Because more conservatives don't have the intellect to understand the liberal position. The liberal positions are adopted by intellectuals because it appeals to them. I know it's a harsh position but argue with a conservative and you start to realize they just can't see something very obvious to a liberal. Problem is the intellectual class is probably the smallest of the four classes in society. Most conservatives are in the third rung acquistor or merchant class. They are business people. The intellectual class are often working in fields that demand intellect such as being college professors, artists, writers, scientists, etc.
I know people will want to raise exceptions to this argument but consider that those exceptions are quite rare.
Comments
That's a illusion. The conservative movement is well designed by some extremely intelligent people.
It's world view thing, not an intelligence thing. When two people have world views that differ enough, each seems less intelligent to the other.
That's a illusion. The conservative movement is well designed by some extremely intelligent people.
It's world view thing, not an intelligence thing. When two people have world views that differ enough, each seems less intelligent to the other.
I agree with Jason, It is an illusion.
I however have a theory that conservatives tend to be more pragmatic and Liberals tend toward idealistic. Conceptual vs nut & bolts. I certainly would proclaim one side smarter than the other since it generally takes the two sides to get anything done.
You need intelligence to keep a business going and you need intelligence to keep your ideas straight in your head. There are some business people who are bright enough to look ahead, and see where things are going, to read up on what's happening, and so on and so forth. That requires intelligence, but it's goal oriented, it tends to put things in boxes. Nuthin' wrong with boxes, but, sometimes the same items can go into more than one box, or, in turn you put one item in the wrong box. Business people do that sometimes, lookin' out for profits when "planning" that involves some serious investment of time and money offers long term profitiability is smarter--that's what I was told by my teacher in Junior High School when I was a not so wee tad.
What happened this time around was that need for profit got the better of too many so-called capitalists, and instead of plowing the profits back in R & D, they filled their pockets. In the meantime, the competition invested in R & D, and other long term strategies. We see the results today.
Liberals, or what passes of Liberals like to think, and, I fear some of them are caught in the conceptions. An idea must be true because . . . it looks sexy, it will liberate your mind to think about some other virtual object that hasn't been created yet. You have to have a solid basis "in fact", to make a great leap forward. Jules Verne kept up with the nascent technologies and novelized them into the next century. Heinlien saw how societies were structured, how they were being formed in micro, and understood that it wouldn't be too far ahead that . . . somethings will happen. The Triple Revolution was one of the processes, Sex-Politics-Drugs, all culminating in a new way of thinking about the world. In a sense, it came too fast. Some intellects still caught in "the current trends" of those days reinvented them, and others took the ideas beyond what they could really do. The people in the middle, who had a sense of how to play the older and the newer were forced defend themselves from the extremes, and still are. That intelligence that knows how to make things "work", today, has to fight off the attacks of neo-Liberals and Progressives who forget what is really happening on the ground.
I hope we are beyond the days when Lysenko's scientific pronouncements was the "science" of the former Soviet Union, or, in turn the money granted in research by the Pharmas, the Tobbaco companies, and all the other businesses whose concern is to profit by the products that their "scientists" create. Likewise, ideas that are taught at universities--where there is no fact to prove they are correct, some academics will invent one, or, perhaps add a wrinkle to an arguement that whacks the truth outa shape. No matter, the professor has tenure, he or she has connections with media, and . . . it must be true because they said so.
Neither Conservatives, nor Liberals are more intelligent. They may be clever, they might know how to survive in a media where it is easy to lie, and hard to prove the truth. The bottom line is to have critical thinking skills which is has no bearing to the way a person looks at the world. In the end, two people with their eyes open know what an elephant looks like, as long as they maintain a respectable dialogue.
Because more conservatives don't have the intellect to understand the liberal position. The liberal positions are adopted by intellectuals because it appeals to them. I know it's a harsh position but argue with a conservative and you start to realize they just can't see something very obvious to a liberal. Problem is the intellectual class is probably the smallest of the four classes in society. Most conservatives are in the third rung acquistor or merchant class. They are business people. The intellectual class are often working in fields that demand intellect such as being college professors, artists, writers, scientists, etc.
I know people will want to raise exceptions to this argument but consider that those exceptions are quite rare.
I could not agree with you more!
upperrnaz,
You seem to be implying that business people are only conservatives, which is just as untrue as the only liberals are smart stereotype.
Neither Conservatives, nor Liberals are more intelligent. They may be clever, they might know how to survive in a media where it is easy to lie, and hard to prove the truth. The bottom line is to have critical thinking skills which is has no bearing to the way a person looks at the world. In the end, two people with their eyes open know what an elephant looks like, as long as they maintain a respectable dialogue.
I would disagree. World view has everything to do with things. Concepts like political preferences are not as concrete as elephants. One man's proof is another man's insane thought process.
Liberals tend to lean on information that can be scientifically validated, taught in academia, and/or something that produces the same results with repeated experimentation, and tend to believe politics are to serve the community for the good of the individual. While conservative tend to lean on faith in God, faith in a strong leader, and/or faith the market place and tend to believe that politics are to serve the individual for the good of the community. These are such different world views that the further into one a person is, the less the other will seem based on reality at all.
If liberals are smarter, then please explain Thom's statements today that addressed the study linking happiness to income. Specifically, income greater than $75k didn't increase a person's happiness. During this discussion Thom stated that "...it's a tragedy that the average income [in the US] isn't $75,000/year." And he continued later that "...one day, we can hope that the average salary is $75,000/yr."
If the average salary is $75k/yr, then the average loaf of bread will cost $8, the average car will cost $45,000 and the average home will cost $380,000. A higher average salary does not address the chronically unemployed or unemployable and, in fact, the disparity becomes significantly greater. Low income earners will have to pay significantly more for the basic necessities.
So, tell me again how a higher average salary in the US improve things?
