The other portion is that you, as an individual, should look out for other people and other people's children. If somebody has a premature child and they need extra help. offer it, to both the parent and the child.
The place we're in now is a society is "high regulations and low trust", as one writer put it. That is an exhausting place to be. If you can reasonably expect that stranger will go out of their way to help your kid out if they wander off that is a huge load off your mind. If the expectation instead is that you need to ever vigilant and that even a second's lapse can result in disaster? It's no wonder the country is so messed up right now.
Until I was in my late 30s, I lived in the United States. For the past 10 years, I've lived on a small island in another country, that is more low regulation, high trust. Everyone does look out for everyone else's kids, at least to some extent.* There is also much more of an acceptance that some kids are academic high achievers, and others aren't, and that's ok.
The downside to this is that I think there is not as much investment in schools as there should be (from my perspective as someone who only moved here 10 years ago), and there's also what I find to be a distressing "tracking" of kids as "academic" or "vocational" from a pretty early age. "Academic" tracked kids get to go to college on the state's nickel, while "vocational" tracked kids go to vo-tech training on graduation from secondary school. We're very influenced by American culture, though, so some kids who are "vocational" still go to college, just through a US community college route paid for by their own families.
Anymore, knowing how to weld is a ticket to a stable middle class lifestyle with salary over $100k. My suburban high school closed the shop classes and repurposed the space for music and theater rehearsal and performance. That was pretty stupid, since nearly none of those students will go on to careers in the performing arts. But it appealed to parents, I guess, seeing little Johnny or Susie sing and dance. Meanwhile some, like me, might have discovered an interest in engineering or building things. Parents, mostly college educated but occupying disappearing middle management and sales jobs, just didn't see value in teaching their kids skills for a blue collar job.
This is true today, though if we start saying to people "learn to weld" the same way we say "learn to code" we'll rapidly degrade the salaries available to welders unless we massively increase the demand for welding.
I wholeheartedly agree that we should make more resources available to more vocational education, whether it be more support for apprenticeships, better votech schools, or something else. Just want to point out that there's never a silver bullet. (Except maybe nursing, at least for the foreseeable future?)
For what it's worth, $100,000 per year is not "middle class." That's "upper-middle class." It's in the top 15% or so of household earnings.
Perhaps it's the top 15% nationwide but in major cities it probably isn't. In environments where basic homes are $400k it isn't. In any event, my high school's decision removed a path that could lead to career success and fulfilling life for some, mostly because "industrial arts" was looked down upon. I am an electrical engineer (undergrad degree) and might not have gone that route if shop hadn't existed and facilitated my existing interest. A good friend took a similar high school - college path, had a long career with a major electronics development firm and holds 25 patents. So vocational ed ought not to be looked down upon. And the theater graduates waiting tables might agree.
Your high school didn't remove a path because industrial arts were looked down upon. Jesus, where do people get this nonsense?
Shop is incredibly expensive. There was no fabulous time when shop classes were viewed as anything other than dumping grounds, no matter that you personally liked it. Shop classes were cut in the 80s thanks to "Nation at Risk" beliefs that we needed to keep school intellectual and--again--shop classes were viewed as dumping grounds. CTE was reinvented in the 90s and is now highly competitive. And expensive. Which--again--is why shop classes and other voc-ed disappeared, because the kids taking it were just marking time and the investment wasn't considered worth it.
The idea that schools cut well-loved industrial arts programs because they sneered at the occupation is just...idiotic.
My high school was rich beyond imagining. The math department had an actual DEC PDP8 in 1968 - rare computing capacity at all but a few universities. So the decision to remove shop was in no way driven by the expense. It was seen as imparting less prestige, plain and simple. In fact, the programs still exist, I believe, but require those interested to be bused to some other less prestigious high school for classes.
I maintain that shop was a route that developed career skills and talent in areas that other course offerings missed. I have many friends who went on to engineering degrees, technological development, equity participation and eventual retirement in the upper few percentiles of retirement wealth.
The point is that we need both the shop class and the performing arts class, not either/or; and furthermore we need to encourage a society where the value of enrichment is considered apart from career outcomes. Even slaves made music.
I think this is due to the lack of vision of the women dominated educational community. In times past, education was the top goal for an educated person. The very best someone like Emerson or Thoreau could achieve was a Church Pastor, Doctor, or Teacher. This led to students being taught by the very best and brightest minds available. Once we became a technical society needing scientists, engineers and technicians; the best and brightest were siphoned off. Leaving the low paying teaching jobs to less endowed people. This falls into gender trap roles: where women dominated primary education can't see the value of male oriented skills/activities.
"If civilization had been left in female hands we would still be living in grass huts."
This is probably spot on. And we seem ever to be trying to achieve all the benefits of risk taking without the adverse outcomes that are inevitable when assuming risk. That approach is also more consistent with feminine thinking, I suspect.
I think the opposite is probably true. It is not the case that education as a profession was dominated by men and so had different values; it is the case that K-12 education was one of the very few professional avenues for women until very recently. This meant that the most brilliant women had just one option available to them--to be a teacher--and so we had a lot of brilliant teachers, no matter how bad the conditions or pay. A personal history anecdote: My great-grandmother (b 1870) was a schoolmarm until she married. She was well-read and graduated high school, but college was not an option for her as a woman at that time. Her daughter, my grandmother (b 1900), was also a schoolmarm--and a graduate of a "normal" college, i.e. a teachers' college that was open to women. My mother (b 1943) was the #1 student in her graduating class in business and economics at her university. She was encouraged by her college professors to go into *teaching* business at the high school level, since as a woman she would not likely be accepted into a graduate program and would not be able to succeed as a businessman. And I (b 1974) ended up with a doctorate in a biomedical field. I think you can see a similar dynamic even today, in states like Utah where teaching is seen as a good supplemental career for a mom, but where moms are largely expected to sacrifice their career for their family. Despite mediocre pay for teachers, Utah has excellent educational outcomes*. (*Although, Freddie would note, that's probably because of home environments during early development, nutrition, genetics, and other stuff that's not the result of what schools are doing.)
Of course, the stunning technological progress of the past century, and especially the past 50 years, has made tech the place for smart kids** to aspire to, the way the clergy or the law was in the 19th century and earlier. But now that desirable field is open to all the smart kids, not just the boy ones. So about half of freshly-minted American MDs are female now--girls who, 100 years ago, would have had to be content as nurses or teachers, instead. But I agree that many of those smart kids get siphoned off into tech, and away from teaching.
**with every standard caveat that smart is not a morally relevant value.
I suspect by "teacher" he means something more like "professor" than "schoolteacher." But I may be misinterpreting.
I suspect his argument might be stronger if we understand that, back in those earlier times, it was highly likely that "masculine" traits like risk-taking or physically active exploration, or even aggression were perceived more positively *even by women* despite the fact that women were less likely to engage in such activities themselves (on average). It was "boys being boys" in many cases, and even as they rolled their eyes, women encouraged (or at least didn't actively discourage) this behavior (again, on average).
Today many such behaviors are considered defective, not entirely dissimilar to how a woman being inquisitive, self-possessed, or assertive would have been considered defective in 1900 (again, on average).
And yet just yesterday the country celebrated an activity steeped in old fashioned masculine aggression. In fact I am going to guess the television ratings were probably a lot higher than in recent years.
I disagree on the women part ... 60 years ago, women weren't barred from college, yet they aimed low, they held themselves down. Even into the 90s, nursing was more competitive than medical school, as smart girls didn't aim high, but aimed for nursing.
Wrong. If nursing was more competitive than med school it's because there's less capacity in nursing schools because they are expensive to run but nursing pay is nowhere near that of doctors.
It is certainly very difficult to imagine why someone like my mother (college class of 1964) who was told that, as a woman, she absolutely could not succeed in business nor go to graduate school despite being the top student in her graduating class might not "aim high" like her male peers did. After all, she was not barred from going to college.
But continuing on that personal family history, here's what she actually did do: She got a teaching certification, and did teach high school business and economics. Because it was the liberal-minded 60's, she was allowed to do so even though she got married. Not when she was pregnant, though--consistent with school policy throughout the 1970s, she had to give up her teaching job when she got pregnant with me. But you know, it's cool, women were not barred from teaching, just from having a baby and teaching.
