt himself to be superior, which is perhaps justified when one gets an MA in mathematics at age 20 from Haavaad, he also nailed the oh-so-superior theme of the left in The Folk Song Army.
Recommend this article from the American Thinker; it’s right on point.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/the_intellectual_dishonesty_of.html
A by-product of being a “smart person” is often arrogance and the absence of a sense of humor — especially a genuine self-effacing sense of humor. It can’t be acquired or faked. Our current president ain’t got it.
I think Smart People (TM?) are upper-normal range and — and this is important — extremely comformist. Conformist in the age when old hippies teach school means “left wing.” Time and time again, while supervising the schooling of my own kids, one of whom is brilliant beyond what we can barely understand, I’ve come up against the fact that those the teaching establishment considers “gifted” are kids who listen and obey really well.
Truly gifted kids, particularly the upper range, tend to be bewildering rather than gratifying to educators. I studied them at one point, then again when I found myself raising one. I think what I learned is right, though Neo can correct me, if I’m not. Between something called “Saltational development” which means particularly at younger ages your kid can be way above others in one thing and way BEHIND them in another (And then bewilderingly jump ahead in a short space of time) and what seems to be an obsessive tendency in geniuses (i.e. become obsessed with subject, often odd subject, like… Roman architecture, till conquered, then move on to something else and never touch it again. Ignore everything else while concentrating on current obsession) kids in the upper ranges are often diagnosed as slow or learning disabled (particularly boys who are rude when they’re bored) and if the parent doesn’t know to intervene end up slow-tracked which is not good for them.
In gifted education as in many other things, we’re eating our seed corn. Or not even that, we’re just flinging it away to waste.
Now, let me get down from the soapbox that’s taken me far afield (it’s a movable soap box, clearly) and point out true geniuses are more likely to come up with a conclusion that’s not politically correct. (Of course, it’s also often incomprehensible, like “What we should do to improve the health care delivery system is plant more eucaliptus. There WILL be a reason for this (right or wrong) but it takes patient questioning to follow the thought pattern. Most teachers don’t bother.)
That said, I, also, am not a Smart Person. In fact my Smart-people acquaintances and colleagues consider me empty headed. You see, I never “discuss” politcs or show it in my work. It has cost me a lot, but I like to be able to look in my mirror while I apply my makeup.
I refer to them as The Better People
Scottie,
Your comment reminds me of an exercise we had back in school. We were divided into groups of about 5 to 7 people and given a simple scenario. We were the sole survivors of a plane crash in the wilderness. The questions we had to deliberate were the following:
1) Should we stay with the plane or leave the crash site to look for help.
2) If we leave, what do we take with us? There was a list of stuff. (This was a red herring)
The right answer was to stay with the plane. Apparently, your chances of survival are much higher. Anyway, during the deliberation in our group I had the right answer (though I didn’t know it at the time), but there was a person in our group that convinced all of us to leave the plane through force of personality and persuasion, effectively leading all of us to near certain death.
I guess I am not a leader. Nor am I smart.
The Smart People are really obssessed classist also. They just love a niche definition for everyone so they know the box they’re supposed to never wander outside of.
I used to be a Smart Person. However, luckily for me, I was just barely smart enough to figure out eventually that being Smart is not enough, and also not all it is cracked up to be. As a result, I hope I am a little smarter than I used to be, though no longer very Smart at all.
A lot of these know it all ‘smart’ people types are people with 120 something IQs trying to act 145+…
Leftists with actual 145+ IQs act less absurd.
Thomass – if a Smart one has a 120 IQ and then (like Mrs Whatsit) figures out that she/he is not so Smart, doesn’t the IQ go up automatically after crossing that threshold? It seems that way to me.
[I was like Mrs Whatsit.]
Oh, Portia. You hit a subject near and dear to my heart….
I’ve come up against the fact that those the teaching establishment considers “gifted” are kids who listen and obey really well.
I was in those ‘gifted’ classes for quite a while–until high school. I came to despise it. We were treated like trained seals: show off your math! Show off your language skills! Play chess! Balance this ball on your nose! It’s horrible.
All little lefty automatons taught by some lefty cat-lady. I longed to be “just a normal kid”. So I rebelled, and joined JROTC and earned the opprobrium of the ‘gifted’ at my school. It was the best thing I ever did.
I went on to become an Army officer, an engineer, and a competetive powerlifter.
(To be presumptuous,I think the weightlifting and military training was for me what ballet was for Neoneocon–a purely physical discipline to complement and foil the intellect.)
Somehow, I’ve always believed that if you have what others consider a big fat intellect, you are going to have to work like hell to build your spirit and body or you end up “lopsided”, “unbalanced”. I later discovered this was, of course, a classically Greek idea.
I would sent every able gifted kid into the gym or give them some good, strict military style training to learn to use that ‘gift’.
Since I was a kid, I’ve loved that aspect of “Bladerunner”:
JF Sebastion: “Your Nexus Six. Show me something.”
Roy: “We’re not computers, Sebastian, we are physical.”
Pris: “I think, therfore I am….”
Roy: “Very good, Pris. Now show him why….
Here’s what I’ve learned: It’s better to be a clever person than a smart person. It’s better still to be a lucky person. We make our own luck.
We were the sole survivors of a plane crash in the wilderness. The questions we had to deliberate were the following….
Always stay with the plane. Then skin and dress the casualties for snacks later; don’t waste nothin’. Build a big fire. Secure all the half-full/full water bottles (everyone has those on a plane.) Write a book about how horrible it was that gets made into a movie. Make a million bucks.
