councilor.org
| Source | M. Raghu |
| Date | 13/07/16/17:06 |
| Carrol Cox cbcox@ilstu.edu wrote:
I think it was Hobbes who said something to the effect tht there was more difference between two dogs than between any two persons. But if you go back and read comments on Bush both on this list and lbo-talk you will find innumerable posts which focus on Bush's "stu0idity." In other words, leftists often find it impossible to talk about a politician or a theorist without implying that there is a difference of intelligence involved. But intelligence (intellect) is NOT a feature of persons; it is a matter of context. A person is either intelligent or unintelligent in relation to contexts. All statements aboaut the intelligence or lack of it in individuals are false. Bush was obviously more intelligent than Obama, since Obama has been able to do nothing except cross the t's and dot thei's and add italics to Bush's policy initiativesd. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ THAT WAS PROBABLY me. I continue to maintain that Barack Obama is objectively a more intelligent man than George W. Bush. Your argument above is a fallacy. You start with one idea (there is something called "intelligence" that can be measured by IQ tests and is an innate quality of individuals and is inheritable in large measure, and there are identifiable DNA segments that determine this quality in individuals). You rightly recognize the absurdity of this idea. But then you use this as a straw-man to infer and assert the extreme opposite of this idea ("there is no such thing as "intelligence". every human being is equally intelligent depending entirely on context"). I say nonsense. Intelligence is like beauty - it may be in the eyes of the beer-holder, but there are attractive people and there are ugly people. -raghu. |
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