So she helped run a small business, which she runs on her own successfully to this day despite being in her 80s. Her daughter became a doctor.
"This meant that the most brilliant women had just one option available to them--to be a teacher--and so we had a lot of brilliant teachers, no matter how bad the conditions or pay. "
People have been saying this for decades and it's still not true. Yes, it's true that women from the highest percentile are less likely to be teachers, but the average IQ of teachers is roughly the same at the high school level. It's *much* higher at the ES level.
"even today, in states like Utah where teaching is seen as a good supplemental career for a mom, but where moms are largely expected to sacrifice their career for their family. Despite mediocre pay for teachers, Utah has excellent educational outcomes*"
Oh, lord. What nonsense. Try looking at credential test cut scores.
Hi, Education Realist! By "This meant that the most brilliant women had just one option available to them--to be a teacher--and so we had a lot of brilliant teachers, no matter how bad the conditions or pay. " I meant in the more distant past--80-100 years ago or more, where in fact the most brilliant women (and Black people, and a variety of groups) had very constrained opportunities and had to take those few that were available. It's interesting that in current times the average IQ of teachers is similar across the board, with the higher IQs at the elementary school level. This makes sense to me: Elementary school teaching requires both empathy and intellectual flexibility in a way higher level teaching does not.
I was speculating about Utah, based just on my experiences in Utah, and anecdotes from some of my Utahn friends--I admit, not exactly solid data. I'm interested to know more about credentialing cut scores. I am not a K-12 teacher, so I hadn't considered how those might vary from state to state--thought I do know teacher credentialing varies wildly country by country.
It seems like you know a lot about this, so do you know if higher teacher credentialing standards correlates with improved student outcomes? Per Freddie's hypothesis, the effect should be minimal but I would be interested to know if that is true.
This, in part, is probably why the suburban norm exists. Blocks of moms who often know one another. Kids in team sports where parents engage (sometimes to excess). But the result is soft bumpers on all the potential dangers of free range childhood.
This sounds like "it takes a village"... which risks taking us in the wrong direction of The Giver. But I do agree that neighborhood and community involvement is a positive aspect for a society raising well-adjusted adults from children.
Mother of a micro preemie here. For no apparent reason, my son was born 13 weeks premature, weighed 1 pound 15 ounces - he is now 35 years old and living a rich and full life. Having a baby that small is a scary road to travel. Anything can happen - but I don't recall ever worrying about his academic future. I was just happy he was alive. But then again, he was lucky. Struggled with math in school, is terrified of needles, and HATES to be alone. Other than that, he's fine. Thanks for this post. Love to all the other parents of preemies out there. And to the NICU nurses that care for them. Those little ones are so vulnerable, and yet so tough, fighting with all they've got to live.
Perhaps giving more attention to the known factors that can lead to premature births would be in order? “including infection or inflammation, vascular disease, and uterine overdistension. Risk factors for spontaneous preterm births include a previous preterm birth, black race, periodontal disease, and low maternal body-mass index. A short cervical length and a raised cervical-vaginal fetal fibronectin concentration are the strongest predictors of spontaneous preterm birth.”
Additionally there is a location of residence factor “Several studies found that women who live in an area with high levels of air pollution are more likely to deliver preterm than women who live in less polluted areas.”
Let us address the issue at both ends, first to prevent, or limit, the incidences of premature births, and second, to factor the results of premature birth into later decision making.
I suspect it's a class issue. If more rich couples started having premature births, it'd be of higher concern. But since most of those factors only affect the Poors, it remains a vague tragedy/worry.
Grateful for the step-by-step summary of CoS' thesis, Freddie. Like you, I find it flabbergasting that a basic article of left-wing politics - that the conditions for a good life should be an entitlement of birth, not a prize to be won through ruthless competition - has been buried so deep as to be forgotten.
I’ll add that the best representatives of the liberal tradition understood this. Whether you buy the reticent socialist thesis or not, Rawls in "A Theory of Justice" in no uncertain terms dispenses with meritocracy (“natural aristocracy”) for being based on morally compromised premises.
Of course, this was at a time when liberalism had been civilized by the labor movement and the social-democratic and communist challenge. With no such bulwark in the neoliberal period, we’re back to social Darwinism - but this time, inclusive, representative and equitable, too.
Louis xvi had entitlement of birth. How did that work out for him? We should stop using “entitlement” and “redistribution” to describe these policies. Those are technical terms in economics that have very negative meaning in ordinary English and are an active obstacle to understanding and persuasion.
The things that create the conditions of a good life are, in fact, hard won and earned through struggle. Huge sections of humanity work extremely hard at all times so that we don't all starve in the cold. Nobody is entitled to that. It is granted by other peoples effort, and we forget that at our peril. Entitlement of any kind is poisonous.
Because the phrase “you can’t fix stupid”, when used in real life by real people, is replete with the very contempt and derision for the academically unsuccessful that FdB is railing against.
"You can't fix stupid" is used by regular people, but its use is exclusively to dismiss the contributions of those who aren't up-to-level intellectually (however the user conceives of that level).
A phrase being steeped with upper-class condescension is not the only measure of whether it's shitty and demeaning.
I mean, it can be used as a jab at those who are struggling to find a career because of said lack of high intelligence. But it can also (and often is) used as a jab at those who were born into wealth (or at least good advantage), had easy access to good jobs through either high-end schools or family contacts, and are in a career position that one wouldn't normally be without all of those 'parental' advantages. The 'Daddy's money' types...and there aren't just a few of those.
Regardless, I don't mind the title at all really - but can see why someone might take offense to it. I guess I don't really understand why someone can't understand the intention of the title, and not solely its crude literalness.
We all know what the phrase means, there's no need to get upset about it. Some people simply ARE dumber, just like some people ARE smarter. Or ugly/beautiful, or clutzy/athletic, whatever. I think I would rather like to see an adult reaction to that title - i.e. "ain't that the truth.", rather than an immature reaction akin to "OMG they can't say that, it's OFFENSIVE!"
Using an 'offensive' title is also not the only measure of whether something is a good or bad book title.
The problem is masked by being butt-hurt over the term.
You can fix poorly educated, you can't fix stupid.
Far too many people have fallen into the embargo trap, where they shut down a perfectly good productive conversation by throwing out an embargo over descriptive terms used in an argument.
Because the actual title didn’t sell as well as it should have and this title would be both an accurate summary of the book and controversial enough to get some decent buzz.
The problem with the title is not the crudity, it's that it states something that most humans are intuitively aware of, so why pay $19.95 and spend several hours reading a book that tells you what you already know?
All this does is shut down the conversation and stop progress.
We used to have a word, a perfectly fine scientific designation for delayed development ... 'retarded' as in retarded development. Retarded development means slower development. People too butt-hurt that they, or their family member suffered from delayed development, they went on the fight against the common term retarded, as if that were going to fix the problem.
Being hurt over a perfectly good term, and shutting down the conversation with an embargo scheme shuts down the conversation and doesn't advance humanity.
I really appreciate these articles about education and I always have the same question. Yes, different kids have different inherent academic ability AND each child has their own academic potential. I agree that schools/parents cannot do much to change the former but I think we are also often failing to help kids reach their own potential, whatever that may be.
So, if a particular child is failing to master academic skills, how to know whether they have reached their ceiling or they need something more [with the "something more" TBD]?
Any individual kid? Dunno. Kids, as a mass? The absolutely relentless dominance of the null hypothesis over a hundred years suggests that even if there is room on the top for the average kid, there is no systematic way to address it.
Can I imagine investing truly unusual levels of effort and investment into squeezing every last drop out of a kid and succeeding? Sure. But this is a) necessarily not scalable and b) likely very susceptible to the variable of a given kid's motivation to max out. A lot of kids don't want to achieve their utmost potential because of the sacrifice of time and energy and fun involved. And I don't really blame them.
In my experience with my kids' peers at a very diverse public school is the untapped potential is not "every last drop" but just the basic stuff necessary to be successful at regular life.
I agree with you that we cannot use education reform to level the playing field so that all kids have similar academic performance. But that is a different goal than improving individual performance relative to an individual's ability.
I tend to suspect that being born (9.5 weeks) prem played some part in my having OCD [or, rather, my brain to have tendencies towards OCD - I'm still sceptical of a collection of symptoms quantitatively scored is a ''thing''] when neither of my siblings have the condition. I was diagnosed young and my mum (who later trained as a counsellor) reckons I showed symptoms as a toddler.
