Next time you call group of right-wing racists a bunch of idiots, you can back yourself up with one simple word: Science! Researchers from Ontario, Canada's Brock University have been slaving over test results to come to the conclusion that many not-so-scientifically-inclined have said for ages - both right-wing thinkers and racists alike are kind of dumb.
The conclusion comes after spotting a correlation between children with low IQs and their ideologies later in life. It turns out that those with limited intelligence at a younger age are more likely to exhibit racist tendencies and favor more conservative political thinking as adults.
Dr. Gordon Hodson, a professor of psychology and primary author of the findings, explains to Live Science that the, well, science of the issue is rather simple. "Socially conservative ideologies tend to offer structure and order," explains Dr. Hodson. Structure and order, of course, are much easier to make sense of than, say, disarray and chaos. Given that, the less intelligent will gravitate towards more manageable ideals and, as he says, "Unfortunately, many of these features can also contribute to prejudice."
The study in its entirely was published this week in the journal Psychological Science, and there Dr. Hodson and Michael A Busseri write that after studying a data set of 15,874 persons from the UK, "we found that lower general intelligence in childhood predicts greater racism in adulthood, and this effect was largely mediated via conservative ideology. A secondary analysis of a US data set confirmed a predictive effect of poor abstract-reasoning skills on antihomosexual prejudice, a relation partially mediated by both authoritarianism and low levels of intergroup contact," add the researchers.
In summation, they write, "right-wing ideologies, which are socially conservative and authoritarian, represent a mechanism through which cognitive ability is linked with prejudice. "For example," add the doctors, "research has revealed that individuals who more strongly endorse social conservatism have greater cognitive rigidity, less cognitive flexibility and lower integrative complexity. Socially conservative individuals also perform less well than liberals on standardized ability tests."
In smaller words (for all your racists out there), here's how Dr. Brian Nosek from the University of Virginia explains it to the Huffington Post: "Reality is complicated and messy . . . 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."
Of course, the study's authors note that "all socially conservative people are not prejudiced, and all prejudiced persons are not conservative." We'd like to see their research in full before we go ahead and agree on that one though.
After the Riots
The great task of the revolutionary is to delegitimise a society. To breed a swamp of protest and grievance. To turn its members against one another. It is far from an impossible task, because imperfect human societies will always produce injustices and it's always easy to foment anger, envy and the others of the deadly sins. Events such as the riots of last week are the revolutionaries' food and drink.
The anti-revolutionaries, by contrast, will always be reformers. Like a modern-day Pollyanna, they will always believe that ills can be cured. Despair is not their vocabulary.
Since the riots, the reformers have been too quiet and the revolutionaries have been out in force. Britain has been presented as diseased from top to bottom. Interestingly, troublemaking voices on the Right have been particularly vocal. The political commentator Peter Oborne launched an attack on Financial Times readers, greedy bankers and corrupt politicians. They were, he said, complicit in the riots of last week. Their degradation was on the same moral slippery slope as the looters'.
There has always been a significant strain of pessimism on the Right. It is found in its most vivid form on the pages of the Daily Mail. Britain is for ever going to hell in a handcart. While the Left hates Britain's history, large parts of the Right hate Britain's future.
The best pundits and the best politicians are not pessimists. As it has been said, pessimism breeds weakness, it has never won a battle; pessimism has no motor, optimism has no brakes. The optimist sees problems but never gives up in believing that they can be overcome.
In today's context the best politicians don't rabble rouse by reminding people endlessly of the MPs who have transgressed over their expenses. They ensure that offenders go to jail, as a number of politicians have done, and move on to cleaning up the system. They change the system for regulating banks and ensure that they pay their fair share of tax. They commission and empower a judge to investigate and rehabilitate newspaper journalism. They devolve power to localities so that it becomes dispersed.
The journalist or politician who seeks to divide rather than to heal will dwell on a society's faults. He will ignore and belittle the strides that others take to put things right.
For all its problems, Britain is a great country. Children more than anyone else need to know that. To be born in this country is still to have won the lottery of life. A Briton receives free healthcare, free education and basic financial security from cradle to grave. When injustices arise, a free press and a thousand campaigners pursue them.
Ours is a nation where faiths are free to worship, where homosexuality is increasingly accepted and where interracial marriages are commonplace. We have the liveliest football league, the world's best cricket team and the most exceptional theatre and fashion. This is a nation that stands tall when other nations are in trouble. Our soldiers fight for others' freedoms. British taxpayers feed and vaccinate the most vulnerable people on the planet on a scale and with a generosity that is remarkable.
