bitch at pulpculture.org wrote:
>
>
> Also, what about that study where all the people who think they are so
> smart are suffering from some kind of disorder or are, at least, not
> depressed. Which is to say, most people have a pretty high opinion of their
> own brilliance -- higher than is warranted. It is depressed people who
> don't and have a better sense of reality and their own level of
> intelligence. :)
The research I saw some years ago focused not on "intelligence" but on job competence. The only people who did not overrate their competence on the job were those suffering from depression.
"Intelligence," if it is anything at all, has to be a relation, not a neurological or psychological state. So there are as many forms of a person's intelligence as there are social and physical relations with her world.
Those who are so convinced of Bush's lack of "intelligence" have not grasped this point, and they judge his administration in terms of _their_ wild guess at what he is trying to do and by his popularity (or lack of it) in the polls. But that lack of popularity has not interfered with his policies, and he has achieved the primary aim of 50 years of u.s. foreign policy, the establishment of permanent military bases controlling the Persian Gulf. The DP candidates all recognize and honor this; when they talk of withdrawing they mean withdrawing from anti-insurgency activity, not from those bases.
A brilliantly successful administration. Whether future administrations can maintain its achievments is another matter.
Carrol