However, any talking cure therapists I've seen have been insistently environmentalist - that my difficulties with obsessions and compulsions must be due to bullying at school and/or parental behaviour. This has led therapists to make far too much of this bullying (which was less severe than that of several of my friends) or to insist upon, say, that one of my parents must have been a bully, when I really don't see it.
Some therapists really want everything to come down to the kind of trauma where the client can be a victim with someone villainous to blame.
I was a preemie (6 or so weeks early) and this article actually got me to look up some data on prematurity and issues I’ve had. Thankfully even if I had a standard deviation knocked off my IQ, I still do quite well at the kind of logical thinking that’s rewarded in this economy, but I have struggled with ADHD my entire life. From an early age I (and my teachers) viewed it as somewhat of a moral failing that I sucked at sitting still and keeping organized and I’d beat myself up for it. There were even a few who openly stated that I was a brat who needed more consequences (of which there were plenty at home). In reality I got a bit of the short end of the stick genetically/birth wise and it wasn’t particularly in my/my parents’ control.
I think people don’t like to think that children’s behavioral issues and academic achievement can be genuinely out of their parents’ control. I think people like the fantasy that if they just do everything right their kids will be well adjusted and happy. The sheer amount of random chance involved, even in criminality, makes everybody deeply uncomfortable.
It’s a bit of an interesting paradox, because I do think the myth of internal control is extremely helpful for individuals - the psychology data on the benefits of having an internal locus of control is fascinating, but as a society we could use much more empathy for people who are unlucky in various uncontrollable traits that impact “merit.”
I tend to feel that humans have very limited free will at best - I've noticed this puts me at odds with quite a lot of teachers who tend to frame kids' behaviour in terms of choice. It actually helps me (sometimes!) when I feel myself getting frustrated or at risk of taking things personally.
I can’t speak for everyone (and I also haven’t read your book, so apologies if I make points you have already covered), but if I had to guess why people get so upset about to talking about genetics, my own instincts would be that it’s because they already agree with your core point. Certainly amongst people I know, the notion that some people are more or less suited towards academic study feels like a pretty uncontroversial point, and you can make it purely on environmental and social factors without even having to mention biology. At that point, the notion that everyone ought be celebrated regardless of academic activity is already taken for granted (at least on an intellectual level, even if it isn’t actually followed up on), and so it would be a trivial point to make. At that point, as far as people would be aware in these circumstances, the only reason you’d have to bring up genetics is if you were advocating for some sort of policy based around it, such as discriminating against people in a classroom setting. If your argument is just “Genetics means we should value people based on things other than academic skill”, I suspect the answer would “Well yes obviously, that would be the case regardless of genetics so why would you bring it up? It just makes you sound like a eugenicist or something”.
On a side note, while I agree with the core principle, I would nonetheless place an asterisk over its total application to financial renumeration. I would definitely be in favour of better financial rewards outside of academic merit, however it is still going to be necessary to provide a system to ensure the top 1% are in the most suitable roles, and financial reward is a good way of doing it. While I can also see that hard work doesn’t necessarily translate into positions on the leaderboard, I think there is also still a case to be made that someone who works hard at revision will likely have a better understanding of material than someone who doesn’t, and this too is still going to be important to incentivise going forward.
Great post, and the best elevator pitch I’ve seen for Cult of Smart.
I think your general point holds regardless, but I’m not sure premature birth has causal effects on cognitive performance in the way you’re suggesting.
Lung function, yes, because the lungs get pressed into service prematurely. But I’ve never seen causal claims of a similar nature for the brain.
I would assume the same factors that led to the premature birth also can contribute to cognitive difficulties, eg air pollution or lead poisoning.
It’s surely a powerful proxy, just as poverty is, so I’m sure the correlations are very strong. But that does not necessarily mean they are causal.
The meta-analyses and the studies they cite explicitly address those confounds. There are limits of course (you can't assign prematurity randomly) but as I've been looking at this issue for seven years I can tell you that the people who study this stuff are really really sure it's causal. And like I said, this seems very intuitive to me - to a remarkable degree the brain is built in the womb and does very little growing afterwards, so giving it less time to gestate could have obvious negative impacts.
OK, good to know about those studies, but I don’t know what you mean at all about the brain doing very little growth after birth. That’s just obviously not true.
Humans are born with disproportionately large brains, but they still quadruple in mass after birth, and probably even more for preemies.
The womb is not literally an oven, and brains are not literally cooking, so I have to wonder what is actually different about brain development outside the womb.
OK, like I said, good piece and I like your overall argument. I'm just saying, none of the studies you linked in this piece make any kind of causal claim that premature birth *causes* cognitive impairment, and none attempts to control for other confounding factors. The 2009 Pediatrics study contains no discussion of causality or controls for confounding. These are purely correlational studies.
I'm sure you've read studies you didn't mention here, and I'm sure we both have better things to do at this point than argue about it. If you write about this precise issue again in the future, I'll be interested to see what you say and what you cite.
Again, I think your larger point holds, and I hope you keep writing about these issues.
Interesting that certain obsessive parents play classical music for their unborn kittens (because early neural stimulation is critical, see!) but apparently being born prematurely (and consequently getting lots of early neural stimulation outside the womb) does not lead to positive academic outcomes.
To expand a bit on my skepticism, I am unclear what the causal mechanism would be. How would premature birth cause the brain to fail to develop the way it would by full term?
It makes total sense for lungs, since anyone born prematurely has to use their lungs sooner than normal.
The brain receives nutrition the same way in utero as after being born, namely, through the bloodstream. And it does not seem to me that being a newborn is cognitively taxing in a way that would be bad for development.
That’s not to say, there aren’t major differences between being born on time vs early, but I would be surprised if brain development was meaningfully affected, and with a clear dose response (earlier birth leading to greater impairment).
This is a very tricky issue to suss out methodologically, and I would be surprised if any studies were designed to answer the question of causality for premature birth, apart from other contributing factors, such as genetic disorders, substance abuse, etc.
Telling your child often that you love them, as Freddie recommended in the penultimate graph, is one of the best pieces of advice any parent can give or take.
I wonder how Cult of Smart plays out in non-western cultures that are also obsessed with academic achievement and ideas about meritocracy. @Alice Evans at The Great Gender Divergence has written a lot on Chinese, Korean, and Japanese academic achievement cultures recently, and I think this may be of interest to you @Freddie deBoer. Here are some examples:
I also wonder if parents' ignorance about the effects of prematurity might work out in some salutary ways. I think this is similar to believing in free will: I don't know that we have good arguments for the existence of free will, and I know there are some excellent arguments against it. However, acting as if there is free will is a better way to run your life and your society. Similarly, if parents were constantly apprised that preemies on average have worse cognitive outcomes, they may act towards their children in ways that make that a self-fulfilling prophecy, expecting less of their preemie kids and possibly even explicitly telling them that they are unlikely to be academically successful.
I also wonder whether parents' ignorance of the effects of prematurity is a new thing, borne of a culture with very low infant and childhood mortality. I was born one month premature in 1974. A narrative from my parents was that they were so happy I was alive and healthy, since premature babies die so often. As we have gotten better at saving preemies, I could see our consciousness of what a big deal prematurity is fading from it. Relatedly, as childhood deaths have become more rare, all things with childhood may seem like things that we can control. In the past, no one blamed parents when their kid died of measles--because acts of God like childhood deaths from disease were so common. As we get better at controlling things, it's easier to imagine that all things can be controlled, and that those we don't control--like prematurity--must have no effect, because, as you noted, if they did have an effect it would be so unfair. In an earlier time, when babies did routinely die from measles, everyone was checked out on the idea that the world is unfair.
My admittedly limited perspective on China in particular is that they're just much more likely to say that some kids are smarter than other kids and leave it at that. They're the OG testing culture; the imperial examination was one of the first mass testing systems in the world.
That was my impression, too, before I had read @Alice Evans' posts on this topic. What I had no appreciation for was the amount of effort put in to studying for these exams, and the similarities and differences between ostensibly communist China and ostensibly capitalist South Korea. Asian "chicken parenting" makes American helicopter parenting look like abandonment in comparison. (In South Korea, they had to make it illegal to tutor elementary school children past 10:30 at night, because obviously there was a market for tutoring wee children until the wee hours.) It's also interesting how the meritocratic testing culture overthrew hereditary hierarchies in these places. Anyway, I think you'd dig it.
