Current Events > Do you think there is a correlation between racist beliefs and low intelegnce?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I would be damn surprised if there wasn't.

its not really a question of what i think, but more of the proof that there is

---

Bananana posted...

its not really a question of what i think, but more of the proof that there is

Like?

intelegnce. Lol.

Topic title aside, I think its more a case of lack of education and ignorance.

---

intelegnce

---

It seems to be much more rampant in the South, more southern states are red and those same states have some of the worst education systems in the nation. I'd entertain a correlation between the two in theory. Before I'm railed for this opinion, I live in Tennessee so I'm not some yankee talking shit.

---

But how do you explain Ben Stein

Low intelligence? If there is, its very weak. Neuroticism? Yes.

---

depends what you are calling racist or not? Just acknowledging race in general can get you called a racist these days.

---

We just lumping everyone into it? Other countries. Or is this another ce white people bad topic?

I wouldnt consider Hitler dumb

---

Education, yes, but not necessarily intelligence
---

BilalPowell posted...

I wouldnt consider Hitler dumb

Mods, get him!!

No, and it is a combination of wannabe elitism and foolishness to assume there is.

There have been a lot of highly intelligent, even brilliant, people who have had racist beliefs.

Intelligence is not a robust bulwark against poor beliefs. Smart people are not much better at resisting bad faulty beliefs. What they are is better at rationalizing and defending faulty beliefs they do have.

As much as we like to think of ourselves as logical, rational decision makers, we just aren't. We typically come to an opinion because it appeals to us emotionally and rationalize that belief after the fact. And presenting evidence to the contrary rarely changes anyone's mind.

muchdran posted...

We just lumping everyone into it? Other countries. Or is this another ce white people bad topic?

It's interesting that your victim complex jumped right to this

low intelegnce

---

Esrac posted...

No, and it is a combination of wannabe elitism and foolishness to assume there is.

There have been a lot of highly intelligent, even brilliant, people who have had racist beliefs.

Intelligence is not a robust bulwark against poor beliefs. Smart people are not much better at resisting bad faulty beliefs. What they are is better at rationalizing and defending faulty beliefs they do have.

As much as we like to think of ourselves as logical, rational decision makers, we just aren't. We typically come to an opinion because it appeals to us emotionally and rationalize that belief after the fact. And presenting evidence to the contrary rarely changes anyone's mind.

example of something presented by an intelligent racist please

---

JBaLLEN66 posted...

example of something presented by an intelligent racist please

Off the top of my head?

The bill of rights? Declaration or independence? Emancipation proclamation? Saturn V rocket? The unraveling of DNA double helix and the Human Genome Project?

Like, this idea that racists are necessarily unintelligent is really dumb.

I would be willing to bet there's more of a connection between religious beliefs and racism than there is intelligence.

---

I do, because this is what I've read from articles that cite scholarly reports, and it falls right in line with racists here and irl.

https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2016/0127/The-surprising-relationship-between-intelligence-and-racism
https://academic.oup.com/socpro/article/63/1/21/1846173
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4845100/

The one consistent factor with dumb people is that they stick to nonsense categorization. "x must be y because z", where z makes no fucking sense.

---

MabusIncarnate posted...

It seems to be much more rampant in the South, more southern states are red and those same states have some of the worst education systems in the nation. I'd entertain a correlation between the two in theory. Before I'm railed for this opinion, I live in Tennessee so I'm not some yankee talking shit.

Can confirm. I'm a high school teacher in NC, and the amount of dumbasses I work with is crazy.

---

Esrac posted...

Off the top of my head?

The bill of rights? Declaration or independence? Emancipation proclamation? Saturn V rocket? The unraveling of DNA double helix and the Human Genome Project?

Like, this idea that racists are necessarily unintelligent is really dumb.

Could these documents had been better if not impacted by racism? For example, the Electoral College system today was influenced by racism. Emancipation Proclamation, racist in todays world yes, was Lincoln progressive for his time....yes Nazi Germany handicapped itself because of it's racist beliefs and also flung itself in to a losing war that killed millions of people. I don't see them as intelligent at all.

