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Why Do Some People Value Intelligence Over Goodness?


Including many people who really should know better.

Shouldn't we value decency and goodness in our elites and professionals over whether they can jump over some arbitrary and snooty academic hoops set by a bunch of elitist a-holes?

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I would correlate intelligence with the possibility of what I would view as positive change in a persons character.

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That sounds like emotional intelligence to me as opposed to academic intelligence.

But why are we more inclined to forgive and rehabilitate intelligent people who have committed serious crimes, like the doctor who went off to join ISIS and now wants the opportunity to come back to the UK to serve as an NHS doctor, than we are with less intelligent people who have committed no crimes and have never affiliated with any type of terrorist organisation?

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Intelligence, like your comment has shown can be viewed as more than a specific type. Some might be in dealing with the auditory, or the visual, or the scientific aspect of reality. Of course also there is an IQ range of how one might treat other people or beings.
I believe more intelligent people will generally be more sensitive to their environment and other peoples communicable thoughts/feelings than the average person, therefor less likely to return to committing wrong once they realize that they made a mistake.
Hopefully this is a sufficient answer to your question.

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I dont' think intelligence has a correlation with how wrongdoing or sensitive they are. It just means they make a better criminal. Too many other factors: childhood, mental-illness, physiology, (possibly DNA) and ego play a part in how good/honest a person is.

But, the OP is right: people are valued based on superficial qualities, at least at first-- while the better person has to struggle more to be seen as equally valuable, if not more. I find the majority of the population to be generally dishonest and they assume everyone is like them

..So much for "God's Children"

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So you're saying some people are not intelligent enough to value goodness over intelligence?

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In some ways, yes.

But bear in mind that high intelligence, particularly high academic intelligence, does not necessarily equate to good judgement.

The surgeon who went to fight for ISIS in Syria is no doubt a highly gifted and brilliant medic, but in terms of his judgement, he is arguably an idiot.

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That sounds like a loaded question to me.

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Forget the rest of my post, the question 'Why Do Some People Value Intelligence Over Goodness?' is fairly open.

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It's a question of degrees. For example, I would say that the ability to "jump over some arbitrary and snooty academic hoops set by a bunch of elitist a-holes" only demonstrates a very basic level of intelligence and certainly not the type that I would value in any significant way. But a truly brilliant neurosurgeon could be a complete ass who parks his car across three spots and who takes lollipops from children, and yet I would still accord him a very high value.

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I wanted to be a doctor as a kid. I was a smart, conscientious, high-achieving student, but I had an illness and had to leave school, and I was thus deprived of any adequate science teaching from 15 onwards.

Yet, I am a good person. I am conscientious, I am a hard-worker, I am empathetic, I am compassionate, I am open-minded, I am constantly learning. Shouldn't I have the opportunity to practice medicine over a brilliant neurosurgeon who also happens to be an utter asshole, a criminal or a terrorist sympathiser?

Wouldn't your best friend prefer to be in the care of a good person rather than a jerk? And even if that good person is a less gifted doctor than the asshole, shouldn't we sacrifice the importance we put on hoop-jumping for the greater good?

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You've pushed way past your original proposition by casually adding "criminal or terrorist sympathiser" alongside "asshole".

When there are only a handful of people in the world with the skill and experience to deal with a given medical issue, and when the doctor in question literally wrote the book on the surgical management of it, I couldn't care less if he is an asshole.


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Okay, fair point.

But maybe we should be investing more resources in educating good people to become the best lawyers, doctors, engineers, architects, politicians and so on, in the world.

We're now living in an era where we are routinely scandalised by the bad behaviour of celebs and other people in privileged positions, and yet, what do we expect? We don't promote morality in our education system. We don't give support and display favouritism to good people. We're still very materialistic and results-orientated, and yet we feign surprise when our elites turn out to be less admirable human-beings than we'd like them to be.

If we truly want our 'best and brightest' to promote moral goodness we should do more to support the moral in ascending the professional ladder.

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[deleted]

We also need to take the view that intelligence is mostly learned.

