A Treatise on the Inequal Distribution of Reason

[SummerMorning]

Actually, not a treaties per se , rather something akin to a short rant. Albeit not too vetuperant, I hope...

I am constantly perplexed by the incredible incompetence displayed by people. It truly amazes me that humanity continues to exist, when there is such a large section of the populace who are incapable of actually performing tasks such as thinking or reasoning.

For example, I have to write a seminar together with several other students. An incredible percentage (around 30%) seem incapable of following basic instructions, such as how to cite references. A similar percentage seems incapable of drawing basic conclusions based on three simple research questions. Not just incapable of drawing conclusions, incapable of even searching for data. Even worse, they seem quite incapable of getting their minds around the meaning of the word deadline.

When I assume that these are university students, representing say the top 30% of young people of their age I have to draw the profoundly disturbing conclusion that at least 30% and possibly more percent of young people are actually incompetent. Or lazy. Or stupid. Or any combination of the three.

Of course, these numbers can easily be extrapolated to the rest of the population. Now, the 30% is a low figure for the whole population. I would dare to hazard that at least around 50% (and sometimes I think around 80%) of the population is really quite incapable of thinking for themselves (even less, of thinking critically), of actually following through with what they have to do without constant cajoling and instructions.

Of course, such a conclusion readily realises that most people in fact do not really deserve to do things like make important decisions - because they have no idea (and care even less) what is even going on. Let alone what to do about it.

I must admit that it is good to know that democracy remains just a dream, an illusion to keep the masses happy. Because really, besides thinking, aren't bread and games all that people really need?

PS - Yes, I want to kick some of my colleagues in the nuts and castrate them, thereby earning myself a Darwin award or two for violently and comically removing certain incredible specimens of human degeneration from the gene pool.

PPS - And the funny thing is that actually I'm more or less a marxist.

 

[Guest]

So, do instruct me what I should write in this space.

 

[SummerMorning]

Vodka is the answer to all troubles... if drinking enough of it doesn't make you forget what kinds of idiots one finds in the world you can always use the spiritus from Poland to immolate them...

 

[Guest]

You're right again, Summ. Vodka is the preferred drink of all Marxists (except for the Brits who prefer that dark maltish stuff). Any Marxist worth his salt-of-the-earth is a bona fide alcoholic.

Perdita

 

[SummerMorning]

Is it immoral to believe that for structural and cultural reasons a vast portion of humanity is depriveleged, underprivileged, exploited, abused, etc. - and yet come to the conclusion, that the concrete individuals in question are actually beyond salvation because they are (for those aforementioned structural and cultural reasons) incapable of action that would better their lot?

Is it immoral to conclude - thank god I know this, am not one of them (am in fact part of the parasitic top 10% of humanity) and actually benefit from all this? To conclude, things are really quite ok - they're too stupid to know what a mess they're actually in and far too stupid to get out of it if they do realise it?

Many were the authors who said that theory without class action and struggle were empty. What if you conclude that they are all completely correct, but that things are still quite pretty and fine and that really there wouldn't be any individual benefit to a thorough revalorization of society's norms and mores?

Eh... to heck with it. I'm going out for a vodka.

 

[Guest]

Between theory and action I always look for passion. P.

 

[SummerMorning]

Hmm... I like that.

In dialectical terms...

If practice is the antithesis of theory, then passion is the synthesis of both... overcome the theory and practice of your concrete socio-historical situation through the application of passion!

Concrete individua of the world unite!

Let your passionate cries be heard!

Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains... and occasionally your wonkies.

 

[Guest]

Glad you got that Summ. I learned it from a feminist thinker (lit. professor). P.

 

[SummerMorning]

It is actually a really fascinating concept, you know? Passion...

hmm...

Really makes a person think.

 

[Xelebes]

Re Topic.

Yeah, Reason is unfairly distributed. I mean 550 dollars? Vome on...

(Okay, I'll quit while I am ahead.)

 

[rgraham666]

No offense Summer, but reason alone is a poor and weak thing.

There are many other qualities that go towards making us human. I'm reading a book right now, On Equlibrium by John Ralston Saul that deals with just that. In his opinion, there are six major traits for human beings: common sense, ethics, imagination, intuition, memory and reason. He also posits that a human being, and a society, must have some measure of all these traits and these traits must be held in a constant state of movement, and equlibrium, similar to an atom.

I'm still thinking about this. But I believe he is on to something.

