It seems like you missed one hypothesis: maybe you’re mistaken about the people in question, and they actually never were all that intelligent. They achieved their status via other means. It’s an especially plausible error because they have high status—surely they must have got where they are by dint of great intellect!
It is dangerously tempting to think that way—“He is high status because he is good at seeking status, rather than being intelligent” which sort of implies “I am low status because I am intelligent, rather than being good at seeking status”.
It is dangerously tempting to think that way—“He is high status because he is good at seeking status, rather than being intelligent” which sort of implies “I am low status because I am intelligent, rather than being good at seeking status”.
The only dangerous part there is including the ‘because I am intelligent’ part, which is obviously fallacious. It would be useful to think “I am (perhaps) low status because I am not good at seeking status”. This gives you the necessary information to make your self development decisions.
It would be dangerously naive to continue to have a belief “they have high status because they have high intelligence”. This would cause you to continue to develop innapropriate skills if your intention was to gain status. You could, for example, focus on improving rational thought rather than rhetorical flair. Not a status optimising decision.
Or the two are fairly independent—you can be good or bad at seeking status, intelligent or not-so intelligent, and it is possible to have any combination of those, including that of being unintelligent and yet still good at obtaining status.
Some people seem to or claim to gain status from intelligence, especially academics.
Aside from that I believe (though I don’t really have evidence) that it is in evidence that high status and intelligence correlate somewhat, though this correlation breaks down at very high levels of intelligence (but not at high levels of status as far as I know).
It seems like you missed one hypothesis: maybe you’re mistaken about the people in question, and they actually never were all that intelligent. They achieved their status via other means. It’s an especially plausible error because they have high status—surely they must have got where they are by dint of great intellect!
It is dangerously tempting to think that way—“He is high status because he is good at seeking status, rather than being intelligent” which sort of implies “I am low status because I am intelligent, rather than being good at seeking status”.
cf. Nietzsche’s master/slave morality.
The only dangerous part there is including the ‘because I am intelligent’ part, which is obviously fallacious. It would be useful to think “I am (perhaps) low status because I am not good at seeking status”. This gives you the necessary information to make your self development decisions.
It would be dangerously naive to continue to have a belief “they have high status because they have high intelligence”. This would cause you to continue to develop innapropriate skills if your intention was to gain status. You could, for example, focus on improving rational thought rather than rhetorical flair. Not a status optimising decision.
Or the two are fairly independent—you can be good or bad at seeking status, intelligent or not-so intelligent, and it is possible to have any combination of those, including that of being unintelligent and yet still good at obtaining status.
Some people seem to or claim to gain status from intelligence, especially academics.
Aside from that I believe (though I don’t really have evidence) that it is in evidence that high status and intelligence correlate somewhat, though this correlation breaks down at very high levels of intelligence (but not at high levels of status as far as I know).