On Tue, Jul 16, 2013 at 1:59 PM, Carrol Cox <[email protected]> wrote:
> I think it was Hobbes who said something to the effect tht there was more
> difference between two dogs than between any two persons. But if you go
> back and read comments on Bush both on this list and lbo-talk you will find
> innumerable posts which focus on Bush's "stu0idity." In other words,
> leftists often find it impossible to talk about a politician or a theorist
> without implying that there is a difference of intelligence involved. But
> intelligence (intellect) is NOT a feature of persons; it is a matter of
> context. A person is either intelligent or unintelligent in relation to
> contexts. All statements aboaut the intelligence or lack of it in
> individuals are false. Bush was obviously more intelligent than Obama,
> since Obama has been able to do nothing except cross the t's and dot
> thei's and add italics to Bush's policy initiativesd.
>
That was probably me. I continue to maintain that Barack Obama is
objectively a more intelligent man than George W. Bush.
Your argument above is a fallacy.
You start with one idea (there is something called "intelligence" that can
be measured by IQ tests and is an innate quality of individuals and is
inheritable in large measure, and there are identifiable DNA segments that
determine this quality in individuals).
You rightly recognize the absurdity of this idea. But then you use this as
a straw-man to infer and assert the extreme opposite of this idea ("there
is no such thing as "intelligence". every human being is equally
intelligent depending entirely on context").
I say nonsense. Intelligence is like beauty - it may be in the eyes of the
beer-holder, but there are attractive people and there are ugly people.
-raghu.
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