I’d suggest something that is related to what you’re saying: the problem isn’t that “I’m a genius” is an objective statement. The problem is that a statement made with more objectivity than is warranted.
The person saying this thinks it makes him objectively better. It doens’t just apply to intelligence; consider “I’m a model” versus “I’m beautiful”. The latter would get negative reactions. Stating that you’re a secret agent is actually an objective statement; you either are or you’re not. Stating that you’re a genius is likely to be interpreted as a general claim of mental superiority that is somewhat based on objective characteristics, but not by as much as you’re claiming it to be.
Even if the person claiming to be a genius says “I have high IQ” instead, I’ve observed that people on Less Wrong give much higher credence to IQ than people outside Less Wrong. Telling an average person that you have a high IQ is telling him “I believe I am objectively superior, but I’m basing my belief on this number that is very narrowly applicable, doesn’t capture all of what we mean by intelligence, and many of whose past uses have been discredited.”
Oh good point. Okay. I think that objectivity might be the problem with “Hi, I’m a genius.” but I’m not sure that’s the problem with “Hi, I’m gifted.” I’ll try another thought experiment on non-objective statements:
“Hi, I’m nice.”
“Hi, I’m gifted.”
“Hi, I’m beautiful.”
“Hi, I’m awesome.”
“Hi, I’m wonderful.”
Hmm, the problem with these is that nice, awesome, wonderful and beautiful all refer to traits that are too small in scope or too vague to make good identity claims. As such, my instinct is to question them with “Why are you saying this?” and the default motive that comes to mind is that the person is arrogant. However, being gifted is correlated with a lot of personality traits and neurological differences—so it is large enough in scope to be a key part of a person’s identity. The reason I’m interested in this is because it appears to me that if a key part of your identity is that you are an artist, a dyslexic, or a Southerner, you can say so without being instantly rejected by most of the population for being “arrogant” while the closest you can get, it seems, to being able to make a claim having to do with a gifted identity (without being rejected for arrogance) is to say “Hi, I’m a nerd.”—but that has the opposite problem. People reject it because nerdiness is automatically associated with being socially undesirable.
I want to try a different angle. Two questions:
Do you think giftedness or high IQ are likely to play a large role in influencing a person’s personality, views or lifestyle?
Do you see any way to make a claim that giftedness or high IQ are a large part of one’s identity without a high risk of rejection?
If you do not see any way to make such a claim without a high risk, then why do you think that is?
I think what you’re telling me in the last paragraph is “Making claims about your IQ makes you sound dodgy because people feel really skeptical about IQ scores.” If that’s it, that is a really good point, too. +1 Karma.
Do you think giftedness or high IQ are likely to play a large role in influencing a person’s personality, views or lifestyle?
I think this is probably more true in the US than in a lot of other places. Our cultural habit of steering intellectually (and especially mathematically) gifted kids into the “nerd” pigeonhole and concomitant subculture doesn’t seem to be well reflected in the rest of the world.
I am interested in finding out what the rest of the world does and how you found out about their reactions to intellectually gifted people. I’d also be interested in finding out why you think this happens in America but not everywhere else. Would you mind sharing?
The nerd subculture certainly exists (with local variations) in Europe and East Asia, but the impression I get is that it’s coupled less to childhood intelligence and more to that subculture’s various touchstones: you’re about as likely to identify as a nerd if you like, say, literary sci-fi, but being smarter than the average bear isn’t as good a predictor of liking SF.
I don’t know why this happens, but I suspect it has something to do with the American educational system. It’s pretty uncommon among industrialized countries to keep education (more or less) unified as late as 12th grade, and under these circumstances I can see intellectuality coming to be associated with a subcultural alignment; whereas under something like the German system, classes would end up being fragmented along giftedness lines before strong subcultural cliques form. Still, I’m looking at this through American eyes, and people that’ve actually been through those systems might have a more accurate take on it.
I’ve also been reading some stuff lately that suggests the association was much weaker as late as the Fifties and early Sixties, even in the US, but I’m not sure how much I trust it.
One of the more distinctive features of the US system is the the connection to youth sports. Other countries play sports, obviously, but the US model tends to locate competitive sports programs inside schools, from middle school on up through college.
