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Do Americans Care Too Much About “Smart”?
I’ve been reading with great interest the threads from Salvatore, Ryan and Midge on elitism, meritocracy, and higher education. I discovered them too late to get into the discussion, but I’ll throw in an oar by asking a question: do Americans value intelligence too much? I was recently reading this piece on parenting around the world, which claims that Americans care far more about raising “smart” kids than, say, the Dutch, who actually worry that having a smarty-pants child may be a bad thing.
This is not a foolish concern. Intelligence can be an asset in a wide range of circumstances, but it can also be isolating, and can increase the odds of a person ending up jaded, bored, or insufferably arrogant. In Coming Apart, Charles Murray explains his theory about how higher education allowed the new upper class to get ahead through their smarts, winning the good, brainy jobs that were suddenly more abundant in an information economy. They then took their lavish salaries and formed enclaves of snooty people who look down on the rest of us.
Don’t let Murray’s criticisms draw your attention from the important central claim that those upper-middle-class snobs really are (on average) smarter than most of us. It’s obvious how those social and economic trends might increase Americans’ interest in smarts. Do you want your kids to be rich, popular, and professionally successful? Better make sure they’re brainiacs.
I think there’s a lot of truth to Murray’s tale, though there are plenty of very smart people who don’t end up with Harvard degrees and “super ZIP” mansions for one reason or another. I also think these trends may have distorted the way we think about and value intelligence. Smart people can be useful, undoubtedly. It’s in everyone interests for society to find ways to take advantage of what they can do. But that shouldn’t lead us to undervalue other abilities. A person who scores low on an IQ test may still be gifted in another way, but, more importantly, we shouldn’t suppose that rare and unique gifts are necessary for a person to be valuable to society. Average people can do wonderful things too. They do most of the living and loving and bearing and dying in the world, so we shouldn’t talk as though there’s anything wrong with average.
Once you understand the range and complexity of human personalities and characters, you start to wonder whether there’s really even such a thing as “average.” Meanwhile, even smart people may be burdened by the excessive importance we attach to intelligence. What if they don’t want to be part of the new upper class? I’ve known a few very smart people who fled that path on principle and ended up in a somewhat unhappy place, trying to figure out why they felt mildly ashamed of being as smart as they obviously were.
This, in my view, is a consequence of attaching too much significance to one particular sort of ability. Everyone loses. When smart people underachieve, their intelligence actually becomes a burden, because they tend to feel bored and isolated. It would be better if everyone could take advantage of the opportunities best suited to them and take pride in real achievements (rather than inherited advantages that aren’t really meritorious anyway). Is there any way we could get closer to a world like that?
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My guess is “number of risks taken” can’t really be controlled for. What twin adoption studies show is there is very small effects of nurture on the aspects that parents care about, all things considered. The effects are large below 8, moderate in the early teens, and falling off a cliff in their 20’s. Another way to interpret the data is that parents have a large long-term effect, but when added all together the negatives cancel out the positives, but why put in the effort if you’re just as likely to hurt as help? And if you want your child to be a violen star, whether they want to or not, the only way to do that is to control their lives and not care when they don’t think fondly of you.
My parents pushed me to take drama in high school. It was one of the best experiences of my life and did wonders for my personality and shyness at the time, but I don’t think it had any effect on who I am today.
What makes you sure that work ethic, discipline and values don’t have a strong genetic component? Certainly saying that work ethic is not completely in your control sounds dangerous, but is there any reason to believe it isn’t much much easier for some people to “work hard” for the sake of working than others?
I recall Chesterton’s line that if we must have an aristocracy, don’t let it be based on talent -that would lead to an insufferable elite. One based on heredity at least knows it is due to luck (though my understanding of medieval honor codes is that -in fact -they did not believe it was due to luck, but no matter -it remains a good line).
The greater dangers are the belief that intelligence in one area leads to intelligence in others -leading to incorrect deference to experts or “smarter friends.”
The confusion of wisdom and intelligence -being able to figure something out is not the same as knowing what to do with it.
And the belief that lacking innate intelligence means that you cannot learn anyway (and the corresponding error, that having innate intelligence means that you don’t need to work). Intelligent people can pick up on and repeat back what their teachers said, easily. The actual making of new mental connections and the derivation of new ideas -seeing how the world actually runs -is work, and that can be learned. The intelligent have a leg up because they can skip the mimicry stage. That is all.
A few points I’d like to make:
1) All this talk of “classes” is, I think, not good. There’s no such thing as “upper class”, “middle class”, “lower class”, elites etc. There’s successful people, and less successful people. No reason to “envious” of those that achieve more than us. We should look at them as role models instead: something to aim for.
2) IQ isn’t the issue here. We’re not measuring IQ. IQ isn’t the sole determining factor of success. Nor is it the case that people who have high IQ or are “intelligent” lack these other traits you’ve all mentioned here. The IQ curve is still bell shaped.
3) The “success” of successful people isn’t due entirely to them being more “learned” than others. Their smarts reflect in their life choices: work hard, have a good family life etc. All that leads to success, but you need to have some…intelligence…to be able to make those life choices. That’s not just “book smart” but its emotional intelligence. Book smarts are a byproduct of that.
