|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
No_hite_pls
Joined: 05 Mar 2007
Location: Don't hate me because I'm right
|
 Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 4:40 pm Post subject: Why Liberals are More Intelligent than Conservatives |
 |
|
| Quote: |
Why Liberals Are More Intelligent Than Conservatives
By Satoshi Kanazawa
Created Mar 21 2010 - 11:02pm
Sarah PaulsonHarriet Hayes: I don�t even know what the sides are in the culture wars.
Matt Albie: Well, your side hates my side because you think we think you are stupid, and my side hates your side because we think you are stupid.
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Nevada Day, Part I
It is difficult to define a whole school of political ideology precisely, but one may reasonably define liberalism (as opposed to conservatism) in the contemporary United States as the genuine concern for the welfare of genetically unrelated others and the willingness to contribute larger proportions of private resources for the welfare of such others. In the modern political and economic context, this willingness usually translates into paying higher proportions of individual incomes in taxes toward the government and its social welfare programs. Liberals usually support such social welfare programs and higher taxes to finance them, and conservatives usually oppose them.
Defined as such, liberalism is evolutionarily novel. Humans (like other species) are evolutionarily designed to be altruistic toward their genetic kin, their friends and allies, and members of their deme (a group of intermarrying individuals) or ethnic group. They are not designed to be altruistic toward an indefinite number of complete strangers whom they are not likely ever to meet or interact with. This is largely because our ancestors lived in a small band of 50-150 genetically related individuals, and large cities and nations with thousands and millions of people are themselves evolutionarily novel.
The examination of the 10-volume compendium The Encyclopedia of World Cultures, which describes all human cultures known to anthropology (more than 1,500) in great detail, as well as extensive primary ethnographies of traditional societies, reveals that liberalism as defined above is absent in these traditional cultures. While sharing of resources, especially food, is quite common and often mandatory among hunter-gatherer tribes, and while trade with neighboring tribes often takes place, there is no evidence that people in contemporary hunter-gatherer bands freely share resources with members of other tribes.
Because all members of a hunter-gatherer tribe are genetic kin or at the very least friends and allies for life, sharing resources among them does not qualify as an expression of liberalism as defined above. Given its absence in the contemporary hunter-gatherer tribes, which are often used as modern-day analogs of our ancestral life, it may be reasonable to infer that sharing of resources with total strangers that one has never met or is not likely ever to meet � that is, liberalism � was not part of our ancestral life. Liberalism may therefore be evolutionarily novel, and the Hypothesis would predict that more intelligent individuals are more likely than less intelligent individuals to espouse liberalism as a value.
Analyses of large representative samples, from both the United States and the United Kingdom, confirm this prediction. In both countries, more intelligent children are more likely to grow up to be liberals than less intelligent children. For example, among the American sample, those who identify themselves as �very liberal� in early adulthood have a mean childhood IQ of 106.4, whereas those who identify themselves as �very conservative� in early adulthood have a mean childhood IQ of 94.8.
Incidentally, this finding substantiates one of the persistent complaints among conservatives. Conservatives often complain that liberals control the media or the show business or the academia or some other social institutions. The Hypothesis explains why conservatives are correct in their complaints. Liberals do control the media, or the show business, or the academia, among other institutions, because, apart from a few areas in life (such as business) where countervailing circumstances may prevail, liberals control all institutions. They control the institutions because liberals are on average more intelligent than conservatives and thus they are more likely to attain the highest status in any area of (evolutionarily novel) modern life. |
http://www.psychologytoday.com/print/39868
 |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Squire
Joined: 26 Sep 2010
Location: Jeollanam-do
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 5:12 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
Defined as such, liberalism is evolutionarily novel. Humans (like other species) are evolutionarily designed to be altruistic toward their genetic kin, their friends and allies, and members of their deme (a group of intermarrying individuals) or ethnic group. They are not designed to be altruistic toward an indefinite number of complete strangers whom they are not likely ever to meet or interact with. This is largely because our ancestors lived in a small band of 50-150 genetically related individuals, and large cities and nations with thousands and millions of people are themselves evolutionarily novel.
|
The problem with this is a lot of American conservatives don't even recognise evolution. I've encountered some that don't believe in carbon dating and honestly think the world is 4000 years old  [/quote] |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 5:14 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| our ancestors lived in a small band of 50-150 genetically related individuals |
Liberalism, even socialism, should work on this scale, too. But on a scale of 300 million? Madness. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
HijackedTw1light
Joined: 24 May 2010
Location: Daegu
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 6:52 pm Post subject: Re: Why Liberals are More Intelligent than Conservatives |
|
|
Thanks for posting. Interesting stuff. Some objections:
1) He defines liberalism at its core as altruism for strangers and willingness to help them financially. A questionable definition. But if we accept altruism as the core of liberalism, there's another problem, if we are asserting its newness: They were writing about "love the stranger" three thousand years ago. Altruism towards strangers is not new. As far as prehistoric hunter-gatherer tribes go, sharing resources with strangers "you have never met" was technically unfeasible, more or less, but there's no reason to believe it was unfeasible from a psychological point of view. Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack.