I think the issue is whether or not forcing kids to study long into the night has anything to do with how smart they are versus an awareness that hard work can make up a lot of ground, especially for the academically untalented.
Plus there's a paradox there in terms of helicopter parenting--I would guess that most of the kids leaving cram schools in the middle of the night to get home are taking public transportation and traveling by themselves.
Also someting to be said for the possibility that the investment in cram school is more about getting on the list for the answers and cheating opportunities the schools offer.
There’s psychology data on “internal locus of control,” or basically believing in your own ability to control your behavior and feelings and change your life (so free will). It’s highly correlated with various kinds of success, happiness, and recovery from mental heath afflictions.
It’s one of those things where the ideal state is for everybody to simultaneously believe in free will for themselves and enforce some helpful societal norms around behavior (I personally wish we had a stronger taboo on public drug use in many cities), but also understand that there are many things outside of individuals’ control and create a more just society where you don’t have to luck out to live a good life.
There’s a kind of CBT called acceptance and commitment therapy that I think really ties into this. Basically it’s to accept and be kind to yourself for what you cannot change but simultaneously commit to taking positive actions that allow you to live a life according to your values. I think we could use more of that as a society.
Great point. Our older daughter was about 5 weeks early, and I’m glad to have not heard of this phenomenon. She is now in middle school and we have never had anything but the highest academic expectations for her, which she’s more than met.
I was a preemie—and unusually early, at that. I was very, very fortunate that I wasn’t born with a developmental disability. Most of my intellectually-disabled clients were preemies. Although I wasn’t born with IDD, I still have a learning disability (dyscalculia, aka “math dyslexia”) that’s >90% genetic.
My dyscalculia is a particularly good example of your overall argument in the piece above. My parents and siblings, who have normal math ability, are baffled by the fact I’ve never taken a remedial math course. I, on the other hand, am satisfied with my poor math ability because I work for an employer that doesn’t require it and I don’t do math in my free time. My blasé attitude about dyscalculia is *only possible at all* because I’m not poor, because I can *afford* to be blasé about it.
Given the ongoing collapse of the humanities and the obsessive emphasis on STEM—both arguably products of the same meritocracy myths that Freddie attacks in his book—I worry about people with similar or identical genetic endowments (abysmal math and spatial reasoning, excellent verbal and conceptual reasoning) who don’t have the resources that I do.
What I’m saying is: Yes, Freddie, this is exactly right.
This is fascinating to me because I have a similar but almost opposite experience. I was a preemie too (though not particularly early - about 6-8 weeks). I struggled with ADHD and general organization/homework my whole life and developed bipolar disorder in my late teens (which I just looked up and is about 3x as likely in preemies). Thankfully I really lucked out in the mathematical ability department, so despite those issues I was able to skate my way through a math degree and get one of those knowledge economy jobs where nobody cares how weird your work habits are as long as the code gets written.
I hate to think about what my life would be like if I didn’t have major strengths to balance out my difficulties.
I think the other issue for the left is that if academic potential is truly heritable, we will never have true equity; it isn’t biologically possible. Even if we abolished capitalism tomorrow and had workable communism, more biologically gifted people would rise above in one way or another. We have to accept that the best we can do is provide everyone a minimum level of material support if we accept heritable intelligence.
No, I don’t see the far right caring about equality at all… unless you include the subset of libertarians who are socially liberal as emblematic of the entire far right.
“They” don’t care because they think if someone is poor it’s the result of bad choices. That someone is doing the best they can with an IQ of 70 isn’t something they’ve contemplated.
With the obvious mentally disabilities (eg, those Freddie mentioned) as exceptions to this. You’ll also notice that in online interactions it is considered acceptable to criticize (even shame or ridicule) someone for lack of intelligence, unless it is “obviously” a disease (eg, Down’s) or a result of physical trauma (eg, concussions, brain damage)
Science has taken many successive bites out of free will and moral desert, but instead of notice the pattern people like to double down on the remaining territory.
When you say the far right it includes the kind who believes race science, for example, and uses their understanding of intelligence as biological as a reason for exclusion.
As such I think the heritability of intelligence is only problematic for liberals and the left… and since libertarians are liberals, I think the problem you laid out only applies to this small subset of the far right.
Interesting I think we may a different group of conservatives. The ones I’m most familiar with are largely of the belief that people are the author of their own misfortune. If someone is down on their luck it must be due to some mistake they made*. If they are poor then they should have studied harder, gone to trade school, etc. If you bring up IQ they agree it’s largely innate and unchangeable and that reality leaves them flummoxed.
I get your point; I just draw the line for far right a little differently I think. What you described to me seems pretty middle of the road as far as politics in America goes.
Sure, but don’t you agree that if we paint the left with the broad brush that includes other left theory than Marxism that a large percentage of the left does take equality as a political goal?
I was not aiming this comment at Marxists but the community of people who identify as the left more broadly.
The lack of hand wringing about the effects of prematurity might actually be a nod to stoicism. If you can’t control it, there’s not too much point worrying about it. And there is limited prenatal care or intervention that materially reduces the incidence of preterm labor or premature delivery.
I particularly enjoyed how you framed the inconvenient truth about the relationship btw intelligence/academic performance and genetics. Perfect trigger for progressives. That reality is unpleasant does not make it any less real. And nature does not GAF about their DEI nonsense.
The modifiable risk factors mostly seem to be things people already know are not good for developing fetuses. Doctors therefore have no reason reason to mention it specifically, and it makes for poor clickbait ("this one tip to have a healthy baby will definitely not surprise you"). I don't think people are choosing not to burden themselves with worry, I think they are never finding out about it.
I'm in my third trimester and the video lessons my OB's office has on late pregnancy and labor are really trying to sell how I should wait until at least 39 weeks to have this kid. Which is super confusing. Of course I'm not going to try to give birth prematurely, but I doubt I have much control. I'll continue not smoking, I guess. Part of me feels that it's good that they're telling me about the risks, but it also feels pointless if I can't fix it.
A little bit off-topic, but I think many readers that get in contact with your writing through some summarizing of you as a Marxist will find it always surprising how you advocate mostly for reformist paths in social policy. I know, Marxism in the US, green men from Mars are more likely right now. But is there an essay or something similar where you outlined your brand of Marxism and how do you see it being implemented in the future, considering how just pure Marxian thought was developed 150 years ago and it needs at least some updating, to put it charitably?
I ask because I see myself agreeing with you a lot more than I should given I am a filthy, but critical neoliberal.
The other portion is that you, as an individual, should look out for other people and other people's children. If somebody has a premature child and they need extra help. offer it, to both the parent and the child.
The place we're in now is a society is "high regulations and low trust", as one writer put it. That is an exhausting place to be. If you can reasonably expect that stranger will go out of their way to help your kid out if they wander off that is a huge load off your mind. If the expectation instead is that you need to ever vigilant and that even a second's lapse can result in disaster? It's no wonder the country is so messed up right now.
Until I was in my late 30s, I lived in the United States. For the past 10 years, I've lived on a small island in another country, that is more low regulation, high trust. Everyone does look out for everyone else's kids, at least to some extent.* There is also much more of an acceptance that some kids are academic high achievers, and others aren't, and that's ok.
The downside to this is that I think there is not as much investment in schools as there should be (from my perspective as someone who only moved here 10 years ago), and there's also what I find to be a distressing "tracking" of kids as "academic" or "vocational" from a pretty early age. "Academic" tracked kids get to go to college on the state's nickel, while "vocational" tracked kids go to vo-tech training on graduation from secondary school. We're very influenced by American culture, though, so some kids who are "vocational" still go to college, just through a US community college route paid for by their own families.
*Here's an essay I wrote on children hitchhiking on our island, which is super normal here: https://doctrixperiwinkle.substack.com/p/are-you-going-my-way
Anymore, knowing how to weld is a ticket to a stable middle class lifestyle with salary over $100k. My suburban high school closed the shop classes and repurposed the space for music and theater rehearsal and performance. That was pretty stupid, since nearly none of those students will go on to careers in the performing arts. But it appealed to parents, I guess, seeing little Johnny or Susie sing and dance. Meanwhile some, like me, might have discovered an interest in engineering or building things. Parents, mostly college educated but occupying disappearing middle management and sales jobs, just didn't see value in teaching their kids skills for a blue collar job.
