Random examples of people who need to raise their level of intelligence.

The poor use of intelligence is evident in trivial matters as well as in significant issues. The tendency to act unintelligently in our interper­sonal affairs is well-known. Less evident is the emotionalism and poor use of intelligence at governmental—corporate—institutional—inter­national levels.

The public assumes that government leaders and corporate executives surrounded as they are by the paraphernalia of power act intelligently and know what they are doing.

The fact is that people in "high office" also tend to repeat mistakes—persist in the outdated and the unworkable—are slow to learn and adapt—manage their emotions poorly.

In other words they often don't know what the hell they are doing.

A case in point: government leaders in the United States—the Soviet Union—and in other aggressive nations who have not learned the lessons of recent history—that if you invade or occupy other people's territories you will pay dearly for it in many ways and in the end you will not even get away with it. One would think that people would have learned from the bloody decolonization struggles of recent decades.

Here are quick examples of poor use of intelligence in everyday matters:

People who need to be reminded over and over: "Please don't bang the car door so hard."

"It is lie down—not lay down."

"Stop calling me Marilyn. You know that I changed my name to Maria years ago."

People who participate in or support boxing though the medical profession has repeatedly warned that boxing causes irreparable damage to the brain.

Women who think of themselves as liberated yet sit passively and expect men to pay in restaurants. Or who wait for men to take initiatives and call for rendezvous.

Men who think of themselves as modern yet live by double standards expecting their wives or female lovers to be sexually "faithful" though they themselves are not.

People who oppose "pornography" and nudity offering the exact arguments given by earlier moral crusaders through the centuries in their futile efforts to preserve chastity laws—female segregation—Victorian puritanism—polygamy. You would think that today's moralists would have learned by now.

In each of the above instances—from everyday encounters to global matters—we have examples of poor use of intelligence.

Imagine the blowup of a spacecraft during liftoff. Then imagine not taking the time to study the exact causes of the malfunction but turning right around and launching a duplicate spacecraft—with the same tragic results. Then another disastrous launching and another and another.

This is how we handle most of our personal—social—economic— political—international affairs.

Exobiologists talk of looking for signs of intelligence in the universe. We should be looking for signs of intelligence right here on this planet.

Date: 2015-02-28; view: 684