How bright anyone is has little to do with being open-minded. The point to be made is that Liberals are open to ideas that contradict their assumptions in a way Conservatives have not been. Liberals have been willing to be wrong, but not Conservatives. It is more than being dazed and confused, lacking all conviction or hoping in hope.
The myth has it that Liberals are idealists while Cons are realists. Nonsense. The truly "magical thinking" is Neocon Supply Side and PNAC Imperialism. Rather than learn any lessons from Vietnam, the Cons just put the American Century in religio/patriotic overdrive. It may have felt good to a post-Civil Rights generation looking for its own meaning, but it was anything other than realistic about where it led America.
Some of the brightest people I have ever met are Bible College faculty. Their construction of myths and theories out of Scripture reflect an amazing metaphysical and systematic imagination and creativity. It is all wasted on a closed system of pure ideology, but the ideology is exquisitely crafted and honed to the finest detail of filagree. The issue of importance in the question behind the thread is about why academics tend to be more liberal than conservative in the gross cultural sense. The measure is the opposition to Creationism and Know Nothing Opinions in the educated professionals.
Critical thinking and the engagement of dissent is not indoctrination. Even if every faction is vulnerable to developing an "in group" of common thought, those who engage evidence based ideas have a philosophical interest in truth even when it challenges accepted belief. In fact, we enjoy finding a challenge and the possibility for a new way of understanding the mystery.
I think it is this quality of inquiry and open-minded willingness to be wrong that makes the big difference between today's liberals and cons. It is not about the perfection of liberal thinking or myths that do not need exposing. it is about how locked into the narrative they are; and at this point it is the conservative ideology that is coming apart at the seams. It would be strange were conservatives not reacting to preserve and save what is under threat, although it would be nice to encounter conservative philosophy instead of the defense of ideology.
It is also the consequence of 'winning' the political and cultural wars for the cons that now the deficiencies are made clear by the results. Liberals have not had anything to test in American policy for a long time. Democrats were complicit in the con job, but there is nothing that comes from a Liberal vision of America created in the recent past. Unless conservatives offer a serious critique of their own Reagan Revolution, they will continue to be trapped in their ideology and of use only for pathological analysis instead of solutions.
I agree with much of your post, but not this point. What you've missed is that masters' degrees and doctorates are awarded when scholarly communities are at general consensus that individual theses and dissertations advance the sum total of knowledge in their areas of study. Based on that, it's not tenable to argue that professors and scholars just run ideas up flagpoles to see if anybody salutes them. It's more accurate to say that knowledge advances as old ideas are factually disproven by successive generations of scholars, rather than that academics waste their time knowingly positing ideas and theories with no thought as to their viability.
I disagree. I think the best and deepest thinkers ultimately come to liberal positions precisely because liberalism is more intellectually advanced.
How bright anyone is has little to do with being open-minded. The point to be made is that Liberals are open to ideas that contradict their assumptions in a way Conservatives have not been. Liberals have been willing to be wrong, but not Conservatives. It is more than being dazed and confused, lacking all conviction or hoping in hope.
The myth has it that Liberals are idealists while Cons are realists. Nonsense. The truly "magical thinking" is Neocon Supply Side and PNAC Imperialism. Rather than learn any lessons from Vietnam, the Cons just put the American Century in religio/patriotic overdrive. It may have felt good to a post-Civil Rights generation looking for its own meaning, but it was anything other than realistic about where it led America.
Some of the brightest people I have ever met are Bible College faculty. Their construction of myths and theories out of Scripture reflect an amazing metaphysical and systematic imagination and creativity. It is all wasted on a closed system of pure ideology, but the ideology is exquisitely crafted and honed to the finest detail of filagree. The issue of importance in the question behind the thread is about why academics tend to be more liberal than conservative in the gross cultural sense. The measure is the opposition to Creationism and Know Nothing Opinions in the educated professionals.
Critical thinking and the engagement of dissent is not indoctrination. Even if every faction is vulnerable to developing an "in group" of common thought, those who engage evidence based ideas have a philosophical interest in truth even when it challenges accepted belief. In fact, we enjoy finding a challenge and the possibility for a new way of understanding the mystery.
I think it is this quality of inquiry and open-minded willingness to be wrong that makes the big difference between today's liberals and cons. It is not about the perfection of liberal thinking or myths that do not need exposing. it is about how locked into the narrative they are; and at this point it is the conservative ideology that is coming apart at the seams. It would be strange were conservatives not reacting to preserve and save what is under threat, although it would be nice to encounter conservative philosophy instead of the defense of ideology.
It is also the consequence of 'winning' the political and cultural wars for the cons that now the deficiencies are made clear by the results. Liberals have not had anything to test in American policy for a long time. Democrats were complicit in the con job, but there is nothing that comes from a Liberal vision of America created in the recent past. Unless conservatives offer a serious critique of their own Reagan Revolution, they will continue to be trapped in their ideology and of use only for pathological analysis instead of solutions.
This is nothing less than an outstanding explication of the question! I do disagree with one point, though. I believe intelligence matters more than you do.
That's a illusion. The conservative movement is well designed by some extremely intelligent people.
It's world view thing, not an intelligence thing. When two people have world views that differ enough, each seems less intelligent to the other.
Can't agree. While greed and the lust to control the social behaviors of others may dictate conservatives' world views to a large extent, I also believe that they just can't understand the subtlest liberal positions and perspectives. Intellectual activity at very high levels up through the highest levels usually precurses liberal perspectives and world views, because the smartest people usually arrive at liberal world views once they reason out and develop long perspectives on the body politic.
Because, historically, one of the main strategies of conservatism is doing as little as possible in the public sector, it takes little intellectual activity, past a basic minimum, to put together apologies for doing nothing. Look at the current mess in Congress. The GOP is "just saying NO!" How much intellectual activity does that take? And how many intellectual rationales do they offer to explain it?
