Smart is Stupid

I come from a background where one of the greatest virtues a person can have is being smart. By smart, I mean some combination of high test scores and a little original thinking, nested in a fairly conformist, eager-to-please personality.

It's smart to think logically. "Common sense is for the common man." But how do you change common sense? With logic?

It's smart to go along with the assumptions made by other smart people because they're probably older and more powerful than you. "Don't publish that. You'll never write again in this town." But how are ideas challenged?

It's smart to suppress all but the most restrained emotions. "For heaven's sake, don't get mad. You'll end up with a criminal record or worse yet, ostracized." But how does a lack of passion get people on your side, or spell out what's right or wrong?

For the record, I'm guilty of mindlessly working towards all of these ideals of smartness.

But I'm reminded again and again by others in this struggle just how limiting this fixation on smartness can be to keeping an open mind for oneself, or for opening the minds of others. Sure, I want a smart guy performing brain surgery, but do I want him as a leader? I can't count how many times I've heard that people in the hinterlands are stupid, uneducated, or don't know what's good for them. I won't attempt to refute any of that here. Why? Because it's mostly irrelevant. Here's why smart doesn't matter so much:

1. People with decent social skills, a middle-class background, and a work ethic are just as likely (if not more) to become rich and powerful. Being smart isn't in the top three. A 1600 on the SATs doesn't help you make eye contact, give you connections, or give you motivation to do things you don't want to do but have to. Neither does the high-falutin college degree that follows.

2. All people, smart or stupid, are allowed to vote. We all have the same rights to a decent life. An intelligence test at the ballot box might lead to a smarter government, but it's unfathomably immoral. Which means: If you want someone to vote the way you vote, you need to change their minds.

3. If the NPR bi-coastal set is so smart, why can't they convince stupid people to believe what they believe? How smart can you be if nobody cares about your ideas? It seems pretty stupid to keep rattling on about what's logical, parsimonious, or prudent when people understand things in stories, or on moral terms.

It's time for everybody who aspires to smartness to step back and consider some other virtues.
Emotions matter, and not just as some formality of communication. Emotions motivate people to do things, like voting for the smart guy you want in power. Logic just says whether something makes sense or not.

Having real respect for everyone, no matter how smart or stupid they are, matters. Nothing kills a movement like bad faith. People will one day realize just how cynical and condescending the other side is. They will see their leaders as they are: Ivy League oilmen and Wall Street insiders putting on an "aw shucks" demeanor. People will feel mass revulsion for being played for saps. But not until someone else offers them some real respect.

Franklin Roosevelt was as elitist as they come, but he spoke to people. He really cared about what they thought, or how they felt. It wasn't an empty exercise. At least that's how it looked. People don't hate elites or intellectuals-- they hate people who treat them like they're not.

It's time for some humility. Smart doesn't matter as much as we might think. We're not as great as our test scores or our abilities to reason. We're as great as our influence on the world.