Home

TheSinner.net

Right-wingers are less intelligent...

This message board is for discussing anything in any way remotely connected with St Andrews, the University or just anything you want. Welcome!

Right-wingers are less intelligent...

Postby RedCelt69 on Fri Feb 03, 2012 11:04 am

Amazingly this article is in the Daily Mail. One of their reporters isn't swimming with the rest of the stream.

Right-wingers are less intelligent than left wingers, says study

Rob Waugh wrote:Right-wingers tend to be less intelligent than left-wingers, and people with low childhood intelligence tend to grow up to have racist and anti-gay views, says a controversial new study.

Conservative politics work almost as a 'gateway' into prejudice against others, say the Canadian academics.
The paper analysed large UK studies which compared childhood intelligence with political views in adulthood across more than 15,000 people.

The authors claim that people with low intelligence gravitate towards right-wing views because they make them feel safe.
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and celt
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed

Red Celt's Blog
RedCelt69
User avatar
 
Posts: 947
Joined: Tue Jul 29, 2008 4:28 pm

Re: Right-wingers are less intelligent...

Postby wild_quinine on Fri Feb 03, 2012 12:14 pm

Or is it more likely that educational establishments tend towards left wing values, and confirmation bias helps fill in the blanks?

I think it's reasonable to suggest that whilst Conservative arguments tend to appeal to safety, and security, left wing arguments tend to appeal to what is supposedly morally the correct path.

But there is no agreement on morality, even on the far left. And because a lot of people on the far left are so damn sure of themselves that everyone who differs a hairs breadth from them is considered persona non grata, or even just lumped in with the right. So that, in fact, there's no politics I've yet encountered that's more splintered than the far left.

You know what the definition of a bigot is?

"having or revealing an obstinate belief in the superiority of one’s own opinions and a prejudiced intolerance of the opinions of others"

Sounds like something that's deeply familiar to the politics of the left.

Not to excuse bigots on the right, of course.

But I've seen horrible prejudice in the left and the right, and the right don't seem to feel nearly so smug about it.

Plus, the left seem to just love their doublethink. Does one have to be smarter to believe in two contradictory things at once?
wild_quinine
User avatar
 
Posts: 216
Joined: Sun May 10, 2009 11:57 pm

Re: Right-wingers are less intelligent...

Postby Senethro on Fri Feb 03, 2012 2:29 pm

I'd like to believe this is all the journalist being stupid and that no scientists but the most grant chasing of thinktank pets would make this statement. Whats the original paper?
Senethro
 
Posts: 1796
Joined: Sat May 22, 2004 9:40 pm

Re: Right-wingers are less intelligent...

Postby wild_quinine on Fri Feb 03, 2012 2:55 pm

Image

Hodson, G., & Busseri, M.A.
Bright minds and dark attitudes: Lower cognitive ability predicts greater prejudice through right-wing ideology and low intergroup contact. Psychological Science.


From the bright minds that brought you Intergroup disgust sensitivity as a predictor of Islamophobia and Interracial prison contact: The pros for (socially dominant) cons

http://www.brocku.ca/psychology/people/hodson.htm
wild_quinine
User avatar
 
Posts: 216
Joined: Sun May 10, 2009 11:57 pm

Re: Right-wingers are less intelligent...

Postby RedCelt69 on Fri Feb 03, 2012 3:06 pm

wild_quinine wrote:Or is it more likely that educational establishments tend towards left wing values, and confirmation bias helps fill in the blanks?

I'm not going to defend the researchers as I know nothing about them. They may be terribly non-scientific, or they could be very scientific indeed (which would have 2 sets of analysis: IQ and political leanings which were then analysed). If they were scientific, their own political tendencies would be irrelevant. Any result would have had scientific interest, surely?

wild_quinine wrote:I think it's reasonable to suggest that whilst Conservative arguments tend to appeal to safety, and security, left wing arguments tend to appeal to what is supposedly morally the correct path.

Supposedly? :)

wild_quinine wrote:...a lot of people on the far left are so damn sure of themselves...

Do you know anyone who is not sure that their views are correct? Anyone who thinks otherwise must (by definition) not really hold those views.

wild_quinine wrote:But I've seen horrible prejudice in the left and the right, and the right don't seem to feel nearly so smug about it.

