Scientifically Proven: Right-Wingers are Dumb

With juvenile delight, the Huffington Post reports today the findings of a recent intelligence study: racists are dumb.

The report states:

Are racists dumb? Do conservatives tend to be less intelligent than liberals? A provocative new study from Brock University in Ontario suggests the answer to both questions may be a qualified yes.

The study, published in Psychological Science, showed that people who score low on I.Q. tests in childhood are more likely to develop prejudiced beliefs and socially conservative politics in adulthood.

I.Q., or intelligence quotient, is a score determined by standardized tests, but whether the tests truly reveal intelligence remains a topic of hot debate among psychologists.

Dr. Gordon Hodson, a professor of psychology at the university and the study’s lead author, said the finding represented evidence of a vicious cycle: People of low intelligence gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, which stress resistance to change and, in turn, prejudice, he told LiveScience.

Why might less intelligent people be drawn to conservative ideologies? Because such ideologies feature “structure and order” that make it easier to comprehend a complicated world, Dodson said. “Unfortunately, many of these features can also contribute to prejudice,” he added.

Dr. Brian Nosek, a University of Virginia psychologist, echoed those sentiments.

“Reality is complicated and messy,” he told The Huffington Post in an email. “Ideologies get rid of the messiness and impose a simpler solution. So, it may not be surprising that people with less cognitive capacity will be attracted to simplifying ideologies.”

But Nosek said less intelligent types might be attracted to liberal “simplifying ideologies” as well as conservative ones.

In any case, the study has taken the Internet by storm, with some outspoken liberals saying that it validates their suspicions about conservatives and conservatives arguing that the research has been misinterpreted.

Besides a hundred-year-old photograph of mostly out-of-shape Klansmen, a few things should jump straight out.

Firstly, notice the paragraph in red, containing an opinion that directly contradicts the thesis of both the article and the originating study: the second shortest, its low-key phrasing and location, just before an altisonant final paragraph with links to external websites (the second of which contains an anemic and muddled conservative quibble), has been clearly engineered to de-emphasise that contradictory opinion.

Secondly, and following from the first point, the article self-servingly ignores the fact that egalitarianism is a simplifying ideology, analogous to the worst anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, since it blames everything that goes wrong for coloured peoples in the West on White ‘racism’.

Thirdly, the study itself is ideological, for it equates prejudice with Right-wing ideology, when egalitarianism is probably the strongest form of prejudice in modern Western society. No egalitarian is ever willing to entertain any science or data that contradicts his prejudices on race or gender or anything else, let alone listen to any dissenting opinion: all such studies are biased, all such data lies, all such opinions racist or phobic.

Fourthly, remarks about socially conservative views show the level of narcissistic myopia that characterises the Left. In contemporary society, it is the liberal-egalitarian view that is normative and socially conservative, since for long now that has been the official establishment view and also the safe, socially acceptable position being conserved. Racial consciousness and traditionalism is the radical, anti-establishment position.

The existence of such biased, politicised studies and their concomitant reporting in the media are simply weapons in the establishment’s political arsenal.

The core message is: ‘only morons disagree with us, so don’t openly disagree with us unless you want to look like a moron’.

Their aim is to encourage conformity and smooth the way for their rainbow dystopia.