Inherited privilege breeds stupidity because intelligence is unnecessary to it
Evidence
Anti-intellectualism is a ruling-class reflex, whereby ruling-class stupidity is attributed to the masses (I think we’ve discussed here before the ruse of the Thick Posh Person whereby make a show of pretending to be thick in order to conceal that they are, in fact, thick.) It’s scarcely surprising that inherited privilege tends to produce stupidity, since, if you do not need intelligence, why would you take the trouble to acquire it? Media dumbing down is the most banal kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1215
Categorization
- APHORISMS: Inherited privilege produces stupidity because intelligence is only acquired under compulsion or need
- SEED: The ‘Thick Posh Person’ as deliberate anti-intellectual performance could anchor an essay on how class signals competence through displays of not-trying
- XREF: connects to: Social privilege blocks access to knowledge one is unequipped to understand. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of…, 37
Broader Connections
- Social privilege blocks access to knowledge one is unequipped to understand.
#expands(0.85) — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 37