Bill, Mike, Stephen, All three of you have forced me to defend the legitimacy of IQ tests even though I was not concerned with them directly in my original posting. I was merely using "IQ" as a handy way of referring to "intelligence" which, however hard to define, is something we all aware of and is quite obvious whenever we talk to, or of, anybody we know well.
The main point of my post was that several associated trends are going on: (a) Modern social and economic life is becoming more complex and a sizeable (and growing) meritocratic elite is necessary; (b) This growing class of individuals is characterised by being busy, highly mobile and usually having to work long hours away from home or the local community; (c) The elite is not selected on the basis of IQ scores but is self-elective (and mutually identifiable) via a multitude of institutional selective and protective devices; (d) To some extent so far, the work and responsibility of the meritocratic elite has been compensated for by status and high salaries. The latter is able to pay for good holidays, nannies and nurseries for pre-school children, restaurant meals and other expenditures to replace the no-pay domestic work which the parent is now too busy to do. However, the lopsidedness of the burden is growing all the time and the elite will soon realise (if they do not do so already) that they are on a hiding to nothing. The mass of the population is becoming increasingly demanding as to their "rights", but the elite has to pay the price by carrying even more responsibility. The elite must also be aware that they are declining in numbers because of differential fertility even with desperate attempts to increase the educational levels of the masses. The elite must be increasingly coming to the view that unless the proportion of the meritocracy grows steadily within the population in the coming years then further progress along the technological track which man has been treading ever since the bronze age (or agricultural age, or whenever) is becoming increasingly dubious. Nor can we turn the clock back and re-adopt simpler cultures unless we have a monumental nuclear war and lose most of our present population. In my original posting I suggested that the meritocratic elite will find ways of increasing their numbers (and also, which I didn't mention, of developing far more effective gated communities than at present) by using biogenetic techniques (IVF and, when developed, IVG[gestation] ) in order for them to look after themselves more directly -- and shrug off some of the (growing) responsibility that they are presently expected to carry on behalf of the rest of the population. Violence (by parents and children) in our schools, and violence (by patients) in our hospitals, is growing relentlessly. (This is already significant in England, but almost certainly will occur more frequently in America and other developed countries.) It is no wonder that, for several years, increasing numbers of newly qualified teachers and doctors are simply declining to enter their professions they had previously so enthusiastically trained for. (Fairly soon, they won't even bother to start training for them!) Also, increasing numbers of teachers and doctors are retiring prematurely. I am not making a political point here. The demands being made by the mass of the population on the meritocracy is becoming too great to be sustained for much longer without some corrective developments. Keith Hudson ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________