I'm not sure how to parse that sentence. Pre-judging people is surely a non left wing sentiment. What prejudices do lefties hold? And, surely, whatever prejudices you might conjure, are they really as bad as judging someone by their sexuality or the colour of their skin? Whatever they attach their smugness to, it is a far more trivial position than the alternatives.
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and celt
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed

Red Celt's Blog
RedCelt69
User avatar
 
Posts: 947
Joined: Tue Jul 29, 2008 4:28 pm

Re: Right-wingers are less intelligent...

Postby wild_quinine on Sat Feb 04, 2012 5:59 am

RedCelt69 wrote:If they were scientific, their own political tendencies would be irrelevant. Any result would have had scientific interest, surely?


Possibly. There are some things to which it's almost impossible to apply the holistic scientific process, and I wonder whether this is not one of them.

The list of papers published by the lead researcher seem to indicate a particular direction of thought. But I think that my reaction is primarily to the stink of the typical wanky tabloid puff-science piece. I'm not going to be uncritical of this one just because it appeals to my sensibilities more than whatever turds they were polishing last week.

wild_quinine wrote:I think it's reasonable to suggest that whilst Conservative arguments tend to appeal to safety, and security, left wing arguments tend to appeal to what is supposedly morally the correct path.

Supposedly? :)


Yeah, I didn't want to undermine myself by suggesting there was any such thing as a right answer.

In all seriousness, I think that liberalism is the only 'morality' we can safely push through politics.

Do you know anyone who is not sure that their views are correct?


Well, without wanting to get all 'no true scotsman': all true scientists.

And in the political sphere I think that it's fair to distinguish between how it is appropriate to govern, and the holding of ones own personal moral beliefs. I'm convinced that I have the right moral viewpoint on the world, in just the way that you describe. But I'm not so convinced (or at the very least not so convinced of the universality of that position) that I would impose it on others by duress, coercion or law.

That's not something that I see enough of in the politics of the far left - what I see there is lip service to the idea of freedom and liberal values, but an eternal one-upmanship in interpretation of the one true moral code, such that for many of these poor devils it's really just freedom to be part of whichever increasingly sectarian, bigoted and categorical clique they're most closely aligned by attrition.

Pre-judging people is surely a non left wing sentiment. What prejudices do lefties hold?


In an ideal world, or in my actual experience? We can talk about left wing positions, as written on paper, all day. Please let's not, though. It's the actual experience I'm worried about because that's where I've seen the worst examples of doublethink and associated prejudice.

whatever prejudices you might conjure, are they really as bad as judging someone by their sexuality or the colour of their skin? Whatever they attach their smugness to, it is a far more trivial position than the alternatives.


Well, there are ways of looking at this and ways of looking at this. It's not necessarily about the type of view, as it is about the type of ignorance.

When someone takes a position which is morally wrong, in as much as we'd ever say that anything is so, there is still always the hope that they will come to understand the holes in their argument. When someone is ignorant, there is always the hope that they will learn.

But when you see someone who will desperately plug any hole in their own opinion with something, anything, that fits - no matter how temporarily, or how badly, then what you have is someone who, the moment they stop being ridiculous, becomes really dangerous.

Put another way: Do you find Macgamers arguments so galling because they are at odds with your perception of the world, or because they are so clearly at odds with his own, and he won't see that?

We probably agree that it is worse to hate someone because they are black, than to hate them because they disagree with you on, say, a matter of public policy relating to social welfare. It is, if absolutely nothing else, a worse error.

But if you are the kind of person who would disadvantage anyone and everyone who ends up on the wrong side of your worldview, no matter the reasons or the logic or the evidence to the contrary, then I think that you are probably a worse person.

Note that the former mistake could be a matter of simple ignorance, wheras in the latter case there is almost always an effort involved. The latter group could very often include racists. They could be people who see themselves as morally impregnable, but who will happily consign a given ethnic minority to the dustbin simply because they're inconvenient, all the while spouting terms like 'committed antiracist'.

I know that may sound contraversial, but look at it this way: willful ignorance = worse moral error than accidental ignorance.

