The Maelstrom of Violence

[Eric the Green]

(09-27-2017, 09:03 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(09-26-2017, 11:25 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(09-24-2017, 08:01 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The paradox is that this nearly-merciless society (and it is that) at the least recognizes handicaps as things to deal with instead of as excuses for shutting people out of life. America accommodates deafness, blindness, and wheelchair use well enough because those are obvious. Mental illness? Most of it is connected to drug abuse and alcoholism, so it is suspect. Asperger's? At least I am not crazy, stupid, deluded, or evil.

I haven't ruled out (you haven't convinced me that you're not ) that you're crazy, stupid (after all, stupid is what stupid does) or deluded at this point.

Your opinion of my intelligence and sanity is yours alone. I know myself better than you do, and I am unlikely to convince you of the reality. That is your problem and not mine.

Had my parents or the educational system handled me properly, then I might have had the appropriate and necessary means of coping. It was generally understood that if one had the intellectual power one could achieve whatever one wished. Asperger's throws invisible barriers to achievement and can shatter the confidence that one needs for achieving anything. So of course do criminality, perversion, and lunacy as well as idiocy.

Can a person of low-normal intelligence lead a happy life? Sure -- with depressed expectations and a good work ethic. 



http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/occupations.aspx

Contrary to myth, many successful people are not particularly brilliant. "Janitors and sextons" may on the average have an IQ of about 92, and physicians may have an average IQ around 120 -- but 10% of "janitors and sextons" are smarter than  about 20% of all physicians. Now try figuring how someone with an IQ of 105 got into and through med school and into medical practice  and how someone with an IQ around 110 couldn't find a more dignified way to make a living than as a janitor. Didn't apply oneself effectively when such was possible and appropriate?

Now, what is success? If all that one dislikes about one's job is low pay, then things are not too bad. If all that one likes is the paycheck, then one is in a very poor fit of a job.

Some caveats to this scheme. First of all, some people may work as janitors or other such low-paying jobs while they study to be doctors, or while they develop or supplement their career in a field that requires more intelligence but doesn't pay well, such as an artist or musician, or else is working to get a business going.

Second, it is assumed that IQ is genetic, and/or that it stays the same and is inherently fixed throughout life. But it's all dependent on an IQ test. That the test is skewed toward white people is well known. The test itself may change over time too. Aside from this, the IQ test result can change, first as one matures in childhood (I know that mine went up), or it can go down with age (I think that has happened to me too), or abuse of the body and brain (drug users and addicts, alcoholism, depression, etc.)

Third, the IQ test is assumed to measure intelligence, but many aspects of intelligence are not measured, or not measurable, such as emotional, social, physical kinds of intelligence. Western society has overemphasized the clerical, intellectual kinds of intelligence. That was to my personal advantage on such tests, but did they accurately measure my "intelligence"? I don't think so.