Here's an excellent post from Todd Zywicki at the Volokh Conspiracy on the difference between intelligence and goodness, with a reference to another piece in the American thinker on the same topic by Randall Hoven.
My own thoughts on Sarah Palin's intelligence are there she meets the first test but having a sound mind: she agrees with me. Of course some people can just agree with me through luck or habit, but usually takes some sustained thinking to come to the correct conclusion -- mine -- on such a large number issues. Such broad agreement with me is unlikely to be due to just coincidence and so must surely be attributed to intelligence.
I've been struck by how certain people are that Obama is intelligent because he speaks well. I think we are witnessing the birth of a new Mandarinate based on certain, highly specialized, education. Instead of the Confucian classics are new mandarins are talked constitutional law. Instead of having beautiful handwriting and knowing lots of characters, David Vance by being able to argue themselves out of any corner, make a distinction that rescues them from any apparent contradiction, and greatly recommend a course that takes the middle between two extremes, preferably a course that involves taking as little action or risk as possible. In other words, bullshitting.
I think that both McCain and Palin our looked on with some contempt by members of this new class, this new Mandarinate, precisely because of their inability to bullshit. they are too honest. It even has this terrible habit of when she doesn't know something saying that she doesn't know. Even more excusable sometimes before saying she doesn't know, she actually thinks about it. This was her undoing in the Couric interview, for instance. When she was asked if she knew any times the McCain fought for regulation she was supposed to pivot, and say something like, "of course, Katie, but the real question is..." Instead she inexcusably said something along the lines of I don't know and don't get back to you. One of my colleagues in the political science department said that she was shocked at payments in the middle of the two turn the question around to something she wants to talk about, as if this were a desirable ability.
It may certainly be a desirable ability in a trial lawyer, but it seems of limited use, if not positively pernicious, in any walk of life concerned with actually accomplishing things. I remember reading James McPherson's comments on Grant's memoirs and his orders to generals in the field. McPherson said that it was striking how clear grants instructions were. It was always playing what Grant expected his subordinate to do and when he expected the subordinate do it. What makes this unusual, as I recall McPherson's argument, was that it left Grant no out if things went wrong. Most of the generals typically wrote their orders with enough wiggle room so that if things turned out badly they could avoid blame. Grant left himself no such outs. He was not bullshitter.
I think that Palin is a bit like Grant in this regard. She is concerned with getting things done and so has not cultivated the ability to hide behind words. It is no use to someone who wants to get someone else to do something to obscure their own meaning. the ability to expand abstractions with one hand and whittle them down with fine distinctions with the other is mainly of use to people concerned with fixing responsibility, either claiming credit or escaping blame. It is the skill that defines lawyers; it is a quality that repels others.
That Palin and McCain not cultivated this skill speaks highly of them. That are new Mandarinate has equated with ability and wisdom, is a bad sign for us.
My own thoughts on Sarah Palin's intelligence are there she meets the first test but having a sound mind: she agrees with me. Of course some people can just agree with me through luck or habit, but usually takes some sustained thinking to come to the correct conclusion -- mine -- on such a large number issues. Such broad agreement with me is unlikely to be due to just coincidence and so must surely be attributed to intelligence.
I've been struck by how certain people are that Obama is intelligent because he speaks well. I think we are witnessing the birth of a new Mandarinate based on certain, highly specialized, education. Instead of the Confucian classics are new mandarins are talked constitutional law. Instead of having beautiful handwriting and knowing lots of characters, David Vance by being able to argue themselves out of any corner, make a distinction that rescues them from any apparent contradiction, and greatly recommend a course that takes the middle between two extremes, preferably a course that involves taking as little action or risk as possible. In other words, bullshitting.
I think that both McCain and Palin our looked on with some contempt by members of this new class, this new Mandarinate, precisely because of their inability to bullshit. they are too honest. It even has this terrible habit of when she doesn't know something saying that she doesn't know. Even more excusable sometimes before saying she doesn't know, she actually thinks about it. This was her undoing in the Couric interview, for instance. When she was asked if she knew any times the McCain fought for regulation she was supposed to pivot, and say something like, "of course, Katie, but the real question is..." Instead she inexcusably said something along the lines of I don't know and don't get back to you. One of my colleagues in the political science department said that she was shocked at payments in the middle of the two turn the question around to something she wants to talk about, as if this were a desirable ability.
It may certainly be a desirable ability in a trial lawyer, but it seems of limited use, if not positively pernicious, in any walk of life concerned with actually accomplishing things. I remember reading James McPherson's comments on Grant's memoirs and his orders to generals in the field. McPherson said that it was striking how clear grants instructions were. It was always playing what Grant expected his subordinate to do and when he expected the subordinate do it. What makes this unusual, as I recall McPherson's argument, was that it left Grant no out if things went wrong. Most of the generals typically wrote their orders with enough wiggle room so that if things turned out badly they could avoid blame. Grant left himself no such outs. He was not bullshitter.
I think that Palin is a bit like Grant in this regard. She is concerned with getting things done and so has not cultivated the ability to hide behind words. It is no use to someone who wants to get someone else to do something to obscure their own meaning. the ability to expand abstractions with one hand and whittle them down with fine distinctions with the other is mainly of use to people concerned with fixing responsibility, either claiming credit or escaping blame. It is the skill that defines lawyers; it is a quality that repels others.
That Palin and McCain not cultivated this skill speaks highly of them. That are new Mandarinate has equated with ability and wisdom, is a bad sign for us.
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