Answered on Quora.
It’s an Americanism. Americans hate the idea of intelligence in general. Supposedly everything is down to dumb luck or especially hard work. We believe that anyone can do anything if they only try. It is part of a mindset called “boosterism.” Want to get a college degree? You can get one if you work very hard! How about a Masters? If you work even harder, you can get a Masters!
Americans simply do not wish to believe that anyone is innately more intelligent than anyone else.
Of course that is an insane idea, and it is rooted in the ferocious anti-intellectualism in American life. It’s been here from the start. Check out De Tocqueville in Democracy in America. He said the same thing in 1850. Richard Hofstadter said the same thing in a seminal book, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life a century later. In between there was H. L. Mencken saying the same thing.
Our anti-intellectualism is actually quite pitiful, but we pride ourselves on it. Why we are proud of being stupid is beyond me!
So an “Americanism” has developed that success is all down to grit and hard work, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, Horatio Algerism, etc.
You don’t need a high IQ to be successful in America. Many successful businessmen have average IQ’s. Oglivy, the most famous ad-man who ever lived, had a 93 IQ. No one could believe it, so he kept taking the tests over and over, and he kept getting the same score.
A lot of high IQ people do dumb stuff, are social clods, and ruin their lives with idiotic behavior. Here we see the confusion of IQ and wisdom. These high IQ people who do this lack wisdom. But IQ tests don’t test for wisdom at all! It’s an intelligence test, not a wisdom test, and the two things are not the same.
In addition, we all know many average IQ people who are immanently sensible and have great common sense, street smarts, and social and people skills and seem to breeze through life this way. Many average IQ people are very wise.
Other than hatred for intelligence (which is IQ-hating is all about), another reason is liberalism. Unfortunately, different races score differently on IQ tests. For instance, Whites score 15 points higher than Blacks on IQ tests. Liberals believe in equality, so this result can’t be correct. It comes up with the wrong answer.
Instead we had a huge move by liberals to say that IQ tests didn’t matter, they don’t test intelligence, they only measure test-taking schools or book smarts (which is bullshit, but everyone believes it). It was also feared that if this got out, it could increase racism against Blacks. Also, people would not want to spend money to help Blacks on social programs if it was believed they were innately dumber. If they’re born dumb, why bother educating them? Waste of money.
To an extent, the liberals are correct to worry about how this information will be used. Most White racists are strong believers in IQ tests and differential intelligence among the races, and they use this to justify their racism all the way down to saying Blacks are too stupid to live alongside Whites, so Whites need a separate country. Almost all White racists are Libertarians because they think Blacks are innately stupid, so any money spent on them is wasted.
Due to all of this, a proven scientific fact, that Whites are smarter than Blacks on average, is disparaged and said to be a vicious racist lie. Merely stating this fact is sufficient to get one pilloried as a racist. You can have your career destroyed. James Watson’s career was ruined because he stated the truth about IQ and race.
This is quite pitiful because it shows that liberals in some cases have the same hatred of science that conservatives do. When you can be called a racist and have your career destroyed for stating a proven scientific fact, you are living in a pretty pitiful and truth-hating society.
