We're WEIRD. Get over it.

[pbrower2a]

(09-25-2020, 12:47 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(09-24-2020, 05:08 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: No. It is a way of thinking. Occupational groups may have their characteristics that cross other lines. A Nigerian engineer may have much in common with a Japanese engineer than with a Nigerian peasant. I'm not saying that engineers as a group are particularly WIERD, as WIERD people are appearing in all places on the globe. 

Another: people with high IQ's have generally much more in common with each other than with people with low IQ's. The two types get along almost as a rule only in stereotyped situations. Someone of low intelligence might bring up how fun it is to put a lighted firecracker up the anus of a frog and watch the frog disintegrate as the firecracker explodes, which completely offends the sensibilities of smart people who consider such pointless. On the other hand, smart people might discuss the evolution of frogs in the way that someone of low-normal intelligence could never fully understand.

WIERD people are more accepting of national and cultural differences. 

There is no such thing as a tribe of "normal" people. Tribes suggest intolerance of people normal in different ways due to the milieus in which they are raised.

Weird is a way of thinking to you?

In Roman times, a smart person was literally someone who could read (legere) between (inter) the lines. Such is the source of such words as intelligent, intellect, and intellectual in English and other languages whose technical words come largely from Latin. The word intelligentsia applies in some countries to the class that lives on its ability to think instead of upon toil or ownership of assets. Although literacy was scarce in Roman times, any blockhead could read a written language very close to the spoken language (when people spoke Classical Latin). Making sense of what one read, judging what is written for its logical validity and factual reality, and recognizing bosh for what it is isn't so easy.  As we all know, exploitative and repressive regimes prefer that people simply accept what they read from official notices as the unvarnished truth, and the people who can read between the lines are potential troublemakers instead of agents of positive change or exemplars of conscience. 

Today we Americans often speak of thinking outside the box as a good way to avoid getting stuck in ossified ways of doing business, politics, or creative activities. Thinking outside the box is WEIRD, and to people committed to old ways (economic interest? lack of imagination? fear of the unknown?) such is simply weird. This said, some people would never consider listening to music with such a generic title as Piano Sonata No. 31 in A♭ major, Op. 110 (Ludwig van Beethoven) when one can instead listen to some even-more-generic music of predictable content devoid of any intellectual challenge. Some politicians are successful by telling voters exactly what those voters what they want to hear -- even if such is wrong. I could make the case that JC Penney made a huge mistake by closing small stores that were profitable (for selling inexpensive clothes in large quantities to middle-class shoppers) because such stores were 'cannibalizing' sales at the more grand mall anchors. JC Penney might not be in such a dire position had it kept those small stores in operation as the shopping-mall activity slowed.

Do all WEIRD acts work? No. Wise people often must experiment to sort out success from failure. One wrong note spoils a great piece of music, whether the composer or the performer is culpable. Edison saw wires lighted up and went through numerous trials before coming up with the right material for a filament, the right way to make that filament glow in a useful way, the right enclosure, and the right atmosphere (or a near-vacuum). Successful WEIRD people sort the successes from the failures and offer the successes. .