Are You Smart Enough to Live in a Free Society? [Good Life series]

Honestly now: Do you have what it takes? We all like to think we’re smarter than average, but the math is cruel. Half of us are below median intelligence, and some of us are considerably lower. So why should we think that freedom is a good policy for everyone?

I believe freedom is the best policy, but sometimes that is a hard argument to make. A free society presupposes that people are capable of living self-responsibly. That in turn presupposes that they have enough intelligence to do so. And a free democracy presupposes that the majority will consistently make good political decisions. That also presupposes they have enough intelligence to do so.

But a strong claim can be made that it’s naive to think that most people are smart enough. So let’s take up that hard challenge, since only by facing the best arguments on all sides can we be most certain of our own conclusions.

Here’s a sobering anecdote, courtesy of columnist Marilyn vos Savant, about just how low the average intelligence can be. vos Savant has the distinction, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, of having the highest score ever on IQ tests.

A reader wrote to vos Savant with a perplexing math problem he had been debating over dinner with his wife and brother-in-law. Suppose that you pour one cup of 100% bran cereal into a bowl, and then you pour one cup of 40% bran cereal into the same bowl. What percentage of bran is now in the bowl?

The reader’s wife said 140% — apparently one should add the two percentages to get the right answer. The brother-in-law disagreed, holding that one should subtract the lower from the higher percentage, so the correct answer is 60%. The reader himself thought that 140% and 60% were both wrong — and that the right answer depends on whether one first pours the 100% bran or the 40% bran into the bowl.

Here we have three individuals who cannot do basic math. What are the chances they have the cognitive skills necessary to make it in our complex, high-tech world? Can they calculate the percentages for, say, good nutrition or the compounding interest rates on their credit cards? One has only to consider how many people out there are obese or have out-of-control debt. Intellectually, they are nearly helpless to navigate the complicated modern world by themselves — and in the name of freedom we leave them to their own devices.

It gets worse. Perhaps you can do basic math. But let’s not forget that the three citizens above can easily outvote you on any public policy issue. What are the chances that their three math-challenged votes will be better than your one math-informed vote — on budgetary calculations — on judging acceptable levels of chemicals in foods — on whether vaccines are a good idea — on the science of climate? So what are the chances that democracy is anything more than a slow suicide of the collectively stupid?

Maybe a managed freedom is best for most people. Of course some of us are smarter than others. So those of us with the brains (that’s you, me, and vos Savant) can do good by making the important decisions for our less intelligent brethren or at least firmly nudging them in the correct direction. Wouldn’t that be better for the unsmart than leaving them to their own precarious intelligence?

So, the argument concludes, let’s be blunt: We should design the political system to give power to the smart. Let us forthrightly take decision-making power away from the less intelligent — for their own good and the good of society as a whole.

In ancient times, Plato argued that we need philosopher-kings. For our modern science-and-technology-intensive society, we can update that: We need philosopher-scientist-kings.

Do you shrink from the dictatorial sound of that? Perhaps we needn’t go to such extremes and can include some democratic elements. We can permit everyone to vote and have the majority of votes determine which candidates will be given the authority to make the important decisions on our behalf. Or to make our choices as voters even easier, let’s have political parties pre-select suitably smart candidates, and we voters will choose the best from among them.

But our representatives, once elected, will soon face a problem. They will realize that the world is very complex and that many, many important decisions must be made – but they themselves don’t always have the necessary knowledge to decide wisely.

So they will create a series of government agencies staffed with intelligent experts — about manufacturing and trade, about banking and finance, about food and drink, about pharmaceuticals and medicine, about transportation, and about the education of our children. Those expert agencies will be empowered to make the necessary decisions on our behalf, and we can live happily knowing that the smart people are in charge of our lives.

I’ve just described something like the current system of the United States and most of the world’s developed nations. Depending how one counts, we live in something that should be called a Doubly-Indirect Paternalist Democracy or a Thrice-Removed Benevolent Aristocracy. We citizens can makes some choices, but within a framework selected and enforced by our intellectual-superiors.

In that system, those of lower intelligence are protected from the consequences of their ignorance in their own lives, and the rest of us are protected from the consequences of their voting in our public lives. Perhaps some tinkering with the system is necessary — but if the logic of the above argument is sound, then we already live in the best of all possible political worlds.

So we have a challenge for those of us who want to live freely. We want to choose the education of our children. We want to decide for ourselves what to eat and drink. We want to make our own plans for our financial futures. We even want to choose our own physicians and insurance plans, and much more. But why should that matter in the light of the above argument for paternalism?

Note that the paternalist argument is driven by fear — fear of the stupid and the uninformed. We need to protect them from themselves because we fear that they can’t make it on their own. And we need to protect ourselves from the stupid and the uninformed, because we fear the consequences of their large-number political power in a democracy.

Those fears are not irrelevant considerations, but they are not the basis for a proper political philosophy. Why not? That is the subject of my next article.

[This article was originally published in English at EveryJoe.com and in Portuguese at Libertarianismo.org.]

4 thoughts on “Are You Smart Enough to Live in a Free Society? [Good Life series]”

  1. Bryan Greifinger

    An interesting article and a timely one as I’m currently reading Gordon Woods’ Empire of Liberty which discusses how the founding fathers were shocked at how so many “common” individuals were actually “running” for office about 15 yrs after the Constitution was ratified. Benjamin Franklin believed that no man should “run” for office. He should only do his duty if ASKED. John Adams and others believed that only ‘Gentlemen” were expected to hold office and that such men would neither be working individuals, or businessmen. “Gentlemen” were considered to be those men who spent many years obtaining a liberal arts education via a profession such as a lawyer, or physician. Yet they would not have spent time plying their professions. They would be landowners who would sacrifice the plying of their professions to perfect their knowledge of history, governments, and philosophy. They would also be “virtueous” men or “disinterested” men who would not care at all about what they could do for the locals, but what they could do for the country as a whole. In this way there could be no need for lobbying. So John Adams and others believed that the average man (the farmers) were not intelligent enough to see this. They saw every tom, dick and harry running for office. Their behavior was one factor they did not predict which they described as being so wrong for their new country. They initially believed in the intelligence of the common man to do the right thing. And in effect that it was perhaps an Oligarchy of “Gentlemen” who should have been leaders …… not the common man.

