The Bright Person’s Burden

I have written enough about intelligence for my regular readers to know that I do not consider the average person to be very bright. In fact the average person has an IQ below the nominal average of 100. An IQ of 100 has traditionally been regarded as the minimum necessary for (genuinely) achieving a high school diploma. Consider it— the average person is below average. But worse, on the bell shaped curve, almost half the population are even dumber. This is considered taboo to say openly, but it’s an undeniable fact that we are surrounded by the dumb and dumber. That explains a lot, doesn’t it?

If you are reading this, it is likely that your intelligence is way better than average. You are probably a college graduate with an IQ of at least 120. Knowing many of you personally, I am aware it is probably a good deal higher. Intelligence relative to IQ rises not linearly, but exponentially, meaning for every additional IQ point actual brain power goes up by much more than a factor of one.

The advantage of being a smart person is that you are much more likely to be successful in many aspects of life and to have a fuller and more rewarding experience as you go through it. Given the choice, I doubt any of you would choose to be less intelligent. But I’m guessing you are also aware that being a smart person comes with a downside.

It means you will ever be burdened with the need to navigate through a world that is geared to and peopled by the less intelligent. The much less intelligent. In your day to day life you will always be looking for ways to avoid being held back by the bovine herd, yet will have to conceal your frustration if you are to get along with your fellow Man. This is impossible for people who are “on the spectrum,” those who often have high IQs as well as a dearth of social skills.

I remember the first person I took on in my practice who had Aspergers syndrome. He was a puzzle to me until I read up on that diagnosis. It had been only recently documented. This fellow was constantly angry and frustrated with the people he had to deal with and minced no words letting them know his harsh opinions of them. Needless to say he was a lonely, unhappy soul.

One important caveat must be noted. Not all slow people are stupid. Some are just very meticulous or have perceptual styles that make them more aware of minutia and details than of the big picture. I don’t mean to demean them. Still, bright though they may be, they, too, can be frustrating to deal with.

It is incumbent on those who possess superior intellect to cultivate the social skills and self-control required to suffer the fools they encounter in the course of their lives and to exercise the utmost restraint and patience despite their frustration. This is a learned skill that in itself puts a strain on our intellectual faculties as well as on our patience.

When I read opinion polls and see what most people believe it is hard for me to fathom how completely they misunderstand current events and how weak is their grasp on science, civics and history. They don’t see the causality of things and they miss the forest for the trees. And, God save us, these people vote. This has led to clueless politicians, elected by the clueless. These officials, in concert with their power hungry motivation, reel through the process of governance inefficiently and ineffectually. They contribute to the creation of a state of affairs that is detrimental to the well-being of us all.

The burden of the intelligent is that they must constantly be disappointed with the state of things and must struggle mightily against adopting a cynical, fatalistic view of the human race. They must live with the disappointment of knowing the way things should be and the certainty that they will never be so.

The burden is a heavy one. It makes simply getting by in the world often feel like a Sisyphean exercise. But what choice do we have other than to keep on pushing that rock? After all, the alternatives are even less appealing.