While the mercantile class is not stupid, it's of considerable but limited intelligence, and it's usually not motivated to exercise higher intellectual activities because there's nothing sublime about balancing a ledger, and if the books are balanced at the end of the day, most business majors go home happy and watch TV.
It takes an IQ of about 115 to earn a bachelor's degree at any reasonably accredited American university of any consequence, state or private. I believe that if one could cast an average IQ for the Tea Bag crowd, it would be 100 - 110.
The smart ones in the conservative movement are the ones who profit from it or the ones who use it to give themselves lucrative careers in politics, wherein they don't have to do any real labor. Whether by whipping up the masses, as is done by Limbaugh and his clones, or demagoguing the process to bleed the brownshirts of their cash (just as they're bled by, say, professional wrestling), like Sarah Palin, the smart ones are the intellectual minority tail that wags the high-dull to mainstream mediocre dog of the American conservative movement. (I'm not claiming Palin's any kind of intellectual, only that I believe she's sociopathically cunning, and thus, without a conscience. This enables her to prey on the gullible for their nickels and dimes and feel no remorse.)
Sarah Palin is a case in point. The article in Vanity Fair by M. Gross was based on exhaustive interviews. Palin's behavior outside of the limelight reveals some kind of psychological issues, including a pattern of retaliation and rage. Gross also points out that she is a liar. These characteristics not only demonstrate extreme behavior toward others but are suggestive of extreme attitudes and beliefs, of political extremisim. Although Palin may not be the draw she once was in Tea Party and Republican circles, the troubling thing is that the public apparently has difficulty in seeing that the Democrats are more moderate or middle-of-the-road than are the present-day Republicans, who are extremists. The connection with intelligence may be partly that in economically stressful times, the tendency to gravitate toward extremisim is more likely to be resisted by people who are thoughtful or even somewhat intellectual and are immune from fear tactics and desperate kinds of arguments and from being manipulated by the representatives of the super-rich.
I like to point out that money can't buy poverty--in the best sense--but often impoverishes by devaluing what it can buy. The real experience of poverty is not romantic, but the clarity obtained about what is essential and of need rather than want has value. So does the society that finds solidarity and community in the need to care for one another where the alternative is not surviving. But this begs the question on how we define poverty.
The point of THE VALUE OF NOTHING by Raj Patel is that "economic man" is a devalued and impoverished vision of humanity. The best things in life are still free, meaning that money cannot buy love. It can buy the symbols and trappings of love, but not the real deal. Faust still gets a bad deal for his soul. Midas kills everything he touches. Camels cannot pass through the eye of a needle. OK, the point is that we have been warned.
The problem of intelligence is that "the brightest and best" think they can out-think the forces of reality. Have you noticed the social skills of the genius class? They are often bored with people and disdain them instead of learning how to be socially competent from those "less intelligent." Hell, the developmentally disabled understand love and the need to be kind better than the smart people. Being too smart for our own good is Original Sin. Leaning the lesson of humility is what makes a truly wise person.
The images of happiness in an adolescent culture are full of bling and pizzazz. Sex is about great young bodies doing acrobatics instead of a relationship of intimacy and delight. Nothing of depth remains. Sensation replaces sensuality as Gresham's Law determines. Spectacular, spectacles and spectators live vicariously. But is it pleasure? Is it lurid fascination? The culture of death does not satisfy as it overdoses.
My problem with intelligence as a moral indicator is that it is so easily and obviously abused. The really smart ones are rarely the best ones, and those who get smart tend to be those who were not recruited as the brightest and best or told they would be the cream of the crop. Howard Zinn came up through the ranks. He saw things differently from the "officer corp."
Corrupt politicians (rich people) love ignorant population. Especially like Republicans that will go and fight to protect rich people's money.
If liberals are smarter, then please explain Thom's statements today that addressed the study linking happiness to income. Specifically, income greater than $75k didn't increase a person's happiness. During this discussion Thom stated that "...it's a tragedy that the average income [in the US] isn't $75,000/year." And he continued later that "...one day, we can hope that the average salary is $75,000/yr."
If the average salary is $75k/yr, then the average loaf of bread will cost $8, the average car will cost $45,000 and the average home will cost $380,000. A higher average salary does not address the chronically unemployed or unemployable and, in fact, the disparity becomes significantly greater. Low income earners will have to pay significantly more for the basic necessities.
So, tell me again how a higher average salary in the US improve things?
The answer is quite simple. In a society such as ours, wherein mercantile capitalism is the master variable governing the standard of living, it's impossible to realize Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs without adequate money. Consequently, if Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is not met, one will be inescapably unhappy on unmet needs. I should add that having enough to meet one's needs doesn't imply or include any expectation or entitlement to live in opulence.
You're either missing the key point of the $75K statement or you're deliberately dissembling on it. Obviously implicit in Thom's point is that one should have $75K today and one should be able to buy with it what $75K will buy today. Thom hasn't failed to plan for any monetary inflation you want to inject into the construct; rather, the answer to your injection of inflation into the discussion is that buying power has to remain static, even if prices go up, and the only way to achieve that is to increase income. If bread costs $8 per loaf, then the average income may need to be $100K or more. It's not about real dollars, it's about standard of living, and without a basically assured standard of living, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs cannot be addressed; all who cannot address it will probably be unhappy about those needs which remain unmet.
There's a very high positive correlation between happiness and full realization of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and full realization -- and thus, happiness -- cannot be achieved in this society without a minimal income (for all but The Buddha, of course).
Finally, of course, for the purposes of this discussion, I've assumed that you understand that I'm discussing "happiness' not as "rockin' out," but as overall peace of mind about and within one's sphere of existence and the complete realization of one's personal humanity and potential.
Amy Goodman interviews Robert Scheer, and the interview points out that the smart move may be smart politically.