And in this past week, when community tensions might have exploded, the nation's new hero is a British Muslim. A gentle giant of a father whose grace amid grief brought a tear to the eye. Britain is not a country that deserves hatred from its own people or from the pundits who earn a good living in its media.
Most of us are occasionally guilty of slouching into troughs of despondency, but has there ever been a better time to live? Matt Ridley, the author of The Rational Optimist, has answered with an emphatic "no". We all live longer. Medical treatment has never been more effective. Supermarkets mean we all eat like kings ate 40 years ago. Budget airlines transport all of us, not just the rich, to holidays with guaranteed sun. The computer giants and satellite broadcasters are revolutionising entertainment. Of course we all have our moans about Tesco, Ryanair and Sky but they are, overall, great drivers of progress.
The socialist revolutionaries on the Left, the Poujadistes on the Right and the Luddites in the Green movement are always ready to trash capitalism. It has been the same in every age, but it is capitalism that has created this time of plenty. Incomes are stagnant at the moment but only in the West. Most of the world is getting richer and healthier at an accelerating rate.
Europe and America may remain in the economic doldrums for a few years as we learn once again that neither households nor nations can live beyond their means for long. But even with incomes stagnant, the emerging world and technological advances are combining to cheapen basic products. The time it takes for most people to afford an expanding range of goods is in long-term decline.
As I began, even Pollyanna can't be too happy this week: our task is to face up to the broken nature of much of British society and start putting things right. So much of the kindness that Britain shows is actually a kindness that kills and debilitates. Parents give toys instead of time. Schools give soft grades instead of useable skills. The State gives welfare instead of work. But throughout our history we've overcome far greater odds.
Obama Maths For Re-election
If you're looking for a nice primer on the challenges and strategic options facing President Barack Obama as he heads into the 2012 election, I recommend a Brookings paper by William Galston, who does a commendable job synthesizing a great deal of the data and commentary out there about Obama's prospects for re-election.
The paper is worth reading in its entirety, but I particularly liked Galston's detailed discussion of the electoral math facing Obama, who, in Galston's view, has a choice between an 'Ohio strategy' and a 'Colorado strategy.'
Galston, relying on an analysis by the Republican pollster Bill McInturff, notes that Obama will start 2012 with a base of 215 electoral votes, while his G.O.P. opponent will begin with a base of 162 electoral votes. That would leave thirteen potentially competitive states over which to fight. Obama won ten of these thirteen states in 2008.
We could probably trim the list down further by giving Obama Oregon, which Democrats have won in every Presidential election since 1988, and Pennsylvania, which Democrats have won in every Presidential election since 1992. It's also probably a safe bet to give the G.O.P. nominee Georgia, Mississippi, and Arizona. (The last time a Democrat won those states was 1992, 1976, and 1996, respectively.)
What you're left with, in order of electoral-vote value, are these eight crucial 2012 swing states: Florida (29), Ohio (18), North Carolina (15), Virginia (13), Colorado (9), Nevada (6), Iowa (6), and New Mexico (5).
To vastly simplify, the so-called Ohio strategy would see Obama relying on the more traditional Democratic coalition, with a large share of white working-class voters at its heart. The benefit of this strategy is that, demographically, Ohio is a microcosm of the United States, so any message pitched to its voters should resonate nationally, as well.
The Colorado model would emphasize minorities, young voters, and the highly educated, the coalition Democrats have relied upon in that state for the party's recent string of victories there, including Senator Michael Bennet's 2010 re-election. (For a detailed discussion of the state's politics, see my 2008 piece on how Colorado offers a glimpse of the future for the Democratic Party.)
This western states strategy would have Obama placing a great deal of emphasis on Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico. And in this scenario, Obama could still win re-election if he loses the four big swing states (Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Virginia) but holds onto the four small ones (Colorado, Nevada, Iowa, and New Mexico).
Galston argues that a Colorado strategy would be folly and that Obama should stick with the traditional Ohio-centric campaign. It's probably much too early for the Obama team to have to make this decision, and some of his advisers would surely argue it's not really an either/or proposition. But at some point next year, when the electoral vote battle comes into sharper focus, this choice between the West and the Midwest may be the defining strategic moment for the Obama campaign.