Are conservatives dum-dums?

As far back as I can remember, I wanted to be a Goodfeather I've argued against the notion that "conservatism = stupidity." This notion is surprisingly common among liberals. Take one look at a Sarah Palin rally or a Tea Party protest, and then contrast them with any academic department at any major university, and you'll see why it's so common.

And when you look at the evidence, statistical correlations support the "conservatives are teh st00pid" conclusion:

Conservatism and cognitive ability are negatively correlated. The evidence is based on 1254 community college students and 1600 foreign students seeking entry to United States’ universities. At the individual level of analysis, conservatism scores correlate negatively with SAT, Vocabulary, and Analogy test scores. At the national level of analysis, conservatism scores correlate negatively with measures of education (e.g., gross enrollment at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels) and performance on mathematics and reading assessments from the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) project. They also correlate with components of the Failed States Index and several other measures of economic and political development of nations. Conservatism scores have higher correlations with economic and political measures than estimated IQ scores.

Of course, as the American Enterprise Institute is quick to point out, there is a caveat. The conservatives studied in the paper are social conservatives:

The Conservative syndrome describes a person who attaches particular importance to the respect of tradition, humility, devoutness and moderation; as well as to obedience, self-discipline and politeness, social order, family, and national security; and has a sense of belonging to and a pride in a group with which he or she identifies. A Conservative person also subscribes to conventional religious beliefs and accepts the mystical, including paranormal, experiences.

Still, this pretty much fits with the standard liberal narrative. Dum-dum social-conservative hicks are easily swindled by rich plutocrats, who lure the dum-dums with talk of restoring traditional values, but then once in power focus on handing out money to their buddies.

The AEI article goes on to make a pretty weak attack on the liberal narrative:

Just a minute. Let’s critique that logic. For one thing, the smartest people do not necessarily make the best political choices. William F. Buckley once famously declared that he would rather give control of our government to “the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.”...Conservative writer John Derbyshire has also observed that political naivety exists at both extremes of the IQ distribution, not just the lower one.

Ah. So conservative writers say that smart people make bad decisions, hence conservatives aren't stupid! You're not helping your case, guys.

But even if we concede that more intelligence generally means better political choices, the conservatism-is-stupid argument still does not follow from Stankov’s research. Consider that social conservatism is about following traditions. It is intellectually easier, in some sense, to follow the crowd. Iconoclasts face a cognitive hurdle—they have to justify to themselves and others why they feel differently. Probably for that reason, non-traditionalists tend to be smarter than the average person.

But, crucially, this does not mean most intelligent people oppose tradition. As long as smarter people are more likely to be skeptical of tradition, then full-blown rejection of tradition will almost inevitably be correlated with higher IQ, even if a majority of smart people still favor traditionalism.

This would be a good argument...IF conservatives still formed a majority at every level of intelligence. People with graduate degrees are, on average, liberal. The fact that, among communities of mostly smart people, liberalism is the norm and not iconoclastic at all kind of puts paid to the idea that liberals are just the nerds who didn't get laid in high school.

Oh yeah, this post was about to be about how conservatism doesn't equal stupidity. Right. I was having too much fun slapping down some stupid (or, more likely, simply disingenuous) conservatives. But here's my counterargument:

Correlation doesn't equal causation. The AEI article is quite right to point this out. Social conservatives, on average, are less intelligent than social liberals, but that doesn't mean that people accept conservative ideas because they are less intelligent.

When you think about it, most social issues - gay marriage, racial integration, religion in schools, drug prohibition, etc. - aren't questions where you can think your way to the answer. There's no set of partial differential equations that will tell you whether Adam and Steve should be allowed to get married. These are questions of values. If you realize that, then the correlation between intelligence and liberal values is actually quite surprising. What could cause smart people and not-so-smart people to have such different opinions on questions where intelligence is nearly useless?

Consider this: many smart people have high income. Because of the economic force of "agglomeration", high-income people tend to live in the centers of big cities, where they can work in finance or high-tech or whatever. Living in the middle of a big city forces you to interact with people of many different races, religions, and sexual orientations on a daily basis. It's damn hard to be a social conservative in the middle of a big urban area. That's one reason why the correlation between urbanization and liberalism is strong (much stronger than the correlation between intelligence and liberalism). Many smart people also work at universities, which have a similar cosmopolitan dynamic.

Now consider this: many less-intelligent people have very few ways of meeting people socially (because they have less money and/or live in rural areas). The obvious place to meet friends and lovers is church. Church, of course, makes you socially conservative. And socially liberal policies often threaten (or seem to threaten) the church-centered social dynamic.

A third consideration: Smart people often have valuable personal job skills, and skills = economic mobility. If you've got the goods, it's easy to find another job if you get laid off. Less intelligent people are forced to rely more on connections and social networks for their economic security, and that means tribalism. A smart Jewish guy finds himself unemployed when his investment bank goes under, and he probably thinks: "I'll just get another job, I've got obvious skills." A not-so-smart Jewish guy gets laid off from his job at a construction company, and he might think: "What Jewish people do I know who can get me a new job?" My guess is that this economic value of tribalism is the main driver of racism. And racism, as you'll know if you haven't been living in a sealed fallout shelter for the past 30 years, is one of the main drivers of modern social conservatism.

To sum up, social conservatism and social liberalism could easily result from the social necessities of educated vs. uneducated people. To liberals who say "Conservatives are just dum-dums," I say: "Would you be so liberal if you had to live in a small town, meet people at church, and rely on ethnic ties for your job?"

It's worth thinking about.