That started in the mid-1800′s, in the northeast, and it spread from there, both laterally to other colleges and vertically, down to high schools. But it took a long time for it to become as effort-intensive as it is now, and there was a pretty significant spike in intensity after World War II, when colleges grew quickly and families bought more televisions and radios and schools could afford to field more teams.
Pretty slim connection, obviously. But if you’re looking for an effect that could plausibly rearrange social groups in age-segregated communities, sports fits the bill. And if you’re looking for a another milieu that tends to brand and shun obsessive pursuits (NOT giftedness—but earnest, obsessive pursuits like we tend to identify with nerd subculture), you might look to the concept of sprezzatura among the sporting aristocracy.
if you’re looking for a another milieu that tends to brand and shun obsessive pursuits … you might look to the concept of sprezzatura among the sporting aristocracy.
Hmm… that’s an interesting idea—that the existence of a mainstream sporting culture which shuns one of the traits that nerds have in common might have scared off a larger proportion of the people who are not gifted from the nerd subculture? Thanks for this idea. +1 karma.
I have never heard of this “sporting aristrocracy”—is that a term you made up on the spot for this context, or am I just unaware of this term?
I don’t think “sporting aristocracy” has much currency as a phrase. I mean the class of European aristocrats to whom the trades and business and educations suitable for the trades and business were mostly taboo (they could be warriors or clergy or, until the field was professionalized, scientists). The men hunted and sailed and raced and rowed. They also invented the various types of football, and started intercollegiate athletics in the US.
See The Shooting Party for an example: Lord Hartlip is a good shot, but is ashamed to be seen practicing. Also Chariots of Fire in which Lord Lindsay “trains” by jumping hurdles topped with flutes of champaign and is contrasted with Harold Abrahams, the Jewish runner who hires a professional coach. Goes all the way back past Baldassare Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier, which discusses the way a true gentleman does everything right while making it seem easy and unpracticed.
It’s pretty uncommon among industrialized countries to keep education (more or less) unified as late as 12th grade, and under these circumstances I can see intellectuality coming to be associated with a subcultural alignment; whereas under something like the German system, classes would end up being fragmented along giftedness lines before strong subcultural cliques form.
That’s an interesting factor, but I question whether it is a cause, or a symptom (which potentially has effects similar to the original cause). I ask “Why did America choose to deny gifted and talented children a chance to develop their abilities to the fullest for longer than any other country?” (I’d love to see a citation for that by the way!)
I think the root cause might actually be the “immortal declaration” of Thomas Jefferson, located in the opening of the United States Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…
When a country’s most important concept is human rights, and the most prominent argument in support of human rights is the belief that you are created equal, you’re essentially in a situation where your country was founded on the belief that giftedness does not exist.
It seems to me that when people reject gifted identity claims, their true objection is not that it’s arrogant to claim high status or that it’s socially unacceptable to say good things about yourself but that they’re interpreting “created equal” to mean something similar to “equal abilities” or “mentally equal” and experience conflict(s) along the lines of:
If I some people are not equal, does that mean human rights don’t exist?
If I agree that this person is unequal and they’re the better one, do I have to give up my rights to them or give them special treatment?
If this person is claiming to be unequal, are they also trying to demand the right to take my rights away or extract something extra from me so they can have unequal rights?
If I let myself believe that people aren’t equals, is that morally wrong?
Even though I think the problem runs deeper than the theory you presented, I am glad to have it. If America is denying children the chance to develop to the fullest for longer than other countries, that’s certainly going to have some kind of an effect and it’s good additional information to have. Thank you; +1 karma.
* There are plenty of other status claims and good things you can say about yourself that don’t provoke negative reactions—see the thought experiments in this thread.
Hmm, the problem with these is that nice, awesome, wonderful and beautiful all refer to traits that are too small in scope or too vague to make good identity claims.
I would argue that 1) “too vague” is just a subclass of “claims to be more objective than is warranted” and 2) “gifted” is in fact as vague as the other examples.
I think what you’re telling me in the last paragraph is “Making claims about your IQ makes you sound dodgy because people feel really skeptical about IQ scores.”
Yes, but that’s not all of it. The point is that because people are skeptical about IQ, making a claim about your IQ says (to such people) “I think I am objectively better, but I’m basing that claim on something which cannot support it”.
I want to try a different angle. Two questions:
Three, sir.
