Those folk you think are thick. They're probably wiser than you.

It seems - albeit a little tentatively - that people from 'lower social classes' are, in some contexts, wider than us clever folk with higher degrees:

The answer is that raw intelligence doesn’t reduce conflict, he asserts. Wisdom does. Such wisdom—in effect, the ability to take the perspectives of others into account and aim for compromise—comes much more naturally to those who grow up poor or working class, according to a new study by Grossman and colleagues.

Now, while I appreciate that a visit to Keighley on a Saturday night might present a different view on the working class and conflict, the findings here are really rather interesting:

We propose that class is inversely related to a propensity for using wise reasoning (recognizing limits of their knowledge, consider world in flux and change, acknowledges and integrate different perspectives) in interpersonal situations, contrary to established class advantage in abstract cognition. Two studies—an online survey from regions differing in economic affluence (n = 2 145) and a representative in-lab study with stratified sampling of adults from working and middle-class backgrounds (n = 299)—tested this proposition, indicating that higher social class consistently related to lower levels of wise reasoning across different levels of analysis, including regional and individual differences, and subjective construal of specific situations.

I'm struck by the bounds of this wisdom measure - knowing limits to knowledge, acknowledging change and different perspectives - because they present a very different approach to how people might assess a situation or a decision from the preferred and purely reason-based approach of the intellectual. Us clever folk tend to presume that, because we know a lot about one thing and have letters after our names, we are better able to see to the right choice - we fail to do what the wise person does and recognise that our knowledge is limited. Moreover, clever folk nearly always (witness the typical approach to economic modelling) start from an assumption of a stable status quo - wise folk know change is constant. And, because we're clever, us folk assume that we are right and that your opinion (unless it starts from recognising I am right) is of no consequence or worse still, just plain wrong - wisdom (and a peek at history) should tell us that other perspectives are helpful not a challenge to our intellectual prowess.

So next time some intellectual giant puts you down as thick, take a minute to respond that you may not have that book learning but you've a perspective, some limited knowledge and recognise that things seldom stay unchanged. Oh, and that this makes you wise - so listen up, clever folk, hark to the wisdom of ordinary folk.

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Musings from a thick Tory...

A Thick Tory Ponders Life's Deep Truths

It is quite remarkable that I, as a Conservative, am able to make use of this laptop in order to write coherent sentences. Perhaps this is a credit to the education I received and to the glorious simplicity of the English Language plus of course the forgiving nature of you the reader.

It seems that the great minds of Canadian academe have cast the runes (or whatever it is that psychologists do in order to garner “data” for their published work) and have discovered what my left-wing friends have known for years – Conservatives are thick. Or rather that – as I understand the work in question (bearing in mind that I am a Conservative) – a shadowy cabal of clever people manipulate us thickos through ideology:

Conservative ideology is the "critical pathway" from low intelligence to racism. Those with low cognitive abilities are attracted to "rightwing ideologies that promote coherence and order" and "emphasise the maintenance of the status quo".

Now, dear reader, Mr Monbiot who wrote that is left-wing so able to use multi-syllable words without getting severe headaches. We must therefore see clearly that he is right even though those long words hurt our eyes.

Now there’s nothing new in the left explaining to us right-wingers – often in the most patronising tone – that our problem is that we’re stupid. Ergo, we should let them run everything since they’re so much better qualified in the brain department. Here’s grumpy old Liberal John Stuart Mill:

Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.

Not of course that J S Mill with his belief in free markets, liberty and self-determination would qualify these days as a left-winger. But, hey, it’s a good quote! And since that time Conservatives (with and without the big ‘C’) have lived with the designation of stupidity. And it’s the worst form of stupidity – a sinful, corrupting, evil stupidity that divides not the stupidity of Homer Simpson as idiot savant.

So George Monbiot cries the oldest insult levelled at Tories, one that meant little when J S Mill said it and means little today – “you’re thick you are, what do you know?” And George’s ‘oh-so-superior’ left-wing pals echo him (and some second rate jokester called Brooker) in giggling about how they always knew Tories were stupid and right-wingers were thick. I mean look at what they read! Surely anyone intelligent would read the Guardian?

If there is an antonymic personification to the idiot savant then George Monbiot is that person – so well educated, well read, filled with eclectic ideas, a veritable fountain of knowledge. Yet, at the same time, so comprehensively, categorically and consistently wrong.

Let’s grant left-wingers their superiority, let’s embrace our Tory thickness – for all their knowledge these socialists, progressives and the like have brought us oppression, state control, obscene taxes, political correctness and the nanny state. Anyone who takes more than a moment to look at socialism’s record would conclude that these awfully clever (and mostly wealthy and privileged too) people visited disaster upon the ordinary people for whom they claimed to care.

It’s no use having great brain power if you use it to make the simple complicated, the obvious obscure and the common-sensical illegal. Yet that is the legacy of the progressive left.

If that is “intelligence” then I’m staying right here being “thick”.

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