Donald Trump really wants to convince people that he is smart, and he insisted that he would beat Rex Tillerson in an IQ-measurin' contest, so I find myself thinking about the debate within psychology over the concept of IQ.
Is there such a thing as general intelligence? The concept of "G," as it has been referenced within psychology has been largely abandoned, as I understand it, within psychology due it its lack of predictive power.
We can construct tests in which questions assess a broad range of cognitive tasks, such as mathematical reasoning, spatial reasoning, linguistic reasoning, and so forth. We can then combine answers to these questions into a single index, and call that index G. We can put that index on a scale, normalized to 100 where 100 is the population median, and call that the "intelligence quotient." All of these things are mathematically possible. Whether or not that score has predictive power for things like grades in school, professional success, financial stability later in life, and so forth... that's another matter.
Made more complicated is the clear observation that different people can have aptitudes for some tasks, but not others. We can observe mathematical aptitude in people who have a difficult time with language. We can observe linguistic aptitude in people who have little capacity for spatial reasoning. To make matters more complicated, how do we even measure artistic or creative aptitude? I posted Richard Thompson today, in a break from Sunday's normal bluegrass theme, and Richard Thompson is a rare musician who also happens to be a brilliant writer, but one can be an astonishing instrumentalist who can't string two words together. How would we characterize that? Then, there is "social intelligence"-- the ability to interact with other people in an effectual manner. The stereotype of mathematicians is that they are incapable of doing so, and while some fit the stereotype, stereotypes are just that. I'll recommend that everyone read Neal Stephenson's baroque cycle, beginning with Quicksilver, to see how he characterizes Newton and Leibniz. (They're great books anyway).
All of this is to say that the concept of general intelligence is controversial at best.
Which brings us to Donald Trump. In yesterday's post, I referred to him as, "the dumbest motherfucker in the history of politics." I have been relatively consistent in my characterization of Trump as being about one neuron short of a synapse. If I reject the concept of general intelligence, though, by what basis do I describe Trump in this manner?
In principle, Trump might have the capacity to solve mathematical or spatial problems, if presented with such. We truly have no idea. We have never observed him in a circumstance in which that aptitude has been tested (such as after his family bought his way into Wharton). Likewise, he may have untapped musical ability. Imagine that! Many great musicians were assholes. Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, John Fahey... total douchebags. Of course, not all great musicians are assholes. John Coltrane was such a chill dude, once he got off heroin, anyway, that people started an actual, serious Church of John Coltrane. This isn't like the 24-Hour Church of Elvis. No, the Church of John Coltrane is serious.
There really might be some untapped intelligence somewhere in Trump's brain. I... just haven't seen it.
What we observe from Trump consists of the following. He talks. A lot. There are several ways to evaluate peoples' words. First, you can evaluate linguistic fluidity. Trump's got none. Some people just have a way with words. Whether they kissed the fuckin' Blarney Stone or just got lucky in the epigenetic lottery, they have a way with words. From Shakespeare to Richard Thompson (although Richard Thompson would probably rip me to shreds for daring to include him with Bill), some people make words sound good. Whether through poetry or flowing prose, we can enjoy their constructions.
There are also people who stumble over their words, and sound ineloquent, but have insight buried within a morass of messy prose. I'm going to reference a political scientist here. Stephen Skowronek. He is best known among political scientists for writing theoretically grounded models of the presidency, which is hard because of the small-sample problem. And as a writer, Skowronek sucks. He is fucking smart, though. Reading his work is a miserable experience because he sucks as a writer, but he is smart. In politics, we remember George H.W. Bush as a very smart guy who couldn't get three words out without mangling two of them, but nobody ever questioned his intelligence. That got twisted around with Jr., but whatever else we can say about Poppy Bush, "stupid" is not a word anyone associated with him. He just couldn't speak. The distinction was based on the observation that once you put in enough effort parsing the garbage, there was stuff buried in the mess, even if you didn't agree with it. He wasn't a... "fucking moron."
