Does Being Oxbridge and Book Smart Make You the Best People to Rule the Country?

June 12, 2017

In this country, a significant proportion of the electorate tend to default their vote for the male, poshly spoken, suit-wearing Conservative stereotype on the premise that they can probably add up better and they know what’s best for us. After all, all our headmasters, politicians, business leaders all wear suits. All our bosses who speak with such authority on their own merit and decide if we have a job or not have had a university education and even our generals join our royals in speaking with a plum in their mouth. The Tory party indoctrinates, “We’re the best people to trust with the economy, we’re the party of business. Don’t worry your little head, vote for us and know the cuts, the austerity, the wage controls, the drawing back of the welfare state are all in your interest.” Social justification does the rest; that is the poorest who have most to lose, cover for them upstairs because they are in hock to them. If you’re stupid enough not to heed our words, you’ll get Corbyn in charge and you don’t want that, do you? Him and his 2 Es at university. No contest when you think our girl Theresa May went to Oxford.

Then you get an insight into whether this makes for good leadership. Nick Clegg revealed this week that during his time in cabinet, he cannot record one instance of Theresa May having and voicing an opinion on anything. This backs up the country’s experience during this campaign in which we continued to learn nothing of her views on Brexit or any policy whatsoever. This straight bat, uninspiring stonewalling character has been supposedly heralded as Strong and Stable. Strong and Stable like a concrete wall. She may have studied hard and been assiduous in working through her red box but this is not intelligent leadership.

Intelligence and knowledge are two different things. Even if someone is not exactly what we’d call “book smart,” it doesn’t mean that they’re not intelligent. We call book smart someone who is educated either in school/university or by studying and learning by themselves through educational activities such as books, documentaries, and various courses. Book smarts are usually reasonably intelligent. That’s because no one could learn and understand without a particular amount of intelligence. However book smart people as they pass through their academic portals tend to be comformists as they increasingly become members of elite coteries.

If you meet someone who is not book smart, don’t be quick to assume that they’re of lower intelligence. A lot of people who have not had many academic opportunities have high intelligence despite that they’re not book smart. Because intelligence is a trait, we are born with, as a part our genetic makeup. Our IQ is a measurement of our intelligence and doesn’t change, but can only develop to a certain extent. Your intelligence level can apply to a mixture of kinds of intelligence; some of us are good at maths, some can relate well to others, and some of us can do both with the same success. That doesn’t have anything to do with education. It’s natural. Education can only help you develop what you already have. Conversely, being educated to a high level doesn’t necessarily guarantee an exceptionally high IQ.

So what are the differences between book smarts and other intelligent people?

Book smart people are often found to be educated to a high level and have usually studied hard to reach their level of knowledge. They can list facts and data and have a lot of general knowledge. It makes them ‘intellectual’. When making decisions, book smart people tend to follow others’ ideas and experiences and rely on tried and tested strategies. Other intelligent people have not been educated to a higher level instead being sometimes street smart because they have learned from experiences rather than books. Other intelligent people use their instincts more when they want to make decisions,  being often creatively smart, they look for alternative ways of doing things rather than relying on ‘god given’ rules.

To Jacob Rees-Mogg, if you’re not book smart, you’re trash! In fact, the perpetuated system we find ourselves in, dismisses a huge proportion of the population through still judging an individual’s worth by how they fare at our school’s academic curriculum. It’s such a very limited test of a person’s capabilities and does such untold damage to the self-confidence of those that are not book smart. “…….But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.” – The stamp stays with us all our life and it really shouldn’t.

So, what’s the answer to choosing the right leader? Well look at the individual, not the resume. In this case that would be Corbyn, every day of the week and twice on a Sunday. It’s obvious isn’t it, comparing the two on their performance over the last two months? No – Can’t see it! – What’s the matter with you, are you stupid or what?