Hitchhiker's Guide to IQ

[David Erskine]

Hitchhiker's Guide to IQ

In the novel, the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, a
particular species divided themselves into three groups.
The first group was made up of artists, scientists,
philosophers, and other noble and admirable people. The
second group was made up of farmers, electricians,
plumbers, and others who actually do some work. The third
group was made up of hairdressers, management consultants,
television producers, and other undesirables. This third
group was bundled on to a space ship and sent off into deep
space, on the understanding that the other two groups would
follow. Of course the other two groups stayed home.

Measuring IQ is easy, but is it what we are looking for? All
through history, noble people have been admired as an ideal
to strive for, but we have no NQ, or Nobility Quotient.

To take another fictional example, we would prefer a society
of Prosperos to a society of Calibans. Prospero and Caliban
are in contrast to each other.

What makes Prospero different from Caliban? Prospero pursues
the arts and sciences, and strives for better things.
Caliban does not.

Prospero needs some intelligence to be what he is, but
Caliban needs none. I imagine about a quarter of the
population, white or black, have the intelligence to make
reasonable Prosperos. But is intelligence all that is
needed?

A reading of this and other newsgroups makes it clear that
there are plenty of people able to make clearly written and
intelligent contributions to newsgroups, but who are more
Caliban than Prospero. Most people, intelligent or not, do
not want things to get better. That is the way they are.

There is a newsgroup dedicated to such people. The
postmodern newsgroup is full of contributions from people
who do not understand modernism, but have learnt to disguise
their anti modernism, even nihilism, in a fancy way.
Such disguised Calibans are perhaps more of a liability to
advanced society than undisguised Calibans.

Are Prospero and Caliban on the same scale? Perhaps we need
a PQ or Prospero Quotient, and a separate CQ or Caliban
Quotient. We want people with a high PQ and a low CQ. In the
Tempest, Prospero and Caliban lived on the same island.
Perhaps in the future, Prosperos and Calibans will live in
separate parts of the world.

David Erskine