We’ve heard about the robber barons on Wall Street who brought on our current economic crisis, but they couldn’t have done it without the help of key political players like Bill Clinton, for one, as Robert Scheer tells Amy Goodman in this “Democracy Now!” interview about his new book, “The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street.”
That kind of smart move can be justified, even while recognizing the blowback from your actions, by moral relativism. 'We can do so much more, but we have to have the power, so to get the power we get the enemy on our side'. Smart defers costs, or changes the measure of cost, keep a second set of books. Smart is fraud, but everybody does it, so the cost is negligible.
_hedges_best_brightest/ Shows there is no price or accountability for trashing the place.
Speak softly and carry a big stick. :)
Howard Zinn noted in this essay when intellectuals signed on to an abstract concept. How intelligent is American Exceptionalism? We have to break it before we can fix it.
Patel is correct, of course, in the ideal abstract, but one of the most unfortunate aspects of the "human condition" is that we have to live in the realistic present. The choice is "economic man" or the guys with the biggest clubs. History shows that no matter how committed to community and peace some communities may be, others committed to individualism and war will trample them whenever there's no analogue of a Pax Romana in place. It's human nature. No matter how good the good may be, it'll lose if it's not as well-armed and motivated to use those arms as the bad guys when push comes to shove. The good guys don't always win.
Social skills don't matter as long as the lack of them doesn't hurt anybody other than the one who doesn't possess them or care to develop them. It's not all that important to fit in, be a "regular guy," and kick it around with the fellas as long as one doesn't hurt anybody. As I stated in one other post on a different thread, if you think the educated have screwed up the world (and they have), see how you like it if you let the ignorant run it. Does the Dark Ages ring any bells? Similarly, if you think the intelligent have screwed up the world (and they have), try letting the stupid run it.
Ignorance is no sin; neither is genuine stupidity. Intelligence yielding to either ignorance or stupidity is one of the greatest sins humans can commit. If one does that, what's the point of being human rather than behaving like a lower animal in all things? Based on intelligence-based deconstructions of written works, creation of scientific concepts, and important historical contributions to the overall good of humanity, nobody with an IQ of less than 110 has ever given mankind anything that has moved the human race forward, love and kindness excepted. Most who have made important contributions to advance the human race have all had projected IQs much higher than that. I recommend Catherine Morris Cox's Genetic Study of Genius.
Original Sin is knowing and understanding the good, rejecting it, and doing the bad even though one knows better. The best people are both intelligent and humble, because humility without intelligence requires no discernment between the good and the bad, and thus no moral choice. It's remaining decent even when one knows that it's easier and more rewarding in the short run to be indecent that makes one truly good.
Humility in the context of this discussion is the intelligent actively using their intelligence for good rather than evil, as they certainly could, and in knowing and actively facing and accepting the fact that their intelligence doesn't make them any more human or worthy of humane recognition than their less intelligent fellow humans, because they did nothing to earn their intelligence. It's a gift.
I certainly agree that intelligence as a moral indicator is easily and obviously abused. But it's the moral task of the best and brightest to see that that doesn't happen. The GOP and most modern conservatives have no such scruples, and while many of them are very bright, they have no consciences, as manifest in their lack of any concern for their fellow man. Being intelligent never automatically makes one moral. Knowing what's right as a human being and then doing it, even when it's hard as hell, is what makes one moral.
Back to the original point, which was that a properly conducted survey found a corollary between one thing and another thing.
These results were immediately pounced upon and used for a host of non-sequiters in arguments which are impossibly founded on a "people are one-dimensional beings" model - which is, of course, about as small-minded as one can get.
Things to keep in mind:
This kind of test is mostly a measure of language and institutional skills.
Puppeteers will score higher than those they seek to control and will support activities that help prolong the disparity - better schools for their kids and takeaways from the public school system.
One measurement of this is that people who self-identify as conservative and score below average have mostly only had exposure to puppeteers, who tell them what it means to be conservative - even when much of that agenda is quite radical and in direct opposition to our Constitution.
Anyway, especially on such a relatively minor difference, all I get from the study results is that one group had a background which more widely covered the things which that kind of test, asked.
Lastly, I would hope that a study like this should have us working on how to pull them up - not put them down.
Elites (conservative brains) definitely have psychological warfare down pat. Even "geniuses" fall into their traps. Just stroke their egos and their legs start thumping. Einstein and Oppenheimer fell for it.
OK, I couldn't read all the posts on this topic. What struck me, however, is the lack of evidence. Thom quoted from a *study* - presumably peer reviewed.
That beats all of your pontificating and worthless opinions about the way things *should* be because I deduce them based on how many angels I can count on a pin.
Unless someone has some real evidence, I would accept Thom's article as the prevailing truth until it can be disproven or we can find problems with it.
I mean come on, people, everyone knows Thom is a liberal, and he is the smartest guy on the Radio!
Amy Goodman interviews Robert Scheer, and the interview points out that the smart move may be smart politically.
We’ve heard about the robber barons on Wall Street who brought on our current economic crisis, but they couldn’t have done it without the help of key political players like Bill Clinton, for one, as Robert Scheer tells Amy Goodman in this “Democracy Now!” interview about his new book, “The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street.”
That kind of smart move can be justified, even while recognizing the blowback from your actions, by moral relativism. 'We can do so much more, but we have to have the power, so to get the power we get the enemy on our side'. Smart defers costs, or changes the measure of cost, keep a second set of books. Smart is fraud, but everybody does it, so the cost is negligible.
_hedges_best_brightest/ Shows there is no price or accountability for trashing the place.
Clinton was among the best and brightest, but also among the most immoral, for more important reasons than consensual fellatio. All that did was to put the rest of his agenda on the backburner by the media, who had a feeding frenzy on the sordid Lewinski/Tripp/Jones/Real Estate Scandals. Clinton served that up to them on a silver platter because he chose not to keep his fly zipped, and in making that choice, he dragged the rest of the country along for the bad ride.
