Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

Intelligence vs Wisdom in Public Debate July 16, 2016

Beach has previously railed against the tyranny of experts, pointing out that experts should be proffered as much respect as they have knowledge of their field: a dentist knows a lot more about teeth than a neurologist knows about the brain; a garage mechanic knows a lot more about cars than a sociologist knows about ‘society’; and an Egyptologist doesn’t know much about pyramids, but he or she knows much more than a pyramidologist ever will… However, Beach has recently come across a new and very depressing version of this in the British and European press: the idea that ‘intelligence’ gives someone a better right to shout in an argument. This has particularly emerged in the Brexit campaign, but it has also been a theme in various other European debates: including the arguments over constitutional change in Italy; migration in Germany: etc etc. People, in short, with university degrees are better judges of the contemporary world than those poor dolts without. This has taken on a particularly nasty inter-generational edge, because in some cases it is being used to argue that the elderly (who built the postwar economy) should have a lesser voice than the young (who are more likely to have got a degree). There are various ways to approach this problem. But the elementary one is to remember that wisdom and intelligence are two very different things. Intelligence is the reason that Beach’s [close relative’s name deleted] was a university professor for thirty years and makes witty conversation at the dinner table. Wisdom is the reason that the man is an idiot and would be a menace as a babysitter never mind in any position of public power. Indeed, in Beach’s couple of decades in universities high wisdom and high intelligence seem to have been practically incompatible. What this means, boiled down, is that if ninety historians specializing in the Second World War claim that the Wehrmacht was the most effective army 1939-1945, then their opinion is worth taking seriously. However, if those same hundred historians are asked their opinion on the desirability of Britain leaving or joining the European Union, their opinion is worth as much as that of a barman in the café across the way. Arguably rather less because those who consider themselves more intelligent than others are, in terms of temperament, more likely to favour ‘solutions’, doing things… Whereas anyone who has lived more than twelve years in this world will know often doing nothing is the best solution. If you are ill the PhDs will medicate, whereas sometimes staying in bed and getting better is the best way plan. Hayek outlined this tendency in one of the most brilliant essays of the twentieth-century: ‘the Intellectuals and Socialism’. Groups that define themselves as being intelligent (rightly or wrongly) have an inbuilt bias towards intervention, action and, God forbid, ‘improvement’.

Other thoughts: drbeachcombing At yahoo DOT com

Norm writes, 31 Jul 2016: A corollary: those smart people who think they are the only smart person alive. And the axiom to that is: most smart people are much too polite to point out the corollary. Your essay drifts into the political spectrum. The standard definition of a conservative, is a person who wants to keep things the same, that is happy with the status quo. In our topsy turvy world of today, yesterday’s conservative is today’s liberal. The traditional  conservatives have become reactionaries and the traditional liberals have become radicals. People like myself who suspect we can do better but want to be very careful about how we go about it  are left with  no camp to reside in, or so the media would have me believe.   I suspect Mrs. Clinton is more like myself than she is willing to admit We will see.

Nathaniel writes, 31 Jul, 2016: “an inbuilt bias towards intervention, action and, God forbid, ‘improvement’” Whether those things are good or bad depends on what the situation is. I know little about the situation in Britain, and would not undertake to comment on it. Here in the U.S., I know young people who were not able to attend universities that they qualified for academically because their parents did not have the money to pay for it. I know people who attended universities but who after graduation cannot get jobs that remotely make use of their abilities. I know people who worry about whether they will have enough money to live on if they retire. I know of people with medical conditions who have had to give all their assets to the government in order to obtain treatment. I know (albeit at a greater distance) of entire communities that are left in poverty because mailing people checks every month (if they’re lucky) is less expensive than making the kinds of economic and political changes that would give a job to everyone who wants one. Those all strike me as things that cry out for intervention, action, and ‘improvement’.

Beach replies: probably I and you, Nathaniel have different perspectives about state intervention, but I’m not against all intervention by any means. To continue with the metaphor from the post, if someone has a light cold we both agree not to medicate, if someone has meningitis we’d both telephone the ambulance. The problem is the middle ground…