2) In evolutionary theory, the successful way of life is the one which survives. Newness alone does not indicate intelligence. After all, everyone agrees that most mutations are harmful. If you accept the author's premise that liberalism is new, then it has not been around long enough to make a determination as to its viability, much less superiority. Other "evolutionarily model" movements have risen over the years, championed by the intelligentsia of their day, blossomed for a time, and then died. It's a bit premature for the modern version of social liberalism to declare immortality.
3) I don't know what the body of evidence as a whole has to say about liberal-conservative intelligence, but the higher intelligence found in young adult liberals in this study could be attributable to the liberal-leaning culture of academia that intelligent young adults, in general, are a part of or have recently emerged from. It would be interesting to see their views in mid- and late adulthood.
4) Some argue that conservatives are more altruistic, as they give more to charity, and that liberals, in infringing on others' rights in order to implement their vision of a financially just society, are harming others in ways not immediately quantifiable. (I personally don't actually believe conservatives are more altruistic but I also don't think the opposite should simply go without saying.) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 8:51 pm Post subject: |
|
|
It seems odd to say there were no 'liberals' in primitive tribes because they showed no concern for members of *other* tribes, when the debate between liberal and conservative is mainly over how much concern we should have for people within our own nation. If a tribe is just a very small nation, you could say that all the people in primitive tribes were liberals.
Also, liberals may be smarter on average, but the conservative leadership is way smarter than the liberal leadership. They're much more focused on their goals and they're always on message. Who's smarter, the one laughing at the other while being screwed right, left, and centre, or the one doing the screwing? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
brento1138
Joined: 17 Nov 2004
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 9:41 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Privateer wrote: |
the conservative leadership is way smarter than the liberal leadership. They're much more focused on their goals and they're always on message. |
I think this is the only part of your post that I would disagree with. What you are writing there is opinion-based, not fact-based. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 10:09 pm Post subject: |
|
|
How exactly do they measure "smarter" in this study? IQ? Isn't IQ out of vogue for most liberals?
This reminds me of when the Republicans blast some agency or person, but of course when that agency or person says or does something that benefits their side, suddenly they are the pinnacles of intellect. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ED209
Joined: 17 Oct 2006
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 11:18 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Perhaps we should link taxes to IQ. Then liberals can pay more and conservatives less. Defaulting avoided, you're welcome. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
weso1
Joined: 26 Aug 2010
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 11:48 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| I remember a more physiological study (as apposed to philosophical study as above) a few months back that showed conservatives tend to have a larger amygdalas - portion of the brain that is more common in lesser evolved humans that places greater importance on threats and fears. Whereas liberals have a larger anterior cingulate cortex - a portion of the brain that is less fearful of new things and causes those people to be more inquisitive. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
|
| Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2011 1:55 am Post subject: Re: Why Liberals are More Intelligent than Conservatives |
|
|
| Quote: |
| Analyses of large representative samples, from both the United States and the United Kingdom, confirm this prediction. In both countries, more intelligent children are more likely to grow up to be liberals than less intelligent children. For example, among the American sample, those who identify themselves as �very liberal� in early adulthood have a mean childhood IQ of 106.4, whereas those who identify themselves as �very conservative� in early adulthood have a mean childhood IQ of 94.8. |
False premise. Just because more children with above average IQs grow up to be liberals, does not mean there is anything inate about it, or that they become liberal because of their intelligence level. It could simply be the case that people with above average IQ's tend to do better in our socialist public school system, where they are all the better brainwashed into thinking like a liberal. I know that was the case with myself growing up (I used to be quite a liberal, and I did well in school). There are of course many exceptions, and many brilliant people who are not liberals.