He hoodwinked the electorate and reneged on his campaign promises. He bought into the free trade b.s. and allowed the Republicans to reject most of his Federal judgeship appointments without much of a battle. He didn't intervene in Bosnia to prevent mass murder when he had the power to do so. And now, he and his former staff won't even admit they were wrong on NAFTA and GATT. The rotten hypocrites! And Clinton abdicated his responsibilities to investigate wrongdoing by Reagan and Bush. True political morality? Clinton and his team had precious little.
By any standards except the political insanity of today, Clinton was no Democrat, he was a moderate (not even a liberal) Republican. He played the system for his own gain, became rich, and now won't even admit his mistakes. About all that can be said in his favor is that he raised taxes on the super-rich and kept the economy humming.
I think GREED can bring out the creative, brilliant side of anybody.
Conservatives appear to be greed driven. Mentioning God every 5 seconds allows their followers to view them as sharp business people but with ethics and morals. But it's just pure greed at work.
IQ's are poor & limited measures of intelligence. (Since it is flexible the goal posts of it move.) Intelligence can be used to solve problems or create new ones. It can be independent of what you believe and can be turned to whatever the emotions and the bias wants. If you are a follower of any religion your intelligence will go to support that, or lack thereof.
I've found that too often on the internet if one person disagrees with another they call them "stupid" & "morons" or "crazy" et cetera. Unfortunately a common occurrence. A sad state of affairs indeed. Coarse discourse in fact.
Now if we use the criterion of correct information over what is essentially false or incomplete information, then that isn't lack of intelligence. Full of guile or someone who isn't interested in checking what they get as facts, and stay in one narrow area to get those suspect facts.
If Clinton can be labled a "moderate" and yet do those things which benefit the crypto-fascists among us, then I shudder to think what a Reich wing extremist would be.
I think this thread sets some sort of record for Progressive self-congratulation.
It's that is an illusion.................see what I mean. Teachers are the ones who shine above business people by far. Liberals have ideals that they see through to creation, as in engineers, physics, chemists, and even liberal CEO's too. I was a worker and when working with management they couldn't understand even how to run their business better when I would explain how to do things better, because they were locked in a hierarchy of top down management. People with Master's in Business are the worst. Some people excel at people management and running the store, others can only do one at a time. Think Germany when you think business and you'll see what I mean. They're growing at 9% while we are piddling at 3%. Socialism works better then capitalism for every one with smart liberals.
I can't agree. All of 40 or so major IQ tests, including those deliberately constructed to be free of cultural bias and those based on visual-spatial ability, such as Raven's Matrices, positively correlate at .7 or higher as accurate predictors of academic and educational success at all levels of education. Psychometric research is also at general global consensus that IQ doesn't change all that much over a person's lifetime, but it is true that anybody can score lower than their normal average if they're having any kind of bad day when they're tested. That's the only genuine flexibility in it. The fact that many with high IQs have various religiosities doesn't negate the value of IQ as an intelligence gauge. Who ever said religion has anything to do with rational intellectual activity? Religion relies on faith, not reason.
If your point is that intelligent people are also often believers, that too does not invalidate IQ. Einstein said that the more he learned about physics, the more convinced he was of the existence of God. Of course, he was not alluding to the fire and brimstone fundamental God of Falwell and Robertson, etc., but to the Divine Transcendental itself, that godhead empirically unknowable to human comprehension and Infinitely unconfinable to paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
Very true. That isn't lack of intelligence, it's ignorance.
Ah, but I said moderate Republican, which is about the same as saying middling corporate fascist.
Clinton is the big disappointment, not Obama. Bill sold out everything that mattered, although he was better with money than the other Republicans. He and Newt make an interesting pair of Yuppies.
The question of conscience may be more to the point of this thread than intelligence. The point about social skills and high intelligence is not about being somebody we want to share a beer with. It has to do with the regard given other human beings by the very smart, or very powerful. The tendency to disdain one's inferiors makes one's own actions and desires unencumbered by relational integrity. Whatever makes us feel smarter or better than others is dangerous.
Original Sin is about none of us being better. We all start as fools, and the more clever we think we are the less likely we are to use the means of grace as we do life the hard way. Earning what is given away for free is not smart, but it is the way of individual free will decision and moral endeavor.
Conservative ideology and social policies have been in place for decades, and their failure ought to be sparking new thinking on the Right instead of more denial and dogma shouted louder. There may be a new path for conservative thought at some point, but getting out of the ideological box is going to take them some time it appears.
Meanwhile, new ideas are still in the formative stages on the Left. The best get no attention at all from the establishment corporate press while what is discussed is how to tweak the old system as if that could work. Time is running out on this act. We can either be busy living or dying.
Humans are endowed with free will. Whether bright or dull, we have choices about how we treat others. It's often been said that the true indicator of character is the way people treat those who can't do anything for them. I certainly have no argument with that; I think it's true. Having said that, society runs off the rails and the public discourse inescapably degenerates to unending reinvention of the wheel if and when unconditional positive regard for all is mandated to entail the belief that not only are all entitled to their opinions, but that all opinions are equally valid. Whenever that happens, discourse becomes the end in and of itself and progressive action becomes impossible because dialogue is then unending.
As I stated earlier, if you think the intelligent have screwed up the world, see how you like it when the dull and mediocre run it. Sarah Palin and George Bush spring to mind. It's also relevant to point out that the party line in the Soviet Union included a ban on the concept of IQ, intelligence testing, or any discussion of IQ as a valid concept. That position was based on the Marxist misconception that "we're all equal means we're all capable of learning to do anything," which, in turn, gave the world unforgettable icons like that model of design and function, the Volga sedan.
