Christopher Hitchens says the most idealistic, brave, committed, and intelligent ...

  • Thread starter Thread starter lim f(x) = f(a)
  • Start date Start date
From personal experience alone...

The kids who did well in school, got good grades, and were generally the most intelligent, did NOT go into the armed forces after graduation. The students who did poorly, could not get into college, or dropped out went into the military.
 
the lack of good grades or dropping out of school does not become a qualifier for labeling people to have a lack of intelligence.
 
The military has many intelligent people.

The most intelligent are not in the military though.
 
thats not the only role in the military, and i don't think you can present any evidence that being intelligent means you have a higher sense of self preservation than anyone else.
 
Jesus, the military, just like most groups of that size, have members that fall on the bell curve. Of course, intelligence isn't a result of being correct about anything. You have to have knowledge about the situation to apply anything. The military doesn't expect a grunt to understand the inner workings of the middle east conflict or the long history.
 
Naively I would be inclined to agree...

But you are discounting the effect of a lack of intelligence on performance in school, which is egregious. Of course there are other factors, and there are always exceptions, but to state that natural intelligence has no impact on performance in school is a pretty silly argument.
 
I don't mean to say that it doesn't. I'm merely trying to point out that I would not just take grades/continuity of education to be the most solid indicator of knowledge because there are many, many variables from poor teachers/school system to general lack of apathy on the individuals part towards obtaining education.

My involvement at my university gives me a unique advantage to see many, many kids who were smart as hell drop out and get poor grades and many, many kids who were fucking idiots be at the top of their class.
 
It is not always possible to perfectly gauge intelligence in school as there are most certainly multiple intelligence types: Visual/spatial, verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical, interpersonal intelligence, etc.

One person can be bad at math and science, but understand history/politics and have an aptitude for language. This person can function like a human dictionary, and memorize entire historical events down to the letter and can learn to speak 8 or 9 languages. Another person can see numbers and visual patterns clearly but may not be able to as easily converse and have an intellectual debate using pure verbal concepts.

One person can figure out equations to make a craft that can fly at a faster rate due to nuclear propulsion. But he cannot rally support for his ideas because he does not have the interpersonal intelligence to manage and allocate human resources among large groups of people.

Etc, etc, etc...

To sum up my previous statements, people have different intelligence types suited for different things and it becomes hard to predict intelligence using general IQ tests.

When it comes to the military, I know a former Army Infantryman who served in Iraq and is now a portfolio manager at a bank in California. He makes at least $80,000 a year. After he finished his military service, he went on to university studies and got straight A's, earning an Economics degree.
I have a friend in my former Army Reserve unit (a Staff Sergeant) who has a Master's Degree from Vanderbilt University. At the university I attended, I had an astronomy professor who served 20 years in the Air Force.

People who finish their term in the military tend to either go on to trade school, or get their Associate's Degree, or get a Bachelor's Degree(or higher), and then tend to go on to do similar jobs as their civilian counterparts. I see no disparity in intelligence between the military and civilian world, as some posters are implying.
 
Back
Top