Two quotes come to mind. One is Orwell’s observation that some ideas are so absurd that only intellectuals could believe them. The other is W.F. Buckley’s observation that he would rather be governed by the first 1000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty.
Ever since the American public was too stupid to elect Adlai Stevenson, lefties have defined Republicans as stupid. Eisenhower was stupid in spite of being the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and defeating the Nazis. Gerald Ford was stupid and a klutz in spite of being an All America football player and honor graduate of the U. of Michigan. Reagan was stupid and a clown in spite of saving the U.S. economy from the disaster of Jimmy Carter and in spite of winning the cold war. George Bush was stupid in spite of eight years with no terrorist attacks and low unemployment. Smart Obama has had three attacks in 11 months and unemployment is 10%.
Scottie ….studies indicated that people seen as “leaders” didn’t make any better choices than those who were not “leaders” – they simply had the talent to get people to follow them.
Very true. I’ve been fortunate to serve with some of the best leaders. The best leaders don’t just make choices; they quickly gather all the best ideas from everyone (a staff, if you will) synthesize the ideas, with help, into a plan and then get everyone to execute their part of the plan because they want to: Success!
If pressed for time, the good leaders are more autocratic ‘cuz a quickly executed 80% solution is far, far superior to a late 100% solution (Obama!)
I guess it’s really just the OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) Loop. The leader must decide (sometimes rapidly) and then lead the Action while continuing to Observe and getting feedback in the next “Orient” portion of the loop.
I’ve noticed the “Smart People” often repeat the Observe, Orient cycle over and over and over and then Decide and Act too late. (Obama!)
It seems there is some implied virtue in our benighted culture to endlessly Observing and Orienting (it’s so nuanced! he’s so smart!). Bush, as he correctly stated, was The Decider; not the Observer and Orienter. (Obama!)
In fact, I would say that repeating the Observe, Orient of the loop without the Decide, Act is the equivalent of voting “present”. (Obama!)
Hmmmm, that’s got me thinking:
Now that we’ve lost the political will for The War on Terror, we’ve deluded ourselves, as a nation, that continuous Observation and Orientation is not only the same as Decisive Action, it is more virtuous.
Now that we are virtuously and endlessly performing “OO”, without the “DA”, the terrorists are “inside our OODA cycle” and executing their actions successfully: Traitor Hasan, Pantybomber….
So what was Obama’s decision in the face of these succesful terrorist actions? A pledge to put out more sensors and systems to Observe terrorists and Orient intelligence analysts towards stopping terrorism!
OO-OO-OO-OO-BOOM!
MikeLL,
Unfortunately, put your scenario into the modern business or political environment and you have a similar play out of events.
Those with the more forceful, coercive, or persuasive personalities manage to “lead” the less independent minded.
The independent minded become observers as their input is ignored and things eventually implode.
Usually the independent minded have at least considered making alternative arrangements to weather the mess that follows these *leaders* leading everyone else off the cliff….
All in all, I’d rather be dumb sometimes.
Gray,
“Always stay with the plane. Then skin and dress the casualties for snacks later; don’t waste nothin’. Build a big fire. Secure all the half-full/full water bottles (everyone has those on a plane.) Write a book about how horrible it was that gets made into a movie. Make a million bucks.”
Thanks! Nothing starts the day off right like a good ol belly laugh!
Regarding OODA, I think you are giving our “smart” leaders too much credit here.
Observe, Orient, Decide, Act = OODA
I think the “smart” people in charge now are missing out on the very first part of that loop.
Observe – a leader has to understand what they are observing.
If a leader looks at a situation with a preconceived notion or is clinging to some inaccurate stereotype they are unwilling to question within their own mind, then that leader isn’t really observing so much as they are looking for evidence that justifies their preconceived notions, which in turn self-validates their resulting response to the situation.
From there on out things have already left the rails and the OODA loop ain’t gonna help them.
then that leader isn’t really observing so much as they are looking for evidence that justifies their preconceived notions, which in turn self-validates their resulting response to the situation.
My point is that they never actually decide to respond to the situation with action.
They only respond to us by pledging to perform more Observation and Orientation.
If they are uninterested in the OODA loop, then the terrorists are already inside our loop….
AVI’s favorite again! I won’t repeat all of my usual points, but simply note that liberalism is a social, not intellectual phenomenon. Progressives are skilled at reading cues that tell them who sounds cleverest and coolest, who get the inside jokes. Appearance matters more than reality. It doesn’t matter if we are safer, it matters whether we feel safer because foreign people say nicer things. Health outcomes, wealth outcomes, education outcomes – all of these things matter less than the warm feeling one gets from having visibly cared about them.
AVI: That’s one of the reasons I freak people out when they meet me or know me and then hear of my political leanings. There’s a dichotomy between the way they “read” me and the political side I’m on. I’ve even had people say, “But how can that be true? You’re so [fill in the blank—intelligent, artistic, well-read]!
I’m with mrs whatsit too, as in I gave up my smartness for common sense. I was somewhat of a gifted child too and learned first hand that most public school teachers really loathe smart kids. I was mostly just told to sit on my hands while everyone else caught up.
Then I grew up to be an engineer.
People think that I am some kind of redneck because i am conservative and come from a background of rural poverty. I say rednecks might be some of the smartest people around…. and redneckness is in the eye of the beholder. They don’t call it “horse sense” for nothing.
Heck, even Victor Davis Hanson was a farmer. He even talks about the derisiveness he still gets for it. Nothing like a little “country wisdom” to shake things up.
Well, this thread is a keeper.
Stupid is as stupid does, same goes for smart. 🙂