And of course a lot of the real racists out there are absolutely willfully ignorant people who will ignore the evidence the world presents them in favour of their own derived views, ad infinitum. And yes, those people are really up there with the worst of the worst.

But I think we shouldn't take it for granted that these people are on the right exclusively. And I also think that the people on the left with such problems tend to wear an additional blanket of hypocrisy. That's my own personal speculation, I'll freely admit it, but my experiences have tended to bear this out.

Many of the people I've met with offensive right wing views have been able to admit errors in their viewpoints when presented with evidence. With people on the left, I tend to get accused of being racist just for questioning their perfection.

I have to say that if, at the end of the day, there's any truth to the suggestion that left wing people are more intelligent than right wing people, then this reduces my respect for human intelligence.
wild_quinine
User avatar
 
Posts: 216
Joined: Sun May 10, 2009 11:57 pm

Re: Right-wingers are less intelligent...

Postby macgamer on Tue Feb 07, 2012 3:04 pm

"Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision."
- G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 1908
macgamer
User avatar
 
Posts: 584
Joined: Thu Nov 18, 2004 5:08 pm

Re: Right-wingers are less intelligent...

Postby Humphrey on Wed Feb 08, 2012 3:38 am

Well this is a very silly survey for a couple of reasons. Firstly many (quite a few of them on the left) have pointed out the limitations of testing children for intelligence at ages 10 and 11; and rightly so. Secondly you can't bracket people into 'left wing' and 'right wing' based on a subset of 13 questions. In reality people's political beliefs are pretty diverse and it's hard to put them into simple categories (my parents - to take a random example - are politically left wing but have some seriously conservative social views). I think, to be fair to the survey's authors they argued for modest conclusions to be drawn from their findings.

Of course there isn't anything wrong with being dumb when it comes to political views. One recalls for example that the Western intelligentsia were completely infatuated with Soviet Communism for large chunks of the 20th century. I don't remember the exact details but I recall there was a historian who did a survey of the educational attainment of many of the Nazi leadership and found that they were actually highly intelligent group as a whole.
Humphrey
User avatar
 
Posts: 1265
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2004 8:29 pm

Re: Right-wingers are less intelligent...

Postby wild_quinine on Wed Feb 08, 2012 11:15 am

I've always quite liked the way that the political compass separates economic and liberal values out. In that respect I come across as strongly libertarian - which is something I'd never really thought of myself as before, but I suppose it makes sense - but economically I'm a lot more central.
wild_quinine
User avatar
 
Posts: 216
Joined: Sun May 10, 2009 11:57 pm

Re: Right-wingers are less intelligent...

Postby Hennessy on Wed Feb 08, 2012 7:56 pm

Image

Well I've mellowed a lot in my post University days it seems.

This is anecdotal but comparing the Telegraph article comments to the Guardian's Comment Is Free, the former is usually littered with the kind of egregious spelling mistakes a five year old could correct while the latter is more grammatically polished. Dyslexia, that scourge of the white middle class, abounds in right-leaning types, or perhaps it's that we don't like labelling people thick because they can't srting a sntnce togther legibly.

No I'm afraid I'll have to agree with the study from my own experience, amusing as it is - "right wingers" . Wild Quinine's also right, though, when he says left wingers have problems too - glass houses and all that.
The Sinner.
"Apologies in advance for pedantry."
Hennessy
User avatar
 
Posts: 1012
Joined: Fri Feb 29, 2008 12:08 pm

Re: Right-wingers are less intelligent...

Postby RedCelt69 on Mon Feb 13, 2012 1:14 am

The last time I did one of these, I was classed "Strong Democrat" (the site was American).

Image

I'm near Gandhi/Nelson Mandela & The Dalai Lama. The labelling is (to me) contentious. I am very much not a Libertarian. I am in favour of high taxation* - the polar opposite of a Libertarian position.



* Taxed responsibly, and well-spent on things that benefit everyone... not frittered away on nonsense things (like an updated nuclear weapons programme).
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and celt
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed

Red Celt's Blog
RedCelt69
User avatar
 
Posts: 947
Joined: Tue Jul 29, 2008 4:28 pm

Re: Right-wingers are less intelligent...