I also wonder where libertarians fit it (certainly not alongside your mainstream Bush loving Conservatives). It takes some brains to see through all the lies and propaganda we're fed from childhood, study real history, and discern actual reality from the manufactured one we're fed by the media. Honestly, I'd be willing to bet your average libertarian is smarter than your average MSNBC watching liberal
| Quote: |
| Incidentally, this finding substantiates one of the persistent complaints among conservatives. Conservatives often complain that liberals control the media or the show business or the academia or some other social institutions. The Hypothesis explains why conservatives are correct in their complaints. Liberals do control the media, or the show business, or the academia, among other institutions, because, apart from a few areas in life (such as business) where countervailing circumstances may prevail, liberals control all institutions. They control the institutions because liberals are on average more intelligent than conservatives and thus they are more likely to attain the highest status in any area of (evolutionarily novel) modern life. |
Yes, liberals do control most of our institutions. Hence all the social injustice. Because those who are really in control espouse liberal notions of "improving society" to justify their collectivizing our wealth into their own hands. It is called "liberal", but in fact they have no real interest in "altruism" whatsoever. They just want power and money for themselves, and they lie, cheat, and inundate us with propaganda to get it (and use government force if that fails). That is the true essence of socialism.
Anyway, you have well-meaning, naive liberals who actually think the world would improve if we only raised taxes and gave more power to our loving, caring government... Why they think this way despite overwhelming evidence showing how destructive the government is, I couldn't say (propaganda and political rhetoric are powerful indeed)... Then you have the actual people in government and in control of the institutions at the top (mostly liberals/socialist, at least in their rhetoric). They are basically a gang of corrupt social engineers and criminal masterminds (very intelligent indeed) that use taxpayer money and government power to benefit themselves only. The public nearly always suffers as a result (and they love to place the blame on free market capitalism above all).
Last edited by visitorq on Thu Aug 25, 2011 4:13 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Mix1
Joined: 08 May 2007
|
| Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2011 4:11 am Post subject: Re: Why Liberals are More Intelligent than Conservatives |
|
|
| HijackedTw1light wrote: |
1) He defines liberalism at its core as altruism for strangers and willingness to help them financially. A questionable definition. |
Questionable indeed. It's an extremely narrow definition of liberalism, only encompassing one aspect of it: altruism, a trait which conservatives also possess. So, the rest of the premise pretty much falls apart. It makes a good read but it probably couldn't stand up to scrutiny.
I don't think the overall premise is entirely wrong though - we just don't know enough. The IQ difference is interesting. And, anecdotally speaking, doesn't it seem like liberals are more attuned to subtlety and irony and ambiguity, whereas conservatives tend to see things in absolutes and are usually tinged with paranoia and a victimhood complex? And conservatives are usually the ones who are more religious and disdain science as well. This could relate to differences in the brain, as a poster mentioned above.
Either way, probably the best mix is someone right in the middle of the spectrum. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
|
| Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2011 8:01 am Post subject: |
|
|
While this study make be accurate using the definitions as defined, another similar study done in the 80s compared voters by party. The result was that Republican voters tended to have a higher IQ than Democrats - about 10 IQ points on average. And Libertarian voters tended to be about 25 IQ points higher than Republicans on average.
Republicans tend to be richer and more successful because they are smarter and vote accordingly.
Libertarians are geniuses who understand the world, but they are unable to win because there can never be enough of them to overcome the masses. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ghostrider
Joined: 27 Jun 2011
|
| Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2011 1:42 am Post subject: |
|
|
| ontheway wrote: |
Libertarians are geniuses who understand the world, but they are unable to win because there can never be enough of them to overcome the masses. |
Karl Marx was also a genius with a utopian ideology that didn't work for the masses. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
|
| Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2011 1:54 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| In the modern political and economic context, this willingness usually translates into paying higher proportions of individual incomes in taxes toward the government and its social welfare programs. Liberals usually support such social welfare programs and higher taxes to finance them, and conservatives usually oppose them. |
| Quote: |
| Defined as such, liberalism is evolutionarily novel. Humans (like other species) are evolutionarily designed to be altruistic toward their genetic kin, their friends and allies, and members of their deme (a group of intermarrying individuals) or ethnic group. They are not designed to be altruistic toward an indefinite number of complete strangers whom they are not likely ever to meet or interact with. |
The writer is confusing two different things: (1) threatening people with imprisonment unless they acquiesce to the provision of free lunches to the vulgar rabble (which permits others to make a negligible personal contribution to the total value of the goods & services that they wish to use) - in short, unabashed parasitism; and (2) genuinely charitable alms-giving. The writer also fails to elucidate a crucial distinction between two other contrasting things: (a) quid pro quo (self-sacrifice with the expectation of deriving some future benefit) and (b) genuine self-sacrfice (deriving no clear benefit). Genuine self-sacrifice is exceedingly rare. People perform what are seemingly selfless deeds in order to derive some personal benefit, even if it is just a feeling of benevolence or moral rectitude.
