Intelligence and Politics
Intelligence and Politics
Have you noticed how bad people are at talking about politics? Of course you have. Why? Is it because they are riddled with prejudice, brainwashed, of low IQ, uneducated, mentally lazy? I don’t think so; I think it’s because politics is hard. It’s just so complicated, so all-encompassing, so full of uncertainty. The human mind is just not up to the task. Think what you need to know in order to think and talk competently about politics: economics, psychology, history, morality, philosophy, law, science, military strategy. All of these can enter into a political question, because politics is about war and peace, the creation and distribution of wealth, systems of government, what happened in the past, what might happen in the future, what should be legal and illegal, what is right and wrong, the sources of human action, the role of scientific knowledge in society. No one person commands such a wide field of knowledge; so, everyone is an amateur to one degree or another. Yet people yearn to have political opinions, because politics matters. They therefore oversimplify, ignore relevant information, take a stand, repeat themselves, get fixated. You never hear so much stupidity as in a political discussion. Emotion takes the place of reason, because reason is stretched to the limit. No one wants to admit they just don’t know what to think. Politics is best left to professionals and even they are not up to the job. It’s just too much to hold together in the mind. There is no textbook you can study to give you all the answers, no finite set of rules that covers all cases. No one is a political genius in full possession of the subject.
From what I’ve read Noam Chomsky does a fair job of political commenting. His wide grasp of historical events and contexts give his writing an aura of authority and authenticity; much like your own in the world of Philosophy, in fact. I found his treatment of the Iraq war particularly insightful. Cf. ‘The worst Crime of the Twentieth Century’ Chomsky and Robinson in ‘Current Affairs’ May 12, 2023.
Chomsky is a powerful writer in general. He has a broader knowledge of everything that anyone else.
I thought I had corrected my error in the title of the article I cited above? Of course it should read ‘- of the 21st century’.
Anyway I wish there was virtual Tippex available.
– Politics is best left to professionals…
– Yes Minister!