I also think that you are judging these people by rather narrow criteria. Perhaps their skills are such that they can't be perceived by you. Perhaps they have come to conclusions, but they are not ones you agree with and therefore reject. Perhaps their conclusions are incorrect, in which case you should educate them rather than rant about them. Perhaps you will find that your conclusion is the incorrect one.

When I was a computer programmer, I had tremendous difficulty overcoming the perceptions of my peers. I was a high school dropout and self-taught. Many people dismissed my abilities out of hand because I did not fit within the proper criteria for a person in my field.

And incompetence is a fact of life. We all know the Bell Curve. What do you think would happen to the shape of it if the IQ of everyone was raised by 400? Nothing. There would still be people judged imcompetent by the new 'higher' standards.

I think you should try a different perspective Summer.

 

[upfront]

What a load of pretentious, self-righteous crap.

 

[raphy]

When I was a computer programmer, I had tremendous difficulty overcoming the perceptions of my peers. I was a high school dropout and self-taught. Many people dismissed my abilities out of hand because I did not fit within the proper criteria for a person in my field.

Off topic, but I found this comment interesting. Interesting, because, in my experience, computers and IT was one of the fields that I found where my academic record meant little or nothing. I flunked all my computer classes and made no bones about that fact.

I found quite consistently that I was hired (and paid appropriately) for what I could prove that I could do, not what letters came after my name (I don't have any), or what I majored in in college (I failed two consecutive university degrees)

 

[upfront]

Just to be clear - I was referring to the original post.

SummerMorning's outlook is not only narrow-minded, but patronizing and arrogant. And he feels the need to couch his comments in such affected, pompous, high-falutin' prose - at least the rest of the top 10% of humanity (i'd like to think he was being ironic, but i fear he wasn't) don't talk this way. I mean "vituperant" ("vituperative" is a lovely word), "Concrete individua" (they have one of those at Brixton railway station), "concrete socio-historical situation", "thorough revalorization of society's norms and mores" ... serious case of rod up arse?

 

[raphy]

Oh, I thought SM had a fairly good point. In my experience, most people are too dumb to know how to breathe.

 

[cantdog]

stupid versus incompetent

We're all a bunch of dumb house apes, and Summer is right in that we can't seem to get out of our own way a good deal of the time.

But I think stupid is even weirder.

Let's say, for the sake of the argument, that a given action can hurt you or benefit you, hurt others or benefit others. We'll put each on a linear scale, i.e., +2 +1 0 -1 -2 and so on so we can have degrees of hurt and harm. If you consider the whole system, you have a fourway crisscross of the two linear number lines, with the zero point of no action at all in the middle.

Intelligent actions not only show in the plus for helping the actor, they also show in the plus for helping other people at the same time.

Bandit actions help the actor, but hurt the other people, as robbing a man will take from him and give you what he had.

Helpless people do actions which help other people but hurt themselves. They are victims, sometimes, but people sacrifice all the time.

Stupid actions not only hurt the rest of the world, but also hurt the people doing them. That's what makes them so hard to plan for.

You set up carefully a plan which tries to foresee all the misguided or bandit actions which might be taken, and deal with as many as you can in advance, and then wham! Some stupid mother comes by and does the unthinkable.

I think there are some rules here, too. the first general law of stupidity is that there are always-- always!-- more stupid people than you think.

The second rule is, there is a constant number of stupid people in all classes and conditions. As many stupid nobel laureates as stupid cab drivers.

I'll pause here. What do you think? Can we use the model for anything useful? A general who kills hundreds of people but gains a medal, he's technically a bandit. He gained, they lost. But if you plot him on the coordinate scales I set up, he's perilously close to the Stupid, because his gain is so miniscule compared to the awful losses his action gave to the rest of the world around him.

Et cetera.

 

[upfront]

Oh, I thought SM had a fairly good point. In my experience, most people are too dumb to know how to breathe.

If only he'd left it at that!

 

[Guest]

Oh, I thought SM had a fairly good point. In my experience, most people are too dumb to know how to breathe.

Thing is, there are probably as many people who think you are too dumb to breathe, and as many who think the same of me. So we do need to be a bit more analytical about it, e.g., judging context, circumstances, etc. Has nothing to do with I.Q., education, formal or informal "learning". At least Summ. was trying to think it through.

Perdita

 

[raphy]

Thing is, there are probably as many people who think you are too dumb to breathe, and as many who think the same of me.

I totally agree - That's just the nature of the beast. I do, however, labor under the happy misapprehension that people have a reason for the things they do, and when people do stuff that I personally would consider stupid, I'd love to have the opportunity to ask them what the reasoning behind their behaviour is. Whether that reason would satisfy me or not is irrelevant. It would be comforting to know that it, at least, existed. I know that I certainly have a reason for pretty much everything I do or say.

