• ButtigiegMineralMap
    link
    18
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    I mean not really, a liberal can be spectacular at math or brain surgery or chess. They can be multilingual and be good at sports or whatever, but end of the day when they start talking about politics, the fun is over and they go back to being asshats that think they know everything about democracy and perfect society.

  • @redtea
    link
    131 year ago

    Depends what you mean, really. Most people living in the Imperial core are liberals (I can’t speak for the periphery), whether they identify with the label or not.

    This includes engineers who design planes to stay in the air, neurosurgeons, logistics people who ensure that the people who collect the bins do so to a schedule, etc. These are obviously intelligent people.

    But the liberal world outlook is also severely limiting. This leads to several problems. Examples:

    • Inability to make sense of the world as a whole.
    • Unable to understand the root of many problems (i.e. political economy / mode of production).
    • Susceptibility to pro-capitalist propaganda and bourgeois idealism.

    These are clearly problems in terms of realising ones full intellectual potential. These issues won’t necessarily stop someone from understanding medicine, law, logistics, whatever. But they will make some problems, thus their solutions, obscure or invisible.

    For example all the hundreds of thousands of people who try to combat poverty in the West without acknowledging that it is relational are more or less incoherent to those who see capitalism as the cause. Are they unintelligent? I wouldn’t say so. I’d say, instead, they’re working with the wrong tools.

    I can sum it up by paraphrasing Parenti: they can only make a liberal complaint; they need a radical critique.

    Also, I want to be clear, the above are just ‘obvious’ examples… Are the above listed professions any more intelligent than chefs, decorators, cashiers, or (because I just watched Daddy Day Care) childminders? I wouldn’t say so. Not necessarily. Although some jobs have a very high level of skill and take a long time to train for, the people who end up doing them aren’t special, they just had certain advantages (I’m of the nurture side of the nature/nurture debate).

  • @ComradeSalad
    link
    10
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    No, not really, one can be intelligent but still use their abilities for “evil”, or simply make careless mistakes and pitfalls in logic.

    For example, I would wager to say that a large portion of Nazi leadership were of above average intelligence, despite them being delusional and evil psychopaths at worst, and completely complicit and supportive of their regimes crimes at best.

  • Bury The Right
    link
    81 year ago

    In my opinion, people that are into academia but lack critical thinking/common sense are usually the most susceptible to liberalism, while people that are neither book smart nor very good critical thinkers often become hard right reactionaries.

    • @Eat_Yo_Vegetables69
      link
      71 year ago

      True, studied/worked with people who are very intelligent in their respective fields, but they mostly absorb the mainstream western narrative without much critical thinking. The few that claimed they were against the mainstream drifted down the “globalist WEF you will own nothing and be happy” rabbit hole lol.

    • @dadudemon@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      0
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      I think it is every single person, from every walk of life, from every political ideology, that is susceptible to what you described. It really depends on the topic. Sometimes, perfectly reasonable and educated people (politically) lose their minds over something that they are deeply married to. Instead of adjusting their perspectives in the face of new evidence, they double down.

      Most people would like to think themselves intelligent, educated, and reasonable. Most people. But most people also hold political beliefs that are to the point of dogmatism or religion.

      For example, one of the most educated, reasonable, and intelligent people I have ever met becomes an absolute lunatic when you bring up any weaknesses with the Georgist Tax system (the “land” Georgist system).

      My dogmatic rigidity? Probably my opposition to the USA’s unending wars. I get irrational and dumb because I hand-waive any argument and said, “So what, end them all. Bring all our military home. No excuses.”

      • @Beat_da_Rich
        link
        21 year ago

        Well said. No one is infallible. I know we’re all communists here, but let’s not pretend that we don’t all know some stupid/dogmatic communists.

  • @lil_tank
    link
    4
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Bourgeois idealism is omnipresent in the imperial core, you can be intelligent and just not have had any opportunity to get into challenging that. A lot of smart people hear “democracy and freedom vs authoritarian states” in the media and they just nod because to them it’s just what they’ve heard all their lives. And then they go make plans for a nuclear reactor yknow. It’s all propaganda not intelligence