Today on a Swiss-German discussion channel on the radio, I heard a guy give an opinion on a study that has just been released.

Here is an English version.

Not being too keen on formal education being the basis of "judging" a persons intelligence (whatever that might mean), however fully understanding that this is what you need to get a well paid job if you want to be working for someone else, my favourite quote is:
"Crucially, people's educational level is not what determines whether they are racist or not - it's innate intelligence, according to the academics."

But how do you get innate intelligence? Is it choice, breeding or environment?

The guy on the radio however, concluded that the stoopidest person would probably have been the one who funded the study.

Do you have thoughts on this?

Dunno much about intelligence, but there does seem to be a lack of Right Wing comedians. I'm sure a psychologist will be along in a minute to explain why...

I believe it has been demonstrated that SVP supporters are under the average IQ but I do not find the link

Humor is NOT the strong point of right-wingers, as they see things most thoroughly seriously ! To take things with humour might be close to put "proven old facts" into doubt

... whereas the Stalinists in the good ol' days of the USSR were a laugh-a-minute ...

I'm not sure there's any citeable research to back up the claim that any particular side of politics displays a better sense of humour than any other, humour being the entirely subjective thing that it is.

We speak about intelligence as if we know what we're talking about. It's a very difficult, if not impossible, thing to define, let alone design any sort of metric to measure. I've met plenty of people that I would consider very smart (albeit in different ways both from me and between themselves) that lack what many would consider a good formal education. I've also met people with enormous amounts of a formal education who are smart in some ways and really dumb-as-a-rock in other ways (very few are actually flat out stupid). Just like characterizing people based on their ethnicity or nationality, judging people's intelligence based on where they fall on the political sphere or on the amount of schooling similar to your own is a fools game.

To see it as it is, highly intelligent SVP leaders two decades ago started to try to attract what in the "old days" was described as the "working class". They developed a way to describe whatever in a much simpliefied way and so had quite some success. Add to this that the Catholic Conservative Party, now trading as Christian People's Party, opened up to certain "social" notions and ideas, and so "left behind" many a conservative Catholic. And also in those Catholic land areas, the SVP did not target upwardly mobile or innovative people, but stubborn old-fashioned Conservatives. Add to this that the SVP also targetted people who were in fear of "foreigners" in regard to their jobs. It is obvious that average and above-average Swiss have no reason to fear the foreigners, and so it was rather the socially and mentally "challenged" who felt attracted by the SVP.

The Liberals (FDP) have it more difficult as they try to work with common sense and intelligent arguments.

Anyone who sheepishly babbles party slogans instead of building his own opinion is of rather limited intelligence IMHO. Doesn't matter if the party is left, right or center.

Sorry, I did NOT speak about Adolf Hitler. Totalitarian dictators are NOT what I referred to. Interesting however is to see that dictators like Lenin and Benito Mussolini HAD humour. But Benito Mussolini was a trades unionist and leftist for years before moving to the right. I spoke about people in more or less free countries. Just to distort considerations by coming up with references to the two worst rulers of the 20th century is rather bad taste.

You might refer to rightwingers like Harold Macmillan, Edward Heath, John Major, Charles deGaulle, Valery Giscard d'Estaing and Konrad Adenauer who really HAD humour, to make a point, true.

You confuse me (again), Wolli. Who Godwinned this thread? It wasn't me! I didn't see anybody mention Adolf until your post above. And the references to the two worst rulers of the 20th century came from ... you! So, again:

Five words I never expected to see together in one sentence.



"Knock, knock ..."

Did you read the study? It made intelligence tests on kids... that is before the formal education and has not much to do with it. While it is probably not politically correct to say so are some kids simply brighter than other ones and some simple logical pattern tests will show that. The study managed to proof that the kids that were not so good at these tests become significantly more likely stereotyping racists than the smarter kids.