---

The link between racism and low intelligence/poor education is well established I believe

Which is what makes the whole "colleges are liberal indoctrination centres" meme so funny. Who knew that going to a place of learning and meeting people of other cultures might make your world view more progressive? rally makes u thunk

---

I'd say low education and low exposure to other races/ethnicities more than low intelligence

---

It's not a correlation, it's a dependency. What other groups of people see universal access to education as an existential threat?
---

It is, in itself, an unintelligent decision.

---

It's just simple tribalism, which lessons the need to learn much that would be irrelevant to the tribe.

ignorance and insecurity

---

JBaLLEN66 posted...

Could these documents had been better if not impacted by racism? For example, the Electoral College system today was influenced by racism. Emancipation Proclamation, racist in todays world yes, was Lincoln progressive for his time....yes Nazi Germany handicapped itself because of it's racist beliefs and also flung itself in to a losing war that killed millions of people. I don't see them as intelligent at all.

Then you're just wrong.

Being intelligent doesn't make you immune to error or bad beliefs. Very smart people are still susceptible to beliefs that they can accept for not-smart reasons.

Werhner Von Braun was a Nazi party member, served in the SS, and had slave labor camps, but you don't become the architect of rockets that got man to the moon because you're unintelligent.

Unless, for some ideological reason, you're categorically classifying anyone with racist beliefs as just unintelligent by definition. Which is just a really foolish thing to do.

No. Plenty of intelligent people can have awful views. Trying to play it off as some sort of intellectual matter is ignoring the reality that some people are just garbage or looking for others to blame for their situation - Or often those in power are blaming X group of people to distract from the reality of matters.

---

no

there are lots of intelligent, educated people with racist views. those views just generally present differently, since such people are more likely to be able to influence policy.

---

You dont need to be smart or dumb to hate.

---

Not really. Cult-like mentalities can infect anyone if they're raised that way from childhood or otherwise become mentally susceptible. Some of the really, really fringe stuff definitely requires real lack of common sense though.

it's sad to say that racism is everywhere. might be more explicit with the south and white supremacists, but asians--particularely asian immigrants can be racist AF, just not always in front of your face.

Racism isn't color blind

---

It might be a biological thing as well. Babies tend to be biased towards their own races. Not being racist actually only started fairly recently. Humans as a whole tend to naturally prefer things that are similar and fear things that are not familiar. Not being racist has be culturally enforced.

UnholyMudcrab posted...

Education, yes, but not necessarily intelligence

Those two things likely can't be separated.

---

No, I consider it a defect in education, then when those beliefs are challenged (if at all), they double down or cherry pick.

I think that people will naturally have a fear towards the unknown unless taught. Negative first impressions are also tough to remove.

---

Yes, in the US at least but you have to realize that a lot of the reasons are cultural.

In the US the vast majority of well educated people as part of that education are taught that people of every race should be treated with respect and that you shouldn't make assumptions about someone based on the color of your skin.

The one thing to realize is that that's a form of cultural education, not scientific education.

I think so, yeah. Tribalism is ingrained in our DNA. It was an evolutionary advantage. That's why literally every country has a right wing, nationalist xenophobic faction. Countries with multiple races or ethnicities splinter. Those with mostly only one turn their tribalism outward.

I think it's probably pretty easy to see why having an intense bond with your group, and fuck anyone else who comes near us, served as an evolutionary advantage to the human race overall. One dude kills himself taking out a tiger, or the outsider, and the entire group survives to propagate their genetic information. Which includes a predilection for tribalism. Repeat, ad infinitum.

Now today, that's pretty fucking useless. Some people can intellectually reason past their biological programming, and some can't. Maybe no one overcomes it, and the ones who think they do just expand their group to all human beings. idk but yeah, I think it is correlated.

---

I don't think so. It feels that way sometimes but I attribute that more to intelligent racists being smarter about showing their asses than them not being racist

---

The_Creep_2020 posted...

intelegnce. Lol.

Topic title aside, I think its more a case of lack of education and ignorance.

I voted yes but this is what was going through my mind at the time.

---