We can evaluate actions. It can be difficult to distinguish between stupidity and lack of impulse control, but it is a thing to evaluate.
Or, we can look at outcomes.
Maybe there's more, but I'm just writing a Sunday morning blog post.
Language. One of the best turns of phrase anyone ever used to describe Newt Gingrich was that he was a stupid person's idea of what a smart person sounds like. I referenced Stephen Skowronek and George H.W. Bush because people who actually are literate-- people who are accustomed to intellectualism, and reading a wide range of materials written by people with a wide range of linguistic approaches-- we can smell our own. Mythbusters did a great series of episodes trying to throw off drug-sniffing dogs with a variety of techniques, and they basically didn't work. Intellectuals-- we're drug-sniffing dogs, and we can smell a faker from a mile away. Language will always reveal true idiocy. That's why George H.W. Bush could mangle sentences and not be treated quite the same way Trump is, and Stephen Skowronek can write paragraph-length brain-eating monstrosities without anyone questioning his intelligence. But, if you truly have nothing of value to say, then as soon as you open your fucking pie hole, those of us who read every day of our lives will know. Donald Trump just... doesn't sound like a smart person mangling his words. He sounds like a fucking moron, and there's never anything insightful coming out of his mouth. I don't know how else to put it except that we can smell our own. This is an elitist thing, absolutely. He is not a member of the intellectual elite. Why not? He doesn't have the brain power, and we all know it the moment he opens his mouth.
Actions. Does Trump behave intelligently? He behaves impulsively. The eternal question with Trump, then, is whether or not that impulsiveness masks underlying intelligence of some kind. Would he behave differently if he stopped to think? We can never know.
Outcomes. Trump is rich. Maybe you have noticed. He likes to talk about it. How did he get that way? He'll lie, of course. He inherited a lot of money, lost a shitload because he can't even figure out how to make money with a casino, and then got really rich by getting on tv and playing the role of a genius businessman, while getting people to pay him to slap his name on buildings built by others. This is... bizarre. How rich is he? By many estimates, if you took what he inherited, and invested it in a passively managed S&P index fund, he would have slightly outperformed that, after the tv thing. So, that's good, but he did it, not by investing wisely, but by investing badly and then playing a role. This is bizarre, and leads to...
Social intelligence. Does Trump have social intelligence? He managed to get elected President. Now, with the general election, he had a hell of a lot of help from James Comey, but he did get elected President, against all odds. Does that mean he has social intelligence?
I return, then, to my initial corollary to the bear aphorism. I, personally, have a difficult time assessing Trump's supposed social intelligence, as do most intellectuals. It is obvious to most intellectuals that Trump is kind of a dipshit. It is also obvious to most people that he is, if not a true sociopath, then close enough. What draws anyone to a dumbass psychopath? Every characteristic he has makes him completely repulsive to me. He is the antithesis of anything that I can respect. I truly do not think that he has a single decent or respectable characteristic. He is the most vile thing I have ever seen in American politics.
But different people react differently to social behavior anyway! Here's the plain truth. Bullies are and always have been popular. Think of every bully you have ever encountered. Remember the coterie of evil but pathetic little fuckers latched onto them like little remoras? If you have a brain and a conscience, you hate bullies. But, the world has plenty of social remoras. Does the ability to appeal to such people constitute "social intelligence," or is this just a basic symbiotic relationship cursed on the rest of humanity?
I'm going to say that Trump doesn't have any more social intelligence towards the social remoras than sharks have towards actual remoras. Some people are just intrinsically attracted to bullies.
Beyond that, then, does Trump show any intrinsic signs of intelligence? Even if we take a very broad view of intelligence, we have to say that he could only be intelligent if there is some aspect that we aren't measuring, and in that sense, sure, he may have a form of intelligence that we aren't observing, but that brings us into the realm of "nonfalsifiability." As a social scientist, I'm not a fan of nonfalsifiable hypotheses. So, I'll keep calling Trump "the dumbest motherfucker in the history of American politics."
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