This is true today, though if we start saying to people "learn to weld" the same way we say "learn to code" we'll rapidly degrade the salaries available to welders unless we massively increase the demand for welding.
I wholeheartedly agree that we should make more resources available to more vocational education, whether it be more support for apprenticeships, better votech schools, or something else. Just want to point out that there's never a silver bullet. (Except maybe nursing, at least for the foreseeable future?)
For what it's worth, $100,000 per year is not "middle class." That's "upper-middle class." It's in the top 15% or so of household earnings.
Perhaps it's the top 15% nationwide but in major cities it probably isn't. In environments where basic homes are $400k it isn't. In any event, my high school's decision removed a path that could lead to career success and fulfilling life for some, mostly because "industrial arts" was looked down upon. I am an electrical engineer (undergrad degree) and might not have gone that route if shop hadn't existed and facilitated my existing interest. A good friend took a similar high school - college path, had a long career with a major electronics development firm and holds 25 patents. So vocational ed ought not to be looked down upon. And the theater graduates waiting tables might agree.
Your high school didn't remove a path because industrial arts were looked down upon. Jesus, where do people get this nonsense?
Shop is incredibly expensive. There was no fabulous time when shop classes were viewed as anything other than dumping grounds, no matter that you personally liked it. Shop classes were cut in the 80s thanks to "Nation at Risk" beliefs that we needed to keep school intellectual and--again--shop classes were viewed as dumping grounds. CTE was reinvented in the 90s and is now highly competitive. And expensive. Which--again--is why shop classes and other voc-ed disappeared, because the kids taking it were just marking time and the investment wasn't considered worth it.
The idea that schools cut well-loved industrial arts programs because they sneered at the occupation is just...idiotic.
My high school was rich beyond imagining. The math department had an actual DEC PDP8 in 1968 - rare computing capacity at all but a few universities. So the decision to remove shop was in no way driven by the expense. It was seen as imparting less prestige, plain and simple. In fact, the programs still exist, I believe, but require those interested to be bused to some other less prestigious high school for classes.
I maintain that shop was a route that developed career skills and talent in areas that other course offerings missed. I have many friends who went on to engineering degrees, technological development, equity participation and eventual retirement in the upper few percentiles of retirement wealth.
The point is that we need both the shop class and the performing arts class, not either/or; and furthermore we need to encourage a society where the value of enrichment is considered apart from career outcomes. Even slaves made music.
I think this is due to the lack of vision of the women dominated educational community. In times past, education was the top goal for an educated person. The very best someone like Emerson or Thoreau could achieve was a Church Pastor, Doctor, or Teacher. This led to students being taught by the very best and brightest minds available. Once we became a technical society needing scientists, engineers and technicians; the best and brightest were siphoned off. Leaving the low paying teaching jobs to less endowed people. This falls into gender trap roles: where women dominated primary education can't see the value of male oriented skills/activities.
"If civilization had been left in female hands we would still be living in grass huts."
--Camille Paglia
This is probably spot on. And we seem ever to be trying to achieve all the benefits of risk taking without the adverse outcomes that are inevitable when assuming risk. That approach is also more consistent with feminine thinking, I suspect.
I think the opposite is probably true. It is not the case that education as a profession was dominated by men and so had different values; it is the case that K-12 education was one of the very few professional avenues for women until very recently. This meant that the most brilliant women had just one option available to them--to be a teacher--and so we had a lot of brilliant teachers, no matter how bad the conditions or pay. A personal history anecdote: My great-grandmother (b 1870) was a schoolmarm until she married. She was well-read and graduated high school, but college was not an option for her as a woman at that time. Her daughter, my grandmother (b 1900), was also a schoolmarm--and a graduate of a "normal" college, i.e. a teachers' college that was open to women. My mother (b 1943) was the #1 student in her graduating class in business and economics at her university. She was encouraged by her college professors to go into *teaching* business at the high school level, since as a woman she would not likely be accepted into a graduate program and would not be able to succeed as a businessman. And I (b 1974) ended up with a doctorate in a biomedical field. I think you can see a similar dynamic even today, in states like Utah where teaching is seen as a good supplemental career for a mom, but where moms are largely expected to sacrifice their career for their family. Despite mediocre pay for teachers, Utah has excellent educational outcomes*. (*Although, Freddie would note, that's probably because of home environments during early development, nutrition, genetics, and other stuff that's not the result of what schools are doing.)
Of course, the stunning technological progress of the past century, and especially the past 50 years, has made tech the place for smart kids** to aspire to, the way the clergy or the law was in the 19th century and earlier. But now that desirable field is open to all the smart kids, not just the boy ones. So about half of freshly-minted American MDs are female now--girls who, 100 years ago, would have had to be content as nurses or teachers, instead. But I agree that many of those smart kids get siphoned off into tech, and away from teaching.
**with every standard caveat that smart is not a morally relevant value.
I suspect by "teacher" he means something more like "professor" than "schoolteacher." But I may be misinterpreting.
I suspect his argument might be stronger if we understand that, back in those earlier times, it was highly likely that "masculine" traits like risk-taking or physically active exploration, or even aggression were perceived more positively *even by women* despite the fact that women were less likely to engage in such activities themselves (on average). It was "boys being boys" in many cases, and even as they rolled their eyes, women encouraged (or at least didn't actively discourage) this behavior (again, on average).
Today many such behaviors are considered defective, not entirely dissimilar to how a woman being inquisitive, self-possessed, or assertive would have been considered defective in 1900 (again, on average).
And yet just yesterday the country celebrated an activity steeped in old fashioned masculine aggression. In fact I am going to guess the television ratings were probably a lot higher than in recent years.
No, I mean primary school teacher.
"Today many such behaviors are considered defective, "
Um. What?
I disagree on the women part ... 60 years ago, women weren't barred from college, yet they aimed low, they held themselves down. Even into the 90s, nursing was more competitive than medical school, as smart girls didn't aim high, but aimed for nursing.
Wrong. If nursing was more competitive than med school it's because there's less capacity in nursing schools because they are expensive to run but nursing pay is nowhere near that of doctors.
It is certainly very difficult to imagine why someone like my mother (college class of 1964) who was told that, as a woman, she absolutely could not succeed in business nor go to graduate school despite being the top student in her graduating class might not "aim high" like her male peers did. After all, she was not barred from going to college.
But continuing on that personal family history, here's what she actually did do: She got a teaching certification, and did teach high school business and economics. Because it was the liberal-minded 60's, she was allowed to do so even though she got married. Not when she was pregnant, though--consistent with school policy throughout the 1970s, she had to give up her teaching job when she got pregnant with me. But you know, it's cool, women were not barred from teaching, just from having a baby and teaching.
So she helped run a small business, which she runs on her own successfully to this day despite being in her 80s. Her daughter became a doctor.
"This meant that the most brilliant women had just one option available to them--to be a teacher--and so we had a lot of brilliant teachers, no matter how bad the conditions or pay. "
People have been saying this for decades and it's still not true. Yes, it's true that women from the highest percentile are less likely to be teachers, but the average IQ of teachers is roughly the same at the high school level. It's *much* higher at the ES level.
"even today, in states like Utah where teaching is seen as a good supplemental career for a mom, but where moms are largely expected to sacrifice their career for their family. Despite mediocre pay for teachers, Utah has excellent educational outcomes*"
Oh, lord. What nonsense. Try looking at credential test cut scores.
Hi, Education Realist! By "This meant that the most brilliant women had just one option available to them--to be a teacher--and so we had a lot of brilliant teachers, no matter how bad the conditions or pay. " I meant in the more distant past--80-100 years ago or more, where in fact the most brilliant women (and Black people, and a variety of groups) had very constrained opportunities and had to take those few that were available. It's interesting that in current times the average IQ of teachers is similar across the board, with the higher IQs at the elementary school level. This makes sense to me: Elementary school teaching requires both empathy and intellectual flexibility in a way higher level teaching does not.
I was speculating about Utah, based just on my experiences in Utah, and anecdotes from some of my Utahn friends--I admit, not exactly solid data. I'm interested to know more about credentialing cut scores. I am not a K-12 teacher, so I hadn't considered how those might vary from state to state--thought I do know teacher credentialing varies wildly country by country.
