Intellectual Apathy

The most intelligent species on Earth

It is very common to hear that the human species is different from all the other species known on Earth due to our high intelligence. It cannot be denied that as a species, we are generally more "sophisticated" than our fellow sentient creatures. It is common to hear that humanity is great because we built this and we invented that, but when we look closer, it appears that only a few humans do the actual heavy-lifting.

The goal of this short essay is not to belittle the intelligence of the common man. I have no doubt that if your life depended on it, you could become a rocket scientist (given enough time of course) and do complex mathematics. I've seen many people I wrongly assumed to be unintelligent display the capacity to come up with creative solutions and easily grasp concepts I struggled with. And this is exactly the object of my reflection. Why is it that despite our apparent fascination with human intelligence, only a minority seem naturally attracted to "intelligent stuff"? This is where my concept of pseudo-value can come handy.

How values drive our lives

Do you value money? Chances are, you do, like most people. Money allows us to acquire food, water and shelter, things we also value a lot, it is obvious then, why we would value money, it reflects in how we live our lives. Most of us wake up in the morning in order to get that money, we undergo long and painful years of school and college to learn skills we otherwise wouldn't care of, just in order raise our value in the labor market. It is clear then that we really value money.

But what about intelligence?

If you ask the average woman if she beauty, she'll likely say yes. And she'll have the behavior to back up her claim. Women spend an immense amount of money in beauty products, it is absolutely safe to believe that they value their physique more than men, but what if you asked about intelligence? I'd safely assume that she would give the same answer, yet, she spends almost nothing in cultivating intelligence and knowledge. This is what I mean by pseudo-value It is when (knowingly or not) your behavior does not match your claimed values.

But why do people even bother having values they cannot live by?

Nobody wants to look stupid

In my experience, people have generally an easier time admitting they are not wealthy or pretty, but few are comfortable saying "I am not smart". But at the same time, we rarely hear about people being insecure about their cognitive abilities, they exist, but they are dwarfed by physical related insecurities.

This suggests that we paradoxically attach a social importance to looking mentally fit enough, even if we don't use or maintain this fitness. We tacitly agree that each human being must have some baseline intelligence in order to be well functioning members of society.

For the average person, showing that you value intelligence is like showing that you value justice and generosity, even if you never give to charity.

a society always performs at the level of its lowest common denominator, not its peak achievers.

Let's face it, using your brain is hard. It is not intuitive. It requires special effort and attention. Like with workout, some people genuinely enjoy the pain, and some people hate it. Again, I'm not saying that the average Joe cannot run a marathon, I am not arguing over potential here, I am talking about the desire and the interest. If your life depended on it and if you had enough time, you could definitely learn hard mathematics, science and engineering, I don't doubt it a second. But people generally don't need to be threatened to be greedy, to like gossip, to want to dress well. Intelligence is just not a priority.

You don't need to force people to be greedy, to want material wealth, to want beauty, but you need to force them to get an education.

Most people are rather jealous of the wealthy, the beautiful, the powerful than the smart, educated and wise. Nobody sees a man that reads books all the day and knows a lot about the world and says: "Man, I am so jealous of his lifestyle". Yet there are entire TV shows dedicated to show the lifestyle of celebrities who are gossiping, shopping and showing of their wealth. Bragging about your material wealth or physical appearance is easier than bragging about your cultural capital.

If intelligence was a norm in our species, we wouldn't always be so amazed by our own intelligence. We would not have special terms to talk about smart people. We would not need to invest so much in education despite knowledge being virtually free as long as you have access to the internet.

Humans just happen sometimes to produce curious individuals that develop obsession with topics and invent something that makes everyone lives better. You just don't tell people to go and invent something. No, they usually settle with their current lifestyle. People who didn't have the wheel weren't depressed because they missed out on something, no, they just lived their life as a wheel-less society.

What do I consider as intellectual activities? Reading books, being interested in science, technology, literature, philosophy, playing chess or other intellectually demanding activities.

The human brain power is not unlimited. We have finite lifetime on Earth, and we are inherently social creatures. I suspect that most of our brainpower is used for coping with life in a society.

The possible causes

"Non-overlapping magisteria" (NOMA), a concept popularized by Stephen Jay Gould, suggests that science and religion address different, non-overlapping domains of inquiry, with science focusing on the empirical world and religion on matters of meaning, ethics, and values, thus avoiding potential conflict"

It feels that most of humanity has this kind of reasoning. The seem to think that as citizens, their only concern is them and their close family, or at best, their close neighborhood. They understand that they have to manage their own households, but almost nobody feels responsible for the situation and quality of the broader social organization.

"I don't need to be educated in X because someone else will do it"

"Someone else will do it, and this someone has my best interest in mind."

"If you cannot strive to offer the best services to strangers in exchange of minimum wage, what makes you believe that others will?"

We live in a world where we want people to immediately know, but we hate them for taking time to learn and master a topic. If you know a topic, that's cool and maybe impressive, but if you try to take a deep dive, people will call it a waste of time.

Whenever I want to implement a solution, I prefer drawing a diagram to make sure I understand the problem well. But the person who wants me to implement the solution is looking over my shoulder and I feel the pressure to hurry up and pretend I understand the whole problem and just start to implement the solution already. The more time I take to design and plan, the more angry the person looks to me. It feels like "I don't care if you understand the problem, just solve it already!"