"People Are Stupid"

[Geronimo Pratt]

A libertarian capitalist co-worker in my office seems to believe the American people are "far too stupid" to run the country. He says politicians should stop looking at opinion polls, as if they actually do. So I started thinking...

This has been a catch-phrase for all sorts of authoritarian political ideologies, from fascists to capitalists to state socialists. In reality, using the people of the U.S. as an example, humans have a great capability for self-managed decision-making. After all, our ability to reason, although not always used correctly, is what separates us from mere animals. Even if humans were naturally stupid, as goes the argument for hiearchy, hiearchal power would only further institutionalize human stupidity. State centralization implies that our rulers are the most creative, intelligent, and competent decision-makers possible. This can be refuted through countless amounts of evidence. Wealth taken through force and exploitation has historically accompanied power, not intelligence. But I.Q. and intelligence doesn't necessarily mean one is a competent decision-maker either, in life or in the political arena.

Also if people are too stupid for anarchism, than how are they intelligent enough to vote for leaders? If people do not have the intelligence to know what's in their own best interests, how are they intelligent enough to vote for the people who will guide them? What representative democracy implies is that if people are competetent enough to select their rulers they can also do without them. In fact, what rulers attempt to do through propaganda is guide their followers away from any real self-interested endeavors, to those that serve the interests of the ruling class. Thus the mass population is uninformed through ruling class propaganda, not an inability to concieve of their own interests. Uninformed is a far more accurate description of the U.S. public than ignorant. The vast majority of people are too occupied attempting to survive on a day-to-day level to stop and really contemplate their social environment.

The argument for a ruling class is that they are necessary to indicate what's best for the interests of the mass population. If the masses are let free to make their own decisions than they would make decisions that could be potentially harmful to the social order (which depends on their continued power positions). So the ruling class only exists on circular reasoning. Once we take away the myth of our rulers as "guiding shepards", the ruling class is displayed as only working to shape society for its own interests.
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[Module]

I definately do think that politicians genuinely look at opinion polls, but not because they necessarily care about the opinions, or intelligence, or regular people. If that were the case politicians, especially in the US, would not go out of their way to get emotive responses from the population, by using words like 'good' and 'evil', or playing on nationalism, whatever, whatever ..
I think that's key, really, to this issue, that politicians in this 'democratic' system do not have to listen to, or honestly convince the people they are ruling over that what they are doing is correct, and they have the influential position, socially, politically, no doubt economically to do things in the interests purely of themselves or their class, publicly in the name of the 'greater good'. Through fear-mongering, scapegoating, false nationalistic unity and what not, in an innumerable amount of different ways.

Having a high IQ, as you've touched upon, does not mean one is well informed, and I'm sure anyone on this board can think of potential geniuses they've known that simply didn't try, or didn't care. The ones best equipped to make positive change are those who have the objective, unprocessed facts, and it is often the case that those individuals don't need have an IQ of 135+ to be able to make positive change.

However, I'd like to add that the vast majority of working people are uninformed, as you said, and this fact does, I feel, necessitate and prognosticate (pretentious word!) to a degree, a "guiding shepard", a revolutionary vanguard which 'leads', so to speak, the a worker's revolution, only because (and in that) it is at the forefront of revolutionary class consciousness, rather than having an authoritative coercive leadership over the people.
It is always the case that some individuals are more 'informed' than others, and you should tell your 'libertarian capitalist co-worker' that it is more than often the case that political opportunity comes from the disproportionate opportunities provided to the population through an economic system of inequality, rather than simply being 'informed', much less 'stupid'.

[Hyacinth]

Well, setting aside the fact that IQ does not equal intelligence, there is a considerable correlation between performance on standardized tests of any kind, and general access to resources (i.e. how rich you are). While it is the case that you on occasion come across exceptional individuals who, despite the odds, manage to preform well in school, by and large those who come from wealthier and more privileged backgrounds will preform better. It really is simply a question of how many resources are invested into a child's education. So the notion that somehow there is an inherent distinction between people that makes one group better suited to rule than another is not only wrong, but also very much ideologically driven. Of course the ruling class of any epoch will wish to perpetuate the notion that somehow they have a right to, or are better equipped to, their social status.

[chegitz guevara]

Most people are too stupid to run the country. Oh well, they'll learn how to do it when they take over. Then they won't be too stupid anymore.

[GPDP]

This argument that people are inherently too stupid to run their own affairs, I find, usually comes from people that subscribe to elitist ideologies, and tend to think of themselves as belonging, or someday belonging to the elite minority that this ideology raises up. This argument thus finds its place in libertarianism with its emphasis on the individual entrepreneur and its fear of the "tyranny of the majority", objectivism with its worshiping of the intelligent and reasonable few, nazism with the supremacy of the white master race and cult of personality around a single leader, etc. Even some so-called socialists fall into this mold, unfortunately.

Though it is true that the average person as currently exists may be too numb to even consider any meaningful participation in society at present, to extrapolate this reality as some natural postulation that the great majority of people are simply unfit to take part in the administration of society at large, and that there must always be leaders and followers and it cannot be otherwise is an utterly reactionary position to take. We must combat this prejudice against "the masses", while at the same time helping these masses to awaken to their social reality, and to their own power to better not only themselves, but society as well.

[MarxSchmarx]

There is another sense of the term "people".

In men in black there's a scene where tommy lee jones (I think) says something to the effect of:


The individual is rational. People are stupid. Individuals by and large are quite reasonable. Yet there is something deeply ingrained about a "mob mentality" that has manifested itself throughout history quite cruelly and stupidly. This is certainly not unique to capitalism, nor is it confined to any one class. Yes, it can be mitigated considerably under communism. Of course this doesn't mean that individuals are unfit to govern their own affairs. However, at the risk of echoing your cappie co-worker, the future society should embrace a strong degree of local autonomy where individuals can engage each other as individuals, rather than surrendering decision making authority to an anonymous and amorphorous "people".

[InvileMachina]

I wouldn't say that the masses are "stupid", I'd say that they are more or less apathetic to anything that doesn't impact them in a radical and direct way.


Our society tends to thwart the growth of one's ability to think as an individual almost from birth.


Trained by religion, a longing for social acceptance, ingrained with lust for needless material objects, ect. It's just human nature. We cannot forget that humans ARE just animals, we have highly evolved brains, yes. However, the majority of humans are for the most part still ruled by instincts. Social acceptance has been vital for the human being to thrive and survive in the complex social structures we have. Like wolves, a human shunned or condemned by society, one human all by itself, is weak, vulnerable, and almost destined for failure.



The forming of tribes, villages, clans, nations, empires, ect is what has allowed the human species to be such a successful organism. So needless to say, it is ingrained into the majority of people not to be too radical, not to challenge the status quo of whatever group the person identifies with.



Until we can evolve to a point where intellect rules over instinct and emotions, there will always be a need for some kind of hierarchy. Humans for the most part are driven by two things. Fear, and self interest. All governments understand this. Any good revolutionary understands that you have to appeal to those two fundamentals if you want to gather enough support to do anything.



As long as the average person is only concerned with their social status, who they are currently mating with, what color their new ipod is, what party they are going to this weekend, and what some imaginary sky daddy thinks... there won't be much progress. The majority of people want leaders to run things so they can focus on trivial matters. As long as the government doesn't get in the way of their little bubble of trivial concerns, they tend to be happy.



Also, the current power religion has over America is a blindfold that prevents otherwise rational people to be led by incompetent douchebags.


So as of right now, I'd say that the majority of American citizens are too apathetic, not stupid.