It seems like you know a lot about this, so do you know if higher teacher credentialing standards correlates with improved student outcomes? Per Freddie's hypothesis, the effect should be minimal but I would be interested to know if that is true.
Fellas, is it gay to make art
Coming in late but, you know, this is nonsense. I mean, like every single word.
For one thing, teachers are smarter now than they were in the halcyon days you envision.
This, in part, is probably why the suburban norm exists. Blocks of moms who often know one another. Kids in team sports where parents engage (sometimes to excess). But the result is soft bumpers on all the potential dangers of free range childhood.
I was thinking more of sending the kids out to run errands and buy groceries by themselves.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/14/world/asia/japan-toddler-tv-show.html
This sounds like "it takes a village"... which risks taking us in the wrong direction of The Giver. But I do agree that neighborhood and community involvement is a positive aspect for a society raising well-adjusted adults from children.
Mother of a micro preemie here. For no apparent reason, my son was born 13 weeks premature, weighed 1 pound 15 ounces - he is now 35 years old and living a rich and full life. Having a baby that small is a scary road to travel. Anything can happen - but I don't recall ever worrying about his academic future. I was just happy he was alive. But then again, he was lucky. Struggled with math in school, is terrified of needles, and HATES to be alone. Other than that, he's fine. Thanks for this post. Love to all the other parents of preemies out there. And to the NICU nurses that care for them. Those little ones are so vulnerable, and yet so tough, fighting with all they've got to live.
Perhaps giving more attention to the known factors that can lead to premature births would be in order? “including infection or inflammation, vascular disease, and uterine overdistension. Risk factors for spontaneous preterm births include a previous preterm birth, black race, periodontal disease, and low maternal body-mass index. A short cervical length and a raised cervical-vaginal fetal fibronectin concentration are the strongest predictors of spontaneous preterm birth.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7134569/#:~:text=Risk%20factors%20for%20spontaneous%20preterm,predictors%20of%20spontaneous%20preterm%20birth.
Additionally there is a location of residence factor “Several studies found that women who live in an area with high levels of air pollution are more likely to deliver preterm than women who live in less polluted areas.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK11368/#:~:text=.%2C%202000).-,Location%20of%20Residence,live%20in%20less%20polluted%20areas.
Let us address the issue at both ends, first to prevent, or limit, the incidences of premature births, and second, to factor the results of premature birth into later decision making.
I suspect it's a class issue. If more rich couples started having premature births, it'd be of higher concern. But since most of those factors only affect the Poors, it remains a vague tragedy/worry.
Yes, could very well be.
Grateful for the step-by-step summary of CoS' thesis, Freddie. Like you, I find it flabbergasting that a basic article of left-wing politics - that the conditions for a good life should be an entitlement of birth, not a prize to be won through ruthless competition - has been buried so deep as to be forgotten.
I’ll add that the best representatives of the liberal tradition understood this. Whether you buy the reticent socialist thesis or not, Rawls in "A Theory of Justice" in no uncertain terms dispenses with meritocracy (“natural aristocracy”) for being based on morally compromised premises.
Of course, this was at a time when liberalism had been civilized by the labor movement and the social-democratic and communist challenge. With no such bulwark in the neoliberal period, we’re back to social Darwinism - but this time, inclusive, representative and equitable, too.
Louis xvi had entitlement of birth. How did that work out for him? We should stop using “entitlement” and “redistribution” to describe these policies. Those are technical terms in economics that have very negative meaning in ordinary English and are an active obstacle to understanding and persuasion.
No one wants their child to be ordinary. Let alone one of the unwashed, uneducated masses.
The things that create the conditions of a good life are, in fact, hard won and earned through struggle. Huge sections of humanity work extremely hard at all times so that we don't all starve in the cold. Nobody is entitled to that. It is granted by other peoples effort, and we forget that at our peril. Entitlement of any kind is poisonous.
“ One of the challenges of marketing The Cult of Smart was that I never settled on a good elevator pitch. Still haven’t.”
Re-release the book with the title, “You Can’t Fix Stupid.”
That is possibly the worst conceivable title for the book that doesn’t use explicit slurs I can think of
That is the fundamental nature of the problem, is it not? Why not state it clearly and get some buzz.
Because the phrase “you can’t fix stupid”, when used in real life by real people, is replete with the very contempt and derision for the academically unsuccessful that FdB is railing against.
No, you’re completely wrong. You can’t fix stupid is a phrase used by regular people. That’s why it works as a title.
Euphemisms like “the less educated” are used by elites who wish to look down on the academically unsuccessful.
"You can't fix stupid" is used by regular people, but its use is exclusively to dismiss the contributions of those who aren't up-to-level intellectually (however the user conceives of that level).
A phrase being steeped with upper-class condescension is not the only measure of whether it's shitty and demeaning.
It's a double-edged sword though right?
I mean, it can be used as a jab at those who are struggling to find a career because of said lack of high intelligence. But it can also (and often is) used as a jab at those who were born into wealth (or at least good advantage), had easy access to good jobs through either high-end schools or family contacts, and are in a career position that one wouldn't normally be without all of those 'parental' advantages. The 'Daddy's money' types...and there aren't just a few of those.
Regardless, I don't mind the title at all really - but can see why someone might take offense to it. I guess I don't really understand why someone can't understand the intention of the title, and not solely its crude literalness.
We all know what the phrase means, there's no need to get upset about it. Some people simply ARE dumber, just like some people ARE smarter. Or ugly/beautiful, or clutzy/athletic, whatever. I think I would rather like to see an adult reaction to that title - i.e. "ain't that the truth.", rather than an immature reaction akin to "OMG they can't say that, it's OFFENSIVE!"
Using an 'offensive' title is also not the only measure of whether something is a good or bad book title.
The problem is masked by being butt-hurt over the term.
You can fix poorly educated, you can't fix stupid.
Far too many people have fallen into the embargo trap, where they shut down a perfectly good productive conversation by throwing out an embargo over descriptive terms used in an argument.
Just say no to embargo.
The phrase refers to a lack of common sense or awareness.
Why would you give it a Jeff Foxworthy title?
Because the actual title didn’t sell as well as it should have and this title would be both an accurate summary of the book and controversial enough to get some decent buzz.
The problem with the title is not the crudity, it's that it states something that most humans are intuitively aware of, so why pay $19.95 and spend several hours reading a book that tells you what you already know?
People love spending money on books that reinforces their beliefs
Not sure that the kind of people who say "you can't fix stupid" spend money on books.
Looks like "irreverent bad boy Ron White" has already snapped up this valuable real estate: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0811045/
EMBARGO -- EMBARGO -- EMBARGO
All this does is shut down the conversation and stop progress.
We used to have a word, a perfectly fine scientific designation for delayed development ... 'retarded' as in retarded development. Retarded development means slower development. People too butt-hurt that they, or their family member suffered from delayed development, they went on the fight against the common term retarded, as if that were going to fix the problem.
Being hurt over a perfectly good term, and shutting down the conversation with an embargo scheme shuts down the conversation and doesn't advance humanity.
I really appreciate these articles about education and I always have the same question. Yes, different kids have different inherent academic ability AND each child has their own academic potential. I agree that schools/parents cannot do much to change the former but I think we are also often failing to help kids reach their own potential, whatever that may be.
So, if a particular child is failing to master academic skills, how to know whether they have reached their ceiling or they need something more [with the "something more" TBD]?
Any individual kid? Dunno. Kids, as a mass? The absolutely relentless dominance of the null hypothesis over a hundred years suggests that even if there is room on the top for the average kid, there is no systematic way to address it.
Can I imagine investing truly unusual levels of effort and investment into squeezing every last drop out of a kid and succeeding? Sure. But this is a) necessarily not scalable and b) likely very susceptible to the variable of a given kid's motivation to max out. A lot of kids don't want to achieve their utmost potential because of the sacrifice of time and energy and fun involved. And I don't really blame them.
In my experience with my kids' peers at a very diverse public school is the untapped potential is not "every last drop" but just the basic stuff necessary to be successful at regular life.
I agree with you that we cannot use education reform to level the playing field so that all kids have similar academic performance. But that is a different goal than improving individual performance relative to an individual's ability.
