American Intelligence

American Intelligence

America is not a very intelligent country. I take it this does not need much arguing. The question is why. I think it is because America is young. The intelligence of a country does not arrive overnight; it takes centuries, millennia. It is hard won, a struggle. It is passed down the generations—not just genetically but culturally. It has a history, as long and convoluted as any history. It also needs to be nurtured. It is constantly changing, though sometimes stagnant. It is an invisible river, flowing through time. It is precious, but also destructible. Its natural home is the university, though it can live and thrive in many places. The American tributary of it is of relatively recent origin. Harvard was founded in the eighteenth century and took some time to develop. By contrast, Oxford university was founded in the twelfth century—as were other European universities. Similarly, for China, Japan, and other countries. A country’s universities shape its level of intelligence. So, American intelligence has about six hundred years of catching up to do. It is still an adolescent. What you can you expect? You may object that America and American universities have had the benefit of well-educated immigrants who brought their learning with them. True, but two points may be made. First, these people had to contend with the intellectual level they found in America, and they were in a minority. Second, their contribution was not home-grown but imported: American intelligence was still at a relatively primitive level. To repeat: the intelligence of a country, a people, takes many centuries to mature and needs constant nurturing and institutional support. It takes work, time, opportunity. People are not born that way (I am not talking about IQ—that is compatible with a marked lack of intelligence in the sense I intend). You need good teachers, but they in turn needed good teachers, and so on back. The level of teaching I got at Oxford went back centuries, as knowledge was passed on down the generations. It doesn’t come from nowhere. This is why it is so valuable: you can’t bring it into existence quickly and easily. Every nuance of it has a history. The tutorial system was its vehicle. You are what you have been taught. You can’t buy it at the supermarket. But America hasn’t been around that long. It still has a lot to learn. If you listen to American politicians and European politicians you notice a marked difference—it is the sound of intelligence in action. American society has not been permeated by the kind of intelligence present in old educational institutions, because that takes time. It is also felt as alien by many people not accustomed to it. Thus, politics is deformed and debased by the low level of national intelligence. I am bending over backwards not to blame the American people: they haven’t had the time to develop what other countries have had the time to develop. Intelligence is like a slow-growing plant containing the wisdom of ages. And you can’t see its degree of maturation. It isn’t really capitalism that’s the problem, or an entertainment culture, or an obsession with sports; it’s its time on earth. Maybe in another six hundred year it will have caught up.[1]

[1] Let me be a bit more concrete: when I talk to an American academic, I don’t find the level and type of intelligence I find in a European academic (of course, I mainly talk to British academics, but the same is true of others). I may find cleverness, erudition, even originality, but I don’t find the same thoughtfulness, caution, and judgment that I find in the non-American (unless he or she has been educated at a British university at some point). This is the quality that is so hard to develop without the right intellectual environment. Humor is invariably part of it, as is verbal sophistication (I could give many examples). In comparison the American is apt to come across as simple-minded, competitive, and unsubtle—even if intellectually gifted (there are exceptions). The history just isn’t there.