If you do not see any way to make such a claim without a high risk, then why do you think that is?
Because you can’t disentangle such a claim from a claim of being objectively superior (and specifically, an unjustified claim of being objectively superior). Being nice or beautiful can certainly influence your personality, views, or lifestyle and you can’t go around claiming those either. It’s not a problem unique to giftedness.
I’d suggest something that is related to what you’re saying: the problem isn’t that “I’m a genius” is an objective statement. The problem is that a statement made with more objectivity than is warranted.
The person saying this thinks it makes him objectively better. It doens’t just apply to intelligence; consider “I’m a model” versus “I’m beautiful”. The latter would get negative reactions. Stating that you’re a secret agent is actually an objective statement; you either are or you’re not. Stating that you’re a genius is likely to be interpreted as a general claim of mental superiority that is somewhat based on objective characteristics, but not by as much as you’re claiming it to be.
Even if the person claiming to be a genius says “I have high IQ” instead, I’ve observed that people on Less Wrong give much higher credence to IQ than people outside Less Wrong. Telling an average person that you have a high IQ is telling him “I believe I am objectively superior, but I’m basing my belief on this number that is very narrowly applicable, doesn’t capture all of what we mean by intelligence, and many of whose past uses have been discredited.”
Oh good point. Okay. I think that objectivity might be the problem with “Hi, I’m a genius.” but I’m not sure that’s the problem with “Hi, I’m gifted.” I’ll try another thought experiment on non-objective statements:
“Hi, I’m nice.”
“Hi, I’m gifted.”
“Hi, I’m beautiful.”
“Hi, I’m awesome.”
“Hi, I’m wonderful.”
Hmm, the problem with these is that nice, awesome, wonderful and beautiful all refer to traits that are too small in scope or too vague to make good identity claims. As such, my instinct is to question them with “Why are you saying this?” and the default motive that comes to mind is that the person is arrogant. However, being gifted is correlated with a lot of personality traits and neurological differences—so it is large enough in scope to be a key part of a person’s identity. The reason I’m interested in this is because it appears to me that if a key part of your identity is that you are an artist, a dyslexic, or a Southerner, you can say so without being instantly rejected by most of the population for being “arrogant” while the closest you can get, it seems, to being able to make a claim having to do with a gifted identity (without being rejected for arrogance) is to say “Hi, I’m a nerd.”—but that has the opposite problem. People reject it because nerdiness is automatically associated with being socially undesirable.
I want to try a different angle. Two questions:
Do you think giftedness or high IQ are likely to play a large role in influencing a person’s personality, views or lifestyle?
Do you see any way to make a claim that giftedness or high IQ are a large part of one’s identity without a high risk of rejection?
If you do not see any way to make such a claim without a high risk, then why do you think that is?
I think what you’re telling me in the last paragraph is “Making claims about your IQ makes you sound dodgy because people feel really skeptical about IQ scores.” If that’s it, that is a really good point, too. +1 Karma.
I think this is probably more true in the US than in a lot of other places. Our cultural habit of steering intellectually (and especially mathematically) gifted kids into the “nerd” pigeonhole and concomitant subculture doesn’t seem to be well reflected in the rest of the world.
I am interested in finding out what the rest of the world does and how you found out about their reactions to intellectually gifted people. I’d also be interested in finding out why you think this happens in America but not everywhere else. Would you mind sharing?
The nerd subculture certainly exists (with local variations) in Europe and East Asia, but the impression I get is that it’s coupled less to childhood intelligence and more to that subculture’s various touchstones: you’re about as likely to identify as a nerd if you like, say, literary sci-fi, but being smarter than the average bear isn’t as good a predictor of liking SF.
I don’t know why this happens, but I suspect it has something to do with the American educational system. It’s pretty uncommon among industrialized countries to keep education (more or less) unified as late as 12th grade, and under these circumstances I can see intellectuality coming to be associated with a subcultural alignment; whereas under something like the German system, classes would end up being fragmented along giftedness lines before strong subcultural cliques form. Still, I’m looking at this through American eyes, and people that’ve actually been through those systems might have a more accurate take on it.
I’ve also been reading some stuff lately that suggests the association was much weaker as late as the Fifties and early Sixties, even in the US, but I’m not sure how much I trust it.