And we do pretty well at that now, despite wide belief to the contrary.
I tend to suspect that being born (9.5 weeks) prem played some part in my having OCD [or, rather, my brain to have tendencies towards OCD - I'm still sceptical of a collection of symptoms quantitatively scored is a ''thing''] when neither of my siblings have the condition. I was diagnosed young and my mum (who later trained as a counsellor) reckons I showed symptoms as a toddler.
However, any talking cure therapists I've seen have been insistently environmentalist - that my difficulties with obsessions and compulsions must be due to bullying at school and/or parental behaviour. This has led therapists to make far too much of this bullying (which was less severe than that of several of my friends) or to insist upon, say, that one of my parents must have been a bully, when I really don't see it.
Some therapists really want everything to come down to the kind of trauma where the client can be a victim with someone villainous to blame.
I was a preemie (6 or so weeks early) and this article actually got me to look up some data on prematurity and issues I’ve had. Thankfully even if I had a standard deviation knocked off my IQ, I still do quite well at the kind of logical thinking that’s rewarded in this economy, but I have struggled with ADHD my entire life. From an early age I (and my teachers) viewed it as somewhat of a moral failing that I sucked at sitting still and keeping organized and I’d beat myself up for it. There were even a few who openly stated that I was a brat who needed more consequences (of which there were plenty at home). In reality I got a bit of the short end of the stick genetically/birth wise and it wasn’t particularly in my/my parents’ control.
I think people don’t like to think that children’s behavioral issues and academic achievement can be genuinely out of their parents’ control. I think people like the fantasy that if they just do everything right their kids will be well adjusted and happy. The sheer amount of random chance involved, even in criminality, makes everybody deeply uncomfortable.
It’s a bit of an interesting paradox, because I do think the myth of internal control is extremely helpful for individuals - the psychology data on the benefits of having an internal locus of control is fascinating, but as a society we could use much more empathy for people who are unlucky in various uncontrollable traits that impact “merit.”
I tend to feel that humans have very limited free will at best - I've noticed this puts me at odds with quite a lot of teachers who tend to frame kids' behaviour in terms of choice. It actually helps me (sometimes!) when I feel myself getting frustrated or at risk of taking things personally.
I can’t speak for everyone (and I also haven’t read your book, so apologies if I make points you have already covered), but if I had to guess why people get so upset about to talking about genetics, my own instincts would be that it’s because they already agree with your core point. Certainly amongst people I know, the notion that some people are more or less suited towards academic study feels like a pretty uncontroversial point, and you can make it purely on environmental and social factors without even having to mention biology. At that point, the notion that everyone ought be celebrated regardless of academic activity is already taken for granted (at least on an intellectual level, even if it isn’t actually followed up on), and so it would be a trivial point to make. At that point, as far as people would be aware in these circumstances, the only reason you’d have to bring up genetics is if you were advocating for some sort of policy based around it, such as discriminating against people in a classroom setting. If your argument is just “Genetics means we should value people based on things other than academic skill”, I suspect the answer would “Well yes obviously, that would be the case regardless of genetics so why would you bring it up? It just makes you sound like a eugenicist or something”.
On a side note, while I agree with the core principle, I would nonetheless place an asterisk over its total application to financial renumeration. I would definitely be in favour of better financial rewards outside of academic merit, however it is still going to be necessary to provide a system to ensure the top 1% are in the most suitable roles, and financial reward is a good way of doing it. While I can also see that hard work doesn’t necessarily translate into positions on the leaderboard, I think there is also still a case to be made that someone who works hard at revision will likely have a better understanding of material than someone who doesn’t, and this too is still going to be important to incentivise going forward.
How much money does a theoretical physicist make compared to somebody working in finance?
Great post, and the best elevator pitch I’ve seen for Cult of Smart.
I think your general point holds regardless, but I’m not sure premature birth has causal effects on cognitive performance in the way you’re suggesting.
Lung function, yes, because the lungs get pressed into service prematurely. But I’ve never seen causal claims of a similar nature for the brain.
I would assume the same factors that led to the premature birth also can contribute to cognitive difficulties, eg air pollution or lead poisoning.
It’s surely a powerful proxy, just as poverty is, so I’m sure the correlations are very strong. But that does not necessarily mean they are causal.
The meta-analyses and the studies they cite explicitly address those confounds. There are limits of course (you can't assign prematurity randomly) but as I've been looking at this issue for seven years I can tell you that the people who study this stuff are really really sure it's causal. And like I said, this seems very intuitive to me - to a remarkable degree the brain is built in the womb and does very little growing afterwards, so giving it less time to gestate could have obvious negative impacts.
OK, good to know about those studies, but I don’t know what you mean at all about the brain doing very little growth after birth. That’s just obviously not true.
Humans are born with disproportionately large brains, but they still quadruple in mass after birth, and probably even more for preemies.
The womb is not literally an oven, and brains are not literally cooking, so I have to wonder what is actually different about brain development outside the womb.
I mean that while brain mass certainly increases as we grow but a significant majority of all neurogenesis occurs in the womb.
The studies are linked in the piece, I mention neurogenesis explicitly in the piece, and you're starting to try my patience.
OK, like I said, good piece and I like your overall argument. I'm just saying, none of the studies you linked in this piece make any kind of causal claim that premature birth *causes* cognitive impairment, and none attempts to control for other confounding factors. The 2009 Pediatrics study contains no discussion of causality or controls for confounding. These are purely correlational studies.
I'm sure you've read studies you didn't mention here, and I'm sure we both have better things to do at this point than argue about it. If you write about this precise issue again in the future, I'll be interested to see what you say and what you cite.
Again, I think your larger point holds, and I hope you keep writing about these issues.
Interesting that certain obsessive parents play classical music for their unborn kittens (because early neural stimulation is critical, see!) but apparently being born prematurely (and consequently getting lots of early neural stimulation outside the womb) does not lead to positive academic outcomes.
Go figure.
To expand a bit on my skepticism, I am unclear what the causal mechanism would be. How would premature birth cause the brain to fail to develop the way it would by full term?
It makes total sense for lungs, since anyone born prematurely has to use their lungs sooner than normal.
The brain receives nutrition the same way in utero as after being born, namely, through the bloodstream. And it does not seem to me that being a newborn is cognitively taxing in a way that would be bad for development.
That’s not to say, there aren’t major differences between being born on time vs early, but I would be surprised if brain development was meaningfully affected, and with a clear dose response (earlier birth leading to greater impairment).
This is a very tricky issue to suss out methodologically, and I would be surprised if any studies were designed to answer the question of causality for premature birth, apart from other contributing factors, such as genetic disorders, substance abuse, etc.
Telling your child often that you love them, as Freddie recommended in the penultimate graph, is one of the best pieces of advice any parent can give or take.
I wonder how Cult of Smart plays out in non-western cultures that are also obsessed with academic achievement and ideas about meritocracy. @Alice Evans at The Great Gender Divergence has written a lot on Chinese, Korean, and Japanese academic achievement cultures recently, and I think this may be of interest to you @Freddie deBoer. Here are some examples:
https://www.ggd.world/p/why-has-fertility-plummeted-across
https://www.ggd.world/p/was-8th-century-china-meritocratic
I also wonder if parents' ignorance about the effects of prematurity might work out in some salutary ways. I think this is similar to believing in free will: I don't know that we have good arguments for the existence of free will, and I know there are some excellent arguments against it. However, acting as if there is free will is a better way to run your life and your society. Similarly, if parents were constantly apprised that preemies on average have worse cognitive outcomes, they may act towards their children in ways that make that a self-fulfilling prophecy, expecting less of their preemie kids and possibly even explicitly telling them that they are unlikely to be academically successful.
I also wonder whether parents' ignorance of the effects of prematurity is a new thing, borne of a culture with very low infant and childhood mortality. I was born one month premature in 1974. A narrative from my parents was that they were so happy I was alive and healthy, since premature babies die so often. As we have gotten better at saving preemies, I could see our consciousness of what a big deal prematurity is fading from it. Relatedly, as childhood deaths have become more rare, all things with childhood may seem like things that we can control. In the past, no one blamed parents when their kid died of measles--because acts of God like childhood deaths from disease were so common. As we get better at controlling things, it's easier to imagine that all things can be controlled, and that those we don't control--like prematurity--must have no effect, because, as you noted, if they did have an effect it would be so unfair. In an earlier time, when babies did routinely die from measles, everyone was checked out on the idea that the world is unfair.
