Contentious plea for boosting intelligence as the key to a
classless society. Although he rejects the Marxist model, Itzkoff
(Education and Child Study/Smith College; Human Intelligence and
National Power, 1991, etc. - not reviewed) believes in a classless
society, which he defines as one with no hereditary castes, no
poverty, no long-held family wealth. How to attain this utopia?
Through a "social policy aimed at raising intelligence levels in
all populations." And how to produce that bit of magic? By
encouraging the brainy to have large families and the, ahem,
"educationally and socially less competent" to go childless. This,
of course, is eugenics - and as Itzkoff says, the word raises all
sorts of red flags. Nonetheless, he makes a strong case (as does
Daniel Seligman in A Question of Intelligence, p. 1048) that
intelligence is biologically based, largely hereditary, and crucial
to individual success as well as to the rise and fall of
civilizations. Such a view is dicey these days, as almost all
government programs share the premise (which Itzkoff calls
"demonology") that poverty, crime, and even low I.Q. scores are the
spawn of environmental evils. In an analysis ranging from the
evolution of Cro-Magnon man to the dogmas of radical feminism,
Itzkoff argues that raw intelligence can overcome all obstacles;
that not all cultural developments are equal; and that America's
social decline stems from a drop in "on-average intelligence
levels." Perhaps because his views are unfashionable, Itzkoff
writes like a man with his back against the wall, ridiculing
liberals, populists, socialists, and feminists at every turn, and
spiking his logic with taunts and sneers ("social psychologists,
please explain...."; "Do not ask members of the media that
question....") - a posture somewhat compensated for by his moral
passion and abundant cleverness (one chapter is cast as a speech by
Plato, another as a letter to the President-elect, 1996). The road
to equality, paved with good intentions - and reams of barbed wire.
(Kirkus Reviews)
Why does poverty exist? Why is there social pathology and human
degradation? Is it always because of oppression and discrimination?
No, says Professor Seymour Itzkoff of Smith College. The real
reason is the tragedy of low human intelligence, and the consequent
inability of humans to compete in highly complex and dynamic
economic and social environments. "The Road to Equality: Evolution
and Social Reality," contains Itzkoff's highly controversial
analysis of the failures of the welfare approach to helping the
poor. It also contains his radical solution to the perennial
problems of inequality in nations and the consequent turmoil and
revolution. Equalize the intelligence of your nation, Itzkoff
argues, and you will soon eliminate the tragic social and economic
differences between large portions of the population. It is high
intelligence in groups of humans that create civilization and
prosperity in the first place. Merely placing individuals of lower
intelligence in such environments has not ensured their success.
And it never will, predicts the professor, because it violates the
facts of our evolutionary and sociobiological nature.
The 21st century will change the relationship of nations to each
other in the most radical manner that history has ever seen. The
requirements of technological competency have put a premium on high
educable intelligence. Even today we see that nations of uniformly
high intelligence of various racial and ethnic heritage are pulling
away from those with lower national intellectual profiles. Itzkoff
writes that many of the social pathologies in nations such as the
United States, as well as their relative economic decline can be so
attributed. The future of human equality, he concludes, must lie in
an international resolve to face up to the most basic challenge to
world peace, the variability of intelligence in the human
species.
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