4) Yes, we should strive for “smart”. Instugator is right: listen to the Duke.
I grew up in Eastern Europe where “intelligence” is valued far more highly than what is described here. Of course, that “intelligence” doesn’t translate into higher economic or social well being, because the rest of the mechanisms in society were lacking there.
They are not, in the US, however. Here, “smart” people can actually achieve real good for themselves and for society as a whole. And unlike E.Europe where what is “smart” was determined by the State, here it is the market that determines what is “smart”, and how to reward it.
But lets not kid ourselves: the market determines this precisely through the money it pays people. Money does matter: it’s the best measure we have to determine what is “successful” and what is “beneficial”.
That being said, “average” doesn’t create economic prosperity on its own. Neither does “smart” on their own. Everyone is interconnected. So the attempt at grouping people into “classes”, where they appear to be in “conflict” with each other…is deeply misguided and counterproductive.
What exactly do we hope to achieve by trying to pit “classes” against each other? Instead of telling people: that’s what success looks like, emulate it.
It sounds plausible. There’s probably large short run effects just because people aren’t taught the value of “trying,” but it’s hard to get too far in life before the data smack you into reality. If you have raw ability, it doesn’t take long to learn to “turn it on” if you realize you need to. I realized this in highschool biology, and then again in college, and then in grad school. I don’t know if having to learn that hurt me in the long run, but my guess is that was just who I was. As a thought experiment, consider the president. He thinks he’s the smartest person in any room, surrounded by sycophants, and it hasn’t visibly harmed his achievement, though I’m sure he experiences his fair share of cognitive dissonance.
Small studies and anecdotal evidence from teachers and parents of gifted kids have shown that when faced with a problem they don’t immediately “get” or working on skill development, basically any situation that isn’t easy, the child tends to say “I’m not good at that.” or I’m not smart at that.” It’s considered to be an effect of praising kids for being smart versus working hard–side effect of the self-esteem movement in education.
On the flip side I could say that the mugger on the street corner is really not smart. How did that work out?
Someone smarter than me might be able to tell you the type of logical fallacy you are committing here.
Intelligence is wonderful, when properly used.
Not everyone is or can be smart. However, everyone has the potential to be wise, and that is what I hope to see in my own children.
What’s the saying? “Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.”
My kids may not be geniuses, but by gum I’ll teach them how to learn– how to think– and I’ll expect them to use whatever brains God gave ’em.
On the other hand, the less you have to try in order to succeed, the longer you can go without learning this lesson. The smart but insecure may find it relatively easy to limit themselves to tasks that don’t challenge them for unusually long periods of time, and the smarter they are, perhaps the longer they can delay that lesson. Perhaps as long as thirty years.
I’m not saying this is common, just that a culture that encourages smart kids in particular to lead a sheltered life through their twenties makes this outcome more likely.
I agree. Nicely put.
I’ve recently been reading a̶d̶v̶a̶n̶c̶e̶d̶ ̶c̶a̶l̶c̶u̶l̶u̶s̶ the aubrey/maturin series from Patrick O’Brian, and I think Jack Aubrey is a great example of this. He’s not dumb, but he’s not super smart, either. Yet, he is an amazingly fantastic ship captain. When he sets foot on land, he is hopelessly lost, and behaves like an idiot (which actually makes me wish this side of his life had been excluded from the books, in all honesty).
On the other hand – I haven’t read the comments, but I see #20 just above this one… and I am of a similar mind. The left values intelligence, but how intelligent are they, really? I tend to think that they build up a certain amount of intelligence, which allows them to be arrogant but underinformed. They end up making worse decisions than the stupid folks. Ideology is still very important, and the “dumb” are just as capable as anyone of having sound ideology. I’d rather have a dumb conservative than a brilliant liberal.
Systemic culture effects would be difficult to find in the data of twin-adoption studies. I don’t know if this effect would be bore out, as plausible as it is. Maybe very smart people are inherently insular in their childhood since they think so much more differently than average people.
If you think about it too hard it can become tautological. Smart insecure people have trouble reaching their full potential because they are smart and insecure.
I agree that this mistaken belief is a big problem.
Disagree slightly. Many intelligent people make good parrots. Some are terrible at parroting, though, and compensate for this absentmindedness in other ways.
It can be learned. It comes much easier if you’re smarter, though. And possibly just a bit weird. I know two men, neither famous, but both very accomplished in math and science, who swear that dyslexia is an asset – that people without dyslexia are the ones with the learning disability.
Eegh. Be careful what you wish for. You’re going to get it.
oh, I didn’t mean “in office.” I just meant day to day interactions. I’d prefer a smart conservative president, if possible.
Would that it were true.
AIG, have you scrolled up a few clicks to see Son of Spengler’s excellent post on this same topic? He addresses that very question.