There's nothing that's altruistic about quid pro quo. And receiving state services whose costs vastly exceed one's own ability to pay for them is selfish, parasitic and kleptocratic, not altruism. My own experience suggests that 'liberals' are by far the likeliest to have been the very recipients of these public services!
Failing to distinguish between (a) and (b) is so amateurish that it's difficult to believe it was written by someone with professional expertise in the area, but ignoring the obvious difference between (1) and (2) is so crass that it's absolutely no different to arguing that...
Since the religious give alms to the poor (because God commands it and will punish them if they do not), whereas atheists give fewer alms to the poor (because they don't fear after-death punishment), it follows that the religious are kinder than atheists.
Supposing a theist wrote that deeply offensive rot! Obviously, this would be complete nonsense, because it hasn't bothered to consider the atheists who give alms for its own sake - genuine kindness. It's kinder to give because you genuinely wish to advance the position of others than it is because of threats. It is kinder for one atheist to donate to charity because he genuinely wishes to help than it is for ten believers in God to do so due to coercion.
Imagine a man who donates $10,000 to Fill the Cup. Consider another man who, instead of voluntarily sharing $10,000 of his own money, gives $100 and forces one hundred other people, upon pain of arrest, to donate $100 each. The former is a case of genuine kindness, whereas the latter is not. Supposing 1bn Muslims each donate a small sum to charity because they have to, yet someone else donates, not because he has to, but because he chooses to. Even though 1bn donations of $10 would yield far more than any rich man could give away, it is nevertheless kinder to choose to share than to be forced, or force others, to share.
At this point, someone will be thinking "but I don't just submit to taxation because I am forced; I submit to taxation because I genuinely believe in it". In which case, why wouldn't the voluntary donations of 'liberals' be sufficient to advance the well-being of others? Why is taxation necessary, when surely the privately donated largesse of 'liberals' ought to be more than enough to meet the desired goals of taxation? You've convinced me - abolish income tax and liberals will just pay for everything, entirely of their own volition!
| Quote: |
| Conservatives often complain that liberals control the media or the show business or the academia or some other social institutions. The Hypothesis explains why conservatives are correct in their complaints |
But this doesn't support what was in the previous paragraphs.
If showbusiness and academia are chock full of liberals, why aren't these people working pro bono in East Africa assisting the starving, instead of pursuing riches in showbiz or flagrant self-gratification in writing academic theses? Why, instead of creating mindless entertainment or conducting arcane research, aren't they working to alleviate social malaise amongst society's most deprived, such as volunteering to provide shelter for the homeless?
These people are liberals. Do they sound intelligent to you? I'd say they're even stupider than the Tea Party.
I hold liberalism to be an abomination. Not because they think they're smarter and kinder than others when clearly nothing could be further from truth. Not because they consider liberalism to be 'more evolved' when really it fails to differ appreciably from the way of life of the mosquito, the tick and the louse....but because, very similarly to anyone afflicted by dogma and indoctrination, they show no aptitude for questioning the axioms upon which their rancorous flatulence ultimately rests. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2011 3:55 am Post subject: |
|
|
The title of the thread is wrong.
| Quote: |
Defined as such, liberalism is evolutionarily novel. Humans (like other species) are evolutionarily designed to be altruistic toward their genetic kin, their friends and allies, and members of their deme (a group of intermarrying individuals) or ethnic group. They are not designed to be altruistic toward an indefinite number of complete strangers whom they are not likely ever to meet or interact with. This is largely because our ancestors lived in a small band of 50-150 genetically related individuals, and large cities and nations with thousands and millions of people are themselves evolutionarily novel.
|
This paragraph is the crux of the argument.
Intelligence itself is an extremely slippery concept. Who's smarter, the guy who can remember where and when the deer come down to the stream to drink at sundown and how to sneak up on one, or the guy who can figure out Wall Street? Doesn't it depend on which culture you happen to be living in...and when?
It isn't about intelligence, but about evolutionary advance. Liberals are higher on the evolutionary scale than conservatives because they can go past the limited view that only close genetic relatives deserve consideration when it comes to sharing the skinny rabbit for dinner. Koreans are a good example. They, as a group, consider the group...teachers are moved around every couple of years so everyone can access good education. (I'm not saying they have worked out all the kinks. I'm saying they make a conscious effort to include everyone.)Conservatives, especially American conservatives, find 'logical' reasons to ignore one group after another until they pretty much end up with white males over the age of 45 who went to the 'right' schools, the right church, and wear the right pattern on their tie. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