With the exception of a minority of individuals at either end of the IQ scale, most people are capable of improving their intelligence levels via extensive learning, education and training, yet we all buy into this determinist and frankly problematic notion (in terms of race, gender, class and other identity-based factors) that geniuses are born.

We also need to clamp down on the possibility of designer babies, before it's too late, and instead work harder to equalise the educational system, and improve standards across the board. I don't know whether that means abolishing private schools, but it certainly means depriving them of charitable status, and putting more investment into the public/state sector. It also might mean guaranteeing elite university/college spaces for the highest performing pupils from all public/state schools.

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[deleted]

Sure, but there are also plenty of geniuses who didn't cut off their ears, just as there are plenty of crazies who, alas, possess no genius. We're just inclined to focus on the few examples of highly intelligent and mentally unstable individuals because they make for the most compelling case-studies.

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Seems like the ideal choice in educating a workforce is to provide them the training to practice in multiple fields of their choosing or government directed in return for financial assistance to open up the gate of entry to everyone. This way, should shifts in the industries or economies happen, it doesn't create a snowball effect where tons of people are laid-off from their jobs all at once.

They will be able to weather the storm having job protection. Hard times means people will have to learn the trades of their parents in times where opportunities are hard to come by and can get really good at doing something in particular. Hopefully, I'm still following your topic.

~~/o/

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why not both ??

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Better to have both, intelligence and goodness. Opens a lot of doors.

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Sure, it would be better to be intelligent, good, good-looking, athletic, rich and amazing in bed, but in this instance that isn't the choice I'm presenting.

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This explains all of your previous lashing out content on this board. You obviously have jealousy, self-esteem issues.

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We ALL have self-esteem issues.

Anyone who says they don't is lying, or is a computer.

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So you're conceding then that this has been the driving force behind your input here.

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The driving force behind ALL my input here?

No, definitely not.

The driving force behind about 10% or less of my posting?

Possibly.

But if you knew anything about my background, and how my education was unfairly stalled when I was a kid, you'd understand why this is such a big deal for me.

You'd also understand why I am so frustrated by the effect my OCD and Anxiety Disorder has on my life prospects.

I discovered recently that I correctly answered 100% of all the questions I responded to in a comprehension test, but I was deemed not to have met the required 75% pass rate since I didn't get around to answering all the questions. My OCD and Anxiety Disorder causes me to check and recheck my responses to these answers and thus curtails my ability to complete such tests in an allotted time.

This is ridiculous for a number of reasons: firstly, before my OCD and Anxiety Disorder manifested, I was getting a 100% pass rate in comprehension tests (so it's only as a consequence of my disability/illness that I have since struggled); secondly, if I was dyslexic I'd be granted extra time to complete such tests (so why is my disability/illness treated differently even though its impact is equally, if not more, detrimental?); and thirdly, in the real world, most decisions are not subject to a timer. It's a ridiculous and arbitrary scenario that doesn't apply to the real world, where, if anything, diligence and thorough checking is preferable to haste.

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We ALL experience angst in today's uncertain world. What makes your experience so unique? There are many more inspirational stories of people overcoming hardships, handicaps on a daily basis that eclipse your constant whining.

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Reading some of your comments I'm a little confused if you mean intelligence or education? Those two are not necessarily
synonymous.

I'm also wondering who we are valuing these traits in. Are they just the elites? Who makes these elites?

If I'm looking to cultivate a community in my life, I want people who are both good and intelligent. A person need not have the best education, but the ability to think critically is a must.

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A person need not have the best education, but the ability to think critically is a must.
This is very true, but surely that doesn't mean they necessarily attended an Ivy League school, or that they're a top surgeon.

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I'm just not really sure what it is that you are asking. No one in my circle has attended an Ivy league school. Although the University that I attended in my province one of the top schools in Canada. But that doesn't make me intelligent. I just don't see why each option needs to be exclusive. One can be good and intelligent.

I think that looking at people in ways that makes them just one way or another is a bit of a disservice. I'm much more complicated than just being A or B

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