Redemption through grace is a very Calvinist concept.
This amplifies and reinforces one of the original points of this entire thread. The reason for the failure of entrenched conservative ideology to produce new thinking is that its adherents are mostly incapable of thinking "outside of the box," confirming that they're generally not as smart as liberals. The demagogues who serve as their herders know this, so they don't come up with anything new because they don't have to do that in order to maintain control. It's that simple.
Having a background in eastern philosophy and yoga, like many yogis I value the intuition over the intellect. So let's expand the discussion to who is more intuitive, liberals or conservatives?
Without intuition the intellect can wander all over the place and even over a cliff. The intuition can keep the intellect in check. But if intuition is not well developed the intellect can get one in trouble.
BTW, there is not just one study about liberals and conservatives and intellectual capacity but several published over the last few years and discussed on Thom's show. I believe there was at least one book written on the subject.
Of course many liberals don't like to be so un-PC as to say conservatives aren't as bright as liberals but conservatives don't mind calling liberals flakes (mainly because they don't understand us). I do think that people become liberal if they are exercising more expanded views of the world which is something that for some reason (fear maybe) conservatives don't like to do. So also, who is braver: liberals or conservatives.
It takes quite a bit of conservative genius at the top to convince 300 million of their fellow Americans that their best interests lay in impoverishing themselves.
They even convince many conservatives at a lower economic/social level than themselves to do the same!
The American plutoracy isn't stupid. It isn't that they can't solve the nation's problems...just that the solutions for the majority are contrary to their own interests.
Their problems of getting things de-regulated, dismantling social programs, lowering wages, lowering their taxes, etc. have pretty much been solved. They aren't stupid..
Establishing a Corporate State is the pinnacle of their success. Using lower-rung, manipulated conservatives to keep liberals focused on who can marry who , etc., while they did that was pure genius.
As Hedges notes, "We've had a slow-moving Coup d'etate. It's accomplished. They won. We lost."
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/9217110#utm_campaigne=synclickback&source=http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/chris_hedges_on_moral_courage_20100901/&medium=9217110
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"
It takes quite a bit of conservative genius at the top to convince 300 million of their fellow Americans that their best interests lay in impoverishing themselves.
They even convince many conservatives at a lower economic/social level than themselves to do the same!
The American plutoracy isn't stupid. It isn't that they can't solve the nation's problems...just that the solutions for the majority are contrary to their own interests.
Their problems of getting things de-regulated, dismantling social programs, lowering wages, lowering their taxes, etc. have pretty much been solved. They aren't stupid..
Establishing a Corporate State is the pinnacle of their success. Using lower-rung, manipulated conservatives to keep liberals focused on who can marry who , etc., while they did that was pure genius.
As Hedges notes, "We've had a slow-moving Coup d'etate. It's accomplished. They won. We lost."
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/9217110#utm_campaigne=synclickback&source=http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/chris_hedges_on_moral_courage_20100901/&medium=9217110
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"
Yup. Sigh.
It's the plutocracy's think tanks that are smart. This is a newer wrinkle in the age old class warfare though we might say that the "king's advisors" were the "think tanks" of yore. One thing for sure, the plutocracy isn't enlightened and they always have fallen victim to their own egos down throughout history. Can't wait for their fall this round.
It's the plutocracy's think tanks that are smart. This is a newer wrinkle in the age old class warfare though we might say that the "king's advisors" were the "think tanks" of yore. One thing for sure, the plutocracy isn't enlightened and they always have fallen victim to their own egos down throughout history. Can't wait for their fall this round.
I suppose we could split some hairs about whether it's the plutocracy or their think tanks and advisers that are smart. One could reasonably say the plutocrats themselves are smart enough to hire smart advisers, who are even smarter than their employers. Either way, I sadly have to agree with polycarp2's assessment of the overall situation and the quote of Hedges' remark on the slow-moving coup.
While I share your hopes about the "fall" of the plutocracy this time around, I fear they may have consolidated their positions on all fronts to the degree that we can't dislodge them. I'm not sure we're not now seeing the final "Third Worldization" of America, an America wherein we'll have rich and poor, with nobody in the middle and the poor being too uneducated and overworked to be able to put up much of a fight anymore. If so, we're at the dawn of a new Dark Age for everybody but the rich.
Because more conservatives don't have the intellect to understand the liberal position. The liberal positions are adopted by intellectuals because it appeals to them. I know it's a harsh position but argue with a conservative and you start to realize they just can't see something very obvious to a liberal. Problem is the intellectual class is probably the smallest of the four classes in society. Most conservatives are in the third rung acquistor or merchant class. They are business people. The intellectual class are often working in fields that demand intellect such as being college professors, artists, writers, scientists, etc.
I know people will want to raise exceptions to this argument but consider that those exceptions are quite rare.
The word is perspective, not intellect. the same argument could very well be made about a liberal not having the "intelligence" to understand the conservative position. Someone said "worldview", i agree, just like the word "perspective" better.
Just because you choose a different occupation other than the ones you presented (artist? really? i know a LOT of artists who are not so smart) does not make them less intelligent.
This thread is Comedy Gold. Would have been interesting had someone posted where this notion came from.
Study: Are Liberals Smarter Than Conservatives?
Please feel free to look it over for material to use. I enjoyed the section on the IQ testing of adolescent children who self describe themselves as "very liberal" . I'm just going to let that one hang...
The idea that we on the Left cannot understand the intellectual depths of conservative thought as we wallow in everything the Right can spew is hilarious. The problem is that way down deep, they are shallow. There is no there there. It is no longer a counter-argument to a dominant philosophy, and in the process of reality testing it failed.
There is a lot that got by-passed as the Liberals and Socialists were written out of the Official Version of our story. If the big idea crowd on the Right could spend some time and research on American Progressive thought or with the counter-industrial models of farming or industry, they might have to do some ideological reconstruction. I just keep finding more complaints about the nature of democracy.