My eldest is extremely intelligent. Perfect SAT scores intelligent (and no, he didn’t take a prep course and he only took them once). I am extremely worried about his future because everything has come to him so easily. He is the Luck Child. A perfect Saturday job fell into his lap last year, a summer job fell into his lap this summer, he breezes through the SAT with minimal prep, he aces Calculus II because he is gifted with a brain that just thinks that way… But he hates hard work and loves to flick around the web for hours of timewasting nothingness.
You can’t cure stupid, but there is still no substitute for hard work and ambition. Without those, intelligence is a mere parlor trick.
The next few years will tell me and Papa Toad how well we taught that lesson.
You didn’t read this book carefully enough because Murray also explains that the nature of a First World economy rewards those who are smart enough to adapt and invent and create and that those who choose not to adapt will fare less successfully. Am not clear that higher education ensures success; people who get into Ivy schools are highly gifted to begin with. (See two of the most impressive 20th/21st century innnovators without degrees: Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.)
This is and has been the “nature of beast” throughout all of history. No groundbreaking news here.
Yes, but it doesn’t address the “class” question.
This talk of “classes” is very much Marxian in logic. It assumes permanent placement and permanent position. Us vs. them.
Not only is this factually wrong, given the fact that there’s huge mobility and shuffles up and down the income distributions, and hence there is no “us” and no “them” (especially since its usually the same people moving across different income brackets, at different phases of their life)…
…but it is also very damaging. It’s pure populism.
What exactly do we hope to accomplish by trying to “attack” “rich smart people”? How does “attacking” people for being successful, help “conservatism”? I suspect some people might think it “helps” by getting “the average guy” to vote Republican out of resentment for the “rich”. I.e. Rick Santorum 2.0 Not sure I want to have anything to do with that, however.
Triple like.
That was a lesson they told well in the book “Moneyball” – Billy Beane, the manager of the Oakland A’s was an extremely gifted athlete. The reason given for his failure to succeed in MLB as a player was his inability to deal with personal failures on the field – years of nothing but success as an adolescent gave him no coping mechanisms as an adult.
The way to succeed in your effort is to help him go someplace where his attributes aid him but don’t guarantee success – and he knows it from the outset.
Thank you. This is what I saw in schools–nursery school through high school. The kids are so invested in the IQ notion that they don’t even try.
I don’t buy it. The material through high school is pretty obtainable to most people. They fail because they lack confidence that there will be a payoff for the work.
(I once said this to a group of principals in my district and they applauded! Too funny.)
I believe this for two reasons: One, my faith that God created all these kids and he doesn’t screw up as much as we do. And two, it’s what self-government is based on. Most people are educable.
I think the problem is you are locked in on the liberal and/or Marxian interpretation of reality and are thereby locked into refuting it.
The class system arises when the rich and politically powerful alter the system so as to lock in their own gains. In other words, to ensure no downward mobility for themselves.
This is currently manifesting itself by the upper third of society buying off the lower third of society.
Conservatism stands in direct opposition to this idea. Markets ought to be free and open and fair. People ought to be able to rise and fall on their own merit.
The Russians used to have a simple sorting mechanism, according to only 2 traits: Work Ethic and Intelligence.
There is a lot to this. The destructive power of energetic but stupid people is astounding.
Ironically the kids who are hurt most in school are the one’s who aren’t bright enough to grasp it under the current trends of student led discovery learning, collaborative groups, and the de-emphasizing of rote learning and memorization and the importance of fluency and silly things like spelling and grammar rules. Kids with average IQ scores and even learning disabilities are perfectly capable of advanced math, spelling, writing and science, IT they may just not grasp it on the first try and they certainly may struggle if they aren’t equipped with foundational skills.
(PsychLynne steps down form the soapbox).
We had a teacher in our school district who was amazing. He taught sixth-grade science. The kids thought he was a cross between McGyver and Mr. Wizard. He knew the kids and their parents. Everyone loved him, and he loved everyone. His classes were alive with excitement. Those kids went on to impress everyone in the school district, and they were considered “gifted” everywhere they went. The kids who had the other teachers that year–not so “gifted” in the sciences.
Yup. That’s what I’ve seen too. I lived longer as a public school volunteer than most parents because I had a straggler after my first two. I had known these kids from nursery school days. There was nothing biologically wrong with them. Just self-consciousness mostly.
But the loss is exponential. From the moment the kid gives up, from that point on, the intellectual losses are tremendous and often leave him or her in Fishtown or worse.
And here’s a question that tied up our school committee for several weeks: Where do you send your best teachers: to the low-performing students or the high-performing students?
And one more comment:
I saw a fascinating program on PBS years ago. It was about college chemistry teachers who were concerned that their incoming freshman students who had scored perfect scores on the AP chemistry exam were not doing as well as they should have been. The AP curriculum had been touted as enabling students to skip a year of college. But these professors did not see a basic-level understanding of chemistry in these students.
The program showed these three professors interviewing three or four AP chemistry students who had scored perfectly on the exam. The flip chart showed three things: a block of ice, a similar volume of water vapor/steam, and a block of water. The professors asked each student which was heavier. None of the students answered correctly.
And the professors said it was extraordinary. They said mass/density was a primary concept in chemistry, and why the students did not understand it after having studied the AP chemistry course material was a complete mystery.