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Smart people aren't immune to brainwashing. If anything--they're more susceptible. http://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscience/dp/07167338

Smart people aren't immune to brainwashing. If anything--they're more susceptible. http://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscience/dp/0716733870 http://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscie... is a great book on the topic.

jamesbritt 17y ago
Years back I used to go to Mensa meetings in NYC and found that the most distinguishing feature of the crowd was not what the thought or believed, but how they expressed themselves. Overall, the Mensa folk (for the sake of argument, "smart people") believed much the same things as the average person on the street, but they had a much better vocabulary. (Actually, one thing else was interesting: beliefs held seemed to be more extreme. E.g., higher numbers of hard-core socialists and libertarians than mainstream population.)
- grandalf 17y ago
  interesting... I have always wondered about the correlation between intellect and the decision to make huge life decisions based on one's own beliefs. Simply having a consistent set of beliefs (or seeing the inconsistency in mainstream beliefs) will make someone seem more like a hard core libertarian or socialist. But what does it take for such a person to hit the street and start trying to make change happen? Are such people ever revolutionaries? Or are they content to have a logically consistent worldview but sit on the sidelines?
  - swombat 17y ago
    Historically, most famous revolutionaries, from Che Guevara to Ghandi or Trotsky, were well educated, often coming from solid middle-class backgrounds (e.g. Che Guevara was the son of a doctor).
    - tome 17y ago
      Che was a doctor himself, according to http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/g/u.htm http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/g/u.htm
      - swombat 17y ago
        Sure, but being a doctor himself doesn't mean he was from a middle class background. The fact that his father was a doctor, though, does.
    - grandalf 17y ago
      So you think intellect is not correlated with revolutionary-ness?

jamesbritt 17y ago

Years back I used to go to Mensa meetings in NYC and found that the most distinguishing feature of the crowd was not what the thought or believed, but how they expressed themselves. Overall, the Mensa folk (for the sake of argument, "smart people") believed much the same things as the average person on the street, but they had a much better vocabulary. (Actually, one thing else was interesting: beliefs held seemed to be more extreme. E.g., higher numbers of hard-core socialists and libertarians than mainstream population.)

grandalf 17y ago
interesting... I have always wondered about the correlation between intellect and the decision to make huge life decisions based on one's own beliefs. Simply having a consistent set of beliefs (or seeing the inconsistency in mainstream beliefs) will make someone seem more like a hard core libertarian or socialist. But what does it take for such a person to hit the street and start trying to make change happen? Are such people ever revolutionaries? Or are they content to have a logically consistent worldview but sit on the sidelines?
- swombat 17y ago
  Historically, most famous revolutionaries, from Che Guevara to Ghandi or Trotsky, were well educated, often coming from solid middle-class backgrounds (e.g. Che Guevara was the son of a doctor).
  - tome 17y ago
    Che was a doctor himself, according to http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/g/u.htm http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/g/u.htm
    - swombat 17y ago
      Sure, but being a doctor himself doesn't mean he was from a middle class background. The fact that his father was a doctor, though, does.
  - grandalf 17y ago
    So you think intellect is not correlated with revolutionary-ness?