At this point, there is very little of a Left Establishment to defend. The Right is full of powerful interests whose dogma is crumbling. It makes sense that those on the Right would be more involved in the collapse of an ideology than those on the Left. It would also be true that those on the Left have far less coherence and systematic thoughts to present because they are still trying to work out what has happened. This makes them less persuasive where confidence and assertion count, but more persuasive where evidence and facts count. TV serves the former better than the latter.
the thought that either side cannot understand the intellectual positions of the other side is hilarious. it has nothing to do with intelligence. there are brilliant people on both sides of the political spectrum. you imply that everyone that doesn't share your worldview is intelectually inferior, and that just isn't the case.
"way down deep, they are shallow"?
forgotten man wrote: "way down deep, they are shallow"?
poly replies: Probably the lower tiers of conservatives are shallow thinkers.. Those worth less than around half a billion...give or take 100 million. They can't think beyond their ideological blinders. Critical thinking doesn't seem to be their forte when it comres to social structures or national economic policy...
Conclusions are based on surface thinking....surface appearances. and slogans....such as. "the invisible hand of the free market" that Nobel Laureate and former Chief Economist of the World Banks Joseph Stiglitz calls , "a myth.... a religion".As Hanna Arendt notes,, "Ideological thinking can't learn anything new...even if its something that has just come to pass". Like our current meltdown, perhaps?
The top tier conservatives aren't shallow in the same sense. They know exactly what they are doing. As I mentioned before, their problems have been solved. Dismantling social programs, lowering wages, reducing taxes, de-regulation, and garnering a larger share of the national income for themselves. They've never had it so good. Billion dollar bonuses while living standards plunge? Unheard of in any previous era.
Fixing the economy for the majority or addressing the environment contradicts their concerns...contradicts the solutiions they have put in place for themselves. They had a different set of problems...different priorities....and solved them beautifully..
If there is shallow thinking at that level, it's in not recognizing the consequences of blow-back that always ultimately occurs with sudden mass destitution. It's assumed the power of the state can always keep that blow-back at a minimum. Sometimes it can, sometimes it can't....and the march of history is always an ultimate replacement of an elite when they lose their function,.... their credibility...and maintain their positions by force or fraud.
That's the shallow thinking at the top...and with force, there's the possibility they can maintain those positions for decades...if not centuries. .just as monarchs did.
We are approaching that point. Will the army/police support the staus quo in an economic/enviromental collapse...or opt for change? It's the unanswered question.
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"
.
This thread has given me a deep appreciation for the difficult conditions Progressives must endure. They live in a lesser world, surrounded by unappreciative ignorants who are unable to grasp their true messianic potential. At least Thomland gives them a place where they can gather and recognize themselves in their full moral and intellectual splendor.
Well, the board does give a place where we can take a closer examination at why the system is unraveling.
Global capitalism is imploding from within, or haven't you noticed?
The right has yet to get that their solutions. created the problems.
A merging of economic/environmental collapse won't be pretty...and is in the cards at some point.. Dems in Washington can't break themselves from similar right wing thinking. when it comes to core policy.
Trillions were voted within a week for the financial economy...while nearly 2 years later the real economy is still left to wither on the vine. Not very bright...and expected given the ideological bent. Main Street cuts will hasten its demise. .
Economists not glued to the ideology noted $80 billion to bail Main Street would have made derivative payouts unnecessary. Banks would have remained solvent.
If a penny was a billion bucks...a stack 6 inches high to bail Main St. vs. one the height of a ten story building we spent to bail derivative players. It's called neo-liberalism...embraced by both parties. The primary neo-liberal cheerleader was Ronald Reagan. The man Dems love to hate...and love to follow.
The Outsourcing King and Prime Minister of Social Cuts, Democratic Clinton, outdid his mentor, Ronald Reagan.. Obama, so far, is following in his footsteps. A progressive Pres. would have been better than another Reaganite..The continuation of core Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush policies is driving the nation into the ground. They are policies of the right....not the left.
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease".
Peewee, thanks for proving our point. <laugh>
Peewee, thanks for proving our point. <laugh>
My pleasure Captain. I learn a lot from the Progressives here.
Grasping the subtleties of critical thinking is always a good thing....for either side of the aisle.
Conservatives bought into Obama's marketing image as a progressive and voted for his twin. Liiberals bought the marketing image as well.. Both missed the boat.
"Ordinary working people are hurting bigtime, still waiting for the prophet Obama to lead them to the promised land. But Obama has abandoned "Big Government" as the answer, whether it be a second round of stimulus, government jobs programs, or expanded welfare assistance. He'll have none of it. Sure, he'll playfully joust with his GOP rivals, but he'll never seriously diverge from the path cleared by his ideological twin, Ronald Reagan." - Mike Whitney
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney09102010.html
Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"
This thread has given me a deep appreciation for the difficult conditions Progressives must endure. They live in a lesser world, surrounded by unappreciative ignorants who are unable to grasp their true messianic potential. At least Thomland gives them a place where they can gather and recognize themselves in their full moral and intellectual splendor.
Keep on smirkin', Babbitt! But remember, if it ever gets as bad as we've discussed here, "they'll" be comin' through your windows to get your stuff, too, unless, of course, you join the plutocracy. In that event, you'll eventually end up on the guillotine (or its figurative equivalent) anyhow.
Like it or not........
People can be lumped into some pretty well defined baskets of ideology.
Religion is a great example of this. Even though a million people will call themselves Christian, pastor Joe's congregation has a slightly different interpretation of certain biblical verse than pastor Johns.
Political factions are no different. Republican or Democrat or Independent. Ideological baskets or basket cases. Raganits, Palinites, Tea Bagger.