So we do need to be a bit more analytical about it, e.g., judging context, circumstances, etc. Has nothing to do with I.Q., education, formal or informal "learning". At least Summ. was trying to think it through.

Perdita

Indeed he (or is it she? I confess, I have no clue) was - And I saw nothing wrong with his original post, other than the fact that a dumbfuck like me had to read it twice to get the meaning of it.

 

[SummerMorning]

serious case of rod up arse?

Only when posing as my alter ego, "Roddy"

 

[SummerMorning]

No offense Summer, but reason alone is a poor and weak thing.

There are many other qualities that go towards making us human. I'm reading a book right now, On Equlibrium by John Ralston Saul that deals with just that. In his opinion, there are six major traits for human beings: common sense, ethics, imagination, intuition, memory and reason. He also posits that a human being, and a society, must have some measure of all these traits and these traits must be held in a constant state of movement, and equlibrium, similar to an atom.

I think you should try a different perspective Summer.

Actually - despite the messive, elitist, unrefined writing above - I do agree with you.

However, my original rant (and rant it was, no general theory on the nature of humanity as yet), referred to a rather specific project - namely a required seminar work. Which has things like deadlines, writing guidelines and rules, grammar rules, citation rules.

Which people (i.e. some of my colleagues) do not know how to follow, which makes life difficult for me (and them eventually). Occasionally, just occasionally, I really feel like... and then and then I'd do something that would make somebody scream

 

[SummerMorning]

Rgraham - you mean like dynamic equilibria, right? I'll go for that.

Although from a quick glance at the 6 characteristics you note, one can see that they are all pretty culturally relative (in their specifics, not their general type) and subjective - but that's what being human is about, right?

 

[shereads]

I am constantly perplexed by the incredible incompetence displayed by people. It truly amazes me that humanity continues to exist, when there is such a large section of the populace who are incapable of actually performing tasks such as thinking or reasoning...


When I assume that these are university students, representing say the top 30% of young people of their age I have to draw the profoundly disturbing conclusion that at least 30% and possibly more percent of young people are actually incompetent. Or lazy. Or stupid. Or any combination of the three.

Whatever you do, stay away from corporate America. You'll lie awake at night, wondering how something as simple as a pencil ever leaves the factory and makes it to the shelf at Office Depot. You'll also realize that everything you buy that has been marketed by a corporation would have cost 2 cents if not for the need to pay for layer after layer of middle management suits, whose job security is entirely based on remaining under the radar.
Using reason doesn't work in publicly-held companies, where all of the goals are short-term ones. Those lazy people you're talking about? Middle management. The ones with well-tailored suits and clean hair? Upper management.

 

[Xelebes]

What a load of pretentious, self-righteous crap.

Agreed.

Intelligence and the ability to spend time reasoning and thinking is a gift. Not many can do it. SM is implying that it should be mandatory that everybody should be able to have a certain level of reasoning and capacity to think, an expectation that is all too high.

Now, let's imagine a place where everyone thinks and reasons everything. Let's take a sample tribe in the middle of the woods. Everyone is thinking and having conversations but they are forgetting one thing. Who is going to get the food? There is no macho thing going on because everybody is thinking. No one is risking their lives to hunt a deer to feed everyone. If everyone is thinking and reasoning, how will they be able to tell what is edible and what is not when they are too busy thinking and observing and not to examine it by actually test it out by ingesting it. Thinking is fine and all but often times it doesn't do the job for the whole people.

Now if you limit the thinking so that people can hunt and gather and do stupid things to experiment, there leaves a lack-lustre amount of thought going into the arts and politics of the people.

I think this example given is very crude but I believe it conveys what I am trying to portray. A lot of the people can not think to the calibre that you can but maybe there is a good reason why that is so.

 

[rgraham666]

Actually - despite the messive, elitist, unrefined writing above - I do agree with you.

Not following the proper method of writing. Oh, the shame of it! (rgraham666 puts a paper bag on his head) How can I ever show my face in public again?

Summer what you wrote did come off as a thesis on the inadequacy of humanity in general.

I was merely trying to point out that your 'inadequate' colleages might not be out of their depth in a different situation.

Take Stephen Hawking as an example. He's great theoretical physicist, but would be a lousy footballer.

But what do I know? I'm just a high school dropout so I couldn't possibly understand the complexities of the world as revealed through the correct training, I mean education.