This post wanders around a little, but that is an attraction
of blogging, it isn’t necessary to tie everything together. Intelligent readers
do that, fill in the gaps and raise other issues themselves.
Yet intelligence is a rum notion isn’t it? We have many
other words for it which don’t mean quite the same thing. Clever, smart,
astute, brainy, highbrow, bright, perceptive and so on. Look them up, there are
lots, although as an intelligent person perhaps you don’t need to look them up.
How about knowledge? To my mind that’s another rum notion,
not unconnected with intelligence. We don’t usually expect knowledgeable people
to be unintelligent and vice versa, yet the notion of knowledge can be just as
problematic as intelligence.
Here’s the oddity - at least to my mind it’s an oddity. If a
person is knowledgeable then he or she is generally regarded as intelligent,
but it does not seem matter too much what they are knowledgeable about. General knowledge
or almost any area of specialised knowledge will do, particularly if it has
some bearing on human nature. Are there any areas of knowledge which don’t have
at least some bearing on human nature? Possibly not.
However, intelligent and knowledgeable people can be
remarkably dull, conventional and apparently uninterested in exploring the
world of possibilities beyond their comfort zone. They may have built a solid personal
philosophy and it may be quite an edifice as these things go, but surprisingly
often the edifice is all there is. It seems to serve much the same purpose as a
pundit’s stock standpoints. There seems to be little joy in it too. Joy? Why
not?
Take the currently popular phrase “virtue signalling” for
example. An excellent phrase which seems to be an acute insight or maybe it
clarifies insights we already had. Unfortunately it seems to apply to numerous
intelligent and knowledgeable public figures who should know better but clearly
don’t. In spite of their intelligence and knowledge they go in for virtue
signalling. Perhaps we all do, but some seem to go in for it as a key part of
what they are, as an essential ingredient of their personal philosophy, their pundit’s
standpoints.
When you first heard the phrase “virtue signalling”, how
long did it take you to grasp its meaning and assess its widespread
applicability and usefulness? A second or two is my guess. Presumably we
already knew what virtue signalling is before we first heard the phrase, but
how did we assimilate it so quickly?
Maybe that is the charm of insights, the way they rapidly sharpen
and clarify what we already possess. The charm
of insights did I say? Yes – insights are certainly charming, alluring,
beguiling, appealing, attractive. There is an emotional aspect to them. How
could there not be?
To my mind some intelligent people are like collectors, they
collect insights and a phrase such as virtue signalling is just such an
insight. Rather a good one. So insight collectors collect it, absorb its power
and its charm into the depths of their personality. Its popularity tells us so.
Yet there is something a little nerdy about this notion of
collecting insights. It sounds like stamp collecting but intelligent people can
be somewhat nerdy. They like insights, hunt them down and enjoy plucking them
from all kinds of nooks and crannies, almost as if a day without picking up a
new insight is a day lost, wasted, misused.
However – and this is interesting too – many otherwise
intelligent people seem to be afraid of insights. That is another emotion
insights can generate - fear. People can be genuinely afraid of them, afraid of
the disturbance they create, the insecurity, the threats. There is even
something primitive in rejecting insights, something ancient, as if a wild
beast has been spotted lurking in the wilderness just beyond the home-place.
Where does that leave intelligence though? If someone avoids
insights, especially those which challenge conventions, then how is that
intelligent behaviour? It is much the same with knowledge. Insights which
challenge conventional knowledge may not even be accepted as knowledge.
For example?
For example Donald Trump is providing us with a number of
insights into US politics, the power of large bureaucracies, the bias in mainstream
media, the power of the establishment and distraction politics. Trump is good
at distraction. He may yet stumble but so far it has been as interesting and
enjoyable as insights should be. But is everyone enjoying the insights Trump so
obligingly provides? I don’t think so.
What joyless souls they are.
6 comments:
"Virtue Signalling" is certainly an excellent example of an insight. I like insights: I get many on this blog, mainly from you, and also from some of the contributors. I like to share the insights I get, too. I like to do it in other social contexts.
Does this make us insight signallers?
My mother often called (some) Army officers "educated idiots."
Experts, always on tap, never on top. Probably a wise notion but not without risk.
Virtue Signalling - to take a conspicuous but essentially useless action ostensibly to support a good cause but actually to show off how much more moral you are than everybody else.
These two ideas are some of the tools needed to survive in an established bureaucracy, to avoid being dumped on by all those who would seek to do you down - all ones competitors. But as you point out Trump is different, he somehow turns the old ideas on their heads. His approach may not seem sane, it may not work but he provides a fascinating look at how the machinery works, by smashing off lumps of it while it is still running.
Can’t resist, not intelligent enough.
My executive summary must be that self-professedly ‘intelligent’ people are in truth, measured against a meaningful scale, not nearly as smart (certainly not usefully so) as they think they are. How do I arrive at this? Apart from long experience and observation of self and others…
You mention joy, or lack thereof. I’d say one of the most joyous things for any putative seeker after wisdom is being proved wrong. How nice is that, you’ve just learned something that didn’t really figure in your mental universe till now. You have just become a bit more intelligent. Mostly it doesn’t happen. What you see is more to do with temporal power and advantage. An awful lot of human behaviour can be rationalised in those terms. Competitiveness for status, security, in effect easy money or some useful self-aggrandising equivalent. Earlier generations of know-nothing intelligentsia invariably gravitated to the status of priests, can’t imagine why…
What I miss is a becoming humility. Try to learn from your elders. Discard, refine and advance by thoughtful increments. What a quaint notion in shouty times. Mind you, I’m not sure the humble party is actually a runner vote-wise.
The other thing is ‘insights’. These valuable coinages have a shelf life. After a while they morph into their less regarded cousins ‘clichés’. A while ago, at a personal tragedy, I was on the receiving end of quite a lot of cliché. I came to realise that these clunky phrases ‘one in a million’ ‘always in our hearts’ and the like sometimes represented thousands of years of shared inchoate rage and grief. And were intelligent responses when there was nothing better or more useful to be said. It was an insight.
“However, intelligent and knowledgeable people can be remarkably dull, conventional and apparently uninterested in exploring the world of possibilities beyond their comfort zone. ”
Very much so.
Sam - oh dear maybe it does make us insight signallers. That's an insight too, but do we really want it?
Sackers - odd isn't it? Not an uncommon experience too.
Roger - I like the image and I'm sure we need someone to show how the machinery works by smashing off lumps of it while it is still running.
Clacket - "What I miss is a becoming humility. Try to learn from your elders. Discard, refine and advance by thoughtful increments."
I miss that too, although it isn't easy to do well, to strike the right balance. I think it is an aspect of Jordan Peterson's appeal, his willingness to pause for thought and be openly cautious about conclusions.
James - often uninterested in people too.
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