Postby The Cellar Bar on Mon Feb 13, 2012 3:57 am

sticks me in and around Red Celt by the looks of it.

And I'd agree with the notion of being a "libertarian" being contentious. Altho what is a possibility is that it refers more to a belief in "liberty" - as in believing in the rights of same sex couples to adopt and that arts funding is a useful and probably necessary sign of a civilised society. Or that the smoke screen of "national security" has seen a massive erosion in civil liberties.

Rather than the hi-jacking of the word by the likes of the Thatcherites and others to suggest it means the "right" of companies and corporations to be at "liberty" to behave as they wish without any sense of social responsibility or that satisfying the urges of shareholders is their primary responsibility.

Funny how it was in their case, that the time suffered under Thatcherism saw a widespread removal of "liberties" and the rights of the individual were massively eroded. Son of Thatcher - aka Bliar - just finished off her work in those areas beasically.
The Cellar Bar
 
Posts: 484
Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am

Re: Right-wingers are less intelligent...

Postby RedCelt69 on Mon Feb 13, 2012 11:49 am

wild_quinine wrote:Put another way: Do you find Macgamers arguments so galling because they are at odds with your perception of the world, or because they are so clearly at odds with his own, and he won't see that?

Both.

My position on Macgamer's "views" are rather moot, as they are the views of the current infallible occupant of the Holy See (backed up by Aquinas). It is pointless trying to convince him of the error of his ways as you would need to resurrect Aquinas and convince him of his errors (or the Pope of his) and Macgamer will follow their lead. Regardless of his position on anything, it is also awful that he offloads such crucial decision-making processes to other people rather than understanding the world as it actually is. Or, more accurately, the world as others have repeatedly pointed out to him... which he steadfastly refuses to acknowledge.

I must admit to a little schadenfreude, however, to the knowledge that his strange views will leave him forever unknowledgeable of the joys of oral sex. That isn't what a mouth is for, after all. Then again, neither is kissing. If he hopes for a life other than unending abstinence, he's going to have to ignore Aquinas... just a little. And I pity his future wife.

wild_quinine wrote:But if you are the kind of person who would disadvantage anyone and everyone who ends up on the wrong side of your worldview, no matter the reasons or the logic or the evidence to the contrary, then I think that you are probably a worse person.

My own personal worldview is that people shouldn't disadvantage others because of their worldview. So I neatly side-step the above. Of course, dicks should be treated like dicks (those who disadvantage others should lose their right not to be disadvantaged). But I've explained that position before.

wild_quinine wrote:willful ignorance = worse moral error than accidental ignorance.

There are other forms of ignorance.

Back in the early days of the conquest of Afghanistan, 2 US Airforce jets were on patrol over the country. After some gunfire (in their general direction), they closed-in on its source and did what military jets are good at doing... before resuming their patrol. Now, what had happened was that a wedding was taking place and, as was customary in a country that had easier access to guns than to fireworks, some of the guests had fired into the air in celebration.

Was that due to wilful ignorance or accidental ignorance? As a tourist, I check some basic facts about a country before visiting it... and do my best to abide by them. It is an easy process which takes very little effort, and should most definitely be taken by an invading military force. But the ignorance of 2 US pilots left an Afghan wedding in need of several funerals. And it was far less funny without Hugh Grant.

wild_quinine wrote:Many of the people I've met with offensive right wing views have been able to admit errors in their viewpoints when presented with evidence.

You didn't complete that story. Did they still hold their original views, or had you managed to convert them to a less offensive position? If you did, yay you. I've had less success. Certain family members are less likely to spout their ignorant bollocks around me, because they know that it will get a reaction. I'm not sure if they feel guilty for being bigoted, or whether they're very happy about it, but would prefer that this lefty didn't remind them that they're lousy human beings.

wild_quinine wrote:I have to say that if, at the end of the day, there's any truth to the suggestion that left wing people are more intelligent than right wing people, then this reduces my respect for human intelligence.


o.O
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and celt
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed

Red Celt's Blog
RedCelt69
User avatar
 
Posts: 947
Joined: Tue Jul 29, 2008 4:28 pm

Re: Right-wingers are less intelligent...

