“Intelligence has largely moved out of politics” titled an article in the german online magazine Telepolis recently. And indeed, if you have been following german politics for the past few years, there is no intelligence to be seen, our current “leaders” are mostly busy staying in place. But if you thought that is a personal fault of them, and a recent occurance, then think again for there is something else going on, and has been for a while.
And don’t be mistaken thinking this is only a german phenomenon. Berlusconi in Italy is of the same kind, and the USA had their low point with Bush Jr. and was lucky to have avoided Palin, the only way to get lower than Bush.
But actively avoiding intelligence is not a new feature of politics, nor is it limited to that field. Rather, society as a whole is fairly intelligence-averse, with those who use their brains best being outsiders.
Here is a quote from 1933, from “Science and Sanity” by Alfred Korzybski. He speaks about the differences of USA-based capitalism and USSR-based socialism and then says (original emphasis):
The United States of America proclaimed the doctrine that man is “free and independent”, while, in fact, he is not free, but is inherently interdependent. The Soviets accepted uncritically an unrevised antiquated doctrine of the “dictatorship of the proletarians”. In practice, this would mean the dictatorship of unenlightened masses, which, if left actually to their creeds, and deprived of the brain-work of scientists and leaders, would revert to primitive forms of animal life. Obviously, these two extreme creeds violate every typically human characteristic. We are interdependent, time-binders, and we are interdependent because we possess the higher nervous centres, which complexity animals do not possess. Without these higher centres, we could not be human at all; both countries seem to disregard this fact, as in both the brain-work is exploited, yet the brain-workers are not properly evaluated. The ignorant mob, with its historically and psycho-logically cultivated animalistic s.r. [semantic reactions], retards human progress and agreement. Leaders do not lead, but the majority play down to the mob psycho-logics, in fear of their heads or stomachs.
In both countries, the s.r. [semantic reactions] are such that brain-work, although commercially exploited, is not properly evaluated, and is still persecuted here and there. For instance, in the United States of America, we witness court trials and resolutions against the work of Darwin, in spite of the fact that without some theory of evolution most of the natural sciences, medicine included, would be impossible.
Let me repeat that this was written in 1933, not in 2003, and yet so little has changed. If anything, we have seen the bloom of this trend these past few decades, with our “leaders” having devolved into managers, and like managers their primary concern is staying in power. Progress is not a keyword in politics anymore.
The other part has not changed, either. Scientists are not given the credits they deserve at all. If you compare income figures for top managers and top scientists, you would be hard pressed to explain these with their contributions to society, especially considering the long term.
And we still have persecution, in fact the precise example that Korybski picked is still the hot topic of the day.
What we are experiencing in politics today – the exit of intelligence – is not new at all. It is maybe more visible than it used to, as politicians are more blatant than ever and those capable of anything at all have long since moved into the commercial sphere where the payment is a lot better.