These are for the most part self imposed segregation's. This is not too hard to understand nor is it very hard to manipulate people when you understand their basic motivations.
A wise (or crafty) businessman knows his customer base and will play to their needs or desires. If he is really good he can create a demand for his product based on the psychological profiles of his customers.
The whole Advertising industry is based on these principals and to this day we all deny that we are susceptible to them.
BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!
If you sign up right now! You can hate the Muslims AND insure your eternal salvation. Just donate $25, $50, $100 dollars to my campaign and I will lead you into a better tomorrow.
And if you order in the next hour we will send you FREE OF CHARGE, (just pay separate shipping and handling) a free subscription to our newsletter that is full of the latest opinions and data compiled by the great thinkers that we trust and we know that you will come to depend on to help guide you through all of the great decisions you need to make.
We know advertising works. Big boobs sell beer. Fear sells guns. Hunger sells food.
People can be manipulated into acting against there better self interest by praying on their baser instincts and natural prejudices.
Freud's Nephew and the Origins of Public Relations
This thread has given me a deep appreciation for the difficult conditions Progressives must endure. They live in a lesser world, surrounded by unappreciative ignorants who are unable to grasp their true messianic potential. At least Thomland gives them a place where they can gather and recognize themselves in their full moral and intellectual splendor.
Peewee, instead of making condescending generalizations, why don't you challenge the argument?
I think its a bit simple to just say Liberals are smarter than Conservatives. And of course it sets up a further scenario of US vs Them.
No doubt there are highly intelligent conservatives out there, but I think (unfortunately) their message gets lost in the need to simplify the message to the lowest common denominator. I think it highlights the fact that emotion is much easier to sell to a greater amount of people.
In the US (and really it seems to be rather unique to that nation), the media (or whomever) seem to have created this whole idea that one should somehow be embarrassed about basically being an individual. Thinking for one's self. Exploring other cultures. Living amongst people different than you, etc. I think there is a general fear of difference and change in America. And its largely being sold by the very backward mass media.
Personally, I happen to think that most progressives I know are smarter than the conservatives I have come in contact with. Why, because they seem to have a greater ability to "think outside the box". But this may just be how I (as an individual) define intelligence. Perhaps for someone else, its based on how much money a person can make in the stock market. Which may be more in line with how most conservatives behave.
I guess my point is that, maybe we all come to the view of what constitutes "smarter" based on a completely different set of standards and measurement.
So PeeWee, why not tell us why capt's initial post is incorrect. Counter the argument, instead of just mocking those who feel it to be true.
Having read through the thread, and thinking about the topic. Intelligence, and the quantification of intelligence began with research done in Southern California at the turn of the twentieth century. The questions, as it turns out often related to the culture of the person who made the questionnaire, so if a question that assumed young people played tennis, who would understand the game was lost on children who never heard of the sport. Those cultural values, when they were not answered defined the person who didn't know, or whose cultural background didn't include those factors defined a young person as less intelligent.
Please God, we have learned to correct those cultural biases, so that, to our amazement, we discover that the native peoples in Austrailia, for instance, when shown how to operate a tractor, and later, given a course in English that they were forced to learn by their colonial administators, managed very well, even if they never played cricket, or rugby, or . . . European Austrailians played.
One of the people in the string mentioned intuition, and, in fact, the lack of intuition, if the story is true, kept the penecilin off the shelves for ten years--it is said that Sir Alexander Fleming, an intelligent man, switched the petri dish from one lab to another. Unsually, the windows were shut, but in the lab where he had place the petri dish a fly entered and landed on on a mold of bread. Sir Alexander noticed that event and separated the specimen. The bacteria in the petri dish was affected, by the contact with the fly. Fleming was not sure, and spent ten years, still unconvinced that the material that "the fly brought" was the cause of the phenomonon, until WWII, where was an urgent need to cure soliders. It worked!!!!
Sir Isaac Newton and the Apple, well, its obvious that he spent some time considering the theory of Universal Gravitation, but the "fallen apple" was the trigger that unlocked his intuition.
Even more that that, how about Wisdom, know how to the intelligence that we are given. Seems to me an average person who has a healthy EQ and is capable of solving problems is far better than some Mensa member who dreams up some machine that will do the job at twice the cost and take all that much more time to get done.
Israel had a very intelligent PM, who, when told there was a serious issue with the lower percentiles who weren't earning enough to bring food to the table, urged those people who were better off "to help the poor". The working poor replied they wanted incomes that would enable them to fill their own refigerators! That intelligent PM made history by serving the shortest term of any PM in the history of the State.
Wisdom, yes wisdom, knowing what do, and why you are doing it, when to exercise authority, and when to hold back, all those skills, and others. Heck, if Castro can come to realize that there ought to have been a Cuban model for a Progressive Society instead of a Cookie Cutter Soviet model, that counts for something, no? Yes, Virginia, Tito, as long as he held the reins of the Yugoslav Republic, and he wasn't always nice, either, had the Wisdom, the Understanding of how to keep his country working. Was he intelligent, was he Liberal, was he Conservative, dunno, but he had the knack of keeping his country working.
Wishful thinking founded on a baseless stereotype of Mensans...
Ulysses, there are enough people who are too intelligent for their own good. Let's say a very intelligent person gets a case of hubris, and . . . doesn't let the facts confuse his perception of what is really out there. Obviously, someone who has more intelligence can do more with the real facts that are available, learning out what is there from the "inside", asking the right questions and reaching the right conclusions.
Short of that, when commonsense sees real facts and figures out what to do, and at the same time some intellect that imagines their version of the truth, well . . .no matter what the data reveals. You have a choice of looking at what is there, and what is "not there". In that case you have to defer to commonsense until you can find an intellect who can work with the facts as they are.
Let's hope that we find intelligent people with enough integrity to see things for what they are, rather than what their intellect imagines it to be.