Left-wingers are more intelligent than right-wingers

[el_chavista]

Can you believe this?

Left-wingers are more intelligent than right-wingers, says a controversial Canadian study

The authors claim that people with low intelligence gravitate towards right-wing views because they make them feel safe.

Read more: http://www.bellenews.com/2012/02/04/education/left-wingers-are-more-intelligent-than-right-wingers-says-a-controversial-canadian-study/#ixzz1mSpXedC3

[Revolutionair]

I think it was already posted here. I agree with the replies in that thread: this is bascially a cheapshot at right-wingers. Although we all know the stereotypical stupid bonehead, there are very intelligent right-wingers out there.

This seems legit though:

The Canadian Academics say conservative politics work almost as a “gateway” into prejudice against others.
It's no secret that conservative platforms are often used to blast racist propaganda.

[The Stalinator]

I wouldn't doubt that they are less intelligent, but the study seems like just sort of a low blow. I think it should have focused a little more on the psychology behind staunch right-wingers.

[Искра]

Left-wingers are more intelligent than right-wingers, says a controversial Canadian study
Authors have never been of reveft. If they did, they woudn't claim such bollocks...

[Alf]

There are of course some highly intelligent right wingers and many left wingers who are very stupid. For example, it's hard to explain Hoxhaism (and there is more than one Hoxhaite tendency on relevt) in any other way sometimes. But perhaps we could argue that the capitalist function of the left requires it to attract people who begin asking more intelligent questions about the present social system.

[Dean]

To a large extent, politics are framed by our own (perceived) self-interest. And the narrative is usually within an idealized capitalist system. In this context, an intelligent commoner would necessarily be leftist, but an intelligent middle or upper class person has a lot of incentive to be a rightist.

I don't believe that intelligence plays too much into your political leanings. Even among those who reject the standard narrative, many of those with quite intensely analytical attitudes are quite right-wing. Intelligence is not a reflection of net gathered data, but the method or rate of analysis of that data. If there is a disproportionate amount of right-wing data, or data framed in a right-wing narrative, it will resolve into more of the same in most cases, regardless of how smart you are.

An aspect of knowledge is social awareness - if you are aware that your family and friends, and all the things you identify with, are aligned toward a right-wing paradigm, it behooves you to follow the same. Usually this is accomplished in subtle ways, like confusing or misinterpreting information that doesn't play into that model. And I think the same things are done on the left, I've even caught myself "shutting down" when something doesn't sit well with me.

[Bostana]

No Surprise.

Check out this Right Wing forum and you will know why

http://www.republicanoperative.com/forums/

[Искра]

Why would someone check right wing forum? Like I don't have better things to do with my life...

[TrotskistMarx]

Indeed, of course, at least socialist workers are a lot more intelligent than capitalist workers. Because workers who vote for capitalist parties vote against their own interests. And since ancient empires until today, rebellious anti-status quo people have been smarter than pro-status quo conformists people

.


Can you believe this?

Left-wingers are more intelligent than right-wingers, says a controversial Canadian study

The authors claim that people with low intelligence gravitate towards right-wing views because they make them feel safe.

[TrotskistMarx]

Dean yeah intelligence might be a part of it. But I think that love, compassion, and being a nice person is also a requirement to be socialist, leftist. People who defend the right-wing capitalism ideology at all costs I think are less nice, in other words they are "assholes", compared with people who like socialism, who have feelings, hearts and soul for the deaths, hunger, starvation, and pain experienced by Ethiopians, Nigerians and even 50 million americans who live in extreme poverty and starvation because of the capitalism economic-political model of the Ethipian Government, The Nigerian Government and The US government.

.


To a large extent, politics are framed by our own (perceived) self-interest. And the narrative is usually within an idealized capitalist system. In this context, an intelligent commoner would necessarily be leftist, but an intelligent middle or upper class person has a lot of incentive to be a rightist.

I don't believe that intelligence plays too much into your political leanings. Even among those who reject the standard narrative, many of those with quite intensely analytical attitudes are quite right-wing. Intelligence is not a reflection of net gathered data, but the method or rate of analysis of that data. If there is a disproportionate amount of right-wing data, or data framed in a right-wing narrative, it will resolve into more of the same in most cases, regardless of how smart you are.

An aspect of knowledge is social awareness - if you are aware that your family and friends, and all the things you identify with, are aligned toward a right-wing paradigm, it behooves you to follow the same. Usually this is accomplished in subtle ways, like confusing or misinterpreting information that doesn't play into that model. And I think the same things are done on the left, I've even caught myself "shutting down" when something doesn't sit well with me.

[Kenco Smooth]

The article is misleading. In the British cohort tests what actually seemed to be causally influenced by g (the underlying score on valid IQ tests) were views in line with classical liberalism. Simply put people who emphasise reason and individualism rather than tradition in later life score higher on IQ scores at a younger age when other factors are statistically controlled. Certain views that were found to correlate with high g would very probably be considered right-wing by many users here.


I wouldn't doubt that they are less intelligent, but the study seems like just sort of a low blow. I think it should have focused a little more on the psychology behind staunch right-wingers.

The original purpose of the cohort tests was to check how intelligence varies across a lifetime. However given the scale of the study, the huge sample size and the length of time between tests, the data has been mined since then for various other features such as this.

[Franz Fanonipants]

essentialist arguments are problematic because they situate mat'l causes in terms of the symptoms of class struggle but not in class struggle itself.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Sure, there are some smart right wingers, but that does not mean their ideas are also smart.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Sure, there are some smart right wingers, but that does not mean their ideas are also smart.

yes because ideas exist on their own and not as a function of class structure

[Ostrinski]

Ideas are just the reflection of certain factors, the application of interests to a given situation.