Confronting Hereditary Talent and Its Social Consequences
Fredrik deBoer's book The Cult of Smart addresses itself to questions about intelligence and educational policy that many would like to avoid.
For those not acquainted with Fredrik deBoer, he is a popular Substack writer who started to earn his chops at the tail end of the golden age of blogging (2003-09). His academic background is in educational pedagogy, specifically assessment and testing, but his writing sprawls across all sorts of topics: politics, literary criticism, cultural commentary, mental health issues, entertainment and sports, etc. I feel like deBoer is best known for his idiosyncratic politics, especially his anti-woke Marxism and left-wing hereditarianism; his conversational tone that veers between bitingly acerbic and desperately earnest; and his public mental health struggles. He also has this unofficial status as the very online/dissident/new Right's favorite communist. This is how I first came across his writing. It seems that his public profile has grown significantly over the last couple of years and that he'll continue to be an interesting or at least prolific writer at Substack.
So now on to the main event:
Freddie deBoer has trained his sharp wit on our system of public education, meritocracy, and of course "neoliberalism" in his book The Cult of Smart. This part-polemic, part-social science tract argues that Western cultures, especially America, equate intelligence with overall human value, i.e. the cult of smart. In other words, society is structured so that its spoils, both material and social, are reaped by the academically gifted. This claim in it of itself probably isn't that surprising to educated readers. We have social and economic sorting mechanisms that help identify who possesses certain productive capacities. We tend to call this meritocracy. It appears to function well despite having imperfections and inefficiencies. However, deBoer thinks meritocracy, and its joint partner in crime, neoliberalism (i.e. resurrected free market capitalism yoked to a complementary political apparatus), are inherently inegalitarian and immiserating. Plus, deBoer thinks this system is maintained by a noble lie, blank slate ideology. This is where the work will likely start to make some left-of-center readers uncomfortable.
Blank slate ideology, otherwise known as extreme social constructivism or anti-hereditarianism, holds that every human is born with similar cognitive capabilities. This model of human behavior asserts that it is primarily our parental, social, environmental, cultural, and personal experiences that shape our talents, skills, and life outcomes. On this basis, it is reasonable to expect educational and subsequently material and social success to be a function of motivation and dedication. And when we believe that our system is failing to recognize hard work because of barriers to equal opportunity, such as historical injustices or system-wide biases, we can correct this with thoughtful, generous, and scientific liberal governance.
Freddie is disgusted by this false consciousness because of how inconsistent it is with our best available evidence about human variation and the subsequent stress cycle it traps educators and students in. Even when blank slate arguments are tendered to rebut eugenics, social darwinism, race realism, or racial hereditarianism, deBoer thinks these well-meaning efforts are often doing more harm than good. He thinks the public is generally mature enough to handle both the truth about human nature and is able to reject inaccurate and motivated claims. He then illustrates the inherent falsity of blank slate assumptions by recapping some of the basic findings of behavioral genetics. Twin and adoption studies and genome-wide association studies have persuasively and consistently shown that a substantial portion of variation in cognitive traits is explained by genetic variation between individuals in a given population. On top of that, there is little to no evidence that can be found to suggest the family environment or other social variable explain much variation in cognitive traits. He also makes some effort to share the literature on the poor track record of educational reforms and the important yet often Sisyphean vocation that is teaching. He links these failures to both the structure of the educational system and the unequal distribution of natural talent with the latter being especially critical.
Given that individual accomplishment is largely a function of inherited talents and that there is no immediate or acceptable option to remediate these differences, deBoer claims that society should be structured differently. It should be unacceptable to continue to allow material and social spoils to so disproportionately accrue to the winners of a genetic and developmental lottery. Equal opportunity and social mobility shouldn't be end goals of a fair society. A good society should meet the material needs of its members. deBoer proposes several reforms in this vein, which more or less align with many of the goals of social democrats: universal childcare, universal healthcare, universal basic income or work guarantee, a charter school ban, relaxed academic standards, and less emphasis on higher learning. He then ends his short book with a memoir-like reflection on the trans-generational left-wing activism of his family and his vision for a world without markets and currency exchange.
In many ways, I find deBoer's arguments appealing. It is important to understand and recognize that educational and socioeconomic outcomes are often, if not largely, a product of genetic and neurodevelopmental variation (provided that society is a free one with abundance and markets). Subsequently, it will be difficult to meliorate disparities in academic and economic performance as long as intellectual skills and technological products are in demand and rewarded by the market. I think it is also important for a healthy society to work to prevent its members from suffering in misery and destitution. However, deBoer's goals and social vision is utopian and thus unworkable. It is a model that's more unrealistic than that of idealized visions of meritocracy and neoliberalism. Plus, he fails to reckon in detail with how variation shapes not only intelligence but all psychological and physical traits and the effects this has on social organization. Marxist or socialist attempts to transcend markets will always stumble and fail because markets evolved with humans and human culture (for more on this read The WEIRDest People in the World by Joseph Henrich).
Our normative visions differ substantially, but I don't hold that against Freddie's argument. I found the work accessible and compelling. The tone is earnestly humane. However, the book was too repetitive and lacked requisite depth. I was somewhat let down by the chapter on behavioral genetics. There is tons of excellent behavioral genetics science that yearns for accessible coverage in a book like this. Readers deserved a deeper dive. Freddie's Substack does provide a bit more on this research when paired with his book, but there are also just better options to get these breakdowns too.
Nontheless, I do hope readers of all political persuasions, especially progressives and liberals, pick up The Cult of Smart. There are many contradictions between professed beliefs and actual behavior that are often unchallenged in public discourse. It would likely improve the quality of discourse and maybe political reform eventually if we were able to have more honest conversations informed by the best science. This is probably an unrealistic dream though. However, I'd also generally caution readers about the impact of ideas and the malleability of social outcomes. I think we over-exaggerate the real world effects of ideas and believe we exercise more control over outcomes than we do. We should appreciate the successes of the institutions we’ve inherited. They have been subjected to the selection pressures of history afterall. I think this reality should support a more Chestertonian or Burkean approach to politics, but that's just me.
Related Reading:
The Genetic Lottery by Kathryn Paige Harden
Blueprint by Robert Plomin
A Farewell to Alms & The Son Also Rises by Gregory Clark
The Bell Curve & Coming Apart & Human Diversity by Charles Murray
The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World by Adrian Wooldridge
The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker
Innate by Kevin Mitchell