One of the more distinctive features of the US system is the the connection to youth sports. Other countries play sports, obviously, but the US model tends to locate competitive sports programs inside schools, from middle school on up through college.
That started in the mid-1800′s, in the northeast, and it spread from there, both laterally to other colleges and vertically, down to high schools. But it took a long time for it to become as effort-intensive as it is now, and there was a pretty significant spike in intensity after World War II, when colleges grew quickly and families bought more televisions and radios and schools could afford to field more teams.
Pretty slim connection, obviously. But if you’re looking for an effect that could plausibly rearrange social groups in age-segregated communities, sports fits the bill. And if you’re looking for a another milieu that tends to brand and shun obsessive pursuits (NOT giftedness—but earnest, obsessive pursuits like we tend to identify with nerd subculture), you might look to the concept of sprezzatura among the sporting aristocracy.
Hmm… that’s an interesting idea—that the existence of a mainstream sporting culture which shuns one of the traits that nerds have in common might have scared off a larger proportion of the people who are not gifted from the nerd subculture? Thanks for this idea. +1 karma.
I have never heard of this “sporting aristrocracy”—is that a term you made up on the spot for this context, or am I just unaware of this term?
I don’t think “sporting aristocracy” has much currency as a phrase. I mean the class of European aristocrats to whom the trades and business and educations suitable for the trades and business were mostly taboo (they could be warriors or clergy or, until the field was professionalized, scientists). The men hunted and sailed and raced and rowed. They also invented the various types of football, and started intercollegiate athletics in the US.
See The Shooting Party for an example: Lord Hartlip is a good shot, but is ashamed to be seen practicing. Also Chariots of Fire in which Lord Lindsay “trains” by jumping hurdles topped with flutes of champaign and is contrasted with Harold Abrahams, the Jewish runner who hires a professional coach. Goes all the way back past Baldassare Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier, which discusses the way a true gentleman does everything right while making it seem easy and unpracticed.
There is a much stronger cause for that, namely it being effectively school policy to arrange social groups by age.
Sorry, I was unclear. I mean, in an already age-segregated community, such as a school, sports might conceivably rearrange social groups.
I doubt they would have that effect in a multigenerational community. Your family and your work trump team sports as social signifiers.
That’s an interesting factor, but I question whether it is a cause, or a symptom (which potentially has effects similar to the original cause). I ask “Why did America choose to deny gifted and talented children a chance to develop their abilities to the fullest for longer than any other country?” (I’d love to see a citation for that by the way!)
I think the root cause might actually be the “immortal declaration” of Thomas Jefferson, located in the opening of the United States Declaration of Independence:
When a country’s most important concept is human rights, and the most prominent argument in support of human rights is the belief that you are created equal, you’re essentially in a situation where your country was founded on the belief that giftedness does not exist.
It seems to me that when people reject gifted identity claims, their true objection is not that it’s arrogant to claim high status or that it’s socially unacceptable to say good things about yourself but that they’re interpreting “created equal” to mean something similar to “equal abilities” or “mentally equal” and experience conflict(s) along the lines of:
If I some people are not equal, does that mean human rights don’t exist?
If I agree that this person is unequal and they’re the better one, do I have to give up my rights to them or give them special treatment?
If this person is claiming to be unequal, are they also trying to demand the right to take my rights away or extract something extra from me so they can have unequal rights?
If I let myself believe that people aren’t equals, is that morally wrong?
Even though I think the problem runs deeper than the theory you presented, I am glad to have it. If America is denying children the chance to develop to the fullest for longer than other countries, that’s certainly going to have some kind of an effect and it’s good additional information to have. Thank you; +1 karma.
* There are plenty of other status claims and good things you can say about yourself that don’t provoke negative reactions—see the thought experiments in this thread.
I would argue that 1) “too vague” is just a subclass of “claims to be more objective than is warranted” and 2) “gifted” is in fact as vague as the other examples.
Yes, but that’s not all of it. The point is that because people are skeptical about IQ, making a claim about your IQ says (to such people) “I think I am objectively better, but I’m basing that claim on something which cannot support it”.
Three, sir.
Because you can’t disentangle such a claim from a claim of being objectively superior (and specifically, an unjustified claim of being objectively superior). Being nice or beautiful can certainly influence your personality, views, or lifestyle and you can’t go around claiming those either. It’s not a problem unique to giftedness.