Postby RedCelt69 on Mon Feb 13, 2012 1:07 pm

The Cellar Bar wrote:sticks me in and around Red Celt

I'm not that easy. You could at least buy me a drink first.
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and celt
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed

Red Celt's Blog
RedCelt69
User avatar
 
Posts: 947
Joined: Tue Jul 29, 2008 4:28 pm

Re: Right-wingers are less intelligent...

Postby macgamer on Mon Feb 13, 2012 3:44 pm

RedCelt69 wrote:My position on Macgamer's "views" are rather moot, as they are the views of the current infallible occupant of the Holy See (backed up by Aquinas). It is pointless trying to convince him of the error of his ways as you would need to resurrect Aquinas and convince him of his errors (or the Pope of his) and Macgamer will follow their lead. Regardless of his position on anything, it is also awful that he offloads such crucial decision-making processes to other people rather than understanding the world as it actually is. Or, more accurately, the world as others have repeatedly pointed out to him... which he steadfastly refuses to acknowledge.

Since the Reformation / Protestant revolution it has encouraged everyone to become their own 'pope'. One cannot know or understand everything, but as I attempted to explain to you I do think about various philosophical and moral questions carefully - I very much enjoy it.

However, I have come to the conclusion that the fullness of the truth subsists within the Catholic Chuch. I understand the reasoning and I therefore I accept its teaching. This process is not very different from anyone else who reads the wider canon of philosophy, science and history. You absorb the information, analyse the content and make a decision as to whether to accept it.

I'm struck that you feel that you are able to determine so much about me without ever having met me or having had any insight into my life. How would you describe that?

RedCelt69 wrote:I must admit to a little schadenfreude, however, to the knowledge that his strange views will leave him forever unknowledgeable of the joys of oral sex. That isn't what a mouth is for, after all. Then again, neither is kissing. If he hopes for a life other than unending abstinence, he's going to have to ignore Aquinas... just a little. And I pity his future wife.

I'm quite happy to forego those particular 'joys' thank-you. A life of sexual abstinence is also fine by me. Therefore, don't feel guilty on my account, unless guilt is a feeling that you forego? Provided I have a few true friends where there is a reciprocity of care, mutual respect and trust, then I'm quite satisfied. Marriage is entirely different taking human relationship to another level. I will either feel called to it or not. Presently, it is something to which I do not feel called.

However, I suppose you would have been able to determine that my life is one distined to be as bachelor without me informing you, being so perspicacious as you are.

Your concern for me RedCelt69, whilst touching, is unnecessary.

Here is my result:

Image
"Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision."
- G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 1908
macgamer
User avatar
 
Posts: 584
Joined: Thu Nov 18, 2004 5:08 pm

Re: Right-wingers are less intelligent...

Postby Humphrey on Mon Feb 13, 2012 5:28 pm

Hmmm, apparently I'm not right-wing. I'm a left wing libertarian.
Humphrey
User avatar
 
Posts: 1265
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2004 8:29 pm

Re: Right-wingers are less intelligent...

Postby The Cellar Bar on Tue Feb 14, 2012 12:14 am

RedCelt69 wrote:
The Cellar Bar wrote:sticks me in and around Red Celt

I'm not that easy. You could at least buy me a drink first.


aye - fair do's......we talking a pint of lager or a couple of g's and T's? :)
The Cellar Bar
 
Posts: 484
Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am

Re: Right-wingers are less intelligent...

Postby RedCelt69 on Tue Feb 14, 2012 7:22 pm

The Cellar Bar wrote:aye - fair do's......we talking a pint of lager or a couple of g's and T's? :)

A single malt, at the very least. Islay, at that.
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and celt
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed

Red Celt's Blog
RedCelt69
User avatar
 
Posts: 947
Joined: Tue Jul 29, 2008 4:28 pm

Re: Right-wingers are less intelligent...

Postby The Cellar Bar on Wed Feb 15, 2012 12:16 am

Jesus man - you're killing me. But ok - cutting my own throat - but we'll see :)
The Cellar Bar
 
Posts: 484
Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am


Return to The Sinner's Main Board

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 30 guests

cron