{"id":60834,"date":"2022-06-13T06:00:52","date_gmt":"2022-06-13T10:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=60834"},"modified":"2022-06-10T14:31:28","modified_gmt":"2022-06-10T18:31:28","slug":"temptation-of-the-high-iq-stupid-preferring-theory-to-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2022\/06\/temptation-of-the-high-iq-stupid-preferring-theory-to-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Temptation of the “High IQ Stupid”: Preferring Theory to Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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Agree with her or not, Peggy Noonan is one of our most interesting and provocative pundits.\u00a0 In her Wall Street Journal<\/em> column The Boiling Over of America<\/a> [behind a paywall], she discusses the recall of San Francisco\u2019s soft-on-crime district attorney Chesa Boudin.<\/p>\n

San Francisco is one of America\u2019s most liberal cities, and yet the vote to recall the progressive criminal justice reformer was overwhelming (60%-40%)\u00a0 due to the upsurge of crime occasioned by the D.A.\u2019s woke refusal to prosecute.\u00a0 Noonan notes that minority citizens voted to recall at a higher rate than white, affluent, college-educated citizens.\u00a0 She writes (my bolds),<\/p>\n

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This is because they suffer more and have fewer protections when crime spikes and homeless encampments seize new ground.<\/p>\n

This is what the foes of progressives are saying: We won\u2019t let our city go down. We won\u2019t accept the idea of steady deterioration. We will fight the imposition of abstract laws reflecting the abstract theories of people for whom life has always been abstract and theoretical. We can\u2019t afford to be abstract and theoretical, we live real lives.<\/strong> We wish to be allowed to walk the streets unmolested and with confidence. This isn\u2019t too much to ask. It is the bare minimum.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Drawing on the leadup to the election and its aftermath, she goes on to generalize about extreme progressives:<\/p>\n

One is they don\u2019t listen to anybody. To stop them you have to fire them. They\u2019re not like normal politicians who have some give, who tack this way and that. Progressive politicians have no doubt, no self-correcting mechanism.<\/p>\n

Another characteristic: They are more loyal to theory than to people. If the people don\u2019t like the theories the progressives impose, that\u2019s too bad; the theory is pre-eminent.<\/strong> . . .<\/p>\n

Here the third distinguishing characteristic: The progressive can\u2019t understand why [after he is \u201cfired\u201d]. He tells reporters the voters are \u201cin a bad mood\u201d because of inflation and housing costs.<\/p>\n

A final characteristic of progressive politicians is that they tend to be high-IQ stupid people. They are bright and well-educated but can\u2019t comprehend the implications of policy.<\/strong> They don\u2019t understand that if an 18-year-old is repeatedly arrested for assaulting people on the street and repeatedly let go, his thought may not go in the direction of, \u201cWhat a gracious and merciful society I live in, I will do more to live up to it.\u201d It is more likely he will think, \u201cI can assault anyone and get away with it. They are afraid of me.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But Noonan doesn\u2019t let conservatives off the hook.\u00a0 Republicans say that the rash of mass shootings is not a gun problem but a mental health problem.\u00a0 And yet many conservatives oppose laws to prevent teenagers from buying weapons, even as they blame the culture for making young people unstable, and oppose red flag laws that might identify some of these mentally ill folks and prevent them from carrying out their murderous delusions.<\/p>\n

I would argue, though, that sometimes it is important to stand for principle, despite the \u201cpractical\u201d consequences.\u00a0 This is so especially when it comes to moral truths and human rights issues.\u00a0 And yet, I accept that it\u2019s possible for people of all convictions to be \u201chigh-IQ stupid\u201d by clinging to theory rather than reality.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know my IQ but I am highly-educated, and I can recognize this temptation in myself, a tendency that is probably an occupational hazard of us academics.<\/p>\n

Our preference for theory over reality can be found not only in politics but in other areas of life, including religion.\u00a0 In fact, this was one of the main points of tbe 18th century Lutheran thinker J. G. Hamann<\/a>:\u00a0 We often treat Christianity as a set of abstractions rather as a mighty reality\u2013as if God were just an idea rather than an actual, living Person; as if God were not physically manifest in Jesus Christ; and as if the Holy Spirit is not really at work in our lives through the tangible Word and the Sacraments.<\/p>\n