  2. I came here after listening to Nietzsche and the Nazis, which I sought out because I am on an exploration of ideas. Actually, I’m looking for evidence that my very lonely stance against compulsory education has a valid basis. That stance has put me at odds with all the progressive support for education that I grew up believing. I’ve come to understand that the exaltation of education that is all around me, both from my upbringing as a prep school faculty child, and from my well-off suburban New England adulthood, is steeped in elitism, paternalism, racism, and simple snobbery – at the expense of actual respect for those it pretends to reach out to via educational opportunity, and at the expense of our freedom.
    The result of this is a crazy labyrinth of locked doors controlled by bureaucratic credentialism. Elitism is stronger than ever, and the gulf between those privileged and those not is wider than ever.
    I’ve always struggled with the lack of freedom and respect in schooling, but it wasn’t until I conflicted head on with my teenager’s public school that my longstanding discomfort with educational bullying clarified into a rational position. I think the emotions of elitism were branded into me (Fichte-ian style), leaving a thick film of shame obscuring my intuition.
    I’d read the book On Hitler’s Mountain a couple year’s back, drawn to it by the notion that the common German citizen who went along with Hitler’s policies was no different from me or the other people in my town who are comfortable standing above, and apart from, whole classes of “uneducated” people we fear in the abstract. It is less extreme, perhaps, but it is related to the willful blindness that let the Nazis do their evil. Is this too extreme a comparison?
    It has been satisfying to find people I really respect and learn from by following my various threads of thought. I very much enjoyed Nietzsche and the Nazis. I think it is very important that we see National Socialism as an idealistic vision for the common good, rather than an evil plot by a madman.
    Next, I landed on your page about Fichte and socialization. I’d been reading through his Addresses to the German People. Again, I was led to Fichte by my anger against the harms of compulsory schooling. That anger led me first to the popular diatribes against compulsory school that focus on their factory nature and Prussian origins. John Gatto lectures about the history of education with some excellent points, but he also blurs facts and implies evil intention into all its players. He comes across a bit too much like a bombast, using scandalous innuendo in place of less dramatic fact. Many, many people quote him without getting past generalizations that aren’t always accurate. I also suspect that Gatto’s strong libertarian streak puts off progressives, making them unwilling to even listen. I respect Gatto, I learned from Gatto, but I think his message is ineffective because anyone who tries to confirm the evil intentions of the people who most influenced our education system will instead find people with upstanding credentials and good intentions. I know this because I kept looking. I kept looking for people who had no respect for the masses and wanted to subjugate them through schooling. That isn’t what I found, I found idealism (and a good measure of respectable society offended by impropriety). The people who need to understand the great evil of compulsion believe too fully in its role for the common good, just like the people who originally influenced its creation and enforcement. Education is elevated by idealism. It is a gift…that can’t be refused.
    So I’ve been looking at the people who influenced this move toward compulsory education with an eye toward their idealism. The idealism, used to rationalize the removal of liberties to save people from themselves (and save the more privileged from the mistakes of the less-privileged), is the real culprit. How often have we been told that evil masquerades as good intention? We just fail to recognize it when we are the ones wearing the costume.
    I was thrilled to find your commentary on Fichte. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, since Fichte is also so closely tied to German Nationalism, but I’m not coming at this from an academic standpoint. I’m coming at it from a deeply personal position of injury, so I continue to be surprised when I find my thoughts so clearly reflected on the pages of professors. I think I’m taking an academic approach in order to keep from drowning in emotional diatribes that just put people off – and to check myself. I want to find out where I’m wrong. I don’t think ‘m wrong, but I am very much in danger of making hysterical arguments.
    It is an ironic truth. I am leaning on credentialed academia in my quest to knock academia off its high horse. I’m leaning on experts in my attempt to show that experts have no right to steal our souls.
    And I’m dying to be heard, thus the rambling comment.
    So now, I have two questions for you, if you are ever inclined to reply.
    First, I have come to see the compulsory nature of schooling as one of the biggest evils of our society. Do you agree that school should be compulsory? (I will search your site after I write this. I admit I haven’t looked for this answer. Like I said, I’m dying to be heard, so asking this way is more satisfying.)
    And second, isn’t it 70% bran? The first cup becomes 50% of the total, and the 40% of bran in the second cup becomes 20% of the total. 50 + 20 is 70. What am I missing?
    Oh, and a third question – Was Plato’s Republic serious? It sounded tongue in cheek the entire time I read/listened to it. It sounded like an illustration of how ridiculous it would be to try to engineer Utopia. It came across as a comedic account of drastic social control meant to discount the entire concept. Do you think there’s any chance that’s a valid interpretation?

  3. Thanks for your lengthy, thoughtful comment, Stephanie.
    About compulsory schooling: I think education is a core responsibility of parents, and schooling is only one possible way to do this. But schooling should not be compulsory. If there is clear evidence of parental neglect, then to protect the child the government can properly step in. But only then.
    Yes, 70%.
    Some interpretations of Plato emphasize the ironic elements. My view is that overall it’s to be taken straight.

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