#360 Bo Winegard: The Intellectual Elite, and Social Conservatism
RECORDED ON JULY 31st, 2020.
Dr. Bo Winegard generally approaches psychological puzzles from an evolutionary perspective, applying Darwin’s theory of natural selection to the human mind. He focuses mostly on status, group differences, individual differences, bias, methods, and political psychology. He’s also the cohost, together with Cory Clark, of the Psyphilopod podcast.
In this episode, we talk about the vices and defects of intellectuals and intellectual life, and also about social conservatism, by going through some of Bo’s tweets.
Time Links:
“Don’t trust intellectuals when they are the last people who actually experience the consequences of their own ideas”
“One reason the intellectual elite are sometimes so loud and histrionic is because they no longer have control over all conduit.”
“Intellectuals are really good at catastrophizing. They believe that things matter much more than they actually do. And then they try to save the world from various imminent dangers. It happens on both the right and the left. The boring truth is, things aren’t that bad.”
“Intellectuals often claim (from Socrates forward) that “the unexamined life isn’t worth living”. But that is completely untrue. I imagine that a Life spent with family, friends and community is worth living, even without self-reflection.”
“The great mistake that intellectuals make is that knowledge must be articulable. Most knowledge is intuitive. And most articulation is erroneous.”
“Social conservatism is so unpopular among intellectuals because it contends that the intellect is not particularly helpful for designing social policy. Try selling anti-athleticism to the NBA”.
Conservatism: An Intellectual Defense
Tradition and prejudice are often good guides to social policy
About the utility of stereotypes
Follow Dr. Winegard’s work!
Follow Dr. Winegard’s work:
Articles of Researchgate: https://tinyurl.com/yyxfysaq
Quillette essays: https://tinyurl.com/y2ght8va
Psyphilopod podcast: https://tinyurl.com/y3ny5tkw
Patreon account: https://bit.ly/3fiUq6o
Twitter handle: @EPoe187