My admittedly limited perspective on China in particular is that they're just much more likely to say that some kids are smarter than other kids and leave it at that. They're the OG testing culture; the imperial examination was one of the first mass testing systems in the world.
That was my impression, too, before I had read @Alice Evans' posts on this topic. What I had no appreciation for was the amount of effort put in to studying for these exams, and the similarities and differences between ostensibly communist China and ostensibly capitalist South Korea. Asian "chicken parenting" makes American helicopter parenting look like abandonment in comparison. (In South Korea, they had to make it illegal to tutor elementary school children past 10:30 at night, because obviously there was a market for tutoring wee children until the wee hours.) It's also interesting how the meritocratic testing culture overthrew hereditary hierarchies in these places. Anyway, I think you'd dig it.
I think the issue is whether or not forcing kids to study long into the night has anything to do with how smart they are versus an awareness that hard work can make up a lot of ground, especially for the academically untalented.
Plus there's a paradox there in terms of helicopter parenting--I would guess that most of the kids leaving cram schools in the middle of the night to get home are taking public transportation and traveling by themselves.
Also someting to be said for the possibility that the investment in cram school is more about getting on the list for the answers and cheating opportunities the schools offer.
If that was the trick why bother going from 5 pm to midnight to study? Why not just get the answers and then stay home and play video games?
I dunno, although it may be that the lie must be maintained. But there's no question cheating is rampant.
Chinese say (whether or not they believe it) that hard work is what's needed.
On the other hand, culturally the level of cheating in China is bonkers, so there's that.
There’s psychology data on “internal locus of control,” or basically believing in your own ability to control your behavior and feelings and change your life (so free will). It’s highly correlated with various kinds of success, happiness, and recovery from mental heath afflictions.
It’s one of those things where the ideal state is for everybody to simultaneously believe in free will for themselves and enforce some helpful societal norms around behavior (I personally wish we had a stronger taboo on public drug use in many cities), but also understand that there are many things outside of individuals’ control and create a more just society where you don’t have to luck out to live a good life.
There’s a kind of CBT called acceptance and commitment therapy that I think really ties into this. Basically it’s to accept and be kind to yourself for what you cannot change but simultaneously commit to taking positive actions that allow you to live a life according to your values. I think we could use more of that as a society.
Great point. Our older daughter was about 5 weeks early, and I’m glad to have not heard of this phenomenon. She is now in middle school and we have never had anything but the highest academic expectations for her, which she’s more than met.
"What I can’t figure out is why that same group of people is so often unwilling to discuss the influence of genes on life outcomes at all."
Because they don't like the potential implications of this.
I was a preemie—and unusually early, at that. I was very, very fortunate that I wasn’t born with a developmental disability. Most of my intellectually-disabled clients were preemies. Although I wasn’t born with IDD, I still have a learning disability (dyscalculia, aka “math dyslexia”) that’s >90% genetic.
My dyscalculia is a particularly good example of your overall argument in the piece above. My parents and siblings, who have normal math ability, are baffled by the fact I’ve never taken a remedial math course. I, on the other hand, am satisfied with my poor math ability because I work for an employer that doesn’t require it and I don’t do math in my free time. My blasé attitude about dyscalculia is *only possible at all* because I’m not poor, because I can *afford* to be blasé about it.
Given the ongoing collapse of the humanities and the obsessive emphasis on STEM—both arguably products of the same meritocracy myths that Freddie attacks in his book—I worry about people with similar or identical genetic endowments (abysmal math and spatial reasoning, excellent verbal and conceptual reasoning) who don’t have the resources that I do.
What I’m saying is: Yes, Freddie, this is exactly right.
This is fascinating to me because I have a similar but almost opposite experience. I was a preemie too (though not particularly early - about 6-8 weeks). I struggled with ADHD and general organization/homework my whole life and developed bipolar disorder in my late teens (which I just looked up and is about 3x as likely in preemies). Thankfully I really lucked out in the mathematical ability department, so despite those issues I was able to skate my way through a math degree and get one of those knowledge economy jobs where nobody cares how weird your work habits are as long as the code gets written.
I hate to think about what my life would be like if I didn’t have major strengths to balance out my difficulties.
I think the other issue for the left is that if academic potential is truly heritable, we will never have true equity; it isn’t biologically possible. Even if we abolished capitalism tomorrow and had workable communism, more biologically gifted people would rise above in one way or another. We have to accept that the best we can do is provide everyone a minimum level of material support if we accept heritable intelligence.
Would you agree that it’s equally triggering for the far right?
No, I don’t see the far right caring about equality at all… unless you include the subset of libertarians who are socially liberal as emblematic of the entire far right.
“They” don’t care because they think if someone is poor it’s the result of bad choices. That someone is doing the best they can with an IQ of 70 isn’t something they’ve contemplated.
With the obvious mentally disabilities (eg, those Freddie mentioned) as exceptions to this. You’ll also notice that in online interactions it is considered acceptable to criticize (even shame or ridicule) someone for lack of intelligence, unless it is “obviously” a disease (eg, Down’s) or a result of physical trauma (eg, concussions, brain damage)
Science has taken many successive bites out of free will and moral desert, but instead of notice the pattern people like to double down on the remaining territory.
“ You’ll also notice that in online interactions it is considered acceptable to criticize (even shame or ridicule) someone for lack of intelligence”
I haven’t noticed that. Most of the places I visit (like here) the people are pretty sharp.
When you say the far right it includes the kind who believes race science, for example, and uses their understanding of intelligence as biological as a reason for exclusion.
As such I think the heritability of intelligence is only problematic for liberals and the left… and since libertarians are liberals, I think the problem you laid out only applies to this small subset of the far right.
Interesting I think we may a different group of conservatives. The ones I’m most familiar with are largely of the belief that people are the author of their own misfortune. If someone is down on their luck it must be due to some mistake they made*. If they are poor then they should have studied harder, gone to trade school, etc. If you bring up IQ they agree it’s largely innate and unchangeable and that reality leaves them flummoxed.
* just world fallacy
I get your point; I just draw the line for far right a little differently I think. What you described to me seems pretty middle of the road as far as politics in America goes.
Perennial reminder that Marxism is not an egalitarian philosophy and that equality as such is not a political goal of Marxism
Sure, but don’t you agree that if we paint the left with the broad brush that includes other left theory than Marxism that a large percentage of the left does take equality as a political goal?
I was not aiming this comment at Marxists but the community of people who identify as the left more broadly.
Yes, I think most people on the left are attached to equality as a political lodestar. But I also don't think they really know what that means.
The lack of hand wringing about the effects of prematurity might actually be a nod to stoicism. If you can’t control it, there’s not too much point worrying about it. And there is limited prenatal care or intervention that materially reduces the incidence of preterm labor or premature delivery.
I particularly enjoyed how you framed the inconvenient truth about the relationship btw intelligence/academic performance and genetics. Perfect trigger for progressives. That reality is unpleasant does not make it any less real. And nature does not GAF about their DEI nonsense.
The modifiable risk factors mostly seem to be things people already know are not good for developing fetuses. Doctors therefore have no reason reason to mention it specifically, and it makes for poor clickbait ("this one tip to have a healthy baby will definitely not surprise you"). I don't think people are choosing not to burden themselves with worry, I think they are never finding out about it.
I'm in my third trimester and the video lessons my OB's office has on late pregnancy and labor are really trying to sell how I should wait until at least 39 weeks to have this kid. Which is super confusing. Of course I'm not going to try to give birth prematurely, but I doubt I have much control. I'll continue not smoking, I guess. Part of me feels that it's good that they're telling me about the risks, but it also feels pointless if I can't fix it.
A little bit off-topic, but I think many readers that get in contact with your writing through some summarizing of you as a Marxist will find it always surprising how you advocate mostly for reformist paths in social policy. I know, Marxism in the US, green men from Mars are more likely right now. But is there an essay or something similar where you outlined your brand of Marxism and how do you see it being implemented in the future, considering how just pure Marxian thought was developed 150 years ago and it needs at least some updating, to put it charitably?
I ask because I see myself agreeing with you a lot more than I should given I am a filthy, but critical neoliberal.
https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/its-ok-to-not-be-a-marxist