And that's where I do not like the words "right winged" in the title. There are VERY bright conservatives. I do not agree with them, but they are not full of prejudice. The study does not say that if you are conservative you were already stupid as a child... the study says that if you follow some right winged populism - which typically is full of racist rubbish, the SVP campaigns being a prime example... then you have a significantly higher chance to already been born a bit less smart than the others.

I don't find this shocking news, but pretty much what I would expect... the other study somebody mentioned in Switzerland showed that the SVP voters are WAY less formally educated than the rest. Is there a connection? Well, a guy like George W. Bush can still graduate from Harvard if your family pays enough, but on AVERAGE do the not so smart kids make less high formal educations, so that should be a pretty logical link.


For some Americans is this new study probably even more reason to be against this entire science thing... and promote the bible even more. All those scientists are for gay marriages anyway...

No.. I listened to the radio, to the review of the study, read a German news report on the study, then found a similar one in English (as posted) and read that too. In that it said:
"The study, by academics at Brock University in Ontario, Canada, used information from two UK studies from 1958 and 1970 , where several thousand children were assessed for intelligence at age 10 and 11, and then asked political questions aged 33."

Now granted, someone at 33 isn't a grown up, and admittedly I know a few 45+ year olds who behave like children, though I am guessing their political views are a little more liberal, the more childlike their behaviour.

As i understand it, people as a whole, are far more likely to want to prove themselves right, than form new opinions given by new politicians with new ideas, because that would require, maybe thinking that they made need to re-evaluate their current ideas. And it does require a certain amount of nouse to get out of the thinking-rut that you have been in for years.

On the other hand, those whose opinions just sway in the wind, and go with whatever the majority think, might also be a can short of a six-pak.

The title was given by the newspaper article, and repeated here.

Time for a better newspaper then

The bottom line of the research is: People who are a bit more simple minded do prefer oversimplified political views. Democracy isn't simple and the world is getting increasingly complicated. The parties that offer these very simple views are typically right winged extremists as any remotely serious party knows that you cannot get very far with sweeping statements... You can find left winged populists with equally simple approaches as well, but they are rare. Typically more in the trade union area than parliaments...

Did I get this wrong:

So - all rightwingers are racist, is that what's being said here? (btw - I've met plenty of racist left-wingers.)

Rightwingers are less intelligent and less funny, but they do smell more than lefty's. Little known fact that.

True dat. Terrible thing, loneliness.

Mutually exclusive concepts....
Something I once heard: Of these three things : Intelligent, nice, right-wing, no person can be any more than two, .... in other words..

If you are Intelligent AND nice, you cannot possibly be right-wing
If you are right-wing AND intelligent, then your not nice.
If you are right-wing AND nice, then you cannot be intelligent...

...

Anything artistic (be it comedy, music, cinema, etc.) that resonates in people's minds and comes from a truthful place is progressive by nature. It's not as much a question of conservatives being "serious", but that they can't sell their philosophy in a funny way that rings true. "Just stick with the old ways" and "let the free market fix all our problems" doesn't ring true with anyone, even if many people live that way in the interest of comfort or profit. Most popular country music, for example, comes from the same place, and much of its lyrical content (post 9/11 especially) only sounds good if you live in a bubble of intellectual immobility.

I wouldn't even say it's as much a question of right vs left wing, but progressive vs conservative, although right-wingers do find themselves on the conservative side overwhelmingly.

Edit: Had to specify a few things.

a study confirming a prejudice about prejudice, very ironic

Actually I do.

Intelligent people tend to have fewer children. Which means stupid people have more children, and thus the prevelence of the stupid phenotype is more prevelent in the world.

This is why smart people are so bloody annoyed by stupid people and why stupid people can't be rationalized with about anything (see: SVP).

Therefore, intelligent people should fight the urge to put off having children while pursuing englightenment and have more babies starting at a younger age.

But then that won't help the population crisis.... but neither will stupid people breeding more stupid people...

So basically we're all just CKUFED.